Reading different theological perspectives. Historical readings express their authors' perspectives, including Arminian and Reformed or Calvinist traditions. Inclusion does not make an author's position settled CTS doctrine. Read with Scripture and the assigned material. A supported answer from another evangelical perspective should be assessed on its reasoning, not penalized simply for differing from the author. If an automated score rejects such an answer, ask CTS for review.
Master’s Assigned Readings (all five)
M.Div. and Th.M. students read all five assigned selections and take their separate exam after activation. The test page states the current rule; valid earlier completions remain valid.
Optional Honors (choose three)
Honors is optional on every track. Certificate and Associate students may read three honors selections without a required-reading exam. Honors does not replace either master’s exam.
The Master's textbook test: read The Expositor’s Bible: The Psalms (assigned selections), then take its test: twenty fill-in-the-blank questions, drawn from forty; eighteen right passes. Each answer is marked right or wrong at once. Correct answers and explanations are available after the attempt passes. It is separate from the reading test on the five digests below: passing one does not pass the other. On the M.Div. and Th.M. tracks both tests are being introduced; each test's page says whether it is in force yet. Until then any student may take them, and a pass is kept in your record.
How to read this shelf
This course draws the student into the Book of Psalms — the inspired songbook and prayer-book of God’s people, which gives voice to the whole range of the life of faith, from the depths of sorrow to the heights of praise, and sings throughout of Christ. These five readings are Chapala Theological Seminary digests, walking through the Psalter by its great themes — the two gateway psalms, the songs of trust, the songs of sorrow and repentance, the songs of the Messiah, and the songs of praise — and drawing on its classic public-domain expositors, from Spurgeon and Delitzsch to Stevenson, Watson, Manton, Maclaren, Athanasius, and Binnie. Each is written to be read on its own, in English, Spanish or French. Choose any three, read them in full, and record your reading below.
These five readings draw on the great public-domain classics of the Psalms — Spurgeon’s monumental Treasury of David, the commentaries of Delitzsch, Maclaren, and Binnie, the sermons of Manton on Psalm 119, Stevenson on the Shepherd Psalm and on Christ crucified in Psalm 22, Watson on repentance, and the ancient letter of Athanasius on the Psalter as the mirror of the soul. Read these digests to make the Psalms your own — to learn from them how to trust, to grieve, to repent, to behold Christ, and to praise.
The Master's reading test: separate from the honors invitation below. Honors asks you to read any three of these digests; the Master's test covers all five. It has twenty fill-in-the-blank questions, four from each reading, drawn from forty; eighteen right passes. Each answer is marked right or wrong at once; correct answers and explanations are available after the attempt passes. You may try again after a short wait. The test is being introduced: its page says whether it is in force yet. Until then any student may take it, and a pass is kept in your record.
With Honors — an invitation, not a requirement
The honors reading attestation is optional for every degree. Certificate and Associate students complete the course through its units. On M.Div. and Th.M., the assigned textbook and required-reading tests also count after activation; valid earlier master’s completions remain valid. Reading three digests for honors does not replace either test.
These supplemental readings are the path to one added distinction — your degree awarded with honors. Each class whose reading you complete counts toward it: twelve classes for the Certificate, fifteen for the Th.M., twenty-five for the Associate, and thirty for the M.Div. Choose any three of the readings below, read them in full, and record your reading on your honor — then track your progress on the Honors page.
No constant internet required — see below
Reading the digests
Every one of these five readings is a Chapala Theological Seminary digest, written by CTS and available here on the site — all of them open directly from this page, in English, Spanish or French, with nothing to download. Each digest walks through a group of psalms and rests on the classic public-domain expositions, but the digests themselves are CTS-authored teaching, not reproductions, and those classic works are freely available online for any who wish to read them in full.
Reading in another language
Most of these works are in English. If you would rather read in Spanish, French or another language, the Chrome browser can translate a whole page for you. On a computer, right-click anywhere on the opened reading and choose “Translate to…”. On an Android phone or tablet, tap the three-dot menu and choose “Translate”. On an iPhone or iPad, tap the translate icon in the address bar — or open the page in the Chrome app if you don't see it. Machine translation is not perfect, but it is enough to follow the argument.
The Five Readings
Chosen: 0 of 3
Introduction · Psalms 1 & 2 · a CTS digest, ~2,000 words per language
1.The Book of Praise and Prayer
A CTS digest
An introduction to the Psalter — the inspired songbook and mirror of the soul (Athanasius), a school of prayer with a psalm for every experience — and its two gateway psalms: Psalm 1’s two ways (the tree by the water vs the chaff) and Psalm 2’s Anointed King, the Son, in whom all who trust are blessed; with a word on reading the Psalms Christ-centered, praying them in the company of Christ who prayed them first.
CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here
The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.
The Book of Praise and Prayer
A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — the Psalms: the inspired songbook of God's people, and its two gateway psalms
A CTS-authored survey, anchored in the classic public-domain expositions of the Psalms (Athanasius, Spurgeon, Binnie, and others), and in Scripture.
Book Study: Psalms
Prayer and Praise
The Two Ways
Anchored in classics
A word before you read. The Psalms are the inspired songbook and prayer-book of God's people, giving voice to the whole range of the life of faith. This first reading introduces the Psalter and its two gateway psalms — Psalm 1, the two ways, and Psalm 2, the LORD's Anointed King.
