The Psalms

People experience a wide range of emotions in their relationship with God.  Those emotions are captured in a powerful way in the collection 150 Psalms in the Bible.  The Psalms (the name comes from a Greek musical term) are poems that include praise (“Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord!” Psalm 113:1) and longing (“O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you” Psalm 63:1), holy fear (“O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath! Psalm 38:1) and even despair (“O God, why do you cast us off for ever?  Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? Psalm 7:1).  Do you want to learn what a relationship with God, the creator of the universe, could be like?  Pick up the Bible and read a Psalm or two a day.  Or come and see us.  We read at least one Psalm during every service on Sunday.

The Psalms are considered to be a model for prayer. To encourage us in that model, the prayer book divides the psalms as daily devotions for morning and evening. In the 1928 Book of Common they appear as the translations written by Miles Coverdale, a  16th century reformer. Here’s a link to follow the way of the psalms: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1928/Psalms_1928.pdf.

Tradition attributes the psalms to  David the boy shepherd who became king.