At The Movies - Week 03 Launch
Welcome
Welcome to Week 3 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 3 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 Psalms of Lament. A lament is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow, and with sixty-seven lament psalms this is the largest single category of psalms. The lament psalms address the crisis when faith is tested in the interval between promise and fulfillment. In these cries from the heart, the psalmists bring their suffering before the God whom they know is great and good. They are confident that their situations can be changed if the Lord wills to intervene on their behalf. Every follower of Jesus faces these crisis moments. The Psalms of Lament serve as examples of how to pray when we find ourselves in the interval between promise and fulfillment.
Fortunately for us, the Lament Psalms follow a very common structure that we can use in our own expressions of sorrow and grief. Almost every Lament Psalm begins first with addressing God, which shows this is not merely a venting of emotion but rather a call for divine help. Next comes the complaint, which is often expressed in vague terms. Scholars believe this may be on purpose, with psalmists leaving things general so that their prayers could be used by others. We should feel free to address God with the specifics of our struggles in our personal prayers. The complaint is followed by a confession of trust, and then with a petition for help. Finally, every Lament Psalm ends with praise even though there is no indication that the psalmist’s situation has been altered yet. Address, complaint, confession of trust, petition, and praise - this is the pattern laid before us by the bold psalmists who brought their raw pain to their Heavenly Father. May their example encourage and guide us in our own prayers.
This week we are going to focus on Psalms of Lament. A lament is a passionate expression of grief or sorrow, and with sixty-seven lament psalms this is the largest single category of psalms. The lament psalms address the crisis when faith is tested in the interval between promise and fulfillment. In these cries from the heart, the psalmists bring their suffering before the God whom they know is great and good. They are confident that their situations can be changed if the Lord wills to intervene on their behalf. Every follower of Jesus faces these crisis moments. The Psalms of Lament serve as examples of how to pray when we find ourselves in the interval between promise and fulfillment.
Fortunately for us, the Lament Psalms follow a very common structure that we can use in our own expressions of sorrow and grief. Almost every Lament Psalm begins first with addressing God, which shows this is not merely a venting of emotion but rather a call for divine help. Next comes the complaint, which is often expressed in vague terms. Scholars believe this may be on purpose, with psalmists leaving things general so that their prayers could be used by others. We should feel free to address God with the specifics of our struggles in our personal prayers. The complaint is followed by a confession of trust, and then with a petition for help. Finally, every Lament Psalm ends with praise even though there is no indication that the psalmist’s situation has been altered yet. Address, complaint, confession of trust, petition, and praise - this is the pattern laid before us by the bold psalmists who brought their raw pain to their Heavenly Father. May their example encourage and guide us in our own prayers.
Posted in At The Movies