1.The Songbook of the Soul
The book of Psalms is the great songbook and prayer-book of the people of God — one hundred and fifty psalms, gathered into five books, that give voice to the entire range of the life of faith. Within them we find praise and lament, trust and fear, soaring joy and deep sorrow, honest confession of sin and overflowing thanksgiving. And there is something unusual about them. Much of Scripture is God speaking to us; but the Psalms are, for the most part, the inspired words of God's own people speaking back to Him — and this is exactly why they so easily become our own words. The great Athanasius said that the Psalter is like a mirror, in which the one who prays it sees his own soul reflected, and finds his own inmost feelings already set to words. Whatever a believer may be passing through, there is a psalm that fits it. The Psalms are, in the end, a school of prayer and praise, patiently teaching us how to bring the whole of our hearts — the bright and the dark alike — honestly and reverently to God.
2.The Two Gateway Psalms
Psalms 1 and 2 stand together at the front of the whole collection like a great doorway, and through that doorway we glimpse the two governing themes of everything that follows. Neither of them carries a title, and they seem to have been deliberately placed first as an introduction to the entire book. Psalm 1 sets before us two ways of living — the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked — and presses upon us the choice between them. Psalm 2 lifts our eyes to the LORD's Anointed King, and to the certainty of His reign. Taken together, these two psalms say, in effect: here is how you are to live, and here is the King toward whom all of history is moving. They are the two pillars on which the whole Psalter is built.
3.Psalm 1: The Two Ways
Psalm 1 pronounces a blessing on the person who refuses to be shaped by the counsel of the ungodly, and whose whole life is oriented instead toward God: "his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night." Such a one, the psalm says, is "like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season"; his roots go down to a hidden and unfailing supply, so that his leaf does not wither and his life bears fruit. But the ungodly are pictured with a startling contrast: they are "like the chaff which the wind drives away" — rootless, weightless, dry, and blown clean away when the wind of God's judgment comes. And the psalm ends by naming the reason for the difference: "For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish." So the very first note struck in the Psalter is this urgent question, put to every reader: which of these two ways will you walk? And the blessed way, it should be said, is not first of all a matter of grim effort but of delight — a settled delight in God and in His word that His own grace awakens in the heart.
4.Psalm 2: The Anointed King
Psalm 2 opens with an uproar: the nations of the earth rage and the peoples plot, and the kings of the earth set themselves against the LORD and against His Anointed, straining to throw off His rule as if it were chains to be broken. But the psalm answers this rebellion with sublime calm: the One who sits enthroned in the heavens simply laughs, for no scheme of men can shake His settled purpose. He announces His decree: "Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion." And to that King He says, "You are My Son." This King, the psalm declares, will be given the nations as His inheritance and will reign to the ends of the earth. And so the psalm closes with a solemn invitation and warning to the very rulers who had defied Him: "Serve the LORD with fear... Kiss the Son, lest He be angry"; and then this final beatitude — "Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him." The New Testament will make unmistakably plain who this King is: He is Christ, God's own Son. And so the Psalter, at its very gate, points us to the Messiah-King who is destined to reign, and calls us, wisely, to take our refuge in Him.
5.Christ in the Psalms
It is worth pausing, at the outset, to say a word about how the Psalms are to be read. They were, first of all, the real songs of David and of Israel, poured out of real hearts in real joys and sorrows. And yet they point beyond themselves, again and again, to Christ. Jesus Himself, after His resurrection, told His disciples that everything written about Him "in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms" had to be fulfilled. The reigning King of Psalm 2, the forsaken sufferer of Psalm 22, the eternal priest-king of Psalm 110 — all of them find their full and final meaning in Christ. And more than that: Christ Himself prayed and sang these very psalms during His life on earth, and even from the cross. So when we take the Psalms onto our own lips, we do not pray them alone; we pray them in the company of Christ, who is at once their deepest subject and our fellow-worshiper. The Psalter, rightly understood, is the songbook of Christ and of all His people together.
6.Enter and Sing
So here, at the threshold, is what the Psalms are: the inspired songbook and prayer-book of the people of God, a mirror of the soul and a lifelong school of prayer, with a psalm to match every experience the life of faith can bring. And standing at the gate are these two great psalms — the two ways of Psalm 1, pressing on us the choice of how we will live, and the Anointed King of Psalm 2, lifting our eyes to Christ and bidding us take refuge in Him. So make the Psalms your own. Whatever you are feeling in this hour — overflowing joy or crushing grief, quiet trust or gnawing fear, glad praise or bitter repentance — there is a psalm ready to give it words and to carry it up to God. Delight yourself in the LORD and in His word, and be like a tree planted by the water, that does not wither. Take your refuge in the King, His Son, in whom all who trust are truly blessed. And let the Psalms teach you, in every season of your life, how to pray and how to praise. In the readings to come we will walk together through the great songs of the Psalter — its songs of trust, its songs of sorrow and repentance, its songs of the Messiah, and its songs of pure praise — but they all begin right here, at the two ways and the King.
7.Taking It to Heart
For reflection. Which of the two ways of Psalm 1 truly describes your life — and is your delight really in the LORD and His word? Have you taken your refuge in the King, the Son, as Psalm 2 invites? And when you pray the Psalms, do you remember that Christ prayed them before you, and prays them still with His people?
