August 6, 2019 Show with Dr. James M. Renihan on “Preaching the Psalms in a Christian Congregation”

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this sixth day of August 2019, and I'm delighted to have back on the program a returning guest who

I love to interview, and he also happens to be involved with one of our key sponsors here on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm speaking of Dr. James M. Renahan, who is President and Professor of Historical Theology at the

IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas. Today we are going to be addressing the theme,

Preaching the Psalms in a Christian Congregation, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

James M. Renahan. Thank you, Chris. Good to be with you today. It's great to have you back, and why don't you tell our listeners who are discovering you for the first time about IRBS Theological Seminary.

Sure. For 20 years, we were the Institute of Informative Studies at Westminster Seminary in Southern California, and about a year ago, we moved here to Texas to begin our own school, renamed

IRBS Theological Seminary. The IRBS doesn't stand for anything anymore.

It's sort of like FedEx or IBM. It's just an acronym that ties us to the past but gives us a new identity, and we're here primarily to train men for the gospel ministry.

We're very pleased with what the Lord has done, and we're looking forward to training men and seeing them go out and pastor churches.

Praise God. And if anybody wants to do some further investigation about IRBS Theological Seminary, you can go to their website, which is very easy to remember.

It's irbsseminary .org. irbsseminary .org.

And don't forget, there's two S's in the middle. Very often when there's letters back -to -back like that, people leave one of them out when it's in a website.

So it's irbsseminary .org. And before we even go into our topic at hand, why don't you just perhaps list some things that men of God should be looking for in themselves, character traits, qualities, and gifts that may be very strong signs that God is calling them into the ministry?

That's a good question. Let me begin by recommending a book that the

Banner of Truth published by an author named Alan Harmon called Call to the

Ministry. It's very, very helpful. We have given out copies to young men.

I think it's especially useful in the lives of young men. But you know, the call to the ministry involves two things, the inward call and the outward call.

There needs to be something within a man that makes him desire to be a servant to the

Lord and to spread the gospel to other people and to help

Christians to grow in their faith. Oftentimes I find that when a young man has that desire and, in a sense, is afraid of it, that's a good thing because that demonstrates a level of humility.

It's a young man who's confident that he's the one that's going to be the next child's husband's virgin that typically isn't.

And that's not a good thing. But the inward call... No, no, you know, there's a lot of overconfident men who think, if I just had the opportunity, everything would work.

And usually they're the ones who are not called. They've convinced themselves of it and that's a bad thing.

Whereas the young man who comes to me and says, you know, I have this desire and I'm not sure that I'm qualified,

I usually think, you're probably the guy that the Lord is going to bless. So I encourage those men to think about the call to the ministry.

The outward call is the recognition of the church. There needs to be in them a church body, a group of elders who are able to examine his gifts and the grace of God, the progress of the grace of God in his life.

And if they are in agreement that that man, that they see at least the basic gifts of grace and of the ability to edify

God's people, then probably he should continue to think about the gospel ministry. So those two things need to come together in the life of a man.

Great. Well, I am praying that more and more of my listeners in the

Iron Troupe and Zion Radio audience receive that call from God and that it is very clear and that they are confident that they are truly hearing from God and not their own egos.

And I hope to hear good reports over the years to come that that is happening. I have in the past heard from some men in the listening audience who entered into the ministry and so forth and that is always a joy to hear about as well.

Are there any special events that our listeners should be aware of that the

IRBS Theological Seminary is conducting? Well, yeah. We are talking today about the

Psalms and that is because in a couple of weeks we will be teaching a course on the Psalms with that title,

Preaching the Psalms in a Christian Congregation. It will be live -streamed and we are offering a listener's pass to those who register for a relatively small fee and making it available.

We know of one church or one pastor who is collecting together a group of men and they are actually going on a mini -retreat and they will all watch together the lectures on this course.

So that is coming up soon. I have been immersed in my study of the Psalms in preparation for that course.

Looking forward to it. In early September we have our opening convocation for the new school year.

It will be a much more low -key event than the one that we had last year but that will be in early

September. And then we have some other things that we are working on that will be exciting for when the

Lord opens the door for us to bring them together but those are still on the back burner so we are not quite ready to talk about them yet.

Praise God. And don't forget if you want more information on those things go to irbsseminary .org

Well, the specific way that you titled today's discussion is

Preaching the Psalms in a Christian Congregation. And some people might think that for a

Christian radio topic that is kind of a redundant thing to call a subject. But why would you emphasize that in a title about Preaching the

Psalms in a Christian Congregation? Yeah, that is a good question because that is actually where I will begin my lectures.

I want to expound the title itself. Of course, preaching is the focus of the class.

Not to say that singing the psalms for example or praying the psalms are unimportant. But the focus of the class will be on preaching.

The second thing, the Christian Congregation aspect of it is important because I believe and I think that scholarship, especially evangelical and reform scholarship recognizes that there is a way that the psalms need to be read and understood in light of the

New Testament and Jesus Christ our Lord who comes in fulfillment of many of the psalms.

So that the charge can't be made of us when we preach the psalms that they could be preached as well in a synagogue as well as in a

Christian church. And sometimes that is the way that they might be preached. Now that's not to criticize a rabbi who preaches it in a synagogue but it's to say the event of the incarnation of Christ, His life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension into heaven, sheds a light upon the psalms.

