Awhile ago Wayne pointed out that New Trinity Hymnal changed Psalm 100 (Hymn 1) to “him serve with fear” from “him serve with mirth.” Given that the earlier version was actually what Psalm 100 says (“Serve the Lord with gladness!”) this was an amazing edit coming from a Christian publication for the worship of God’s people.
Today something triggered me to search for “according to my righteousness” on the ESV website. Here is what I found:
Psalm 7:8
The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.Psalm 18:20
The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.Psalm 18:24 (Show me Psalm 18)
So the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.Psalm 35:24
Vindicate me, O Lord, my God, according to your righteousness, and let them not rejoice over me!
Looking at the responsive Psalm readings in the back of the same New Trinity Hymnal, I notice that it just happens to skip from Psalm 5 to Psalm 8 and from Psalm 34 to 37.1-9. There are two excerpts of Psalm 18: vv. 1-19 and vv. 25-36.
If Aslan is not a tame lion, I think I’ve spotted some bars for his cage. We need to be kept safe, I guess.
I think those are some of the most difficult passage for modern evangelicals to deal with. I don’t know what else to say except to suppose that they fear what they don’t understand, and they give it a wide berth.
I understand the impulse. There are certain passages in Ezekiel which I cannot ever imagine reading publically.
Our church just reads every psalm in order responsivly out of the bible. Not sure why anyone needs readings in the Hymnal, though the boldfacing is helpful for alternation.
Amazing. I hadn’t noticed this before Mark.
Thanks, Mark. I’ll be using this data as evidence in my Doctrine class to help my students see how some have so
sorry — how some cannot handle what the Bible says because their dogmatic systems have made the Word an offense to them.
Mark, I just noticed this the other day as I was discussing the value of the laments with some of my students. Most of the laments and Psalms with “imprecations” have been excised from the Trinity Hymnal.
On this Psalm (18), it is most helpful to take a canonical take on it: Jesus is the singer of this Psalm. That puts a whole ‘nother slant on it.