Psalms Insights Part 1

And a little something about teaching the Psalms.

It's a bit different and, uh, a bit challenging to teach.

It's a book unlike any other in the Old Testament, and since it's so different, I find it often requires a different approach.

And unlike all the books that we've studied so far, Psalms is not a book of stories.

It's not a book of sermons.

It's not a book of laws or genealogies.

It's a book of hymns.

Psalms is the hymn book of the Old Testament.

So before we get into the content of those hymns, I usually like to begin a study of this book with a bit of an introduction.

So here are some good things to know and understand about the Book of Psalms before you even start.

So one, it's the longest book of the Old Testament and it...

the longest book of the Bible, with 150 different psalms, which cover 97 pages of text in our printed version of the Bible.

Many of the psalms still contain musical instructions, attesting to the fact that their text is meant to be sung.

So some examples, you may see the word Selah appear in the text of the psalm, like in Psalm 9.

And I, I don't know if I'm pronouncing these right, so don't hold me to that.

Or Alamoth in Psalm 46, Mahath, Psalm 53, or Shushan in Psalm 60.

And, oh, how I'd love to be able to hear the original music to some of these psalms.

Maybe in the next life.

But just having their words can still be inspiring.

There are multiple authors to the Psalms.

The most prolific psalm writer was David, who has 73 attributed to him.

And there are others such as Asaph and Heman who are also named as writers of the Psalms.

Apparently, Jesus really loved the Book of Psalms, and he quoted it frequently.

It's actually the most quoted book in the New Testament.

Out of 283 direct citations of the Old Testament in the New, 116 are from the Book of Psalms.