The Case for the Psalms

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By N. T. Wright

Publisher Description

Widely regarded as the modern C. S. Lewis, N. T. Wright, one of the world’s most trusted and popular Bible scholars and the bestselling author of Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope, presents a manifesto urging Christians to live and pray the Bible’s Psalms in The Case for the Psalms.

Wright seeks to reclaim the power of the Psalms, which were once at the core of prayer life. He argues that, by praying and living the Psalms, we enter into a worldview, a way of communing with God and knowing him more intimately, and receive a map by which we understand the contours and direction of our lives. For this reason, all Christians need to read, pray, sing, and live the Psalms. By providing the historical, literary, and spiritual contexts for reading these hymns from ancient Israel’s songbook, The Case for the Psalms provides the tools for incorporating these divine poems into our sacred practices and into our spirituality itself.

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8 Reviews

4.0

Taylor Smith

Created 9 months ago

Jeremy Manuel

Created almost 5 years ago

“N.T. Wright's The Case for the Pslams: Why They Are Essential is, unsurprisingly, a book about the Psalms. Wright has experienced the Psalms as a powerful part of experiencing and being shaped by God and is making a case for them to be part of the church's life and practice greater than they currently are. This premise is a fairly good one, but it also creates one of the biggest setbacks of his book. He frames the book with this idea that the Psalms are good and modern songs are not so good. I guess this framing rubs me the wrong way. I do believe that the Psalms are important and are probably underrepresented in the lives of most Christians and churches today. That said, I think we can point out the positives of the Psalms, without trying to create a negative in the process. I don't think modern music is the only thing that has made the church neglect the Psalms, nor do I think modern music finding inspiration from things other than the Psalms a bad thing, especially since there is a lot of Scripture that can be used for such inspiration. So yeah he really loses me a bit in the way he frames this as some battle between the Psalms and modern music, when I think a passionate presentation about why the Psalms are still very much important today would have been sufficient. Beyond this issue I have with how he frames the book, the meat of the book is really good. He basically looks at the Psalms and says that "people who pray the Psalms will be learning to live in God's time as well as their own, in God's space as well as in their own, and even in and as God's 'matter'-the stuff of which we're made-as well as in and as our own." This is how he then tackles most of his material. Looking at how the Psalms deal with these issues of time, space, and matter in terms of the past, present, and future. It's an intriguing way to look at the Psalms and one that gave me a lot to think about. Another part I found very enjoyable were his more personal reflections on the Psalms in the last couple chapters. I think that adds a touch that is often sorely lacking in books like these. It's one thing to be taught about something, and a whole other issue to be told how the Psalms have impacted their own lives and Wright does that here and makes this not an academic exercise, but a very personal one. Overall, I enjoyed Wright's book quite a bit. I think that is he wouldn't have felt the need to frame this as a Psalms versus other songs, I probably would have given it top marks, but I thought that was a bit of a poor way to frame an otherwise enjoyable and informative book. There was nothing really gained by that framing so I'm just not sure why he had to go that route instead of just touting the Psalms as an essential part of the Christian life along with many other things.”

Logan Loves Books

Created over 5 years ago

“Extremely average book. The last two chapters were very interesting but outside of that, this book didn’t make me understand the psalms more as a whole but did give good insight to how we should view individual psalms and how we should be viewing them.”

Esther Guy

Created over 5 years ago

Jared Abbott

Created over 6 years ago

About N. T. Wright

N. T. Wright is the former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and one of the world’s leading Bible scholars. He serves as the chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews as well as Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University. He has been featured on ABC News, Dateline, The Colbert Report, and Fresh Air. Wright is the award-winning author of many books, including Paul: A Biography, Simply Christian, Surprised by Hope, The Day the Revolution Began, Simply Jesus, After You Believe, and Scripture and the Authority of God.

Other books by N. T. Wright

New Testament for Everyone Complete Eighteen-Volume Set

The Case for the Psalms

Publisher Description

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8 Reviews

About N. T. Wright

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