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It is probably best to break the reading from Ephesians into two pieces: 1:11-14 and 1:15-23.  Verses 11-14 are the second half of a single Greek sentence (the longest in the New Testament!) that begins (...)

This is the tenth psalm lection on which I’ve commented for this website that contains only part of the canonical psalm in question. There will always be people in the pews wondering why we’re leaving (...)

Type “Psalm 46” in the Working Preacher search box and you’ll discover that there are 11 other scholars whose commentaries on this psalm have been posted (or re-posted) a total of 19 times! We are (...)

In Psalm 82, the poetic imagination of the Psalmist conjures a mythic heavenly court.1 This court is different from typical pictures of the radical monotheism of Israel. The one true God is now surrounded by (...)

Psalm 121 will be familiar to many readers and worshipers. It begins with a question familiar to many: From where will my help come as I look to the surrounding hills? The identification of the (...)

From its opening lines, Psalm 37 closely resembles the didactic tone of the book of Proverbs.1 For example, Proverbs 23:17 counsels, “Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always continue in the fear of the (...)

Psalm 1 is a wisdom psalm that serves as the preface to the psalter, sharing literary and theological relationship with the Torah.1 Torah—the first five books of the Hebrew Bible—is traditionally translated as the “law” (...)

As Brueggemann and Bellinger say about Psalm 49, “The psalm is particularly important and surely pertinent in a contemporary society that is ‘rich in things and poor in soul.’”1 As they suggest, Psalm 49 has (...)

The first seven verses of Psalm 25 are, at the broadest level, a prayer for help. The psalmist calls upon God for relief from some sort of trouble involving unspecified “enemies” (verse 2). As such, (...)

Psalm 47 played a major role in the interpretation of the Psalms in the 20th century. It was the centerpiece of Sigmund Mowinckel’s claim that the enthronement of God was enacted liturgically in ancient Israel/Judah (...)