My God The King
LESSON 8:
MY GOD THE KING
LONGING FOR GOD:
STUDIES IN THE PSALMS
Rubel Shelly, teaching
Text for This Study: Psalm 145
1. This psalm calls attention to the sovereignty of God from its opening line: “I will exalt you, my God the King.” What does the word sovereignty mean? Why is this truth so important to believers?
2. The video quotes the Jewish Talmud (Berakot, 4b) and its opinion of this psalm: “Everyone who repeats the Tehillah [Psa 145] three times a day may be sure that he is a child of the world to come.” What do you imagine lay behind this estimation of this psalm’s critical importance to rabbinic teaching? Note: Remember that the Hebrew term tehillah means “praise.”
3. Read the divine self-disclosure to Moses from Exodus 34:6-7. How does this psalm reflect this text? What is its importance to “The Name” of God?
4. What is the importance of each generation speaking of God’s mighty works to succeeding generations? See verses 3-7 and relate them to Deuteronomy 6:4-9.
5. For God to be “The King,” there must be a kingdom over which he reigns. Identify at least five features of his kingdom that are named in verses 9-20. Of the items you have identified, which is the single most important to you?
This psalm is a statement of God’s hidden, powerful providential care that is at work in, with, and under all the circumstances and exigencies of human travail. In a regularized cadence, human need is acknowledged, but in each case it is immediately overridden by God’s generosity. . . . In this utterance, Israel at praise (and the church in its wake) dares to assert that all of life is held within God’s sustaining governance. What it takes to live is only eyes to look, hands to open, and desires to be satisfied.
[Walter Bruggemann, The Psalms and the Life of Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), pp.123-124.]