Day 255: Psalms 9–11 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by Arma. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebaldapartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (upbeat music) Bible Department family, welcome to day 255. We are in Psalms nine through 11 today. And like every day, I'm gonna start off with some context clues. I'm gonna dive into some nerdy nuggets. Always gonna leave you with a timeless truth because come on, we're not just studying history. We're not archeologists. We are creating theology and biblical ideas for the church for today for how you need to live with God today. So if you haven't done the reading for the day, go ahead, stop the video, pause the audio and get the reading done. Three short Psalms for you. Well, Psalm nine is a little on the longer end, but hey, ain't nobody mad about a Psalm being a little longer than normal. Okay, so three Psalms today, if you've done the reading, let's dive in. All right, really, the context that I'm gonna give today can be applied to the entire book of Psalms, but it really needs to be applied to Psalm 11.

Okay? So I know we're kind of gonna skip past Psalm nine and 10. We'll have some nerdy nuggets for those Psalms. However, Psalm 11, a massive theme for Psalm 11. If you go to Psalm 11, verse four says this, "The Lord is in his holy temple. "The Lord's throne is in heaven. "His eyes behold, his gaze examines humankind." So this is Hebrew parallelism. We've talked about that before. "The Lord is in his holy temple." Okay, so the Lord is in Jerusalem. The Lord is in his temple. And then the next line says, "The Lord's throne is in heaven." Which means that the temple is this space of overlap. Just like the Garden of Eden is almost like a portal, right? So let's take the line, the witch and the wardrobe. Okay, the classic C.S. Lewis book. "The wardrobe occupies two spaces at the same time. "The wardrobe is both in Narnia and on earth." Okay, in the same way the Garden of Eden, if you look at a Venn diagram, is the overlapping of heaven and earth. And biblically, we believe that the temple, well, prior to the temple, the tabernacle, and then the temple is actually the place where heaven meets earth. So the temple, or the holy of holies, where the Ark of the Covenant dwells,

represents this space where God who's in heaven is occupying our space and our time here on earth through a portal that we know as the temple. So the same way that the wardrobe in the line, the witch and the wardrobe is a portal that connects two realms. The realm of earth and the realm of Narnia. Man, the Garden of Eden and the tabernacle and the temple have the same function. So we are gonna begin to realize a theme throughout all of the Psalms that David is the person who's this hinge point in the history of the Bible, okay? Things before David on what we call the tabernacle. And then after David, it's gonna be known as the temple. So what is the difference between the tabernacle and the temple? Well, a, you know, I got a friend right now who started a church a couple years ago. His name's Pastor Brian Bullitt, and they've been meeting in high schools all around the Charlotte area. And every single Sunday morning, his team gets to a high school at like five o'clock in the morning, they unload a box truck, and they turn a high school into a church, okay? So they use the auditorium and they use pipe and drape and they use, you know, all kinds of flags out in the, in the parking lot. And they are in a set up tear down season of their church.

There's a whole team of volunteers that get to the church hours before congregants get there to set up and then they stay hours after church is done to tear down. So the tabernacle is a tent. It's moving around the wilderness and the Levites, their job, okay? If you felt called the full-time ministry, when the tabernacle was in function, guess what you felt called to? truth, but we'll get into that later. That the Levites are carrying a tabernacle all throughout the wilderness. David represents a hinge point. David says these classic words, "How am I living in a house but God is living in a tent? No way my house can be more permanent than God's house. I want to build God a house." And God says, "Well, I'll let you buy the land, but your son Solomon is actually going to build me a house." And so the temple is built. And guess what? I'm believing with my friend Brian that soon and very soon they're going to buy property. They're going to build a building. His volunteers aren't going to have to get to church two hours early to set up and tear down. And they're going to go from a tabernacle season into a temple season. They're going to go from setting up and tearing it down every Sunday to having a permanent location to having a building. They're going to put a stake in the ground in Charlotte. And they're going to build a building, okay? So David represents this hinge point where the people of God go from worshiping at the tabernacle, bringing their sacrifices to the tabernacle. And the tabernacle is moving around to building a permanent building known as the temple. So people use the words tabernacle and temple interchangeably because it's the same design, it's the same blueprint, it's the same layout. Only one is a tent and the other is a building, okay? One is temporary, one is permanent. One can be moved around, one is fixed and everyone has to come to it. Now the backdrop or the background. So because David is responsible for so many of the Psalms, you're going to see this massive emphasis in the Psalms of Yahweh dwelling in his temple. The Psalms are pro-David and pro-temple. Big on David, big on the temple, okay? Here's a bit of just backstory. When David decides, hey, we need to go from a tabernacle to a temple, that then means that the Levites, the tribe that God had set apart for himself

