Learning to Pray from the Psalms
by Pastor Paul Dugan
Tucked away in the center of your Bible is a goldmine…the Hebrew Psalms. The Psalms are a “playlist” for all dimensions of the human experience, for all parts of the human soul. This playlist includes a wide diversity of genres that help us gather the whole of our lives (including the messy parts) in raw, honest prayer before God. The Psalms help us become more real in God’s presence and in the presence of God’s people.
The Psalms have changed my life. They have become medicine for my soul.
Before we dive into the diverse genres of the psalms and how to take them up as our own, let’s zoom out:
The Hebrew Psalms, from their ancient beginnings, have been used in a musical context. The Hebrew title for the Psalter (transliterated) is cepher tehillim which means “book of praises.” The Greek title is psalmos, which refers to a poem sung to the accompaniment of stringed instruments. The Psalter has served as a prayerbook and a hymnal for Israel and for the Christian Church for thousands of years.
Listen to how the psalms are described by some of my favorite “fathers” of the faith:
Athanasius (d. 373 AD): “…for those who do sing (the Psalms)…. the melody of the words springs naturally from the rhythm of the soul and her own union with the Spirit.”
Basil the Great (d. 379): “Every Psalm brings peace, soothes the internal conflicts, calms the rough waves of evil thoughts, dissolves anger, corrects and moderates profligacy. Every Psalm preserves friendship and reconciles those who are separated. Who could actually regard as an enemy the person beside whom they have raised a song to the one God? Every Psalm anticipates the anguish of the night and gives rest after the efforts of the day.”
Calvin (d. 1564): “(the Psalms are) 'An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul;' for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which [our] minds are wont to be agitated.”
Bonhoeffer (d. 1945): “The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ … He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer for all time… Those who pray the psalms are joining in with the prayer of Jesus Christ; their prayer reaches the ears of God. Christ (in his full humanity) has become their intercessor.”
Eugene Peterson (d. 2018): “In contrast to most English translations, the Psalms in Hebrew are earthy and rough. They are not genteel. They are not the prayers of nice people, couched in cultured language. And so in my pastoral work of teaching people to pray, I started paraphrasing the Psalms into the rhythms and idiom of contemporary English (The Message). I wanted to provide men and women access to the immense range and the terrific energies of prayer in the kind of language that is most immediate to them,…(I am) convinced that only as we develop raw honesty and detailed thoroughness in our praying do we become whole, truly human in Jesus Christ, who also prayed the Psalms.”
The psalms provide us with new (ancient) ways to being in authentic conversation with God. Over the coming days and weeks, we will use this blog to introduce and “try out” nine different genres of prayer in God’s psalm playlist. Stay tuned.
This is the first in a ten-part series on how to pray the psalms. Part two is here.
For an index to digital prayer guides for more than one hundred individual psalms, click here.