How to Interpret Psalm 23 (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Psalm 23 as More Than a Funeral Psalm

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and it is Saturday, March 21st. I don�t think this is technically a lockdown, but it seems like it. The good news is there�s nobody here today at the church building, so it�s quiet, quiet enough to record a show.

I just did 40 minutes on the stationary bicycle with minimal resistance to loosen up this post-surgical knee. Coming up on three months, and hopefully the doctor will say, �You can go ride a bicycle outside.

And then by that time, the government will say, �You can�t ride a bike outside. Maybe I�ll just do laps in our cul-de-sac. I guess I�m going to have to pick up a mountain bike, because if you�re in the mountains riding, then what?

I�m at home now more often than not, and so we try not to have the TV on except maybe late at night, and we were watching some type of rescue show. Real TV, live rescue, kind of like live PD, but they rescue people, and a few bicyclists, I think someplace in Brazil, were mountain biking.

They were on a team, and were practicing out in the middle of nowhere remotely, and they filmed the one guy wiping out, and then his handlebar broke and jammed into his femoral artery, and he started bleeding out, and then out in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, the guy that was with him came back, and he dug his fingers down deep enough, deeply enough to slow the bleeding, and there happened to be a helicopter doing a special practice trip, a medical helicopter practice trip between two cities.

They were told of what happened, rescued the guy, saved his leg. It was pretty traumatic, so I don�t know if I want a mountain bike or not. What do you do? You just cut the femoral artery, and you bleed out.

This is end of March. I recorded some new shows for last week, and then this week as well, so Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, new shows, except Tuesday probably will not be the Tuesday guy unless I have him call in just because we're trying to keep apart.

Half of me thinks this is way overblown. Half of me thinks people are involved in their health, and I know people in healthcare industry, and therefore, I'll just stick with what I think I'm good at, and that is teaching the Bible.

Did you know being a radio host is a spiritual gift? There are five books in the Bible that talk about spiritual gifts, and it's that elusive fifth book, not 1 Peter, not 1 Corinthians, not Romans, not Ephesians, but that other book that talks about the spiritual gift of DJing, disc jockey, jockeying discs, except I have not one disc here.

This Sunday, I'm going to preach Psalm 23, and the world often goes to Psalm 23, but they go to Psalm 23 for what? For funerals. If I were to say to you, match up a chapter in the Bible to an event in society, and I said 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, you would say weddings.

It's fine to read that at weddings. I have no problem with that. It's not necessarily a wedding chapter, though, and if I said Psalm 46, at least with the people that I've trained here at this church, that would be a hospital psalm, or if somebody's in the hospital and you need to read something, if you go visit someone and they have a baby and you have a baby psalm to read, I don't mean a mini psalm, like, you know, minor prophets, major prophets, but if you have a small psalm that you'd like to read, or a psalm you'd like to read for a baby, what would be that psalm?

Psalm 139, of course, and therefore, when I say to you, what is the occasion in the American society where Psalm 23 is read, you usually would say, what, funerals. And that's the problem. While it's fine for a funeral, there's so much more about living and life that this chapter can help us with that I want to make sure we focus a little bit on Psalm 23 so you, in fact, get that.

Boyce said, out of all the 150 psalms in the Psalter, this might be the best loved and the best known. Interesting how those go together, best known, best loved. Baptist preacher Spurgeon said, this was the pearl of psalms.

Perone said, there's no psalm in which the absence of all doubt, misgiving, fear, and anxiety is so remarkable, as in Psalm 23. Commentator and preacher Alexander McLaren said, the world could spare many a large book better than this sunny little psalm.

It has dried many tears and supplied the mold into which many hearts have poured their peaceful faith. I love that. A sunny little psalm. Finally, I can get out now and take a walk, but I still really can't walk that far.

My leg is atrophied, so maybe I'll just limp along today, along the, everybody goes, walks by the lake out here, excuse me, the reservoir, the man-made reservoir, which is the water for Boston. Everywhere I live, there's a problem with water.