Psalms 23, 46, 91, 121 · a CTS digest, ~2,000 words per language
2.Songs of Trust: The LORD Is My Shepherd
A CTS digest
The psalms that teach the soul to rest in God: the Shepherd who walks with us through the valley of the shadow and spreads a table before our enemies (23); God our refuge and strength, “be still and know that I am God” (46); the shelter under His wings, God with us in trouble (91); and the LORD our keeper who never slumbers, watching our going out and coming in forever (121).
CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here
The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.
Songs of Trust: The LORD Is My Shepherd
A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — Psalms 23, 46, 91, 121: the LORD our shepherd, refuge, shelter, and keeper
A CTS-authored survey, anchored in the classic public-domain expositions of the Psalms (Stevenson, Spurgeon, Maclaren, and others), and in Scripture.
Book Study: Psalms
Songs of Trust
Refuge and Shelter
Anchored in classics
A word before you read. Among the most beloved of all the psalms are those that teach the soul to rest and trust in God — songs sung not in the absence of danger, but right in the middle of it. This reading gathers four of the greatest: Psalm 23 (the shepherd), Psalm 46 (the refuge), Psalm 91 (the shelter), and Psalm 121 (the keeper).
1.Psalms That Teach Us to Trust
Among all the psalms, some of the dearest to God's people are those that simply teach the soul to rest and to trust in God, no matter what may be happening around it. These are the psalms of trust and refuge. And it is important to notice that they are not the songs of people who have no troubles; they are songs sung in the very thick of danger, that steady the trembling heart by fixing it on God — on God as shepherd, as refuge, as shelter, and as keeper. In this reading we gather four of the very greatest of them: Psalm 23, Psalm 46, Psalm 91, and Psalm 121. Together they form a treasury of comfort for the people of God in every age — and they speak with special sweetness to those who are passing through suffering.
2.Psalm 23: The LORD Is My Shepherd
Psalm 23 is the best-loved of them all. David, who had himself been a shepherd of sheep on the hills of Bethlehem, here pictures the LORD as his shepherd, and himself as one small sheep held safe in that shepherd's care. "The LORD is my shepherd," he begins, "I shall not want." Because it is the LORD Himself who is doing the shepherding, the sheep can lack nothing it truly needs. This shepherd leads His flock into green pastures and beside still, quiet waters, and, David says, "He restores my soul." And then comes the darkest turn of the psalm, and its most comforting line: even as he walks "through the valley of the shadow of death," David says he "will fear no evil" — and he gives the reason: "for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." It is not that the valley is avoided; it is that the shepherd walks through it at his side, and His presence drives out the fear. More than this, the LORD "prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies" — spreading a feast of provision and honor even while enemies look on. And the psalm closes in perfect peace: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." Goodness and mercy are not merely hoped for but pledged to pursue the believer down all his days, and heaven itself is his settled home. The whole psalm rests its enormous weight of comfort on a single truth: the LORD is my shepherd, and therefore I am safe.
3.Psalm 46: God Is Our Refuge and Strength
Psalm 46 is a song of steady, confident trust in the middle of upheaval and disaster. "God is our refuge and strength," it opens, "a very present help in trouble." And because that is so, the psalm dares to say that even in the most violent imaginable catastrophe — even "though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea" — "we will not fear." It turns then to a quieter picture: "there is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God"; and of that city it says, "God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved." Though the nations rage and kingdoms totter, God has only to utter His voice and the earth melts; and twice the psalm sounds its great refrain of confidence: "The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge." And at its very center stands one of the most famous summons to trust in all of Scripture: "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations." When the whole world seems to be shaking, the command that comes to God's people is not to panic and not to scramble, but to be still — to stop their frantic striving and to rest in the settled knowledge that God is God, and that He reigns over it all.
4.Psalm 91: The Shelter of the Most High
Psalm 91 is a rich song of God's protecting care over those who take refuge in Him. "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High," it begins, "shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." The one who has truly made God his hiding place is kept safe, and the psalm reaches for one of the tenderest images in all of Scripture to say so: "He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge" — the picture of a mother bird gathering her little ones beneath her wings. It promises the sheltered one deliverance from the terror of the night and the dangers of the day. And near its close God Himself speaks: "Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him... He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble." It is worth noticing, especially for those who suffer, exactly what God promises here. He does not promise His loved ones that trouble will never come near them; He promises something better and truer — that when trouble does come, He Himself will be right there in it with them, and will bring them through it at last. The psalm's own crowning word is not "you shall have no trouble," but "I will be with him in trouble."
5.Psalm 121: The LORD Is My Keeper
Psalm 121 is one of the "songs of ascents," the psalms that pilgrims sang as they made their way up the hills toward Jerusalem. It begins with a question: "I will lift up my eyes to the hills — from whence comes my help?" And it answers at once, lifting the gaze higher still, past the hills themselves to the One who made them: "My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth." Then the psalm settles into its great, repeated theme — that the LORD is His people's keeper. "He who keeps you will not slumber," it says; "behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep... the LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand." Six times over, in its few short verses, the psalm uses that word: keep. And it widens the promise until it covers everything: "The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore." The God who never once falls asleep keeps unbroken watch over His people at every single step they take — their going out and their coming in, in this moment and forever.
