Sermon Snippets

We are continuing our series in the Psalms this week, studying Ps. 110. This is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament. The mysterious author of Hebrews particularly loved using it, alluding to it in chapters 1, 5, 7, and 10. Jesus himself identified with it in Mark 12:35-37.

Because of it's popularity in the New Testament, it's easy for we as Christians to automatically read into our NT understandings. But if we are going to be proper interpreters of the text, we must first understand a passage in it's original context, then move on to it's NT usages, before building the bridge to our current world.

When collecting my resources for this series, I picked up one particular book edited by two of my seminary professors. It has proven to be invaluable in helping me work through all the interpretive issues that these poetic Psalms have.  If you want a devotional aid to help you properly read the Psalms or if you want some understandable excellent scholarly work on specific Psalms - I can't recommend this book highly enough.

So, I guess I'll conclude by admitting this isn't really a sermon preview as much as an encouragement to carefully respect the biblical context of any particular passage. Discern it's original meaning for it's original audience before jumping into "What does this say to me?" like so many church-goers are prone to do.