The Book of Psalms was once not only the Songs of Israel but it was also the songbook of the Christian church. One of the parts of the Hebrew Scriptures most frequently quoted in the New Testament is Psalm 110. The early church sang the psalms. The medieval church sang the psalms. The Eastern church sang the psalms and the Western church sang the psalms. In the 16th and 17th centuries the Reformed Churches and theologians taught God’s people to sing the Psalms in public worship, in their their own language. Until very recently Christians were a psalm-singing people. In the modern period, however, Christians have either struggled with the psalter, ignored it, or forgotten about it. Today it is not uncommon to meet Christian young people who have never sung a Psalm in their Christian life, not even Psalm 23 or Psalm 100—there was a time when even non-Christians could recite Psalm 23. John Fesko has published a new volume on the first 8 Psalms, The Songs of a Suffering King: The Grand Christ Hymn of Psalms 1-8.

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