6.Lift Up Your Eyes
These four psalms together form a great treasury of trust for the people of God. The LORD is our shepherd, who leads us and restores us, who walks beside us through the very darkest valley, and who brings us safely home. He is our refuge and strength, a help so present that though the earth itself should shake we will not fear — for to us comes the word, "Be still, and know that I am God." He is our shelter, under whose wings we hide, who is with us in our trouble and delivers us out of it. And He is our keeper, who never slumbers nor sleeps, who watches over our going out and our coming in, now and forevermore. So whatever valley you are walking through, whatever storm is shaking your world, whatever danger is pressing in upon you — lift up your eyes to the LORD. He is your shepherd, your refuge, your shelter, and your keeper. His presence goes down with you into the dark valley; His strength is a very present help; His wings are your hiding place; and His watch over you never once closes its eyes. Be still, then, and know that He is God. Goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life, and you will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
7.Taking It to Heart
For reflection. As you walk through your own valley, can you say with David, "I will fear no evil, for You are with me"? When your world shakes, do you scramble in fear, or can you "be still, and know that I am God"? And do you truly rest in this: that the LORD who never sleeps is keeping your going out and your coming in, now and forever?
Psalms 51, 130, 42 · a CTS digest, ~2,000 words per language
3.Songs of Sorrow and Repentance: Out of the Depths
A CTS digest
The laments that give honest voice to grief and repentance, and turn it toward God: David’s plea for a clean heart, “a broken and contrite heart You will not despise” (51); the cry from the bottom met by “there is forgiveness with You… abundant redemption” (130); and the downcast soul that preaches hope to itself, “why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in God” (42). The laments show the way up, from the depths to mercy.
CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here
The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.
Songs of Sorrow and Repentance: Out of the Depths
A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — Psalms 51, 130, 42: bringing grief and guilt honestly to God, and finding the way up to mercy and hope
A CTS-authored survey, anchored in the classic public-domain expositions of the Psalms (Watson, Spurgeon, Delitzsch, and others), and in Scripture.
Book Study: Psalms
Sorrow and Repentance
From the Depths to Hope
Anchored in classics
A word before you read. Not all the psalms are songs of trust and praise; a great many — in fact the largest group of all — are laments, honest cries of grief and repentance. This reading gathers three of the greatest — Psalm 51 (the penitent's prayer), Psalm 130 (out of the depths), and Psalm 42 (the downcast soul) — and shows the way they all teach: from the depths, up to mercy and hope.
1.Psalms for the Days of Grief and Guilt
Not all the psalms are bright songs of trust and praise. A great many of them — in fact the single largest group in the whole Psalter — are laments: honest, and sometimes raw, cries of grief, of pain, and of repentance. And these psalms are one of the most precious gifts the book has to give us. For they grant God's people both permission and words to carry their sorrow and their sin straight to Him, instead of hiding it away; and, just as importantly, they show us the way through — the road that leads up out of the depths toward trust and hope again. In this reading we gather three of the very greatest of them: Psalm 51, Psalm 130, and Psalm 42. And it is worth noticing from the start that not one of these psalms ends in the same place where it began. Each of them climbs — however slowly and painfully — upward, toward God.
2.Psalm 51: Create in Me a Clean Heart
Psalm 51 is David's great prayer of repentance, poured out after his grievous sin, when the prophet Nathan had come and confronted him with what he had done. And here we hear what genuine repentance actually sounds like. David makes no excuse and offers no soft minimizing of his guilt; he simply throws himself on God's mercy: "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness... blot out my transgressions." He owns his sin without flinching — "For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me" — and he sees, as every truly awakened conscience does, that all sin is finally an offense against God Himself: "Against You, You only, have I sinned." Yet he asks for far more than a bare pardon. He asks to be made clean and new inside: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." That word "create" is the very word Scripture uses for God's making something out of nothing — for David has learned that no one but God can make a sinful heart new again. He aches for the return of lost gladness: "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation." And he comes to see that what God most desires is not any outward ritual, but this: "a broken and a contrite heart — these, O God, You will not despise." Psalm 51 is the sinner's own prayer for mercy, for cleansing, and for a new heart — and its great comfort is that God truly does receive the broken-hearted who come to Him this way.
3.Psalm 130: Out of the Depths
Psalm 130 is the cry of someone calling up from the very bottom. "Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD" — out of the deep, drowning waters of trouble or of guilt, the psalmist lifts his voice. He knows perfectly well that he cannot stand before God on the strength of his own record: "If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" If God kept a strict account of sins, no one could survive it. But then comes the great turn of the psalm — the gospel shining at its very heart: "But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared." With God there is forgiveness — and therefore, even from the depths, there is hope. So the psalmist settles down to wait: "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in His word I do hope"; "My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning." Like a weary night watchman aching for the first light of dawn, he waits for his God. And he turns to call all of God's people to share the same hope: "Let Israel hope in the LORD; for with the LORD there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption." Psalm 130 carries us the whole distance from the depths up to hope, and it does so leaning on one single truth: that there is forgiveness with God, and with Him redemption more than enough.
4.Psalm 42: Why Are You Cast Down, O My Soul?
