Psalms 65-67

Above:  Grass

Image in the Public Domain

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POST XXIV OF LX

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The Book of Common Prayer (1979) includes a plan for reading the Book of Psalms in morning and evening installments for 30 days.  I am therefore blogging through the Psalms in 60 posts.

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 226

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Te decet hymnus in Sion, Domine.

–The first line of Psalm 65 in Latin, quoted in the Requiem Mass

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In Judaism God is like what does and has done.  Thus we read periodic accounts of divine actions past and present (from the perspective of the authors) in the Hebrew Bible.  Psalms 65, 66, and 67 fit this theme well; God’s generosity and power are evident in nature, the life of the Hebrew nation, and individual lives.  The proper responses are gratitude and obedience to divine law.

One of my favorite aspects of Reformed theology is the concept of the Book of Nature, the understanding that the created order is one way to know God:

We know God by two means:

First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe,

since that universe is before our eyes is like a beautiful book

in which all creatures, great and small,

are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God:

God’s eternal power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.

All these things are enough to convict humans and to leave them without excuse.

Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly by his holy and divine Word,

as much as we need in this life, for God’s glory and for our salvation.

–The Belgic Confession (1561), Article 2 (2011 translation), quoted in Our Faith:  Ecumenical Creeds, Reformed Confessions, and Other Resources, Including the Doctrinal Standards of the Christian Reformed Church in North America and the Reformed Church in America (Grand Rapids, MI:  Faith Alive Christian Resources, 2013), pages 26 and 27

The concept of the Book of Nature is a helpful one, for, if one seeks to learn about the Creator, creation should be part of the curriculum.  One might think of “This is My Father’s World,” by the Reverend Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1858-1901), a Presbyterian minister who relished the created order and thereby came closer to God.

This is my Father’s world:

He shines in all that’s fair;

In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,

He speaks to me everywhere.

May we study the Book of Nature closely and be the best possible stewards of it.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

AUGUST 12, 2017 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF THADDEUS STEVENS, U.S. ABOLITIONIST, CONGRESSMAN, AND WITNESS FOR CIVIL RIGHTS

THE FEAST OF SARAH FLOWER ADAMS, ENGLISH UNITARIAN HYMN WRITER; AND HER SISTER, ELIZA FLOWER, ENGLISH UNITARIAN COMPOSER

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