The Psalms are the spiritual treasure chest of the Bible. They contain a wide variety of subjects and a rich supply of truth for nourishing the soul. This is why Martin Luther said, “It might well be called a little Bible, wherein everything contained in the entire Bible is beautifully and briefly comprehended, and compacted into a fine enchiridion or handbook.”1 called the Psalms a little Bible within the Bible. There is a Psalm for every season of life. They are absolutely indispensable to a well-rounded understanding of the gospel and how to live the Christian life.
This article will focus on one aspect of the Psalms, that is, their primary purpose. The Psalms are certainly intended to aid the church of Christ in public and private worship (1 Chronicles 15:16-22), but it seems that their overall purpose is to direct the believer to a life consecrated to worshiping the one true God. The word worship is often limited to a public or private activity that is engaged in for a set time. That understanding is warranted (Psalm 122:1), but the reality is that general worship includes all the lawful activities of life (1 Cor. 10:31).
The Psalms give the believer a method and model for living a life of worship.
The method found in the Psalms is biblical meditation (i.e., deeply contemplating or thinking about something, Luke 2:19 and Psalm 119:11). The Psalms teach that daily meditation on the word and works of God is the biblical method for living a life of worship in constant communion with God. Meditation on the written word of God is a major focus of the book (Psalm 1; 119). This is also true regarding the major works of God, i.e., creation (Psalm 19), redemption (Psalm 103), and providence (Psalm 104; 8). These are the subjects that the Psalms always have in view as they relate to the circumstances of the church, world, or individual.
How a book begins and ends will often tell you a lot about that book. Both of these aspects of meditation are evident from how the book begins in Psalm 1:1-3. The blessedness of the believer is not found merely in what they refrain from, but, primarily, in what they engage in, namely, meditation. The actions of verse 1 are the natural consequence that flows from the actions of verse 2. Why is this the case? This is the case because, as believers biblically meditate on the truth, their minds are stimulated, and their hearts are stirred to greater depths of communion with God. That results in a consecrated life, i.e., a life of worship. The Psalms begin with meditation and end with praise in light of meditation (Psalm 150).
The Psalms not only furnish the believer with the method but also provide a primary model for this life of worship.
David serves as an example of a believer in Christ and as a type of Christ. Although there are Psalms that are not written by David (i.e. Psalms 73, 77, 90, etc.), it is clear that David is the primary author and was known as, “the sweet psalmist of Israel” 2 Samuel 23:1. David is explicitly named the author of seventy-three psalms and wrote others that do not bear his name (Psalm 2 cf. Acts 4:25; Psalm 95 cf, Hebrews 4:7).
The reader of the Psalms will find David engaging in worship in a wide variety of contexts and circumstances. This reveals the constancy of meditation in David’s life.
For example, David is found worshiping God privately (Psalm 63:6), publicly (Psalm 22:22), when preparing to sleep (Psalm 4:8), when his heart is overwhelmed (Psalm 61:2; 62:8), when he is facing bodily afflictions (Psalm 6:1-7), when he is full of joy (Psalm 95:1-6), when he is depressed (Psalm 42), when he feels forsaken (Psalm 22:1), when he is at war (Psalm 64), when he is fleeing from his enemies (Psalm 3; 57), when he is conquering his enemies (Psalm 18), when he is prospering in the palace (Psalm 30), when he is repenting of his sin (Psalm 51), when he is rejoicing over his salvation (Psalm 32), and when he is lamenting over the works of the wicked (Psalm 10).
Although David is an example of a believer in all seasons of life, he is pre-eminently a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many explicit examples regarding David as a type of Christ (i.e. Psalm 16:11 cf. Acts 2:25-28), but David by his very name is a type of Christ (Jeremiah 30:9). All the Psalms, in that sense, have a typical element to them. It is not always easy to discern how a particular Psalm relates to Christ, but that difficulty does not invalidate the relation. Christ is ultimately the “sweet psalmist of Israel”, for He is the true “man after God’s own heart”, whose very life consisted in and revolved around doing the will of the Father (John 4:34).
Every believer is called to a life of worship but fails to maintain that constant state of sinless worship. Christ never failed to worship the Father properly at any point in His life. That is astounding when you consider the breadth of circumstances included in His life.
Above all, the Psalms point us to Christ. By prophecy, yes, but by seeing Him as the greater than David, the true author of the Psalms (Colossians 3:16) and the one whose life of sinless perfection is the believer’s righteousness (Psalm 32:1-2). Let every believer strive to be like the Savior while they endeavor to live a life of worship. Always remembering that their failure to do so is the very reason they need Him as their Redeemer.
- Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 35, Word and Sacrament I, ed. E. Theodore Bachmann, trans. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960), 254. ↩︎