Category: Psalms
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Psalm 49: the wrong attitude to wealth
Some years ago, I witnessed a wealthy man, who’d inherited a lot of money, walking up the street. A beggar asked for some spare change and he responded with: “Go and get a job!” Now, there’s a very good case for giving via charities, or offering to buy a sandwich rather than offer cash, or…
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Psalm 46: God is our refuge among troubles
A Christian told me last year that in times when life is at its most difficult, she finds herself drawing closer to God. Ideally, we’d always be close to God but we are all imperfect. And the sense of comfort that I think she gets from her relationship with God is also the theme of…
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Psalm 48: God’s presence at Zion
Psalm 48 is a song about God’s presence. It starts with some words (verses 1, NIV) that some Christians will also recognise from a popular song released in the 1980s: Great is the LORD, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain. The psalm, written by some relatives of…
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Psalm 47: God’s sovereignty and faithfulness
In the 1980s, the derogatory term “happy clappy” was applied to evangelicals. Proper church services ought to be restrained, the thinking went, and there was something not quite British about all this Graham Kendrick Shine Jesus Shine malarkey. So I come to Psalm 47, and it turns out that the Bible itself is in favour…
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‘Forget not all his benefits’, urged King David
Yesterday, I wrote that Christianity doesn’t offer “cheap grace”. That’s the idea that someone can claim to be a Christian, spend a lifetime ignoring God and then expect to be saved at death. Christianity, in fact, involves becoming a disciple. Some might find the consequences of that unappealing compared with the excitement of the world.…
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The significance of light at Christmas
It was pitch black. I was cycling on a path a the side of a river when the my front light ran out of battery. Rivers don’t run in a straight line, so I had to slow down and hope I was going in the right direction. Needless to say, light can be a pretty…