I made an exciting discovery at the public library. It is a little C.S. Lewis book I have never heard of. I snatched it.
Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis, Harcourt Brace and Company, 1958.
Jack (the name C.S. Lewis preferred over Clive, and who can blame him) and I are going to go through the Psalms together.
Lewis opens with
"This is not a work of scholarship. I am no Hebraist, no ancient historian, no archaeologist. I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself. If an excuse is needed (and perhaps it is) for writing such a book, my excuse would be something like this. It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can."
... and adds later ...
"The fellow-pupil can help more than the master, because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago that he has forgotten."
How true that is. So Jack and I are two schoolboys struggling to understand all the gems contained in the Psalms.
First up is the concept of judgment. Some Christians tremble at the thought of God's judgment. The image of the sheep and the goats comes to mind. What an awful moment for those goats -- whose sins of omission (not doing what they ought to have done) are brought under the microscope.
Then there is the Jewish mindset in the Psalms. The writers of the psalms sing and rejoice over the fact that God is coming in judgment of the whole earth. It is an occasion for joy.
What gives? How do we reconcile these two seemingly opposite views of judgment? Jack and I thought it through. I'll share our reflections next.
It's a great book and the chapter on judgement is especially intriguing.
While he does not absolve the Psalmists of their vindictiveness, Jack does rightly point out the need for anger (or perhaps the more appropriate word is indignation).
"Against all this the ferocious parts of the Psalms serve as a reminder that there is in the world such a thing as wickedness and that it (if not its perpetrators) is hateful to God."
Posted by: Chad | August 17, 2005 at 16:23
Chad,
I believe your quote is from the chapter on the curses -- which I read today and will post on tomorrow.
Those curses are quite shocking. Imagine praying for someone's children to wander as fatherless beggars. Stunning when you think about it.
I have been reading the Psalms for so many years, that the shock of those curses is gone. Reading Lewis brought them right back!
Posted by: Dawn Treader | August 17, 2005 at 17:48