CCC 27-3

INNOVATIVE THOUGHT & PRACTICE

THE BOOK OF PSALMS: A Mirror of Our Soul

Tremper Longman, Ph.D.

18 Christian Counseling Connection i I think it is a fair guess that the book of Psalms is one of the most, if not the most, read and beloved parts of the Old Testament by Christians today. The book contains 150 poems that were sung in worship. The his torical titles (see Psalms 3 and 51 for examples) suggest that those who composed the Psalms wrote from

their life experiences and sense of the presence or absence of God. Even so, the psalmists did not refer to the specifics of their personal experi ence. In Psalm 51, for instance, the psalmist asks God to have mercy on him because of his sins and guilt, but not specifically the sin of adultery as mentioned in the title, which alludes to David’s relationship with Bathsheba as detailed in 2 Samuel 11-12. David wrote the psalm not to memorialize his individual experience but in a way that allows this psalm to become a template for other people to use to turn to God and confess their sins.