You live in Southern California and we have to get it all aqueduct down from NorCal. And now I live in Central Massachusetts. We have to ship all our water to Boston. See how that all works? I think if you look at Psalm 23 and you have a little bit of help from a teacher, today that teacher happens to be me, although I've been taught all week, so this is nothing new.

Maybe just the arrangement is new. I think if you understand it better, you'll appreciate it more and you'll appreciate the Lord more. If I exposit it, expose you to the truths found in it, you will understand it better, appreciate it more, and laud the Lord more often.

That's my hope. And if we start, as I work through this, before I get in any deeper, here's the great part about a God-centered Psalm. No matter who you are, where you are, and what you're going through, it's very apropos.

It's very relevant. Why? Because God is relevant. His word is relevant. And if you need comfort, this is a good comforting Psalm. If you need to have your faith boosted, this will do that. If you're anywhere from thankful, joy-filled, lonely, sick, isolated, or quarantined, this is a good balm for your soul.

If you have parched lips, cracked in the sun, and you're looking for your chapstick. My wife doesn't believe in any chapstick except Carmex, but I'll go for the cheaper stuff. When I travel, or even on a bicycle, most of the time in my pocket I will have, or my jersey, cycling jersey, or in the saddlebag, I will have some chapstick just because I hate to go with parched lips.

And just that smooth feeling, that oh, that nesty plunge kind of feeling, if you get my drift. That's what this does for the soul, about the Lord and his shepherd. And I want your mind stayed on thee, as Isaiah 26, King James would say.

The Theological Center: “For You Are With Me”

All right, Psalm 23. Before we get actually into the text, I want to remind you of three things, three keys to understand this Psalm. I know you want me to start getting into it already, and personal pronouns, and everything else.

But I want you to first understand these three things, and then that will help you understand Psalm 23 in total. And if I could give you just three, there are probably others, but three keys to understanding the Psalm, that would probably be helpful.

The first one is what's found in the center of the Psalm. Now you've got at the beginning of the Psalm a shepherding element. You've got then a host element. What binds this together? What binds a shepherding and a festive host, festal host theme together?

And it's found right in the center of the Psalm. If you think of this Psalm as a poem, you would be right. And poetry, understanding poetry helps us understand, therefore, this Psalm. And therefore, how many therefores can I therefore give you, therefore?

In the center of everything is the first key to unlock this Psalm. So let me just read Psalm 23, and it's not in the perfect center, but the center, a theological center, if you will. I'll write that down right now.

Theocenter. I didn't say theocast, I said theocenter. I don't listen to theocast anymore. Too much 15, 17 stuff and Lutheran stuff for my liking. Psalm 23, the Lord, Yahweh, is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

And we now come to the theological center, for you are with me. There it is. You ride in your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.

Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord, Yahweh, forever. Right there in the center, for you are with me. That is the first interpretive key.

It ties in the shepherd theme, the host of a victory feast, and even dwelling in the house of the Lord forever. The unifier is for you are with me, the presence of God, Emmanuel, God with us. Shepherding, celebrating, living, all tied together for you are with me.

And the way I could make it the most plainly understood, what I'm trying to convey, is if I read the Psalm this way, you will now get it. Because once I read it this way, I got it. Got it? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, for you are with me.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, for you are with me. He leads me beside still waters, for you are with me. He restores my soul, for you are with me. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake, for you are with me.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me, for you are with me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, for you are with me.

You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows, for you are with me. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever, for you are with me.".

Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that precious? This is the truth, dear Christian, about our great God. We are united with Christ. The great doctrine of union with Christ. We could look at other doctrines like justification by faith alone.

I love that doctrine, but I also love union with Christ. He will never leave us or forsake us. That's coming up in Hebrews chapter 13. I will never leave you nor forsake you. That's why you can live your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have.

For God said that. I will never leave you nor forsake you. He himself said that. Five negatives in that quotation, by the way, in Hebrews chapter 13. Five, I will in no way possible desert you, go AWOL on you, or turn my back on you.

