psalms

One thing evangelicals are good at is gaining information for the Bible:  for doctrine, for building up, for guarding the heart and the flock.   And all this is essential.

But there have been many times when the head feels stuffed with data (somehow we have made life giving words into intellectual filing) and, certainly within reformed evangelicalism, one can cry out "But were is the life, the feeling, the experience - what does it look like?"

Slow on the uptake, one significant, probably the most significant, help falls into place:  Psalms.   Regarding it simply as the songbook of Israel can make it sound like an ancient hymnal, which needs reworking for a contemporary audience.  Whereas, I think, it is the place to see how the God-ward life is worked out in the human heart:   here we see what happens when life in a fallen world pours in, and when the truths of God's word pour in.