And so the audience that we're preaching to are those who have come to faith in Christ or who need to hear the gospel and come to faith in Christ and they need to see the psalms in that light.

And so that's the emphasis of the phrase preaching the psalms in a Christian congregation.

Now what makes the psalms different than other parts of the scripture?

I know that they were written to be set to music and I think if I'm not mistaken the word psalm actually means that it is music or songs to be accompanied by the harp.

I think that may be the root but you can correct me if I'm wrong on that. Well the Hebrew word that's present in the psalms simply means praise.

Oh, okay. Yeah, it simply means that. And certainly some of the psalms it seems were to be set to music and to be sung in the worship of Old Testament Israel.

But that's probably not the case with all of them. There are differences of opinion.

Some of them are public psalms, some of them seem to be private and individual psalms.

So I'm not sure that we can say in a blanket kind of way that all of the psalms were intended for that specific purpose.

Now what was the beginning of your question because I had something else in my mind that I wanted to say. I was asking what is unique about them.

Now did you just say, and I may have misunderstood you, did you just say that not all the psalms were intended to be sung or they weren't all intended to be sung in corporate worship?

Well they weren't all written for corporate worship, let's put it that way. Some of them are certainly the expressions of individuals.

Psalm 51 being an example first and foremost of David's psalm of confession for his sin.

That's not to say that it can't be or shouldn't be sung in a Christian congregation. I didn't even imply that. But the primary focus of that psalm when it was written was for David to be able to confess his sin before the

Lord. That's the point. But was it written as a song by David? Is it a confession before the

Lord in other words in those words? Was he singing those words? I don't know.

I don't know if he was. I don't know. Well the basic question then was what makes the psalms unique when set apart in comparison to other forms of Scripture?

Yeah that's a good question I think. First off they're unique because they're poetry.

And there are certain rules about reading poetry that the preacher needs to think through.

You know we when you and I were kids way back when in the last century when the dinosaurs were still alive we had to memorize poetry when we were in grammar school.

I can probably still recite the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere the first lines of Hiawatha or some of the epic poetry.

We had to do that. But today our culture today has gotten away from classic poetry and what it means.

And I think that that becomes a barrier to a lot of people when they read the psalms they're not able to enter into the figurative language that is often employed.

They don't understand perhaps the fact that there are dialogues that go on between different individuals and certain psalms and it's not when you read a prose dialogue it might say

Chris said da da da da da da da and then his guest on the radio responded by and then

Chris replied. So you have the indicators where in poetry that's not always the case in certain psalms we ask the question who is speaking at this time in this psalm?

The preacher needs to think through things like that. So the first thing that makes them fairly unique is that they're all poetry from beginning to end.

Another thing that makes them unique is that they cover almost the entire period of the

Old Testament. It's about a thousand years from Psalm 90 which almost certainly is the earliest of the psalms or Psalm of Moses the man of God through to maybe

Psalm 137 or one of the others which are certainly written after Israel returns from exile in Babylon.

That's a period of about a thousand years and that's almost the entire span of the

Old Testament being written from Moses who wrote the first five books of the Bible almost up to the last prophets that we have in the

New Testament. So the psalms reflect a godly perspective on the entirety of the history of Israel.

They give us some insight into the believing religious life of God's people over that whole span.

I'm trying to conceptualize this in my mind and the other day I was watching the news and I saw what

I think they call a heat map where there was the United States, there was a certain topic and they were projecting onto this map where in the

United States people were commenting on this particular topic. It was kind of interesting to look at and see that in Texas there was a lot of discussion and on the west coast there was some discussion and there was some up in the northeast but there wasn't so much in the midwest.

You know, it's interesting. Now, if we were able to do that with the book of Psalms and overlay them over the history of the

Old Testament, it would range from the time of Moses all the way up to the post -exotic era.

Certainly the greatest concentration is during the time of David but that's not the only concentration that would be present.

It gives us another way of experiencing the truth of the

Old Testament, this time by thinking through God and his relationship to the world by means of praise and the other elements that are present in the

Psalms. And so, I you know, thinking through a text like 2

Timothy 3 all scripture is done by the inspiration of God and it's profitable for doctrine for reproof, for correction, for instruction of righteousness.

Paul's thinking of the Psalms there. He's thinking of all of the Old Testament but included are the

Psalms. So, preaching through the Psalms gives us an opportunity to think through the believing life, the responses that the people of God have to the height and the depth of the history of Israel and God's dealing with his people throughout that period of time.

The third thing that's unique about the Psalms is that there are probably more citations from the

Book of Psalms as a whole in the New Testament than any other Old Testament book.

Which makes it very important for all of the apostolic books that we spend our time with they were looking to the

Book of Psalms and thinking through what the Book of Psalms teaches as they wrote their various books.

Whether it's the report of Jesus and interactions with people in the Gospels or Paul or the other apostles who are giving to us teaching about what the

New Covenant is. We see the Book of Psalms in the background there all the time.

That makes it very important as well as a primary source for the theology of the

New Testament. And let me repeat our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr.

Jim Renahan about the Psalms and preaching the Psalms in corporate worship.