to work in the tabernacle, were kind of out of a job because their whole job is to carry this tent around to all the locations. So all of the tribes can make sacrifices. They would take the tent to all of the tribes of Israel so that everybody could experience the presence of God. Once David says, yeah, we're going to make a temple. These people who just carried a tent are kind of, they don't have anything to do. So here's what David does and you can see this in first Chronicles chapter 24 and first Chronicles chapter 25. David trains them all on how to sing songs and play instruments. I love this. I'm actually going to take you to first Chronicles chapter 25. We see this transition happen. People that were formally responsible for carrying a tent around to all of the tribes are now responsible for singing songs to the Lord. It says this in first Chronicles chapter 25 verse 7. They and their kindred who were trained in singing to the Lord, all of whom were skillful number 288. They were cast lots for their duties, small and great teacher and pupil alike. And chapter 25 starts with David and the office of the of the army also set apart for the service, the sons of Asaph. So Asaph is going to write a bunch of the Psalms, sons of Asaph and He-Man and of Jeddathim who should prophesy with liars, that's an instrument, harps and symbols. The list of those who did the work and their duties was, and then there's a genealogy or a list of names. So we're going to get in first Chronicles this hinge point where people who were designated to set up and tear down are now going to be tasked to sing to the Lord. And I love this. This is also a timeless truth, who were trained in singing to the Lord, all of whom were skillful. So for all the people who are like, why do we have to have auditions for the worship team? You don't understand that in order to sing to the Lord, you have to be trained in order to sing to God. You have to be skillful, trained and skillful. The same way that we would not put on the altar of We're not gonna sing off key to the God of excellence to a God who's above average. We're gonna be excellent. We're gonna be skilled. We're gonna be trained in singing to that God. Family, the weight is over. My brand new book, "Crushing Chaos," is out now and available everywhere books are sold.

Literally, today, I walked into a Barnes & Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So, you can grab this book at a physical Barnes & Noble or you can go to a book's a million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy if you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective. If you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is gonna be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. So, literally, and I'm gonna read this the way that I have it in my notes, this is so cool. I think this is context for the entire book of Psalms that David basically invented the way we now express our worship to God and the Psalms are a part of that origin story. So, think about this. Prior to David, worship meant carrying a tent around the wilderness and putting an animal sacrifice on an altar and letting that enlighten the fire and burning that up to the Lord. That was worship. Abraham said, we're gonna go worship

and we're gonna come back. And he didn't mean we're gonna go sing on the top of the mountain. He meant I'm gonna sacrifice my son Isaac on the top of the mountain and then we're gonna come back. So, prior to David, worship means animal sacrifice. But David begins to say, I think God wants songs. I think God wants us to play instruments. I think God wants us to express our adoration and our gratitude and our praise and our thanksgiving. And guess what? David was on to something, man, because what David does in 1,000 BC has lasted for 3,000 years. God's people for the last 3,000 years have been singing hymns and songs and playing instruments and there's something magical and mysterious and powerful about the corporate body of Christ, singing to God our praise and our adoration and our thanks and there's nothing quite like corporate worship. I don't know if anybody was, you couldn't worship corporately during COVID. And I remember that first time I'd actually flown to Brazil in the middle of COVID and I was in the middle of a worship service. And the guy that I was with was just crying, just weeping. And I was like, you okay? He said, yeah, man, I didn't realize that like online works like streaming just didn't scratch that itch, man.

There's nothing like being in a sanctuary with God's people as God's people lift up the name of the Lord. And so if you wanna get a big 30,000 foot context for what's going on in the Psalms, well, we're actually looking at the nature of worship, transform and change. Now, sacrifice and service to the Lord, carrying a tent around that service and sacrifice is putting an altar, putting an animal on the altar, service and sacrifice are not incorrect ways to worship God. They're just incomplete ways to worship God, okay? So now David adds singing. So I want everyone to remember these three S's. When we think about worship, worship is service to the Lord. Worship is sacrifice to the Lord and worship is singing to the Lord. That's what worship is. And David, God says, ah, this guy, he's got a heart after my heart. And up until this point, worship included service to the Lord, worship included sacrifice to the Lord, but worship did not include singing praise to the Lord. And I think that singing praise to the Lord is powerful. We got 3,000 years of just history of God's people saying, man, it's something about singing to the Lord that has changed my heart, that's changed my life, that's changed my spiritual journey. And let me also say this, if you sing to God, but you don't serve and you don't sacrifice,

then your worship isn't incorrect, but it is incomplete. When we begin to say, I'll carry a tent, okay? I'll serve, I'll do something to serve God. And then I'm gonna sacrifice, man. I'll sacrifice how I feel. I'll sacrifice, I'll tithe. I'll give in the offering. I wanna sacrifice. And then, man, I want to sing. I think those three S's kind of complete, give us a complete picture of what worship is. And that right there is a massive context for the Psalms in general. First Chronicles chapter 24 and 25, give us the historical backdrop of this hinge point in history where David begins to institute choirs in liturgical singing. He begins to institute instrumentation. He begins to institute musical directors that this king, this leader, actually begins to fill a system with a spirit by singing and with song. And I think that's beautiful, I think that's incredible. The pastor that I grew up with, Bishop Thompson, used to always say, hey, the senior pastor is the worship leader. Don't you ever think that you can hire somebody to be the worship leader? It doesn't matter who's on stage holding the microphone