I will not do that. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever. Therefore, you can say with rhetorical question, what can man do to me? You confidently can say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. Why? Because you are with me through joys, through sorrows, and everything in between.

For you are with me. And I want to make sure you understand Christian. You dear Christian here today, well, via Skype, via YouTube. God's with you. Say, well, I'm lonely. Well, I know, I understand that.

This is not a good situation for any of us, but God is with you. Isn't that wonderful? I'm drinking maybe my new favorite, I don't know if it's my favorite beverage. I think I like kombucha best to just drink regularly.

But here for 150 calories, 2 grams of fat, 3 grams of carbs, 30 grams of protein, and it tastes good. Fair Life Nutrition Plan, 30 grams, high quality protein, no artificial growth hormones. I don't really care about that part.

855 Live Fair. Anyway, tastes pretty good. Grade A milk. First thing I thought it said goat milk. That's another story. First helper to understand Psalm 23 is the theological center. The second helper before we get into the text, I know you're dying to get into the text, is where this Psalm is placed canonically.

Psalm 23 in the Shepherd Trilogy of Psalms 22–24

Where is it found in the Bible, in the Psalms? Where in the Psalms is it found, right? There are different books of the Psalms, right? This is in the first book, and it's found sandwiched in between Psalm 22 and Psalm 24.

Psalm 22, 23, and 24 form a trilogy, and I would argue a messianic trilogy. Revelation 7, 17, for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd. He will lead them to springs of living water.

You're going to see in this messianic trilogy the Lord Jesus, the great shepherd, the good shepherd, the chief shepherd. If you look at Psalm 22, remember Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

It shows Jesus dying for his people, and that, of course, immediately makes us think of John 10, verse 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Psalm 22 is about the shepherd dying for his people.

Psalm 24, the chief shepherd, he's going to come back. He's going to come back in glory, the king, and I think of 1 Peter 5, 4, and when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

So you have a good shepherd, he lays down his life and is raised, Psalm 22, a chief shepherd, and he's going to come back in great victory, and in the middle you have the great shepherd, the Lord Jesus, who cares for his people, Psalm 23, the great shepherd.

It reminds me of Hebrews 13, may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will that he may work in us what is pleasing to him.

A God who dies for, a God who cares for, a God who comes back for, and of course what we're thinking about is Jesus, the God-man. He literally dies. He literally cares. He literally is coming back. Now when I first became a Christian, I would listen to different preachers on the radio, and one of the guys I listened to regularly because I just listened to pretty much every show and I kind of rank them who I like the best, and there were Calvary Chapel preachers on like Raul Reis, he was my first pastor, he was on at 10 .30, Lloyd Ogilvie I believe was on at like 9 a .m., and Swindoll at 9 .30, 10 o 'clock Charles Stanley, 10 .30, it was Raul Reis, 11 o 'clock was MacArthur, they played MacArthur I think at 6 .30 and at 11, and then they had some psychology stuff on at 11 .30 or whatever.

But they had on regularly, and he's probably still on today, and you might even think he's alive, but he's been dead for a long time, J. Vernon McGee. And he taught in Los Angeles, I believe he was from the South, I heard he showed up to Dallas Seminary with a cigar in his mouth and was told he couldn't come in the classes with a cigar, and that he hated Holiday Inns.

That's what I heard from Bill Bryan. J. Vernon McGee talks about why Psalm 23 is so wonderful, and part of it is because it's included in this Shepherd Trilogy, Psalm 22, Psalm 23, Psalm 24. Here's what J. Vernon McGee says, in Psalm 22 we see the cross, in Psalm 23 the crook, and in Psalm 23 the crown.

In Psalm 22 Christ is Savior, in Psalm 23 He's a Satisfier, in Psalm 24 He's the Sovereign. In Psalm 22 He's the Foundation, in Psalm 23 He is the Manifestation, in Psalm 24 He is the Expectation. In Psalm 22 He dies, in Psalm 23 He is living, in Psalm 24 He is coming.

