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*** SHOW NOTES (not a transcript) ***
Lead: Are Christians winning or losing? If you sense a clash of perspectives, you’re not wrong.
Intro: Today’s thoughts are birthed from a clash of perspectives…where we are in our read-through with The Bible Project (video below), and an inbox prompt about a Kindle deal on a book I read last year for school — Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option. The Benedict Option’s thesis is this… and after our reading I want to compare and contrast this thesis, plus an interesting outcome of thesis, with a perspective on Psalm 2.
Not only have we lost the public square, but the supposed high ground of our churches is no safe place either. Well, so what if those around us don’t share our morality? We can still retain our faith and teaching within the walls of our churches, we may think, but that’s placing unwarranted confidence in the health of our religious institutions. The changes that have overtaken the West in modern times have revolutionized everything, even the church, which no longer forms souls but caters to selves. (1)
~ Rod Dreher
Sponsor: (none)
Bible segment (read along with The Bible Project):
Passage: Psalms 1-2
Translation: NET (New English Translation)
Words: ~295
Apologetics/reflections segment:
“Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” has five basic tenets:
A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.
Good people go to heaven when they die. (1)
But how does Psalm 2 characterize things? An extended note on meaning from
Psalm 2 celebrates God’s power over the wicked plots of the kings of the world. Even more, it celebrates God’s human agent, the anointed king, whom God had appointed as an agent of order in a disordered world. The psalm cites the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7, in which God grants to David a dynasty. It is thus David in particular and his descendants ruling from Jerusalem who are in mind here, and so it is probable that this psalm functioned as an inauguration song during the period of the monarchy.
However, the books of Samuel and Kings indicate that the hopes of the psalm (and the Davidic covenant) for a pious and effective royal agent of God’s will on the earth and the submission of the world’s kings with their evil intentions as envisioned by Psalm 2 surfaced only occasionally during the history of Israel and Judah. Indeed, the testimony of these historical books is that the kings were largely responsible for Israel’s degradation of faith, as well as the end of the monarchy and Israel’s national independence.
For these reasons, the New Testament authors recognized a deeper significance to the psalm that found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the greater son of David. Jesus is the Lord’s anointed (Messiah) and son of David, a role announced every time he is called Christ (the Greek equivalent to Messiah). At his baptism, God’s heavenly voice alludes to Psalm 2:7 by announcing to Jesus: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’ (Mark 1:11; see Matt. 3:17; Luke 3:22). Paul explicitly cites Psalm 2:7 in his sermon at Pisidian Antioch to witness to his belief that Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the promise that God’s anointed would be his Son (Acts 13:33). The author of Hebrews similarly cites both Psalm 2:7 as well as 2 Samuel 7:14 (1 Chr. 17:13) to underline that Jesus, God’s Son, is superior to the angels (Heb. 1:5; 5:5).
Early church leaders recognized Herod, Pontius Pilate and other Gentile and Israelite leaders who executed Jesus and persecuted the early church as the raging rulers of the earth mentioned in the first stanza of Psalm 2, but they were also aware that the Lord in heaven was sovereign and in control of the situation (Acts 4:23–31; Ps. 2:1–2 quoted in vv. 25b–26), and thus they confidently continued preaching the gospel.
The book of Revelation utilizes Psalm 2, and in particular verse 9 (You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery), in reference to Christ’s second coming and final victory over the forces of human and spiritual evil (Rev. 12:5). In Revelation 19:11–16, Jesus appears riding a white horse and ‘coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron sceptre” ’ (v. 15, citing Ps. 2:9).
Thus, New Testament readers recognized that Jesus was their anointed King and the Warrior who would defeat the evil spiritual and human forces ranged against them. (2)
~ Tremper Longman III
Wisdom segment:
Passage: Psalm 147
Translation: NET (New English Translation)
Words: ~328
Take action:
Watch The Bible Project’s video on Pslams (below) if you haven’t already.
Love you!
-R
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources
(1) Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (New York, NY: Penguin Publishing Group), 9-10. Kindle. And for a killer deal on the ebook version of this, check out https://www.bookbub.com/books/the-benedict-option-by-rod-dreher?ebook_deal .
(2) Tremper Longman III, Psalms: An Introduction and Commentary, ed. David G. Firth, vol. 15–16, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2014), 63–64.