Our email address is chrisarnsen .com c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n gmail .com

Please give us your first name at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

When we have our pastor or visiting evangelist preaching through the

Psalms to the congregation if it is done in an expository way where perhaps every week there is a different psalm or a different part of a psalm addressed do you think that a sermon when we are addressing the

Psalms or perhaps even any part of the Hebrew scriptures that we should be incorporating the

New Testament as well in the ministry of the word from the pulpits of our churches?

Another good question. I think that there are two ends to that discussion, two whole opposites.

You have Martin Luther who wanted to see Christ everywhere in the

Psalms and you have John Calvin who was very reluctant to see Christ in the Psalms.

In fact, there were Lutherans who accused Calvin of being a Judaizer because he so seldom was willing to interpret a psalm in the light of Christ.

You have these two very different ends of the spectrum in coming to interpret and to preach the book of Psalms.

I think that perhaps I lean toward the Luther side rather than the

Calvin side in my own thinking. Not that every verse or perhaps even every psalm is directly related to Christ, but I think that it is important for us to recognize the relationship that the organic relationship that exists between the book of Psalms and the

New Testament. Mark Furtado in his book, Interpreting the

Psalms, an exegetical handbook is a really helpful brief section, but a helpful section that speaks about Christ and the

Psalms. He goes to a place like Hebrews chapter 5 which talks about Christ's prayers.

He prayed to God. Or Hebrews chapter 2 which speaks about him it actually quotes

Psalm 22 and talks about him singing with us in the midst of the congregation. I think he shows us how helpful or how much the

Psalms penetrated into the life of Christ. Richard Belcher has a book which is called here

I think it's called The Messiah and the Psalms. Yeah, there it is. Richard P.

Belcher Jr. He likewise leans more towards the Luther than the

Calvin position at this point. I think he's right in doing so. We do need to see them in light of the

New Testament. I would argue that we need to treat the Psalm with respect and integrity in terms of its original situation so far as we're able to determine that.

But recognize too that it is a pointer to the New Testament. We need to ask the question how does the

New Testament use this Psalm if it does? We need to treat the New Testament's use of the

Psalm as a definitive interpretation of that at least portion of the

Psalm because our doctrine of inspiration requires that if an apostle looks back on the

Psalm and he uses it to support his case then that has to be how we would view that Psalm.

I don't think that we can cut them off from the New Testament. I think we need to see them in the light of the

New Testament. We need to draw out the connections that are explicit in the

New Testament. We always need to think about our Lord Jesus and preach for His glory, preach the

Gospel from the Psalm, let's put it that way. And we have, let's see here, we have

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania who wants to know, should we ever not imitate a psalmist's cry to the

Lord? Sometimes it seems that the psalmists are arguing or venting their anger with God.

Is this ever appropriate for a New Covenant Christian? That's a great question and you'll find that many commentators struggle with that question.

It really is an appropriate one. Arnie, thanks for asking it. Someone has said that sometimes the psalms are very daring and they say things to God that perhaps we ourselves would be reluctant to say to God.

They say things like, why are you sleeping? Why don't you wake up?

Why don't you hear me? Why don't you answer me? They express a kind of deep frustration that is present in the heart of the believer.

And it may be difficult for us to get to the point where we are able to say those things, but certainly the experience of New Covenant believers may reflect the experience of Old Covenant believers and bring us to the place where we ought to cry out in terms such as that.

I can remember years and years ago a fellow, a dearly beloved man, you probably knew him as well as I did or maybe better than I did, and he went through an experience that some people were calling a

Job kind of experience. He had a very serious illness.

There were some difficulties in his family. I think one of his children was in a serious automobile accident.

All of these things came together at once and people would look at him and his life from the outside.

He ended up dying from his illness. People looked from the outside and said that's an experience like Job had in his book.

Well, that man, the cry to God, why are you sleeping?

It's a cry of faith because it's crying to God. It's seeking Him. It's asking

Him to come and to help. It's saying, Lord, I have no wealth to turn. I'm in despair.

I need your help. I know that you're a God of grace and a God of kindness. Would you come to me and help me?

So I think that that's why it's good for congregations to read through all of the psalms and make their people aware of the psalms.

I do think that there are times when even in our own private devotions before the

Lord, it's right for us to pray these kinds of prayers. I've spent all of this year my personal

Bible reading in the psalms. I had laid out for myself a plan to read through the book of Psalms slowly and then the book of Proverbs and then read the

New Testament slowly in the second half of the year. And then when it was decided that I'd be teaching this course on the psalms,

I changed that. And after I finished my first course through the psalms, now I've been reading them through.

I set out a plan for myself to read them through much more rapidly. And both times I've found them to be a tremendous blessing to my soul.

Not only the psalms of praise, but also the psalms of struggle.

They give me a sense of reality in the Christian life. So yes,

I think Arnie, it's a good question, but I would say yes, there does come a time for that.

Someone else has said that there's more lament in the psalms than there is praise or exuberant joyful praise.

That's a really good and helpful observation. The life of faith is a life of struggle, a life of difficulty, and the psalms will help us to be able to express those things in inspired language.

