The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential

by N. T. Wright

Hardcover, 2013

Status

Available

Description

Wright points out that the Psalms have served as the central prayer and hymnbook for the church since its beginning--until now. In The Case for the Psalms, Wright calls us to return to the Psalms as a steady, vital component of healthy Christian living. Reading, studying, and praying the Psalms is God's means for teaching us what it means to be human: how to express our emotions and yearnings, how to reconcile our anger and our compassion, how to see our story in light of God's sweeping narrative of salvation. Wright provides the tools for understanding and incorporating these crucial verses into our own lives. His conclusion is simple: all Christians need to read, pray, sing, and live the Psalms.--Publisher's description.

User reviews

LibraryThing member MarthaJeanne
Many years ago I was sitting high up on a mountain with a Roman Catholic nun, and she began to quote from the Psalms. She said then that something was missing if I didn't know the Psalms well enough to quote from them when an occasion like that came.

Later I was on a tour of the Jewish temple in
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Geneva, and stopped to admire an attractive book. It turns out that it was a book of the Psalms. Our guide talked about the book for a moment and the Psalms, and told me I was missing something if I didn't pray them in Hebrew.

Now N. T. Wright, calls me back to the Psalms, reminding me that I need them in English, in German and in Hebrew. (It's not going to be Hebrew this year. I'm working on Greek.) But the amazing thing is that whatever language or translation I read the Psalms in, they feel like old friends and so familiar, but always fresh.

This book is very worth reading, but even more important is reading the Psalms. Wright would agree with that. On the other hand if you are strongly against praying the Psalms regularly, you probably should avoid this book. You might find yourself going against your principles.
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LibraryThing member Neftzger
This is a short but meaningful book that discusses the importance of the psalms for Christians. The author explains how the psalms add to the richness of spiritual life by showing us how to relate to God, especially when these works of poetry are viewed within context of one another. Too often only
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portions of psalms are used in personal reading or worship. The author makes a great case for viewing these works collectively as one unit and describing how these pieces were designed to transform and enrich the reader.
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LibraryThing member kijabi1
NT Wright urges the church to stop neglecting Jesus' prayer book. The Psalms contain unique poetry expressing the biblical faith in God as Creator, Redeemer, Judge, Lover, Friend, Adversary. . The Psalms go right to the depths of the human emotions. They explore what the great promises of God mean
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and what we do when those promises do not seem to be coming true. They contain the worldview that is to shape us as people of God. The Psalms force us to look at the evil around us by saying "Evil is real, and some people are so wicked that we simply must wish judgment upon them.
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LibraryThing member hardlyhardy
N.T. Wright may be a New Testament scholar, but he makes it a point to read five Psalms a day because he believes the Psalms belong at the center of Christian worship and Christian thought. He makes his point in “The Case for the Psalms” (2013), and anyone who reads it will likely be swayed
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toward that same opinion.

We may assume the Psalms to be a random assortment of Hebrew poetry not unlike an anthology of notable American poetry or British poetry. Having read all 150 of them so many times, Wright thinks differently. He views them as deliberately ordered with common themes running through them.

The themes he focuses on in his book are time, space and matter, and he writes about how God connects with mankind through each.

About time, for example, Wright says, "This is what poetry and music themselves are there to do: to link the present to the past, to say, 'Remember,' to say, 'Blessed be God,' even when the tide is running strongly in the wrong direction."

As for space, Wright traces in the Psalms the Hebrews' evolving understanding of where God dwells, from a holy place, to the Temple, to all mankind, the soul of each human being.

"Matter matters," the author tells us. The Psalms celebrate not just God but God's whole creation.

Wrights quotes at length from many of the Psalms, and in the most personal chapter of his book describes how particular Psalms have spoken to him in significant ways through his life.
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ISBN

0062230506 / 9780062230508
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