Scripture Text (NRSV)
45:1 My heart overflows with a goodly theme; I address my verses to
the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.
45:2 You are the most handsome of men; grace is poured upon your lips;
therefore God has blessed you forever.
45:6 Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter
is a scepter of equity;
45:7 you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your
God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;
45:8 your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From
ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad;
45:9 daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right
hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
Comments:
Help, I was hoping to use this as the "other" scripture. I am
attending to mainly the opportunity to exegete the Song of Solomon
passage. Have we Presbyterians (especially) given up on preaching on
the Psalms? I'm a new-timer here and would like some response. Thanks,
B. in IL>
But
first, why does anything negative exist if there is God? It is not
just racism. I get real upset when people doubt God or believe that He
has created anything negative!! Read Genesis...and He said that it was
good. God has said, "Oops!" once, when Moses was on the mountain with
Him and Aaron made the golden calf. And even then, Moses talked him
out of destroying those unbelieving, ungrateful people! God hates the
wickedness of humankind but because of grace, we are still here. Jesus
is still praying for us, that we make the right choices. Blessings,
Toni
Let's not forget the "Oops" God uttered before the Flood came......he
was "sorry he had created" people because of their consistent and
utter sinfulness.
KyHoosierCat
When ever I see us become defensive, (and I admit I do it too.) when
someone has a question about the existence of God, I am concerned
about the outcome. Could that request have been from someone who is
going through a difficult time? I wonder why the question on this
page? Why this Scripture? Perhaps the Psalms are where we see the most
questions about God's existence, and why bad things are happening.
(88, etc) So to the person who asked the question, I know what racism
feels like. Not only racism, but sexism, ageism, etc. Yet God has been
the One I could always count on. I do believe we are the ones who make
the wrong choices, but are the ones who can face our own wrong
choices. And because of Christ, we can begin to make the right
choices.
Shalom, bammamma
B in Ill,
I haven't given up on preaching the Psalms, and I am Presbyterian. We
do tend to use them more as Calls to worship, and responsive readings,
but I think the Psalms are powerful passages to preach, especially in
a series, where you do one Thanksgiving, one lament, one Royal, etc.
and then address the various aspects of our Faith experience.
Susan in Wa.
Greetings Bammamma:
Again, we may be on the wrong forum, but this is where we are. I
believe that when I said "YES" to my call my call IS to defend God.
Not just defend, but teach who God is. Everytime I move, I want to
teach Genesis, I want to introduce people to the God who created them.
I want them to know their roots, their history. God created us to be
His people, still does. We are not able to counsel people here, to
find out what their problems are. I can and I always will glorify God
every chance I get. I want everyone to know that God is Love PERIOD
Because of His love He has given us choice and there is where the
problems have always been since Adam and Eve. (Would you be happy if
your children were puppets and you could control them?)Please don't
blame God, I know it breaks His heart to see how cruel His people are
to one another.
Thank you KyHoosierCat. I knew there was another "Oops" but just could
not pull it up! Blessings, Toni
Greetings Toni I honor your understanding of your call. I also honor
the understanding of my call, which is to be a blessing because of
what God does for me. And I will continue to love my neighbor as
myself, and if I had a doubt, I would want my neighbor to understand.
We respectfully disagree. God bless you in your ministry
Shalom
bammamma
B in Ill,
I'm not Presbyterian, but I am United Church of Canada...and that's
pretty close..it's in the blood. I have been guilty of ditching the
psalms but I'm coming back to them. One of the reason I think I have
left them out of the service in the past (apart from the fact that 4
scriptures on a Sunday is too much I think) is that the Psalms
especially seem to wash over people and not penetrate the way that a
story can.
Recently I have started trying to memorize the Psalm (or a portion of
it..some are too long) and let it really sink in to me over the week.
And that seems to help me to find ways to allow it to sink into people
in congregation. Last week I put together a power point presentation
with images accompanying the psalm. Not everyone can do that and you
can't do it every week, but I think it's worth doing something
different with the Psalm (different voices, music in the background)
to help the incredibly rich poetic language speak with some depth to
the people.
KBinAB