And we have to go to our first break right now. If anybody else wants to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages with more of Dr. Jim Renahan and the preaching of the psalms in a

Christian congregation. Hello, my name is

James Renahan, and I'm the president of IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas. The Word of God says, if a man desires the office of an overseer, he desires a good thing.

Do you have the desire to serve Jesus Christ in pastoral ministry? Twenty years ago, the

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is

Dr. Jim Renahan, president and professor of historical theology at IRBS theological seminary in Mansfield Texas we're discussing preaching the

Psalms in a Christian congregation and our email address if you want to join us on the air is chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com and we have

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County Pennsylvania who has a question.

Dr. Renahan do you think that the Psalms can give we who are reformed a subtle rebuke who have an occasion to be sometimes emotionless in our approach to God I know that this is a caricature that is not always true and people broad brush us up this way but I know this certainly does exist among us.

That probably deserves a very simple answer, yes. It's an insightful question, but yes, the

Psalms need to be understood in several different ways and one of them is they must be read recognizing the emotion that is present by the inspiration of the spirit of God in the heart and in the expression of the writer of that Psalm and it's good for us to seek to enter into that emotion whatever it may happen to be you know if it's

Psalm 88 that's the darkest of all of the Psalms we need to be able to see that the

Psalmist there is struggling profoundly but when we come to the last five

Psalms 146 through 150 I heard someone once say it's like the grand finale of fireworks of praise it's unsullied joy that's what those

Psalms are and if we can if we read them or sing them without that kind of joy we miss the point that they're trying to present to us so so the

Psalms cover the whole range of human emotions and we ought to be able to enter into them sing them pray them and participate in them sorrow or joy or all the rest in between Thank You Susan Margaret we have

RJ in White Plains New York who asks something that I guess is sort of a similar question not entirely the same

RJ asks aren't the Psalms a wonderful springboard to other passages of Scripture that lead us to focus on the whole counsel of God because of the varying

Psalms that exist in the Old Covenant and the different emotions that are expressed in the different circumstances whether they are praise and joy or whether they are sorrow and grief or everything in between they seem to springboard into many other truths even in the

New Testament where we are forced to cover the whole counsel of God if we were to go consistently in an expository way through the

Psalms yes that's exactly right I agree completely with RJ especially because of the fact that they cover a thousand year period and effectively summarized for us in one way the entire experience of the people of God in the

Old Testament from despair to delight and that's the emotion of the

Psalms we could also approach the Psalms in terms of doctrine and recognize that everything that we need doctrinally is present in the

Psalms as well so great question simple answer yes they are a wonderful springboard that can be used and that's part of the idea of preaching them in a

Christian congregation is using them showing the people of God how they benefit us you know one of the things

I try to teach young men is that the method that they used to preach should be perhaps unspoken but but it's the method that they are teaching their people how to read the

Bible so when the Psalms become a springboard for emotion sanctified emotion or Christian doctrine or a sense of the purpose of God in a variety of ways that's helping

God's people to read the Bible in its relationship to itself its inter relationships between other parts of the

Old Testament and with the New Testament as well if you could perhaps highlight some of the

Psalms that are the most meaningful to you obviously all of the Psalms and all of God's Word are

God breathed they come to us directly from the the mind and lips of God and are even though he uses human instruments to used

I should say human instruments to to write and scripturate his word it is still his word and so we have to be careful perhaps not to play favorites too much when we read the

Bible but at the same time there are texts that become precious to us so do you have any favorite

Psalms that you care to highlight and tell us why they are so precious to you and I guess

I don't have specific necessarily I've come to love them all and really appreciate them very much if I had if you put a gun to my head which

I know you won't do force me to choose some I think

Psalm 8 especially because of the way that Psalm 8 appears in the book of Hebrews I would say that the book of Hebrews is probably my favorite

New Testament book and so the Psalms that are present in the book of Hebrews I've begun to not just begun but for a long time

I've had a special interest in Psalm 8, Psalm 110, Psalm 95 those

Psalms but if I say those things I don't want to give the impression that somehow they're my favorites because I really do love the entirety of the

Psalms. I have an interest in the Psalms of Asaph which is

Psalm 50 and then Psalm 73 through 83 I frequently find myself going back to them and reading them and try to think through Asaph and his experience and what he did

I find the the Psalms of Ascent also really interesting and I frequently enjoy especially my reading of the

Psalms of Ascent. So that's probably not the answer that you expected brother but that's an honest answer from me.

I think the Psalm that I repeat more often to people probably in one one reason that the the horrific hellish satanic sin of infanticide is so prevalent in our day.

Psalm 139 seems to come up a lot when I'm speaking with people there are some who very naively or even just ignorantly don't even realize that the

Scriptures condemn such a thing as abortion but if you could even comment anything about Psalm 139 that our listeners might not be familiar with.

Yeah, Psalm 139 is one of the Psalms that I frequently preach. Psalm 15 regularly gets preached by me, a couple of others, and then

Psalm 139 is probably the most recent Psalm that I have preached from. It is an important Psalm because it does speak to us from David about God's presence and his care and concern for us.

It's a Psalm that goes back and forth between comfort but also it includes some statements of condemnation of the wicked.

It sort of is almost a microcosm of the whole book of Psalms. But I understand your point.

