Reading the Psalms through Four Lenses

One of the reasons I love the Psalms is that I am usually able to relate to some emotion expressed in these prayers/lyrics.  Someone else has been in a tough position--and their difficulties resolve by trusting in God.  Or, someone has remembered what God has done and they rejoice.  The Psalms greatly help connect me to the steadfast love of God, bring me into his presence and help change my attitude.

As bible students, we are aware that there is more going on in the Psalms than just something to make us feel better.  I find John Woodhouses' article "Reading the Psalms as Christian Scripture"  helpful, encouraging me to think more deeply about these prayers and lyrics.  Woodhouse proposes four related levels of meaning or lenses through which we may look in reading the Psalms:

1. Through the lens of our experience--recognizing words that directly express our own experience of difficulties in life and our faith in God. But we will often notice that there are at least parts of a psalm that we cannot directly make our own.  They do not really ‘fit’ us.
2. Through the lens of history: “Often this will mean understanding a Psalm as David’s words or words about David, or words related in some way to David’s Kingdom.  But we will notice again that there are ways in which the psalm does not really ‘fit’ even David.  He never ruled the world.
3. Through the lens of Jesus: “As we listen to the psalm we may consider how the psalm ‘fits’ Jesus.  How does the psalm illuminate the news that ‘Jesus is the Christ’? In what ways does Jesus fulfill the psalm? In what ways does this fulfillment surpass the David we hear in the Psalms?
4. Through the lens of being united with Christ: “I consider the wonder that I belong to the Christ.  By faith I am united to him.  This will mean that I identify, not first of all with the ‘I’ of the Psalms, but the people who benefit from the deliverance of the Christ.  I am among those who are blessed because they take refuge in him.  

• In a secondary and derivative sense we may then find that we join in the words of the Christ.  Just as we know that the one who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies (Rom. 8:11), so we find that we join in his words of trust in God, his words of longing for deliverance, his prayers for the overthrow of the enemies of the Lord and of his Christ, his joy in God’s salvation.  For his deliverance is our deliverance.

 (pp. 56-57, Stirred By a Noble Theme, Andrew Shead, ed.)