Psalm 22 speaks of the past, Psalm 23 speaks of the present, Psalm 24 speaks of the future. In Psalm 22 He gives His life for the sheep, in Psalm 23 He gives His love to the sheep, in Psalm 24 He gives us light when He shall appear.

And Vernon said, I quote, what a wonderful picture we have of Christ in these three Psalms, end quote. That is really, really good. By the way, if you email me, I'll send you that little quote. Donate link at the top.

I'm actually now taking care of the Patreon account myself, and if you sign up for Patreon, you'll actually get stuff. By the way, if you've signed up for Patreon and you haven't gotten stuff, and you let me know, I'll make sure you get whatever you need.

I want to make sure we keep our word. And somebody just signed up to give regularly, and I sent them off some autographed books, and so I want to make sure I do what I say. I've never really pushed that very much.

There are some costs to No Compromise Radio. I do need to get some new equipment. This has been the same stuff we've had for the last 10 years. I need to get something so I can record some shows at home, not just here at the church, and especially in light of all the stuff that's going on.

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So anyway, enough of that. I think that's more than I've talked about money than I ever have. But it's that time of year, funds are running low, we're opening up the vault, all the old no-cos you can listen to.

I talked to Kofi the other day at the Shepherd's Conference, and I think he's listened almost every... That's dedication. And his accent still hasn't changed. When you, dear Christian, in light of what I just said about this hermeneutical helper of where this is placed in the canon in between 22 and 24, at least, if you don't want to call this technically a messianic psalm, at least you should see the analogical application that Beuys calls it, to see Jesus as shepherd.

We do have the New Testament to inform our reading of the Old, do we not? We have subsequent revelation, i .e., the New Testament, here in Hebrews 13, John 10, 1 Peter 5, that informs antecedent revelation, that is, stuff that was written before.

No wonder Augustine, when he read Psalm 23, he said, my shepherd is the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is a shepherd to his people. There's no way you should read this without thinking about Jesus. Even if I said to you, maybe you're an old school human author, authorial intent, non-redemptive historical, non-christological, non-christotelic, old school, old school, old school, keeping discontinuity at all costs.

I could at least tell you, you know what, when you think of the word Lord, Yahweh, you have to be thinking Yahweh the Father, Yahweh the Son, and Yahweh the Spirit. And who is the one on earth doing the shepherding?

Who called himself the shepherd? It's not that hard for you to interpret this through the lens of the New Testament. And when you think of the shepherd, a good shepherd, who do you think of? I mean, it's impossible not to.

What are we doing? We've fallen into crazy world where we can't think about the great shepherd, the chief shepherd, the good shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord Jesus Christ is my shepherd. Of course He is.

Did Christ, taking on human flesh permanently, being born of a woman, born under law, keeping that law, dying, was buried, was raised, ascended, and said He's going to come back. Does that change anything when you read the Bible?

When you read the Old Testament, when you read Psalm 23, does the fact of Jesus, the reigning King, change anything you read? You say, well, you're trying to read Jesus back in the Old Testament. I'm trying to not read Him out of it, as my friend Scott Clark says.

I'm trying not to read Him out of it. Think of the divine author, latent behind all the writing of the Old Testament and new. We're thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord isn't God generally, the big man upstairs.

We're talking about Jesus. And I think if you even tie these hermeneutical helpers together, the Lord is with us, for you are with me, and thinking about the placement, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, and then the placement here, this great shepherd, who is the good shepherd, who is the chief shepherd, it's going to help you understand this passage.

Heidelberg Catechism number one. Doesn't this sound the same, echo the truths found in Psalm 23? What is thy only comfort in life and death? That I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins and delivered me from all the power of the devil, and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head, yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me sincerely willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him.

That's Psalm 23. You said, but Pastor Mike, there's one more hermeneutical helper. Well, that one more hermeneutical helper will be found next time on No Compromise Radio. Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

Don't forget Israel 2021. Send in your emails regarding that.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.