Songs of Ascents - Q&A (1)

As the church embarks on a journey through the Songs of Ascents, we have gathered questions from the congregation about the sermons on Psalms 120, 121, and 126. In what follows, we feature some of the questions collected and the corresponding answers from our preachers.

Question on Ps 120: Ps. Byron said something that goes a little like this: as pilgrims we should desire our sanctification, not our personal satisfaction. Does this mean that we, as Christians, will never get to experience satisfaction on earth? 

Pastor Byron: What I meant in the statement about pilgrims is what our life focus should be on: that we seek God's will for our lives (our sanctification), rather than what we selfishly desire for ourselves. The paradox here is that when we choose not to pursue our own selfish desires, but to pursue God's agenda for our lives, that is where we actually find true life and true satisfaction. This was alluded to in Jesus’ teaching: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:25). When we pursue God's will rather than our own, the Holy Spirit changes our hearts to be satisfied in the things that are upon God's heart, and that is the inward transformation that we know as ‘sanctification’. Earthly satisfaction may thus be distinguished from a godly satisfaction.

Question on Ps 121: It was mentioned in the sermon that “what the Lord keeps (us) from” is less important than “the Lord who keeps (us)”. I am uncomfortable with this because it seems to trivialise the problems we face. If I can't help but think about my issues and problems, is it due to a lack of faith on my end?

Hern Shung: I think our struggles and problems are important, and the psalmist doesn't downplay that at all. But what scripture (especially the Psalms) does is to allow ourselves and our faith to lead us to think about our struggles from a 'higher' perspective and respond to it with our knowledge of God. No doubt the problems we face are real, but what's also real - more real, in fact - is the God we serve. In all but 3 of the Psalms, the psalmists do respond to their own laments with a declaration - they don’t run from their problems; they confront them, with a hope that is firmly placed in the Lord.

It’s okay to think about our ‘real-world’ issues and problems, and that’s an important aspect of faith (and not a lack of it)! But don't allow that to be the end of the conversation. Like the Psalmist does in Psalm 121, when we're faced with a "Where does my help come?" moment, seek God in His Word and pray that you would grow in wisdom and trust, such that you declare with the same confidence as the Psalmists, "My help comes from the Lord; the maker of heaven and earth." In the book of Job, we also see that God uses Job’s lamentations to point him to a higher perspective: He is God and sovereign amidst it all. The beauty for us today is that we get a glimpse of how this story ends. And maybe this, I hope, puts what we are currently facing in perspective.  

Question on Ps 126: I can see how Christ's harvest can be seen in Ps 126, but it is not immediately obvious to me that Christ is present in the psalm. Should we always look for Christ in what we read?

Hern Shung: Yes and no. We look for Christ in what we read, but it’s more important that we look for the gospel. I remember hearing someone tell me once that the danger of looking for Christ in what we read is that we could preach Him as an example, but not the Saviour.Everything that happens before it (i.e. the Old Testament) points and leads up to it.  Everything that happens after it (i.e. the Epistles) is the result of it.  

So, a way of reading the Bible is to understand the gospel as the climax of the big picture, the turning point in history.  In that case, should we always look for Christ AND the Gospel in what we read? Yes, I think we should try our best to. It's always a good question to ask ourselves when reading and interpreting Scripture.

I acknowledge that this is a larger question about hermeneutics - i.e. how should we read the Bible? Very briefly, I think it's like building a jigsaw puzzle. We would study the individual piece we have (this is called Close Context). We would then examine what has been done so far and what remains undone (this is called Continuing Context). Finally, we consider all that in light of the big picture, referring to the image on the puzzle box (this is called Canonical Context). All these are necessary for us to grasp the individual puzzle piece and the picture that scriptures present to us. 

Got a question about the Songs of Ascents? Submit your question to http://bit.ly/SongsQandA.