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Leap Over A Wall
Eugene H. Petersen looks at the life of David and draws some poignant lessons.
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Community 101
Gilbert Bilezikian
presents a passionate appeal that Christians forego separateness and embrace
community. We are one in Christ. We are one in Christ!
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The Church on the Other Side
Brian D.McLaren
says change isn't just coming, it is already here. The Church must reinvent itself.
Not by changing its message, but by reinventing the way its message is presented.
We must live the message more and speak it less.
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Featured Pages
Ear Tuneups!
He Really Loves Us!
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Faith Really Matters
Hearing His Voice
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Hatred In The Psalms?
C. S. Lewis, Reflections On The Psalms,
A Harvest Book/Harcourt, Inc., 1958, 1986, pp. 20, 21.
SoAmazing.com
Category: Christian Living
ISBN: 015676248X
Keywords: Psalms, hatred, spirit, comic, naivety,
Psalter, poet, Satan, enemy, Christian, prayers, God,
wicked, Almighty, Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc., Lewis,
C. S. Lewis
"In some of the Psalms the spirit
of hatred which strikes us in the face is like the
heat from a furnace mouth. In others the same spirit
ceases to be frightful only by becoming (to a modern
mind) almost comic in its naivety.
Examples of the first can be found all over the
Psalter, but perhaps the worst is in 109. The poet
prays that an ungodly man may rule over his enemy
and that 'Satan' may stand at this right hand (5).
This probably does not mean what a Christian reader
naturally supposes. The 'Satan' is an accuser,
perhaps an informer. When the enemy is tried, let
him be convicted and sentenced, 'and let his prayer
be turned into sin' (6). This again means, I think,
not his prayers to God, but his supplications to a
human judge, which are to make things all the hotter
for him (double the sentence because he begged for
it to be halved). May his days be few, may his job
be given to someone else (7). When he is dead may
his orphans be beggars (9). May he look in vain
for anyone in the world to pity him (11). Let God
always remember against him the sins of his
parents (13). Even more devilish in one verse is
the, otherwise beautiful, 137 where a blessing is
pronounced on anyone who will snatch up a Babylonian
baby and beat its brains out against the
pavement (9). And we get the refinement of malice
in 69, 23, 'Let their table be made a snare to take
themselves withal; and let the things that should
have been for their wealth be unto them an occasion
of falling,'"
The examples which (in me at any rate) can hardly
fail to produce a smile may occur most disquietingly
in Psalms we love; 143, after proceeding for eleven
verses in a strain that brings tears to the eyes,
adds in the twelfth, almost like an afterthought 'and
of thy goodness slay mine enemies.' Even more
naively, almost childishly, 139, in the middle of
its hymn of praise throws in (19) 'Will thou not
slay the wicked, O God?'--as if it were surprising
that such a simple remedy for human ills had not
occurred to the Almighty."
SoAmazing Review: In Reflections On The Psalms, C. S. Lewis applies
his penetrating intellect to the ancient Psalms of
Scripture with some surprising observations.
Hover and/or Clickle
"Many people today, including many Christians, simply do not read or think deeply at all. And when believers do read, they tend to browse self-help books or other literature that is not intellectually engaging." J. P. Moreland, p. 87,
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