Leading Question: What role do stories about the past play in equipping people to navigate life with

all its twists and turns?

Scripture Focus: Psalm 78, Psalm 105

The Big Idea: Knowing where we come from is an important part of knowing who we are. Many of the psalms contain recitations of the long history of the people with God, and these recitations then form the foundation for discernment in the people’s continued journey with God.

For Discussion:

In our ongoing quest to make sense of life’s big questions and situate ourselves within some kind of larger narrative, the ways we remember and recount ...

Leading Question: Covenant relationship is a thread that winds throughout the biblical literature, conceptualized in a variety of ways. What does it mean to say humans are in covenant relationship with God?

Scripture Focus: Psalm 89, 2 Samuel 7, Psalm 23, John 10:11-15, Psalm 22, Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 7:20-28

The Big Idea: Covenant is renegotiated and reimagined many times in the biblical narrative, the constant being that God initiates and sustains relationship with humans.

For Discussion:

Psalm 89 begins with the phrase, “I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever.” God’s covenant love (ḥesed) is then expounded on by telling the story ...

Leading Question: What is wisdom?

Scripture Focus: Deuteronomy 28, Psalm 128, Psalm 90, Psalm 137 and 138

The Big Idea: It is usually books like Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes that are described as “wisdom literature.” But the Psalms also include collected wisdom and even the way the songs and poems are organized invites us as readers into a journey of discernment.

For Discussion:

William Brown describes the book of Psalms as a hymnbook, a prayer book, and a textbook, and argues that the wisdom psalms reveal “points of dialogical contact between Psalms and the wisdom corpus, snapshots of a larger dialogue over what ...

Leading Question: When do we as humans need God’s mercy?

Scripture Focus: Psalm 57:9, 10, Psalm 136, Psalm 51

The Big Idea: The covenant loyalty of God is a theme that runs throughout the Bible, and God invites his people to not only see how his covenant love continues forever as the bedrock of existence but also how the invitation remains for humans to partner with God and embody covenant love.

For Discussion:

Discussion question: Psalm 51 is a well-known poem, memorized by many, some of its lines being used a lyrics in modern songs. What is your most vivid memory of this ...

Leading Question: What does it mean when God stands up?

Scripture Focus: Psalm 12:5, Psalm 18, Deuteronomy 15:7-11, Psalm 96, Psalm 99

The Big Idea: The writers of the Psalms understood God as a divine being who intervenes in the

human realm, standing up for justice and righteousness and advocating for the oppressed.

For Discussion:

Along with the metaphor of God as king, discussed earlier in the quarter, the Psalms also depict God as a mighty warrior and a just judge. Psalm 18 is filled with vivid imagery. The most famous metaphor in Psalm 18 is probably “God is my rock.” But the poet ...

Leading Question: Have you ever had something asked of you that felt like an insult, a

misunderstanding of who you are and what matters most to you? What was this like for you?

Scripture Focus: Psalm 137, Psalm 22, Psalm 73

The Big Idea: Exile is a thread that runs throughout the biblical text. Exile is event, and exile is a metaphor for the human condition.

For Discussion:

How people understood God’s presence and what they believed about how to access it changed significantly over the centuries in which the biblical literature was written and edited. In Exodus 25:8, the Lord says to Moses, ...

Leading Question: What is it like to be truly and deeply heard?

Scripture Focus: Psalm 34, Exodus 2:23-25, Exodus 3:7-8, Psalm 17:8, Psalm 44, Psalm 80

The Big Idea: Throughout the Bible, God is described in anthropomorphic terms. God has ears that hear and eyes that see and a brain that knows and hands that act. These depictions of God in terms of human body parts and actions are used to show God’s deliverance and also the pain of not experiencing expected deliverance.

For Discussion:

In Psalm 34, God hears the cry of the righteous and delivers them. This progression harkens back to ...

Leading Question: In the Bible, God is depicted in a variety of ways, with imagery from kingship, priesthood, motherhood, and many more arenas. What messages about God and God’s relationship with humanity are communicated by the metaphor “God is king”?

Scripture Focus: Psalm 93, Psalm 8

The Big Idea: The Bible is replete with metaphors for God and how God engages with humans and the earth. Recognizing that each metaphor is both significant and partial allows us to mine the depths of that metaphor without emphasizing its messages so much that it eclipses other depictions of God in the Bible.

For Discussion:

Order ...

Leading Question: What messages have you received over the course of your life about what prayer

is? How did you learn how to pray?

Scripture Focus: Psalm 23, Daniel 2:20-23, Psalm 44, Psalm 22, Psalm 60

The Big Idea: Prayer is both automatic and also a skill we can learn and cultivate. The Psalms allow us to glimpse many facets of people’s journeys with God and each other, and praying the psalms can serve as a kind of apprenticeship in prayer.

For Discussion:

Most of the Psalms mentioned in this lesson are lament psalms. Before we examine this kind of poem in more detail, ...

Leading Question: Robert Alter, in his book The Art of Biblical Poetry, argues that “poetry is not just a set of techniques for saying impressively what could be said otherwise. Rather, it is a particular way of imagining the world” (p. 151). What poem, or line from a poem, does this for you? Capturing your imagination, giving you a way to see God, yourself, others, or the world around you?

Scripture Focus: Psalm 25, Psalm 33, Psalm 121

The Big Idea: Knowing some basics about biblical poetry can enrich our engagement with scripture and deepen our connection to people now and ...