How do you preach the Psalms?

This is a question that my friend Steve Kneale shared on his blog recently.  My answer was as follows:

“ I have actually preached all the way through but during COVID when we were doing something daily. I think there is a lot to be said for helping people see the Psalms fitting together as a book. So options might be 1. Just go for it over 18 months noting some churches spend that long in bigger books! 2. Divide it into mini series around the books within Psalms and intersperse with other series. 3. Preach the “book amends” and show how they shape the sections 4. Preach thematically through showing how a few Psalms pick up the theme 4. Take a specific section such as Psalms of Assent 5. Preach on one in seven Psalms and then ask the church to use study notes you prepare to work through the other six individually in the week. Get them to feedback at community group.”

I thought it might be helpful to share out a little bit more of my rationale here.  Why would I encourage you to try and teach either sequentially through the Psalms or in a way that recognises a potential sequential order?  The answer is that I think we tend to treat Psalms on their own as individual songs and of course, they work like that.  However, they are much more than that.  This became clear to me as I worked through a Psalm each day. You begin to see how the Psalms link together and how each section is carefully structured with a beginning and conclusion.  Careful editing has gone into assembling the book and this is as much a prt of inspiration as the actual writing down of each individual poem.

So, as far as possible, I want to help people see how to read and be blessed by the whole book, to read each Psalm in its context and to see how the book de velops. 

A few people in the comments talked about taking a break from normal series and picking up on a few Psalms during the holiday season.  Now, I don’t see any harm in doing this from time to time but I would encourage care and caution.  You risk giving the impression that the Psalms are second class Scripture when they are central to Scripture, that they are lightweight when they are meaty and that they are there as the easy backup plan when in fact they take as much toil and preparation for the faithful preacher as Romans 8-11.

My plea would be that you don’t hide the Psalms away in your summer holiday series but instead bring them front and centre as one of your main teaching series.