The Psalms in Light of the Lord's Prayer

By Patricia M. Robertson

The Book of Psalms holds vast spiritual treasures, but how do we unlock these treasures?

 

Patricia Robertson's Bible study, The Psalms in Light of the Lord's Prayer, provides a format easily accessible to all readers. Using the Lord's Prayer as a guide, Robertson divides the Psalms into seven categories. Each category relates to one of the seven phrases of the Lord's Prayer.

 

The Bible study may be used individually or by a group. Each section includes reflection questions to guide the reader. It can be done over the course of a week, assigning each phrase of the Lord's Prayer to a day of the week, starting with Sunday: our Father who art in heaven; Monday: hallowed be thy name; and etc. Or it can be done over seven weeks, or even over seven months. It makes a great Bible study for Lent, beginning with the first week of Lent through Holy Week.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer tells us, "All the prayers of Holy Scripture are summarized in the Lord's Prayer, and are contained in its immeasurable breadth." What better way to unlock this treasure?

 

Purchase your copy today!

 

"Whenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure vanishes from the Christian church. With its recovery will come unsuspected power." Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

 

Patricia M. Robertson is an author, speaker and spiritual director, who is committed to helping individuals find God in their everyday experience. She has a Doctor of Ministry degree and over thirty-five years of ministry experience. She is a published author of non-fiction and fiction books, including the Dancing through Life series, novels about people of faith who are knocked off balance by life yet manage to get back up and continue.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patricia M. Robertson
• Release date: Feb 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393252573

Patricia M. Robertson

Patricia M. Robertson is the author of fiction and non-fiction books as well as numerous articles all related to spirituality of the everyday. In her thirty-five years of ministry she has walked alongside many families amidst the crises that are part of life, helping them to regain their balance. She currently resides in Jackson, Michigan where she continues to unlock the extraordinary out of the ordinary..

Book preview

The Psalms in Light of the Lord's Prayer

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Patricia M. Robertson

© 2021 Patricia M. Robertson

2525 Cobb Road

Jackson, MI  49203

All Rights Reserved

https://patriciamrobertson.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 – Our Father in Heaven – Psalms of Confidence and Trust

Chapter 2 – Hallowed be thy Name – Psalms of Praise and Thanksgiving

Chapter 3 – Thy Kingdom Come – Royal Psalms

Chapter 4 – Thy Will Be Done – Wisdom Psalms

Chapter 5 – Give Us this Day our Daily Bread – Psalms of Supplication

Chapter 6 – Forgive Us our Trespasses – Penitential Psalms

Chapter 7 – Lead Us not into Temptation and Deliver Us from Evil – Psalms of Deliverance

Conclusion – For Thine is the Kingdom - Doxology 

Introduction

My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the Psalms, Dorothy Day

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I sat with my morning coffee and picked up my Bible. The previous day I had lost my position as chaplain at a retirement home. In the space of one hour I had gone from gainfully employed to unemployed. One minute I was planning out the next Sunday’s sermon, an hour later I was sitting in my car with twelve years of my life packed into the trunk and back seat. I had sat numb in my car. Now the numbness was giving way to grief.

The psalm I was scheduled to preach on that Sunday was Psalm 30. When I read it that morning, I felt comforted by its assurance of rejoicing in the morning amidst the shock and grief I was experiencing.

Weeping may linger for the night; but joy comes in the is morning. (6b) 

I wasn’t rejoicing yet, but the promise was there.

The Psalms are truly a treasure trove of insights and gems. But how to unlock this chest? How do we make sense of 150 hymns put together in seemingly random fashion with little connection?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, says: All the prayers of Holy Scripture are summarized in the Lord’s Prayer, and are contained in its immeasurable breadth. They are not made superfluous by the Lord’s Prayer but constitute the inexhaustible richness of the Lord’s Prayer as the Lord’s Prayer is their summation (p. 16).  He goes on to quote Martin Luther on the Psalter: It penetrates the Lord’s Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer penetrates it, so that it is possible to understand one on the basis of the other and to bring them into joyful harmony. (p. 16)

How are the Psalms intertwined with the Lord’s Prayer? Unfortunately, Bonhoeffer didn’t expand on this idea, leaving me wanting more. My search led me to Fr. Thomas Murphy’s book, Sing a New Song: Praying the Psalms in the Light of the Lord’s Prayer. In the introduction he writes: Over time, I made the exciting discovery that the seven phrases of the Lord’s Prayer can be matched with seven categories of psalms which include all 150 psalms. In teaching us to pray, Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant, had also provided a concise summary of the ancient psalms. (p. 3) However, Fr. Murphy did not expand on this; instead he adapted the Liturgy of the Hours to his framework, matching a phrase of the Our Father to each day of the week and incorporating the psalms related to that phrase into Morning, Evening and Night prayer. This provided a useful prayer resource but still did not answer my question. Again, it left me wanting more.

What a wonderful framework for studying the Psalms, I thought! Fr. Murphy goes on to say, "The rich poetic grandeur of the Psalms is