Thursday, June 19, 2008

Sunday June 22

This Sunday, we continue our study of the Psalms. Psalm 3 is our focus.
Normally, our experience informs our theology, our understanding of God. And this is natural and usually a good thing. John Wesley included experience as one of his sources in thinking about God and life. But, if we let experience alone inform our faith, then it is not faith at all. If we rely exclusively or mainly on our present experience, we can forget lessons we learned during other chapters of our lives. This is David’s point in Psalm 3: what he has come to know about God will not be overthrown by his current experience. Further, what he has come to know about God will inform his current situation.
David's current situation (at the time of the writing of Psalm 3) was a pretty dire one: he was king of Israel, but a coup was being led by his own son, Absalom, who wanted to kill David. (See 2 Samuel 15, 16) That pretty much beats any problem I've had. Maybe if I can see how David dealt with this problem, I can find a way to deal with my problems.
The worship bulletin is here.