In the thread on insult and insulting, a question was raised that merits a response. Should we not spend our time and energy trying to obey the positive commands of Scripture (love your enemies, bless those who curse you, etc.) and not squander our resources on trying to figure out how to imitate the satiric example of Jesus, apostles and prophets? At the very least, should we not master the kindergarten of direct commands, and postpone the graduate school of satiric imitation? Two responses.
The first is that there is a hermenuetical assumption here that only direct commands are fundamental to our obedience. But we are told in Scripture, for example, that the trials of the Jews in the wilderness were written as an example for us. We are directly commanded to pay close attention to narrative. Christian wives are told to imitate Sarah. Christians are told to look closely at what happened to those who disobeyed Moses, and think about it. The Bible tells the Christian minister that all Scripture is God-breathed, and profitable for instruction, training in righteousness, and so on. So that is the first problem.
But the second response assumes (for the sake of this discussion) the necessity of starting with the direct commands. Let’s accept this, and see what happens. In both Ephesians and Colossians, Paul tells us that Christian worship should be filled with the psalter — “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” are the headings of different kinds of psalms in the Greek version of the psalter. I do not believe with our exclusive brethren that we must sing only psalms. I believe we may sing more than the psalms. But I do not believe that we may sing less than the entire psalter. Paul says it straight out, a direct command. Christian people, Christian churches, Christian families are to be steeped in the psalms. This means all of them. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs are, as psalter headings, what soup to nuts would be to a meal.
Suppose we set about a reformation in which we resolved to obey this direct command, and determined to learn how to sing the entire psalter. The first thing that would happen to most Christians is that they would run smack into things they had never sung before in their lives, even though they had been Christians for decades. Many of these things which we have been commanded directly to sing would stick in our throats. And chief among the weird things to be sung would be the (very many) psalms of imprecation. So not only would we have to study and learn the psalms, we would also have to study and learn what it means to “bless and not curse” when we are singing some of the things we were directly commanded to sing (e.g. “break their evil arms . . .”). This would require us to harmonize and submit to all of Scripture, instead of cherry picking those passages that are conducive to our modern evangelical temperament and sentimental traditions. So I would turn the question around. If you want us to obey the direct commands, then do you sing the entire psalter? And if not, are you busy learning it?
And it is striking, if I may note in conclusion, that many of those who oppose the fact that my writing at times has a certain winsome tartness in it, have also had a distinctive take on our approach to the psalter. What have some of these critics of satire had to say about our attempts here in Moscow to recover the psalter? Oddly (but not so oddly when you consider it), our attempts to sing all the psalms has been one of the points that has been regularly disparaged and mocked. The inconsistency is striking.
For those who want the modern church to grow a backbone, psalm-singing is the place to start. And when we start obeying this direct command, some of the other things will start falling into place.