Verse 13, you formed my inward paths, you covered me in my mother's womb. Certainly the

Lord knows all of the children, all of the babies that are developing in wombs and cares for them and is concerned for them and the

Psalm calls us to stand up for them and watch over them and protect them. It sort of leads me to a, you know, a bigger theme that you find in the

Psalms and that is that there is a great concern there for protection of those who are vulnerable and it's often, to go back to one of the questions from earlier, it's often the

Psalms that cry out to the Lord for help which reflect that sense of the importance of recognizing vulnerability and watching out for it.

It's those who are oppressed who cry out to the Lord for help in a time of need. We have

CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, why is it that Jesus Christ at significant times in his ministry would quote from the

Psalms and speak as if he was David incarnate?

Well, because he was David incarnate, all of the royal Psalms which look forward to and speak about the

King are Psalms that ultimately find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. He is great

David's greater son. Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet, and that's the

Psalm that Jesus uses in response to the Pharisee and presents him with a conundrum that he's not able to respond to.

So the latter part of CJ's question, Jesus is David.

He is the fulfillment of everything that was promised to David in the Davidic Covenant, and he sits upon David's throne and will reign as the great king over the people of God.

But to go back to the earlier part of CJ's question, someone has said, and I don't remember who it was, that the

Psalms were Jesus' prayer book. He would have known them from his youth, and when he is portrayed to us as praying, he probably was praying many of the

Psalms. For example, just when the Lord's Supper was instituted on the night in which he was betrayed,

Gospel writers tell us that they sang a hymn and then they went out. Well, that's probably Psalm 113.

It's the last five or six hymns that are called the Egyptian Hallel. They were

Psalms that would have been sung at the Passover meal, and that Psalm 118, which looks forward to the

Messiah, would have been the last Psalm that would have been sung by Jesus and his disciples as they went out, and he was on his way to Gethsemane to be arrested and then crucified.

So the Psalms are something that were not only on his lips, but in his heart, something that he knew intimately, and his life reflects the reality of those

Psalms as he is presented to us in the Gospel. So that's why he would cite the

Psalms. They're an intimate part of his life. Now one of the most powerful moments in the life of Christ where he is quoting a

Psalm involves his death before he dies, quoting from Psalm 22,

Oh my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Can you explain that?

Because I have heard Christians, even scholars, even those who are within the

Reformed, can't disagree with each other on what exactly is going on here, what exactly is

Christ intending to convey, not only to his father, but to those who are hearing him and obviously for centuries reading him say that.

Well, of course, Chris, your statement is true, and whatever I say, someone will disagree with us, but we're at a conundrum, aren't we?

Well, you know, number one, he's quoting the Scripture, he's quoting Psalm 22, which, both on its beginning and its end, speaks to us of Christ in his suffering and in his glory.

Likewise, we have to remember, sometimes, as Christians, we neglect to reckon with the fact that not only is our

Lord God, not only is he deity, he's also true humanity. And in his humanity, he is able to express the depth of the emotions that you and I know, perhaps even more so, because he was sinless.

When we see him praying in the garden, he's praying, Lord, if it is your will, let this cup pass from me, not my will, but yours be done.

That's his humanity. He's facing the horror of the wrath of God before him.

It's not the physical torture of the crucifixion, it's that he knows what he is about to encounter as he endures the wrath of God.

And he asked the Lord to take it from him, if it could be. That's his humanity speaking.

And when he quotes from Psalm 22, verse 1, it's his humanity again, speaking to us of the fact that he senses that desertion, that he is enduring the horror of the wrath of God on behalf of his people.

And not everybody takes that position. One of the books that I've been reading recently,

I don't remember which one, suggested that as he was hanging upon the cross, he was simply quoting or rehearsing the

Psalms in order, and at that point, he happened to come to Psalm 22, verse 1, and that's what the

Gospel writers record for us. That's possible, but I think it's less likely, but it's a possible way to read what's happening in that text.

I heard that explanation for the first time very recently. I'd never heard it in my life before, just probably,

I don't know, a few months ago. Yes. And it wouldn't be surprising at all if our

Lord, while enduring the suffering of the cross, did recite scripture.

In fact, you would expect that that's what he would do, and it wouldn't be surprising if he recited the book of Psalms to do so.

All of that is a strong possibility, but to make that account for all of the reasons why the

Gospel writers put those words on his mouth at that point, I think undersells the fullness of what's happening in that moment.

Okay, we have to go to our midway break right now, and the midway break is the longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

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We'll also use this time to write down questions on the Psalms for our guest, Dr. Jim Renahan at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away, you're going to be right back after these messages with more of Dr.

Jim Renahan and preaching the Psalms in a Christian congregation. Hi, I'm Stephan Lindblad, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas.

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Welcome back, and before we return to Dr. Jim Renahan's discussion on preaching the

Psalms in a Christian congregation, we have some important announcements to make in regard to our sponsors and special events that they're having.

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That's WOTChurch .com And then, coming up in, let's see, that's in December, I am going to be packing up my bags and heading back to Manhattan, my stomping grounds, my old stomping grounds, to the

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So please look for me and ask around. It's a fairly small venue, so it shouldn't be hard to find me.

