I see this website as being for Bible students of all and any stage in their studies. I hope it will be particularly useful for:
- Bible students who are passionate about understanding God’s Word even though it may be still unclear how that knowledge will be used.
- Bible students who are Bible translators who need to be able to communicate as best they can what the author intended his hearers to understand but expressed in their own language and cultural understandings.
- Bible students who are preachers and teachers who apply the teachings of Scripture to the needs and circumstances of their people.
Notice though, that I rarely develop the application of the teaching. That is the preacher’s role! However, I would love to see and will be happy to publish in Psalm Insights such applications, as well as alternative ways of understanding these psalms that use the same principals of interpretation. See the introduction to Psalm 12 for an example of an on-line talk.
When I developed the model used in this website with Psalm 58, I had no idea that other psalms would be amenable to the same process. It has been amazing and humbling to subsequently find that more than 30 psalms open up to show richer insights than had previously been observed. There are 150 psalms altogether so there are nearly 120 psalms yet to explore! That is way more than what I can do in my remaining years and besides, there is no guarantee that other psalms will follow this model. There may be other models or variations to discover! For example, I wonder if the acrostic psalms may have some special features. And then there is poetry in prophetic books and even elsewhere that may be more understandable when the poetic structure is taken into account. I already know there is something to be learned by comparing the poetic structure of Jesus’ Scripture reading in Nazareth with the original version in Isaiah (Luke 4:18-19) and doubtless more will come to light in due course.
Could you play a part in this research? Please contact me.
Written: 24 December 2022
Published: 25 January 2023