All Episodes
Displaying 61 - 80 of 83 in total
Episode 61: A joyous procession
Most of us probably go to church in our own cars, by ourselves or with our families. We enter the sanctuary, perhaps greet some friends, and find a seat. But what if e...
Episode 62: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord
In this episode, we come to the end of our examination of the Egyptian Hallel. We don’t know for certain who wrote Psalm 118 or why. But apparently, by the time of Jes...
Episode 63: Forgiven and free
Some psalms emphasize the psalmist’s confession of sin; these are known as penitential psalms. Psalm 32 is a good example of this type. The first part reads like a wis...
Episode 64: It’s covered
Like the author of Psalm 32 (it’s attributed to David), we probably all have our private sins, things we’ve done that nobody about knows except God. He tried to cover ...
Episode 65: Hiding place
You may know the story of Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch evangelist who miraculously survived a Nazi concentration camp. Her biography, The Hiding Place, echoes the Psalms...
Episode 66: Don’t be so stubborn!
When we were two years old, we may have gone through a period of stubborn rebellion. And even as adults, some of us may not be done rebelling. We don’t know why the au...
Episode 67: Lord, have mercy!
Psalm 51 is one of the few to begin with a heading that associates it with a specific historical event; in this case, it’s David’s sin with Bathsheba. Some tellings of...
Episode 68: Broken
Some Old Testament texts critique what the whole system of ritual sacrifice had become: an exercise in piety that’s without true repentance. But in Psalm 51, the psalm...
Episode 69: Pointing forward, pointing back
Even a casual reading of Psalm 22 may make you want to say, “This is about Jesus.” Many of the lines of the psalm seem to describe a scene from the crucifixion. For th...
Episode 70: The lowest low to the highest height
As he hung dying on the cross, Jesus cried out to God in anguish. It was the opening line of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” We usually take that...
Episode 71: A mighty fortress
The opening lines of Psalm 46 inspired Martin Luther’s classic hymn, “A Mighty Fortress.” God is characterized as a place of refuge, like a stronghold built high on a ...
Episode 72: When the world is falling apart
I have always lived in a place where earthquakes are a fact of life. Until you’ve been through one, you may not realize how much we take the stability of the ground be...
Episode 73: Drop your sword!
That’s a famous line from one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride. Here, I will suggest that it’s also the way we should probably read a famous line from Psalm 46.
Episode 74: Traveling mercies
I sometimes think of Psalm 25 as the “everything pizza” of the Psalms; it’s another acrostic poem (like Psalm 119), and it has many of the stylistic elements of other ...
Episode 75: When stuff happens
Stuff happens—anything from minor inconveniences to major crises. And when bad things happen, it’s good and right to go to God in prayer. What Psalm 25 teaches is that...
Episode 76: Finding our way
Do you know the feeling of having lost your way? I suspect the psalmist did too. In the middle of Psalm 25, the psalmist prays repeatedly to be taught God’s way. This ...
Episode 77: A covenant God
Covenant is an important theme in Psalm 25; it would have been intrinsic to the psalmist’s understanding of God’s relationship to his people. Covenants are not the sam...
Episode 78: Fear and friendship
Psalm 25 mentions another important biblical theme: the fear of God. It’s not a concept that comes easily to Christians who have only heard about God’s love and grace—...
Episode 79: Don’t let me be put to shame
Though shame and guilt are often intertwined or even mistaken for each other, they are not the same. Brené Brown suggests that shame can leave one feeling “trapped, po...
Episode 80: A trustworthy haven
The author of Psalm 25 has been set upon by powerful and treacherous enemies, and prays that they will not put him to shame. Yet the psalm still includes a note of hop...