And keep in mind that it is a small venue, so if you want to get into the registration before they have no more room, go to thefoundationsconference .com

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College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta, going to the Georgia International Convention Center for the

G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace and Glory. That's Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th.

And the theme this January is Worship Matters. And they have, as always, a phenomenal and extraordinary lineup of speakers, including

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You heard James White say California. Well, he just very recently is now pastoring in Arizona.

His church in California sent him out to pastor there in Arizona. So we'll be hearing more about exactly all the details about Kosti's new church in Arizona where he's pastoring very soon because Kosti is going to be speaking on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio 2.

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Kosti will be back on the show. Looking forward to it. Daryl Bernard Harrison, who is a new addition to John MacArthur's ministry at Grace to You.

He's a really provocative and profound and biblically solid writer.

David Miller, a really old -school preacher that I just love to hear. Derek Thomas, who is definitely not a stranger to the majority of Reformed Christians.

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Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace to You Ministries and Stephen J. Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College in Sanford, Florida, the college founded by the late

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Tom Askell, Dr. Tom Askell, the executive director of Founders Ministries, the

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USA, and never remain anonymous, or should

I say, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Dr.

Renahan, when it comes to the Psalms, what do you think

God is trying to, first and foremost, instill upon the hearts and minds of His followers with the truths that are breathed into those

Psalms? We already said that they run the spectrum of emotion and experience, but what do you think could be described as the primary purpose and benefit and blessing from the

Psalms? Interesting question. Well, I guess that, you know, there are different answers to that when you read the various commentaries and works on the

Psalms. Today, a lot of people are advocating the fact that the

Psalms are to be viewed as a means to provide us wisdom to live.

And, of course, the fear of the Lord is the beginning wisdom that's on the Psalms as it's in the Book of Proverbs. I guess to answer the question,

I would say wisdom in light of who God is. They present to us over and over again the kingship of God, the sovereignty of God, the exclusive claim of God as over against the pagan deities of the nations around Israel.

But they help us to understand that this God, this glorious, majestic, sovereign

God who rules over all things, is a God who calls us to follow

Him, to depend upon Him, to trust in Him in every circumstance of life. And so they provide us with wisdom to be able to do so.

And, of course, all of that looking forward to the coming of Christ and the forgiveness that we receive through Him.

We have, let's see, Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who asks,

Do you believe that when the New Testament lists the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs that we are to incorporate into our worship services, that this is actually a command that we must include the psalms?

Or is it just a suggestion? Well, let's take a look at that.

I assume Ephesians and Colossians are what Ronald has in mind. The question, it's a legitimate question.

I'm not sure that I understand exactly what Ronald is seeking to do. When Paul says in Colossians 3,

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, being with grace and the hearts of the

Lord, it certainly is a command format there. So I'm quite comfortable to say that the text of Scripture, especially as it's found in the

Book of Psalms, is what we ought to be singing in corporate worship. Ronald's question didn't address the question of exclusive psalmody.

I don't know if he intended to or not. So I'm going to answer it the way that it's expressed and say yes,

I do believe that it is a command for us to incorporate the singing of the psalms into our public worship.

All three of the Greek words that Paul uses here are words that are used in the psalter, in the

Greek translation of the psalter, to describe what it's about. So I think that that's pretty clear. Now, going to something that you just mentioned, our brethren who are exclusive psalmists, exclusive psalm singers, the best argument that I heard against that was,

I believe the brother was in the RCUS, the Reformed Church in the

United States. He said that if we become exclusive psalmody advocates, we are preventing the brothers and sisters in the

Church from singing praise to Jesus Christ by name. Of course, those who are singing exclusively the psalms are praising

Jesus Christ, but not by name. Do you find validity in that argument against exclusive psalmody?

Well, it certainly is true that that's the case. I would take it a step further and say that it prevents us from singing praise to the

Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You know, as one of my friends says, he's very much drawn to the idea of exclusive psalmody, but then he can't sing what's called the

Gloria Patri, glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. And he knows that as Christians we ought to be able to sing that, so that keeps him from going in that direction.

He emphasizes the singing of psalms in his church, but I think rightly recognizes that as Christians we are able explicitly to name the

Son, the Father, and the Spirit in our singing. I would say likewise, a response to it is the exposition of several of the books of the

New Testament, which argue, I think, pretty well that embedded in the

New Testament we have some New Testament hymns. So that, for example, the statement in Philippians 2 of the coming of Christ or the last lines of 1

Timothy 3 .16 and other places are expressions of New Testament hymns that we ought to be able to sing.

So while I very much appreciate the emphasis of exclusive psalmody, I would agree with Ronald at this point.

Now for some reason I have a haunting feeling that I accidentally deleted a question before we went to the long break.

Did I do that? Did we have a question that came in before the break? I thought that we did.

Maybe I'm just imagining it. I don't know. No, I'm talking about one that I actually read.

Okay. You don't remember? I don't think so. Okay. Well, if you're listening, if that is indeed the case, if you would please resend your question because sometimes things like this happen on live radio and I apologize for that.

Let's see here. We have a similar question, sort of.

We have John in Bangor, Maine, who asks, I know that you believe that we should, as an obedience to a command, sing the psalms in our corporate worship services, but does that mean that every service must include them?

Well, I'm not the emperor of decisions to be made here, so I don't know how to answer that.

