Psalm 42

Psalm 46:5 reads "God is within her, she will not fall."   My whole life I was taught the ways of Christ and living a daily life by following and sharing his word. My parents always taught me to put others before myself. My heart is so full and kind and I wish to see everyone around me happy and full of smiles.

Psalm 105:4 NASB “Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.” When I began college, I peered over all my classes. I knew then, one day I would be taking a class that would involve groups and the thought of it scared me to death until I talked to a friend who had already been through groups in her classwork. It eased my fears somewhat but not totally.

Reply to Auten Drawing from the text, the focus of a good shepherd is being for his flock, protection, guidance, well-being, and leadership. And the essence of the bad shepherd’s leaders as exposes in Ezekiel 34: 1-6 of Israel’s, droughts out in ‘vivid’ when leaders do not take their responsibility or fail to care for their sheep’s. According to this passage, these leaders were only for their own gain slaughtering their own sheep’s instead of feeding them, they treated them with much force.

When reading a story, the news, or even the bible, it is very easy to start asking the question of what does this reading mean to me? The answer we give to that question, or many other questions similar to this one, is a reader’s response type question. These questions are aimed to dig deeper into the understanding and thought process of a text. We see questions similar, and a like these at the end of a huge essay on the ACT, or on a reading test that we barely skimmed through.

“The Twenty-Third Psalm” is a very ancient poem that was translated into English. The predominant metaphor is that of a shepherd and his sheep. The poem is meant to give comfort to people. It shows that God looks after people, like a shepherd looks after his sheep. It is often recited at funerals to give solace to grieving folk. I feel a lot of hope when I read this poem. I have a heavenly father who cares about me and this poem reminds me of that. When I face severe challenges and it seems no one cares about me. It is good to know that I am loved and that I am not alone.

6.1 Basic Profile of Witnesses Cited
As stated in chapter 1.2, this chapter will empirically demonstrate the validity of the the identification of variant scribal practices and the utility of the proposed schema for explaining the variation found among Qumran “biblical” witnesses with three case studies from the psalms. Based on the ranking system described in chapter 4, the following is a basic profile of the witnesses cited for use in the case studies.1 Note that each witness is given with its corresponding ranking between parentheses ( ). “Translator” witnesses:
11QPsalmsc (0.53), 11QPsalmsb (0.62), and 11QPsalmsa (1.00) 11QPsalmsc and 11QPsalmsb are “biblical” mss written in prose format and dated to the first half of the first century

It is important to begin our educational journey of Matthew chapter 12 with a quick historical background. Matthew, a Jew, who was a Roman tax collector, writes the book of Matthew. His job required him to be fluent in Greek and Aramaic. In this book, he is speaking to the Jews, and looking to validate Jesus the Messiah through comparison to the Old Testament prophecies. Those who have studied the bible more intensely believe that the book was written before the fall of Jerusalem.

Not only did psalm 42 stand out immediately to me for its literary elements within the first verse, but for its poetic style and language as well. This psalm is a lyrical one with plenty of emotion and literary figures. The latter ranges from similes to parallelism and everything in-between, all accumulating to form the psalm’s meaning.

The speaker is longing for relief from this state of isolation, he desires human connection. The disparity of this longing is further typified in request for the Almighty mercy. The turn towards a higher power and asking for God’s mercy as remedy for isolation could be interpreted as the bargaining stage of “Five Steps of Grieving”. When the pain becomes too unbearable for the human condition the individual turns to bargaining with a higher power in a quest for

The dialogue for this message began with selecting the text. The first two had been straight-up lectionary Gospel sermons, but I felt it was important to stretch out of my comfort zone, especially for an Advent sermon. I think it is easy for someone in the pews to coast through the Advent season staring at the Christmas trees, listening to the handballs, and let the word of God take a backseat to the aura of Christmas cheer. Our job as preachers in these moments is to disrupt that so our audience is able to engage the word of God all throughout the Advent season. Luke 21 and Psalm 25 in the lectionary had similar themes about waiting on God.

There are several challenges with the historical background and political setting of Isaiah 40-66 concerning author, date, time and situation of life for the Jews. LaSor notes that traditional views that Isaiah authored the entire book are held by very few scholars. More and more critics are accepting a two book theory with chapters 1-39 as book one and chapters 40-66 as book two. Moreover, there are further refinements resulting in three books, dividing chapters 40-66 into 40-55 (Deutero-Isaiah) and 56-66 (Trito-Isaiah). (LaSor, William 1996., 281)

The prayer I believe Dorothy would most likely follow would be a Scripture passage from Psalms read by the class, followed by a meditation with peaceful music to calm down and allow God to enter into the peace of the atmosphere, followed by journaling questions to think about the Scripture passage. The Psalms passage will be Psalm 41: 2-14. This passage is about how if you are concerned for the poor, God will be there for you and protect you through everything. Next, music will be played in the background as the students shut their eyes and reflect on what was read to them. Finally, I will give journal questions for them to write about like “What can you do to answer God’s call to serve the poor?” and “How can we love our enemies even when

With regard to its content Psalm 49 is, by and large, didactic in nature. It does not sound entirely pessimistic, rather, it gives some practical and constructive instructions pertaining to a key reality of life that one has to face, i.e., death. Importantly, Psalm 49 dissipates two types of fear, i) the fear of enemies at the time of death (v 6) and ii) the fear of the wealthy and powerful who think that they may have some merit at the time of death (v 17). The Wisdom teacher destroys the fear factor but does not give an alternative that would explain why we should not fear. Perhaps the whole wisdom tradition and all the wisdom literature teach us that wisdom is found in the contemplation of the reverential fear of the Lord (Prov 1, 7; 9,

With every great work, there are downfalls that call for our attention. The first is sandwiched within one of the strengths. Bakke remarkably illustrates that everything in the bible can be seen through the lens of his theology of the city. Sadly, this is also a weakness. There are several places where more references that are biblical could have closed the door in his theology. For example in the poetry literature especially the Psalm Bakke declares that the biblical text of the Psalm messes with his narrow class bias and patriotism (73). He cites one psalm, Psalm 107. Mentioning other passages from the Psalm would have added greater depth to his argument.

In the 124th Psalm, the people of Israel voice a beautiful question about the tragic reality that would have been theirs if their “help” had come from anyone but the LORD. The “what if?” question it asks is a good one, and numerous moments recorded in the Hebrew Bible speak of times of strife where, in the end, “God comes through.” Dr. Toni Craven describes the whole of the Psalms as “a self-contained religious library of prayer in that it incorporates an enormously wide spectrum of issues and reflects various historical backgrounds.[footnoteRef:0]” The echoes of those moments in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible are heard behind the words of Psalm 124. Fortunately, the utter destruction the 124th Psalm alludes to doesn’t come to fruition. For all the power that is had by the enemies the people of Israel face, power that is as consuming as the appetite of a devouring monster and as uncontrollably destructive as a flash flood raging, and even though the ones who are against the people of God possess a grasp that is as sure and as strong as a hunter’s well-set snare, they cannot overcome the ones the LORD chooses to defend. Instead, their rescue from that trouble receives the emphasis and is celebrated as the salvific, liberating work of God. Claus Westermann aptly describes Psalm 124 thusly: “Psalm 124 is able to transport us into the hour in which Israel looked back upon a rescue from very grave trouble and summed up this experience of deliverance in language