Praying the Psalms With Hope With N.T. Wrightਨਮੂਨਾ

God Orders the World

The Psalter opens with a basic picture of how the world works. The rest of the Psalter makes quick work complicating this simplistic worldview while also holding out hope in a God who fairly orchestrates the world and will one day do justice for all of creation.

The first two psalms form quite a contrast, and they act as a kind of double framework. They reflect a view of God and the world that is focused on God’s people, and they then look out from there to talk about God's Kingship over the whole world. The first one is very personal. People who do these things—as opposed to doing those things—are the right sort of people, righteous as opposed to wicked. When the judgment comes, the one will go this way, and the other will go that way. That's a very personal, intimate focus. The second psalm then pans out to “the nations,” so often warring and declaring that they don't want God to be in charge, sins for which they will be called to account by God.

This pairing is an apt beginning. So many Christians are focused only on one or the other—the personal or the political—as if those two exist in separate spheres. But the Psalms make clear that they operate together, even if they are immensely complicated.

Psalms 1 and 2 tell the general truth, even though we know—and the Psalms will very quickly reflect this—that the on-the-ground reality is more vast and confused. Some people appear righteous but aren’t. Others may be wicked, and yet God wants to call them into redemption. Others still are undoubtedly righteous, but things don’t seem to be working out for them, all while the truly evil prosper. We want to shake God and ask, “What’s going on?”

These Psalms don’t resolve any tensions. Instead, they set up the tensions one must consider as they read the Psalter. They hold out an ideal order that, even if not always apparent, reveals how God’s world ought to work and provides a benchmark for us to work towards in hope. They attest that in the most minor details and on the largest scales, God is in control.

Under their own steam, individuals, and the world with them, trend toward vice, idolatry, and self-serving attitudes, which ultimately cause destruction on the personal and corporate levels. But the option for righteousness is always available. Even as these initial psalms describe the end results of the righteous and the wicked, they describe the decisions that can lead us into one or the other category.

God cares about these decisions. God remains involved, even when it doesn’t seem like it, and the rest of the Psalms will make that claim in countless ways, as we’ll see.

Reflect:

Does the description in Psalms 1 and 2 match your experience of the world? What basic truths does this system reflect? Why might it be important that the Psalms start this way?