The Psalms

The writers of the psalms express a wide range of feelings and experiences, from depression to joy. These experiences are based on particular circumstances in the days of the Psalmist, yet they are applicable to our daily lives today in the 21st century. The modern age is not unique--we feel the same emotions and are often confounded by the same kinds of issues and problems in life. Whether we cry out in need, or extend worship, it is to the same God today as in the days of the Psalmist.

The Psalms are a collection of Old Testament hymns grouped according to common themes, common purpose, or a common author. It is difficult for scholars to precisely date individual psalms, or to discover just how and when they were collected and compiled. We do know that Moses wrote one. Probably David is the most popular writer of the Psalms. The process continued into the days after the Hebrew exile. According to early manuscripts of the Psalms found at Qumran in Israel, it is believed that the whole collection of Psalms as we have them today must have been finalized sometime before the Maccabean period around the second century before Christ.

The late C.S. Lewis, noted author and scholar, commented on the Psalms as follows: “The Psalms are poems, and poems intended to be sung: not doctrinal treatises, nor even sermons ...They must be read as poems if they are to be understood ...otherwise we shall miss what is in them and think we see what is not.”

Of the 150 Psalms written, Pastor Art teaches from 30 and delivers pertinent and heartfelt messages that make it not only easy to identify with the Psalmists of old, but also to apply the principles of these scriptural hymns to living in the modern age.