Posts

Showing posts from November, 2023

Psalms...: Why is there a whole book of the Bible written as songs?

Why does God choose to speak through songs? Genre and impact Different types of writing impact readers in different ways. We teach kids this in school. Those of us who are primary school teachers know that students need to understand what the “aim” or “impact” of their writing should be. For example: Factfile = to inform Advert = to persuade Fable = to teach a moral I believe that the best communicator ever is God. He must be. He made us, he invented language, and he created all the things which words can refer to. His factfiles would be the most informative, his adverts the most persuasive and his fables would most clearly and thought-provokingly teach their morals. But what would songs do? What impact do they achieve? And what would a collection of songs which God has inspired likely aim at? Clues from the start of the Psalms Psalm 1 tells us what the “blessed man” avoids (1:1) and then what he does (1:2). This is the positive side: the things the blessed man does do:...