Welcome back to Term 2. If you have read some of my newsletter articles over the 6 years I have been writing them, you will know I love a good theme. I like to spend time unpacking several layers of an idea, and you will quickly see that this term is no exception.
Last term’s theme was The Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus sat on that mountain to teach as a Hebrew, his audience had a very different cultural mindset from ours today. We tend to miss some of the vital points that Jesus’s audience would have gotten. Today, our minds learn by building lessons; our reasoning likes a nice, linear flow that builds thought upon thought until we reach the final point. The Hebrew, eastern learning puts the major point in the very middle of the lesson. The whole lesson revolves around the major point. In the Sermon on the Mount, the centrepiece is the Lord’s prayer.
If the entire sermon focuses on what it means to lead a flourishing human life, it’s no surprise that prayer is at its centre. When Jesus teaches about living, He defines life as communication with God. To expand on this idea, we can look at the overarching narrative of the Bible, where the central theme remains the same. By various measures, the middle chapter, verse, and word of the entire Bible are all found within the book of Psalms—the book of prayer!
The Psalms consist of creative and expressive prayers and songs. Across the 150 Psalms in the Bible, every human emotion is represented. God has given us the largest book in the Bible to help us communicate with Him. Whether you are experiencing emotions such as grief or joy, frustration or fulfilment, loneliness or anger, there is a Psalm to express that!
Peter Chase
College Chaplain