Psalm 42 is the song of a soul that is thirsty for God and heavy within itself. "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God," it begins; "my soul thirsts for God, for the living God." Cut off, it seems, from the house of God and the company of worship, the psalmist thirsts for God's presence as a hunted deer thirsts for a stream. His feelings are very low: "My tears have been my food day and night." He remembers brighter days, when he went up with the throng to worship, and the memory only deepens his grief. And then he does something quietly remarkable, something worth learning from. He turns and speaks directly to his own soul — he questions his own despair, and preaches hope to himself: "Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance." He does not simply lie down and sink beneath the weight of his own feelings; he takes himself firmly in hand and turns his soul back toward hope in God. And there is real comfort here, especially for any who suffer from heaviness of heart: this psalm shows us that such downcast heaviness is not the end of the story, and that it is not always a sign of some spiritual failure. This psalmist is a godly man, and yet his soul is cast down. What he does is not to condemn himself for the darkness, but to speak God's truth to his own heart, and to turn again, and hope.
5.The Way Through the Depths
It is worth pausing to notice what all three of these psalms have in common, for in it lies their great lesson. Each of them begins in a low place: Psalm 51 in the weight of guilt, Psalm 130 down in the depths, Psalm 42 in a cast-down and thirsting sorrow. And not one of them pretends the sorrow away, or hurries past it, or pastes a false smile over it; each lets the grief be spoken out honestly, and fully, to God. And yet — here is the crucial thing — not one of them stays down in the depths either. Psalm 51 climbs up to a clean heart and the restored joy of salvation; Psalm 130 climbs up to forgiveness and abundant redemption; Psalm 42 climbs, by the simple act of preaching to its own soul, up to renewed hope in God. This is the very pattern that the laments are given to teach us: bring your sorrow and your sin to God honestly — do not hide them away, and do not dress them up to look better than they are — and then, from the depths, turn your face toward His mercy and His hope. The Psalms hand us permission to grieve and to confess; and then they take us by the hand and show us the way back up.
6.Bring It All to Him
These songs of sorrow and repentance are among the very kindest gifts in the whole of the Bible. They tell us, with great tenderness, that we do not have to pretend in the presence of God — that we may carry to Him our guilt, our grief, and our downcast, thirsting souls exactly as they are, with nothing hidden. And they promise us that the depths are never the end of the road. So if you are weighed down under the burden of sin, pray Psalm 51: God's mercy is real and near, and He is able to create in you a clean heart and to give you back your joy; the broken and contrite heart He will never, ever despise. If you are crying up from the depths, pray Psalm 130: there is forgiveness with the LORD, and redemption in abundance; so wait for Him as a watchman waits for the morning. And if your soul is cast down within you and thirsting, pray Psalm 42: speak God's truth to your own heart, and gently turn it back to hope — "Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him." Your sorrow is entirely safe in God's hands; your sin can be fully washed away; and hope set on God will never put you to shame. So bring all of it to Him, just as it is, and let Him lead you up, out of the depths, and into the light of His mercy.
7.Taking It to Heart
For reflection. Is there sorrow or sin you have been hiding from God, rather than bringing to Him honestly as these psalms do? Do you believe, with Psalm 130, that "there is forgiveness with" the LORD — enough for you? And when your own soul is cast down, can you learn from Psalm 42 to speak truth to yourself and say, "Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him"?
Psalms 22, 110, 118 · a CTS digest, ~2,000 words per language
4.Songs of the Messiah: The Suffering and Reigning King
A CTS digest
The psalms that sing of Christ: the cross-psalm of Psalm 22 (the cry of dereliction, pierced hands and feet, garments gambled — fulfilled precisely, ending in the nations’ worship); the King-Priest exalted at God’s right hand forever, after Melchizedek (110); and the rejected stone become the cornerstone, welcomed with “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD” (118) — as Jesus said, the Psalms spoke of Him.
CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here
The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.
Songs of the Messiah: The Suffering and Reigning King
A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — Psalms 22, 110, 118: the psalms that sing of Christ crucified, exalted, and enthroned
A CTS-authored survey, anchored in the classic public-domain expositions of the Psalms (Stevenson, Spurgeon, Delitzsch, and others), and in Scripture.
Book Study: Psalms
Songs of the Messiah
Christ Crucified and Reigning
Anchored in classics
A word before you read. Many psalms reach beyond David to point, sometimes with startling clearness, to the coming Christ. Jesus Himself taught that the Psalms spoke of Him. This reading gathers three of the greatest Messianic psalms — Psalm 22 (the cross), Psalm 110 (the King-Priest), and Psalm 118 (the cornerstone) — which sing of the Christ who suffered and who reigns.
1.Psalms That Sing of Christ
Many of the psalms reach out beyond the experience of David and of Israel, and point — sometimes with an almost startling clearness — to the coming Messiah, to Christ. These we call the "Messianic" psalms. And it is not our idea to read them so; it is the Lord's own teaching. After His resurrection, walking the road to Emmaus and later standing among His disciples, Jesus opened up the Scriptures to them — "the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms" — and showed how all of them bore witness to Him. In this reading we take up three of the very greatest of these psalms: Psalm 22, the psalm of the cross; Psalm 110, the psalm of the King-Priest at God's right hand; and Psalm 118, the psalm of the rejected stone made the cornerstone. Together they sing, centuries in advance, of the Christ who would suffer, and who would reign.