I don't know if that's a command that says every time that we come together to worship, we ought to sing psalms.

I think that they ought to be emphasized and present and active in the life of our churches.

I guess I'd want to think about that one before I gave it an answer. Yeah, it is a shame, though, that I've visited churches.

They're typically the churches that are more dedicated to modern music.

They are either megachurches or striving to be megachurches, and whenever I have visited them, they are never singing the psalms in their worship.

Even when I've asked sometimes, do you ever sing the psalms, people will actually sometimes act as if I'm asking a foolish question, like why on earth would we need to do that?

But this is a very sad thing when these God -breathed songs are being totally ignored and eliminated from worship, aren't they?

Yeah, yeah. And my answer is not meant to say I think we should substitute human psalms.

In a blanket statement question, as was just read, every time that we worship, well, maybe there are circumstances when we come to worship when it would be better for us to sing something out of the

New Testament, for example, as opposed to a psalm. So it's just the nature of the question that makes it universal that gives me hesitation.

Okay, we are going to our final break. It's not going to be nearly as long as the last one, so don't be overly concerned.

But if you want to send in a question, I would try to do so fairly quickly because we're almost out of time with the program.

So send in the question to chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

And as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Always remain, or only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back with Dr. Jim Renahan and more on preaching the psalms in a

Christian congregation. This has been a wonderful partnership.

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Spread the word about FirstLoveRadio .org. Welcome back, this is

Chris Arnzen. If you've got any questions, send it in now, because we're running out of time rapidly. Chris Arnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And we have a question from Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, and Bobby in Hartsdale, New York says, should we sing all of the

Psalms in our worship services when some of them involve the killing of our enemies?

That's an interesting question as well, and it typically is one that you will find the commentators on the

Psalms wrestling with. The thing that we have to remember is that the Psalms are the inspired

Word of God, and they predominantly are the prayers of the

King who represents God. Thus, it's not a personal vengeance against enemy, it is rather that when we read, we sing, we pray these

Psalms, we are asking God to do what is right and just against those who are the enemies of the faith.

You know, one of the most notorious of these that's often cited is Psalm 137, which ends with the statement about throwing the children onto the rocks so that they would die.

And people don't often, or sometimes they fail to understand what's going on in that Psalm. It begins with the talks that are coming from the pagans to sing the songs of Zion, and the believers there in exile are weeping.

It's a sense of, your God is nothing, here you are, our captives, sing your songs of your

God, they're meaningless. They're not asking to hear them because they're beautiful, they're asking to hear them because they want to taunt the

Jews about the fact that their God is powerless, or so they proceed to be. And then the believers respond with those startling words about bringing judgment upon the

Babylonians. It's not just any children, any infants, but rather it is the children of the dynasty, the rulers of Babylon.

It's a plea to God to end the Babylonian dynasty so that the people of God can be set free.

So, you know, when we look more closely at some of these Psalms and understand the purpose for which they have been written in that sense, yes,

I do think that it's appropriate to sing them, it's just that those who are leading the singing need to have the people of God understand what's going on in the

Psalms when they call upon them to join with them in singing those Psalms. Good question.

And we have an anonymous listener who says, do you have any specific counsel on how to use the

Psalms most effectively to evangelize our Jewish friends and neighbors? Hmm.

Well, that's also an interesting question. Specific counsel?

Well, you know, only the Holy Spirit is able to open the eyes of unbelievers to see the truth of the gospel.

And I would say we need to go into conversation with our Jewish neighbors or with our

Gentile neighbors with that sense of dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, I think that it might be helpful to suggest to them that the

Psalms are deeply woven into the New Testament, and the writers of the New Testament view themselves as interpreters of the

Psalms, and they see there Jesus Christ in His person and in His work.

That might be a helpful way to speak to Jewish non -believers.

We have, let's see, we have, oh, we have another anonymous listener.

Not sure why this question is anonymous, but the listener says,

I think that, oh now I see why the listener is anonymous.

I am bothered by the fact that my pastor dwells, it seems, too much on the

Old Testament when we are hearing him preach and when we are studying the

Word of God. Is there a danger in that? Well, I don't know specifically, and I'm very hesitant to comment on that specific situation.

But I would say that we need to be whole Bible Christians. And when the, for example,

I quoted a long time ago, this afternoon, Paul's words in 2 Timothy chapter 3.

He has in mind the Old Testament. You have to remember that while the New Testament was being written, the predominant text that was available to Christians in their churches was the

Old Testament. That's what they had as the Scriptures, and throughout that period from, oh, let's say 30 to whenever the last book of the

New Testament was written, even if you give the latest date to the book of Revelation to 90

AD, we're still talking about a period of 60 years. During that period, most of the

Christian congregations primarily would have had access to the books that we call the Old Testament rather than the books of the

New Testament. So I don't think that there's a danger in emphasizing the Old Testament so long as the

Old Testament is viewed in the light of the coming of Christ and what happened in the fulfillment of all of the anticipation and prophecies and promises that were given to believers under the

Old Covenant. Well, I assume you would think, though, that if for some strange reason a pastor was exclusively preaching from the

Old Testament, he might be, though, going through some kind of a long expository series, and I'm not sure how long this person has been a member of their church.

