{"id":619,"date":"2011-03-08T09:07:25","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T15:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/?p=619"},"modified":"2011-03-08T09:07:25","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T15:07:25","slug":"the-praiseworthy-god-the-psalms-in-our-worship-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/the-praiseworthy-god-the-psalms-in-our-worship-25\/","title":{"rendered":"The Praiseworthy God: The Psalms in Our Worship 25"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most useful words in Hebrew is the little particle ky<\/em> (sounds like “key”), which means either “because” or “so that” (causal either forward- or backward-looking), or sometimes “when.”\u00a0 Maybe I like it because I always want to know why something is so or at least why people think it’s so.\u00a0 “Because” is a good introduction to further conversation and reflection.\u00a0 It takes you somewhere.<\/p>\n

In Psalm 33, “because” in verse 4 introduces a long list of reasons for praising God.\u00a0 The psalm opens, like a typical hymn, with a call to praise (verses 1-3).\u00a0 And then it recognizes the potential for doubt in the minds of worshipers by offering reasons.\u00a0 Let me stop on this point a moment.\u00a0 Hymns always assume that those of us singing them both believe and question the ideas, values, and commitments we’re singing about.\u00a0 We sing the songs in order to reinforce our convictions, and sometimes to deepen and challenge them.\u00a0 Hence “because.”<\/p>\n

So what is it about God that is praiseworthy?\u00a0 The psalmist lists some remarkable character traits.\u00a0 Some of the epithets of God include “lover of righteousness and justice,” “gatherer of the sea waters,” showing that this psalm, like many others, thinks of creation and the enactment of justice as two closely related divine activities.\u00a0 God brings order and purpose.<\/p>\n

However, the psalm’s preferred way of speaking of God is through verbs of action, all worth tracing.\u00a0 Thus Yhwh’s steadfast love fills the earth (v. 5), and Yhwh’s words are the means by which the world was created (v. 6).\u00a0 (Again, notice how creation and justice-making go hand in hand.)\u00a0 Verses 6-9 seem to be a summary of Genesis 1 or at least the main ideas there, with creation being simply an act of divine speaking (“he spoke, and it was so”) and thus of divine justice-making.<\/p>\n

The actions continue in a new section beginning in verse 10.\u00a0 Here the psalmist reflects on the futility of the schemes of the powerful nations of the world, noting that neither wise counsel nor military power can ultimately bring stability.\u00a0 We, of course, know that too, and have received a clear reminder in recent weeks as the Middle Eastern dictatorships have collapsed to be replaced with God-knows-what.\u00a0 But then again, people of faith never forget this point.\u00a0 The lessons of history — besides the one that there are no lessons! — surely signal to us the ultimate futility and even folly of human pursuits of power.\u00a0 The psalmist takes this basic insight a step further by celebrating Yhwh as the God of history, the great maker and unmaker of human rulers.\u00a0 God here becomes the one working for justice, using whatever human allies are at hand, but also holding them to account.<\/p>\n

The conclusion comes in verses 18-22.\u00a0 God is praiseworthy because of the persistent care for men and women who honor (v. 18) God and await the effects of God’s steadfast love.\u00a0 When humans engage in trusting praise (and, as the prophets would add, live out the implications of that praise in their moral choices and actions), then God cares for them by rescuing them from death and all its allies and manifestations.\u00a0 The relationship is reciprocal (both sides have obligations) but asymmetrical (those obligations are not equivalent, since humans are not equivalent to God).\u00a0 Reciprocity and relationship are the surest tokens of God’s praiseworthiness.<\/p>\n

The psalm ends by naming the creative tension in which believers always live.\u00a0 Singers of the psalm call out, “O Yhwh, may your steadfast love be upon us, just as we wait for you.”\u00a0 The reality of salvation is always almost present, just beyond our fingertips, and we long to grasp it fully.\u00a0 We can taste it and smell it, and we long to make it fully our own.\u00a0 And out of this longing for what we already have in part comes the awe that makes us whole people before the One who created us and all things.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most useful words in Hebrew is the little particle ky (sounds like “key”), which means either “because” or “so that” (causal either forward- or backward-looking), or sometimes “when.”\u00a0 Maybe I like it because I always want to know why something is so or at least why people think it’s so.\u00a0 “Because” is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3538,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Praiseworthy God: The Psalms in Our Worship 25 - ACU Graduate School of Theology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/the-praiseworthy-god-the-psalms-in-our-worship-25\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Praiseworthy God: The Psalms in Our Worship 25 - 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