2.Psalm 22: The Psalm of the Cross
Psalm 22 is a psalm of David, and yet it describes a suffering so precise and so extreme that it reaches far past anything David endured, straight to the crucifixion of Christ. It opens with the very words that Jesus would cry aloud from the cross: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" It pictures the sufferer surrounded and mocked: "All those who see Me ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head" — the exact scene that unfolded at Calvary. It describes a body in agony: "I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint... My tongue clings to My jaws." And then, most astonishing of all, in words written long centuries before crucifixion was ever practiced as a means of death, it says: "They pierced My hands and My feet... They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots" — fulfilled to the letter at the cross, where the soldiers pierced Him and gambled among themselves for His clothing. And yet Psalm 22 does not end down in that darkness. It turns, past the suffering, to rescue and to praise: the sufferer is heard by God, and rises to declare God's name among his brethren; and the psalm swells at last into a vast vision of the whole world coming to worship — "all the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD." So this psalm carries us the whole way from the cry of dereliction on the cross to the great triumph that flows out from that cross: the suffering of Christ, and the worldwide worship that His suffering wins.
3.Psalm 110: The King-Priest at God's Right Hand
Psalm 110 is the single most frequently quoted psalm in the entire New Testament. It too is a psalm of David, but it speaks of David's own Lord: "The LORD said to my Lord, 'Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.'" David, the great king of Israel, here calls the Messiah "my Lord" — One greater than David himself, lifted up to the very right hand of God to reign. Jesus once pressed this very verse upon the religious leaders to point to His own divine sonship: how can the Messiah be merely David's son, He asked them, when David himself calls Him "Lord"? But the psalm says something further still. It declares the Messiah to be not only a king, but a priest: "The LORD has sworn... 'You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.'" Here is a King who is also a Priest, and a Priest forever, after the pattern of the mysterious Melchizedek who was both king and priest in the days of Abraham. The letter to the Hebrews would later build its whole argument upon this psalm: that Christ is the eternal Priest-King, reigning now at God's right hand and forever living to intercede for His people. Psalm 110 sings of Christ exalted — King and Priest forever.
4.Psalm 118: The Rejected Stone Become the Cornerstone
Psalm 118 is a great psalm of thanksgiving, and its recurring refrain is grace itself: "Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever." At the very heart of it lies the image of a stone: "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone." Jesus took these words and applied them directly to Himself: rejected and cast aside by the builders — the leaders who ought to have received Him — He has nonetheless been made by God the chief cornerstone of the whole building, the one stone on which everything rests. This same psalm also holds the very cry that the crowds took up and sang as they welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem on the day of His triumphal entry: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!" — the shout of "Hosanna" that hailed Him as the King. And it contains the line so often sung of the day of Christ's victory: "This is the day the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118 sings of the Christ who was rejected by men and yet exalted by God as the cornerstone, and welcomed as the coming King.
5.How the Psalms Prepare Us for Christ
These Messianic psalms do something truly wonderful for our faith. They show us, unmistakably, that the gospel was no afterthought and no late invention — that already, centuries before Christ was ever born, the Spirit of God was singing of Him through the mouth of David: singing of His suffering in Psalm 22, of His exaltation and His priesthood in Psalm 110, and of His rejection and His cornerstone glory in Psalm 118. And when we see just how exactly these ancient songs were fulfilled in Christ — the pierced hands and feet, the garments divided by lot, the very cry of dereliction, the stone rejected by the builders — our confidence, both in the trustworthiness of the Scriptures and in Christ Himself, is greatly strengthened. More than that, they train us how to read the whole Psalter: with Christ always in view. He is the true King of Psalm 2, the true sufferer of Psalm 22, the true Priest-King of Psalm 110. The Psalms are David's songs, yes; but in the deepest sense of all, they are the songs of Christ.
6.Welcome the King
These three psalms together lift up our eyes to the Christ who suffered and who now reigns. In Psalm 22 we are brought to stand at the foot of the cross, and to hear the Savior's cry of dereliction — forsaken, pierced, His very garments gambled away — as He bears there, in our place, the full judgment that our sin deserved; and yet even that psalm turns from the darkness to triumph, and to the sight of the nations streaming in to worship. In Psalm 110 we behold that same Christ exalted to the right hand of God, King and Priest forever, reigning until every last enemy is put beneath His feet, and living always to intercede for His own. And in Psalm 118 we see Him rejected by men and yet made by God the very cornerstone, welcomed with glad shouts as the King who comes in the name of the LORD. So worship this Christ, of whom the Psalms have sung all along. He suffered for you — that cry of dereliction in Psalm 22 was uttered for your sake. He reigns for you — the King-Priest of Psalm 110 is interceding for you at this very hour. And He is your sure foundation — the cornerstone of Psalm 118, on whom everyone who trusts will never be put to shame. The Psalter was singing of Him long before He came; and now He has come, and has suffered, and is risen, and reigns — so lift up your own glad "Hosanna," and welcome the King.
7.Taking It to Heart
For reflection. As you read Psalm 22, does it move you to worship that Christ was "forsaken" there in your place? Do you rest on Christ as the cornerstone of Psalm 118 — the sure foundation on whom all who trust are never put to shame? And does it strengthen your faith to see how exactly the Psalms, written so long before, were fulfilled in Him?