singing if you're the pastor, you're the worship leader. And I can tell you from just my own personal history, there was a culture of worship in the youth ministry that I led because I decided I'm gonna be the worship leader. I'm not good at singing, I don't play an instrument, but I understand how to please the Lord through worship and in a posture of worship. And I began to help the worship team offer worship to the Lord. So if you're a leader out there, I don't care if you're saying you're the worship leader, that people are looking at you on a Sunday, they're looking to see, do you lift up your hands? Or are you on the Slack chat? Are you so busy coordinating details that you're not actually in tune with worship? I wanna challenge you, you gotta get an admin, you gotta get an executive pastor who can do that stuff because you worshiping is actually you leading by example. If you're the pastor and David is a picture for us of a shepherd, shepherds are worship leaders, whether they sing or play instruments or not. Okay, let's get to some nerdy nuggets. I got one big nerdy nugget for you. When you look at the title for Psalm nine versus the title for Psalm 11, we're gonna see some nuanced differences, okay? Really, really, really small details, but that's the whole point of this podcast is to show you some small details.

Psalm nine, we're gonna get a title, it's gonna say this, to the leader according to Moth Latin, okay? So we talked about this yesterday on the podcast that there are tunes or melodies that are clearly popular in the time period where these Psalms are written that we just don't know, okay? So to the leader, according to Moth Laban, and I gave you this example yesterday, I know if you haven't been at a birthday party, and you decided, let's sing happy birthday. And before everybody sings, it's like, hey, hey, which version, before we sing happy birthday, are we singing the Stevie Wonder version, or are we gonna sing the normal version? You know what I'm saying? Which version of happy birthday we singing? So these little titles at the beginning of the Psalm, tell us what is the tune? What is the melody that we're singing? And we don't know what Moth Laban means today, but Moth Laban must have meant something to the person who edited Psalm nine. It says a Psalm of David. Now, when you go to Psalm 11, okay? It's not gonna say a Psalm of David, it's just gonna say of David. Which means that a Psalm of David are probably Psalms that are written by David himself. He penned the Psalm, whereas of David, most scholars believe that that means

in the style of David. So it's written by somebody else, but that person is tapping in to a style that David has established. So they are writing and singing in the style of David. This is gonna be relevant when we get to songs of Solomon, because I'm going to argue, slash suggest, that songs of Solomon was not written by Solomon. It's written in the style of Solomon. And the reason, the big reason I'm gonna contend that it's not written by Solomon, it's 'cause he's not eligible to write love poetry because my man's got hundreds of wives and a thousand concubines. So I don't know that Solomon is gonna be someone who we want writing poetry, know, covenant, okay? But song of Solomon means that these are written in the style of Solomon, okay? Now, there's a whole bunch of other reasons why Son of Solomon is probably not written by Solomon, and we'll get into that when we get into songs of Solomon. So when this says of David, this does not mean that it's written by David, but it means that it's written in the style of David, and I think that's a nerdy nugget that's important for us. All right. Time was truth. I kind of stole my thunder on the time was truth, but I want to point out these words skilled, skillful, and trained, skillful, and trained. And I think there's this kind of, I would say it's a jaded perspective, you know, that look at, you know, church is all about the production, and do we need to spend all this money on all the lighting, you know, these people who don't want to tie, then they don't really like church and they just kind of got negative stuff to say.

And I would say, I don't know, man, when I look at the temple, when I look at the tabernacle, looks pretty skillful, looks like people are trained, looks excellent to me. It looks like when I look at the Old Testament, I'm looking at people who are using gold, using jewelry, using gemstones to build God a house. So I don't know, I would say I don't know that you're theologically correct more than you're probably hurt by church. And the question that I would ask is like, who hurt you, like, because until you get over your offense and your hurt, you're probably going to have a really, really jaded perspective around the lights and the LED screens and the harmonies and how excellent things are. And when people typically leave church, they end up saying things like, you know, they never let me on the worship team and it's like, well, maybe you weren't skillful. Maybe you weren't trained in order to be on the worship team here in first chronicles 24 and 25, you had to be skillful and you had to be trained. And I actually think that's a timeless truth. I also think that a timeless truth for us is that three part that no pun intended, that three part harmony of what worship is, which is service, sacrifice, and singing. I think that's a timeless truth. I don't think that's just true for David or for Psalm 9, 10, 11, but I think that's true for the church today. And I hope that that encourages you and I hope that if you're a leader, I hope that this gives you some helpful language to maybe even shepherd your people towards not being offended by church and not being hurt by church. But to begin to help people understand that if we're committed to being Bible people, that the Bible says that we should be skilled and we should be trained. I love you guys so much. Hey, I'll see you tomorrow for day 256. We got a couple more Psalms that we're going to dive into tomorrow. We got Psalms 12, 13, and 14. If you're on a streak, Dr. Manning, super, super proud of you. If you're not on a streak, what you doing with your life?

Come on, let's get on a streak. I'm so proud of you. I love you guys. I'm glad that we get to spend so much time together every day. You can talk about 255 days down is no small feat. Let's keep going. We got like a hundred and something days to go before the end of the year. I pray that God is speaking to you this year in a way that he hasn't spoken to you in the past because you've decided to dive into the scriptures in a brand new way. Love you. See you right here tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend, and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebibledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow. (keyboard clicking) [BLANK_AUDIO]