getting ready to leave tomorrow evening for JB to conduct a 6 hours seminar on the book of psalms on saturday afternoon till night and preach twice on sunday morning to 2 services at church of the good shepherd.
for the psalms seminar, i will use brueggemann's schema of dividing the psalms into 3 types: orientation-disorientation-reorientation. for the preaching, i will preach on psalm 90 for the chinese congregation and psalm 62 for the english/chinese congregation.
Comments
I liked the orientation - disorientation - reorientation thing. Not sure what bruggemann meant by this, but as I thought about what Jesus said about the plain and intended meaning of the Psalms in Luke 24:44, of course it made me think of how this threefold theme might be applied to Him! Nothing too fancy... but this song came to mind (though no less profound about the Christ of the introductory Psalm 2) - "He came from heaven to earth to show the way (orientation), from the earth to the cross my debt to pay (disorientation), from the cross to the grave (again disorientation), from the grave to the sky (reorientation), Lord I lift Your Name on high!"
After all, didn't some of our forefathers meditated on the Psalms as if they were the prayer book of Jesus Himself?
Hebrews 1 also quote the Psalms as prayers of the Son and also includes the Father's answers. In this sense, we are given a depth of insight into the very heart and being of God as we read the Psalms.
we see the pattern in the city of jerusalem - proud city (orientation), babylonian destruction and exile (disorientation), return from exile (reorientation).
we see it in our old life (orientation), baptism (disorientation) and new life (reorientation).
the song u mentioned is a v.g. choice. i must take note of it and use it for the next time i'm doing a psalms seminar.