Psalms 103, 119, 145–150 · a CTS digest, ~2,000 words per language
5.Songs of Praise: Let Everything Praise the LORD
A CTS digest
The capstone: “Bless the LORD, O my soul… forget not all His benefits” — who forgives, heals, redeems, and crowns with mercy (103); the love and delight in God’s word that fills the Psalter’s longest song, a lamp to our feet (119); and the great closing doxologies rising to Psalm 150’s “let everything that has breath praise the LORD.” The whole Psalter’s arc — from the one blessed man of Psalm 1 to the universal praise of Psalm 150 — praise is the destination of the life of faith.
CTS DIGESTRead the full digest — opens right here
The Chapala Theological Seminary digest — an original summary written by CTS, available in English, Spanish and French, readable offline. This is the CTS digest, not the full original source text.
Songs of Praise: Let Everything Praise the LORD
A Chapala Theological Seminary reading — Psalms 103, 119, 145–150: the Psalter's rising praise, and its great close
A CTS-authored survey, anchored in the classic public-domain expositions of the Psalms (Manton, Spurgeon, Maclaren, Binnie, and others), and in Scripture.
Book Study: Psalms
Songs of Praise
Delight in God's Word
Capstone
A word before you read. The Psalter has taken us through every valley of the life of faith; now, as it draws to a close, it rises into pure and unbroken praise. This closing reading gathers the great songs of praise — Psalm 103 (bless the LORD, O my soul), Psalm 119 (the delight in God's word), and the closing doxologies that rise to Psalm 150 — and gathers up the message of the whole Psalter.
1.The Destination of Praise
The book of Psalms has carried us through every valley of the life of faith — the two ways at its gate, the songs of quiet trust, the depths of sorrow and repentance, the great songs of the suffering and reigning Messiah. And now, as the whole book draws toward its close, it rises up into pure and unbroken praise. This is no accident of arrangement. The five books of the Psalter are built, deliberately, to climb toward praise: the very last five psalms, 146 through 150, each one opens and closes with the shout "Praise the LORD!" — Hallelujah — and the entire collection comes to rest at last upon a single, soaring note: "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD." Praise, the Psalter means to teach us, is the destination and the crown of the whole life of faith. And so this closing reading gathers up the great songs of praise: Psalm 103, that most beloved call to bless the LORD; Psalm 119, the long and loving song of delight in God's word; and the closing doxologies that rise to the thunder of Psalm 150.
2.Psalm 103: Bless the LORD, O My Soul
Psalm 103 is among the most beloved of all the songs of praise. It begins with David summoning his own soul to worship: "Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name!" He knows that praise must sometimes be stirred up and called out from within, and so he preaches to himself. And the way he kindles his praise is by remembering — "forget not all His benefits" — and then naming them, one after another: "who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies." He praises the very character of God: "The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy." He reaches for great pictures of that mercy: "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us"; and, "As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him." And he cannot keep the song to himself; he widens the call outward until it takes in the angels, the heavenly hosts, and all the works of God everywhere, summoning them all to bless the LORD. Psalm 103 is a whole school of praise in itself: it teaches us to rouse our sluggish souls, to remember God's countless mercies, and, remembering, to bless His holy name.
3.Psalm 119: The Delight in God's Word
Psalm 119 is the longest of all the psalms, and indeed the longest chapter in the whole Bible — one hundred and seventy-six verses, arranged in an elaborate acrostic, and every part of it in praise of the word of God. Nearly every single verse speaks of God's law, His word, His statutes, His precepts, His commandments, or His testimonies. Yet it is very far from being cold or legalistic. It is, from beginning to end, a song of sheer love and delight: "Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day." "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." "Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You." "The entrance of Your words gives light." The psalmist finds in the word of God a lamp for the dark road, a treasure greater than gold, a delight sweeter than honey, a comfort in his affliction, and a sure guide for the whole of life. Psalm 119 teaches us to love and to delight in God's word — and in doing so it reaches all the way back to the very first psalm, and to the blessed man whose "delight is in the law of the LORD." What was a single verse in Psalm 1 has here been unfolded into the Psalter's longest and most loving song.
4.The Great Closing Doxologies
The Psalter comes to its end with five glorious "Hallelujah" psalms, Psalms 146 through 150, each of which both begins and ends with the ringing cry, "Praise the LORD!" Psalm 146 praises the LORD who made heaven and earth, who keeps His truth forever, and who lifts up those who are bowed down. Psalm 147 praises the LORD who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds — the very same God who also counts the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Psalm 148 summons the whole of creation to the chorus — the heavens and the angels, sun and moon and shining stars, the mountains and the seas and every living thing, kings and all peoples. Psalm 149 calls the people of God to praise Him with joyful singing. And then Psalm 150 is the grand finale of the whole book: "Praise God in His sanctuary... praise Him with the trumpet... with the lute and harp... with stringed instruments... upon the loud cymbals"; and at the very last, the final verse of the entire Psalter throws the doors wide open: "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!" In these closing psalms the Psalter climbs to a vast and universal chorus — every creature, everything that so much as draws breath, called in to praise its God. This is where the whole book has been travelling all along.