Yeah, of course I would agree with you. You know, what I like to suggest to my students is that assuming their church has two services on the

Lord's Day, that they give one to the New Testament, one to the Old Testament, to balance things out.

Well, I want to make sure that you have at least four or five minutes to summarize the things that you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners regarding the

Psalms today. Okay, thanks Chris. Thank you to all the listeners for these really thought -provoking questions.

I'm really pleased with them. One thing that I wanted to do is give a suggestion for some help that people might benefit from if they're interested in the

Psalms, and I hope that they are. I think that we need a recovery of the Psalms in our churches.

Christians need to read them, we need to preach on them, we need to sing them. I think the greatest resource, apart from the

Bible, that's available to us is Charles Spurgeon's Treasury of David, and I would urge all of your listeners to get hold of a copy of that.

It is just a brilliant piece of work, broken up into all kinds of different insightful views of each of the

Psalms. He treats all 150, he includes an exposition of the Psalms, outlines, pardon me, outlines for preachers, he has quotes from the history of the church that help readers to see how other

Christians have viewed the Psalms. It's a gold mine, or a treasury, a real treasury, full of jewels, precious jewels, just all kinds of blessings.

And if you don't get anything else, get Spurgeon's Treasury of David, and you'll find that to be very helpful.

A couple of other books that I think are very useful. My good friend Dr. Robert Godfrey, through Ligonier Ministries, has published a book called

Learning to Love the Psalms. He spends the first part, the early part of the book, dealing with a variety of questions in chapters that are only three or four pages long, that deal with things like the attraction of the

Psalms, the difficulty with the Psalms, recurring themes in the Psalms, etc. And then he works his way through the five books of Psalms.

We haven't even mentioned the fact that the Book of Psalms is divided up into five parts, which mirror the five books of Moses.

He works his way through the five books and comments on many of the Psalms. It's a very useful book, and I learned when

I was at Westminster Seminary that it's always worth going to hear Dr. Godfrey preach, and many of the times that he would preach, he would preach from the

Book of Psalms. So I want to recommend that to your listeners. And then another book that I mentioned a little while ago that I think is very helpful,

Richard Belcher's book, The Messiah and the Psalms, Preaching Christ from all the Psalms. He basically uses the same method as Dr.

Godfrey, several introductory chapters that deal with questions about how to approach the

Psalms and how we view them. And then he works his way through many of the Psalms and shows how they point to our

Lord Jesus Christ. Very useful book. Now if students would like to go a little bit deeper into the

Book of Psalms, a couple of more, if you don't mind me mentioning them. Palmer Robertson, I'm sure many of your listeners have heard his name before, published a book that I'm holding in my hand right now, it's called

The Flow of the Psalms. It's a very insightful treatment of the entire

Book of Psalms, arguing that there is a context to be understood in the

Psalms. You know, a lot of times we read them and we think about them as just 150 poems. Dr.

Robertson and many others have, I think, demonstrated very well that there is a context, there's an order, there's a purpose to the gathering, the collection of the

Psalms. And this is a very insightful book that opens up for us the nature of that collection.

There's a couple more that I could mention, but I know that you're running out of time and I don't want to take up your time.

Let me just say that I really appreciate the opportunity to speak about the

Psalms with you, Chris, but I hope that all of us are reminded of Christ and his wonder and his glory as we think about the fact that he prayed the

Book of Psalms, he sang the Psalms, they were in his mind, they were on his heart, they were on his lips, and for that reason we ought to love the

Psalms just as our Lord did. So may he be glorified in all that we say and do and all we think about the

Psalms. Praise God. Thank you so much for always being such an educational and edifying and informative guest,

Dr. Jim Renahan, and I want to make sure again that our listeners have all of the contact information that they need to get ahold of you to get a hold of the

IRBS Theological Seminary. Once again, the website is irbsseminary .org,

irbsseminary .org, and do you have any other contact information that you care to share?

Well, you know, I wanted to mention with a little bit of help from you, we began a podcast, we put out six episodes, we do one a week, and some of your listeners might be interested in those, and they can be found from our

Facebook page, and I don't do Facebook myself, I've never had a Facebook page, but if they look for Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies on Facebook, they'll be able to find it, and they can then find the links to our podcast.

We did two of them on the Book of Psalms recently, so that might be a place where some of your listeners would like to go, and they can contact us through that Facebook page as well.

Great, and folks, if you care to, write down some information about tomorrow's show that you might want to alert your pastors about especially.

We are interviewing for the first time Harold L. St. Bile, and I am probably butchering his name, but he has written a new book called

The Care of Souls Cultivating a Pastor's Heart, the forwards by Dr.

Michael Horton, and there are commendations by a number of folks, including my friend

Dr. Michael A .G. Haken, and Timothy George, and others, so have them tune in tomorrow, especially if they're pastors, because this book,

A Care of Souls Cultivating a Pastor's Heart, is the subtitle, and we are giving away free copies of the book to the first five people who submit questions on the air.

So, write that down so that you can tell your pastor, and also anybody that you know who happens to be a pastor who might want to tune in.

I want to thank Dr. Renahan again for being our guest today. I want to thank all of our listeners, especially those who took the time to write, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater