At The Movies - Week 02 Launch
Welcome
Welcome to Week 2 of the 2023 At the Movies Reading Plan! This reading plan is designed to partner with Compassion Christian Church’s sermon series of the same name. At the heart of the movies we love are often stories of hope, courage, and redemption. This series is focused on highlighting those things and showing how they connect to the heart of God and His plans for our world and your life. This reading plan will be focused on the Book of Psalms, which is a book of poems and songs found in the Old Testament of the Bible. Just like different movies have different styles and genres, so do the psalms. The reading plan will group psalms by genre as we go from week to week.
The songs and poems of Psalms are often directed to God, which is why the Book of Psalms has guided the prayer life of Christians from the very beginning of the church. These psalms, viewed as prayers, are a beautiful guide because they are an example of passion and honesty. Our Father welcomes us to be just and bold in our own prayers. May we all be challenged as we follow this plan together!
Before We Start
This reading plan will focus on the Book of Psalms. We recommend you watch this video to help you understand what the Book of Psalms is, who wrote it, and why they wrote it. Knowing those things will help us better understand the context in which the book was written, which will help us understand what God wants to say to us today.
Welcome to Week 2 of the 2023 At the Movies Reading Plan! This reading plan is designed to partner with Compassion Christian Church’s sermon series of the same name. At the heart of the movies we love are often stories of hope, courage, and redemption. This series is focused on highlighting those things and showing how they connect to the heart of God and His plans for our world and your life. This reading plan will be focused on the Book of Psalms, which is a book of poems and songs found in the Old Testament of the Bible. Just like different movies have different styles and genres, so do the psalms. The reading plan will group psalms by genre as we go from week to week.
The songs and poems of Psalms are often directed to God, which is why the Book of Psalms has guided the prayer life of Christians from the very beginning of the church. These psalms, viewed as prayers, are a beautiful guide because they are an example of passion and honesty. Our Father welcomes us to be just and bold in our own prayers. May we all be challenged as we follow this plan together!
Before We Start
This reading plan will focus on the Book of Psalms. We recommend you watch this video to help you understand what the Book of Psalms is, who wrote it, and why they wrote it. Knowing those things will help us better understand the context in which the book was written, which will help us understand what God wants to say to us today.
Genre Highlight
This week we are going to focus on Messianic Psalms. The term “Messiah” comes from the Hebrew word for “anoint,” so a messiah is an anointed one. In Jewish history, prophets and kings were anointed, like in 1 Samuel 16 when David (who wrote almost half of the psalms in this book) was anointed the next king of Israel. But the Messiah was not believed to be any king, but specifically a king descended from David who would restore Israel and reign forever. God promised this to David in what is referred to as the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7. As history progressed and God revealed more of His promises to His people, the Jewish people began to see more and more of the Messianic promises in Scripture. There are many such references to this ideal, final king in the Book of Psalms, and the poems and songs that contain such references are called “Messianic Psalms.”
Messianic Psalms have a couple of indicators that identify them as psalms about this ideal king and savior. The most obvious one is that they are quoted in the New Testament. In other words, Scripture has interpreted Scripture and identified these psalms for us. Another indicator is references to anointing or to a king, especially when that king is achieving things that no mere human could ever attain. However, when we read Messianic Psalms we need to remember that not every part of the psalm refers to Jesus. Often the psalm is referring to two kings simultaneously. One is present at the time of the writing of the psalm, often succeeding at some aspects of kingship and failing at others. The second king is the ideal king who will accomplish what the present king ought to accomplish but is not capable of doing so. This is common throughout Scripture because Jesus is the fulfillment of all the things that we ought to be but fall short of - he’s the true Adam, the true Moses, and the true David. So as we read these Messianic Psalms we need to see how they point to an ideal king and praise Jesus for being what no other earthly king could ever hope to be: perfect in power, but leveraging that power not for his own gain, but for the salvation of his people.
This week we are going to focus on Messianic Psalms. The term “Messiah” comes from the Hebrew word for “anoint,” so a messiah is an anointed one. In Jewish history, prophets and kings were anointed, like in 1 Samuel 16 when David (who wrote almost half of the psalms in this book) was anointed the next king of Israel. But the Messiah was not believed to be any king, but specifically a king descended from David who would restore Israel and reign forever. God promised this to David in what is referred to as the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7. As history progressed and God revealed more of His promises to His people, the Jewish people began to see more and more of the Messianic promises in Scripture. There are many such references to this ideal, final king in the Book of Psalms, and the poems and songs that contain such references are called “Messianic Psalms.”
Messianic Psalms have a couple of indicators that identify them as psalms about this ideal king and savior. The most obvious one is that they are quoted in the New Testament. In other words, Scripture has interpreted Scripture and identified these psalms for us. Another indicator is references to anointing or to a king, especially when that king is achieving things that no mere human could ever attain. However, when we read Messianic Psalms we need to remember that not every part of the psalm refers to Jesus. Often the psalm is referring to two kings simultaneously. One is present at the time of the writing of the psalm, often succeeding at some aspects of kingship and failing at others. The second king is the ideal king who will accomplish what the present king ought to accomplish but is not capable of doing so. This is common throughout Scripture because Jesus is the fulfillment of all the things that we ought to be but fall short of - he’s the true Adam, the true Moses, and the true David. So as we read these Messianic Psalms we need to see how they point to an ideal king and praise Jesus for being what no other earthly king could ever hope to be: perfect in power, but leveraging that power not for his own gain, but for the salvation of his people.
Posted in At The Movies