It started with a comment in an email from a friend battling cancer. She testified to the way a line from Peterson’s The Message was strengthening her: ‘I’ve pitched my tent in the land of hope’. Isn’t that beautiful? I tracked it down. It is not in the Psalms itself – but in a quotation from the Psalms used in Acts 2.
Then it was the conversation between Eugene Peterson and Bono on the Psalms. Arriving through social media one morning, it couldn’t be more anti-social media. A slowness. A softness. A stillness. A sadness. A seriousness. It warranted multiple viewings and that is exactly what it has received.
In replenishing my copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, I soon realised that I had received two books for the price of one. Included in the single cover was his Prayerbook of the Bible in which Bonhoeffer ‘desired to retrieve the Psalms as the prayerbook of Jesus … like children learning to speak the language of their parents, the Psalms are God’s way of enabling people to speak in the language of Jesus’ (144-145). This sliver of a book has the makings of a sermon series in his classification of the Psalms: creation, law, the history of salvation, the Messiah, the church, life, suffering, guilt, enemies, and the end.
But the sermon series can wait, as I headed back to The Message myself. I decided to read through the Psalms, slowly and prayerfully, collecting phrases and verses for specific friends and putting them on bookmarks for them (with Barby, the laminator, to assist me).
This is not my first foray into the writings of Eugene Peterson, The Message, or the Psalms (and Bono, for that matter) – but here I want simply to gather my favourite phrases from this exercise (in no particular order):
nice chatting
Paul
About Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
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Hi Paul,
I too have been impacted by this wonder-full conversation between Eugene and Bono. So much to unpack, I plan to try this over the next 3 weeks in a sermon series ( 'The pastor, the poet and the psalms') with psalm 40 as the back drop. The clip breaks easily into three 7 minute clips. The three main characters play something of a Trinity in this conversation: the Father(Eugene) who inspires the word, the Son ( prodigal/ Bono) who speaks the word to the lost world and Mrs Jan ( the Spirit) who surprisingly almost becomes the hero for me in this beautiful interplay of hospitality ( cookies are ready/ Welcome to Flathed) and guide ("dont run!")and love.
Will see where it goes.
Stu C.
That is amazing, Stu – so creative and insightful as you discern the Trinity hovering in the conversation. 'Mrs Jan' certainly played her part!
Hope it goes really well
Paul