5.From the Two Ways to Universal Praise
Step back now and take in the whole sweep of the Psalter's journey. It opened, back in Psalm 1, with a single blessed man, quietly delighting in the law of the LORD, like one solitary tree planted by a stream of water. It ends, in Psalm 150, with the entire universe — everything that has breath — thundering out its praise to God. And in all the long stretch between those two points, it has given honest voice to every experience the life of faith can hold: trust and fear, joy and grief, sin and forgiveness, the suffering and the triumph of the Messiah. And through the whole of it, from beginning to end, the Psalter has been moving steadily in one direction: toward praise. This is the great lesson of the book taken as a whole. The life of faith, whatever dark valleys it may pass through along the way, is always moving toward the endless praise of God. Praise is its destination, and praise is its highest and truest joy. The one who begins, like the blessed man of Psalm 1, by simply delighting in God's word, will end by lifting his voice in the universal song of Psalm 150.
6.Join the Song
And so this brings to its close our whole walk through the Psalms, the songbook and prayer-book of the people of God. We entered by the two ways of Psalm 1 and the Anointed King of Psalm 2. We learned there to trust — that the LORD is our shepherd, our refuge, our shelter, and our keeper. We learned to bring our sorrow and our sin honestly before God, and we found in the laments the road that leads up out of the depths into mercy and hope. We saw Christ Himself singing through the Psalter — the suffering and reigning King, pierced for us, exalted to God's right hand, the rejected stone made the cornerstone. And now, at the last, we have arrived at praise: bless the LORD, O my soul; delight in His word; and let everything that has breath praise the LORD. So make the Psalms the companion of your whole life. When you need to trust, when you need to grieve, when you need to repent, when you long to see Christ, and when your heart overflows to praise — there is always a psalm ready for you. Rouse your soul to bless the LORD, and forget not one of all His benefits — for He forgives you, heals you, redeems your life, and crowns you with lovingkindness and mercy. Hide His word away in your heart, and delight in it as the lamp for your feet. And then lift up your own voice, together with all creation, in the one song that will never end: "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!" For this is where the whole life of faith is going — and it is where, by His grace, you are going too: to praise Him, forever.
7.Taking It to Heart
For reflection. Does your soul need to be roused, like David's, to "bless the LORD" and to remember His benefits? Do you love and delight in God's word, as Psalm 119 does — is it truly a lamp to your feet? And can you hear, in Psalm 150, the song you were made for, and lift your own voice to join it: "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD"?
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Further Study: Ten Public-Domain Works
These ten works are for further study, for the student who wants to go on reading. They are not part of the honors reading above: that stays as it is — the five CTS digests, any three read in full and recorded on your honor. All ten are in the public domain; each link opens the work online, and most can also be found in the Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg. Most are in English: the Chrome browser can translate a page (right-click, “Translate to…”; on a phone, the browser menu).
The Whole Psalter · The Great Treasury
1.The Treasury of David
Charles H. Spurgeon
Spurgeon labored for twenty years on The Treasury of David, and the result is perhaps the greatest devotional commentary on the Psalms ever written. For every Psalm he gives his own rich exposition, a treasury of quotations from other writers, and pointed hints for teaching. Warm, quotable, and endlessly rewarding, it is the ideal companion to the whole course — a lifetime's resource for understanding, loving, and preaching the Psalms. Whatever Psalm you are studying, begin here: you will rise from it with your mind instructed and your heart set singing.
Delitzsch's commentary is the great scholarly guide to the Psalms, treating the Hebrew text with unmatched care and deep reverence. Where Spurgeon warms the heart, Delitzsch informs the mind, opening the meaning of the words, the poetry, and the structure of each Psalm with the fruit of a lifetime's learning. This is a technical work, offered for the student who wishes to go deep; but for the serious question of what a Psalm actually says, it remains, after more than a century, among the surest and most trustworthy guides in any language.
Thomas Manton, a master among the Puritans, preached one hundred and ninety sermons on Psalm 119 — the longest Psalm, and the Bible's great song in praise of the Word of God. Verse by verse he unfolds the believer's love for God's law, its comfort in affliction, its light for the path, and its power to keep the heart. It is the perfect companion to the course's unit on Psalm 119. Vast though it is, the reader may take it in portions and find, in almost every page, a fresh reason to love and obey the Scriptures more.
Stevenson devotes an entire book to the best-loved of all the Psalms, unfolding the Twenty-third Psalm phrase by phrase — the Shepherd who provides, leads, restores, and stays beside His sheep through the valley of the shadow. Tender and rich, it draws out depths in a Psalm so familiar we may cease to feel it. It is the ideal companion to the course's unit on the Shepherd Psalm, and a comfort in itself. Read it slowly, and this ancient song of trust will do its quiet work: to still the anxious heart with the goodness and mercy that follow us all our days.
In this companion volume Stevenson expounds Psalm 22 — the Psalm that opens with the very cry Christ uttered on the cross, and paints His sufferings a thousand years before they came to pass. Phrase by phrase he shows how the pierced hands, the mocking crowd, and the parted garments were all foretold here, and how the Psalm turns at last from anguish to triumph. It is the ideal companion to the course's unit on the Messianic Psalm, leading the reader to Calvary through the words of David, and to a deeper wonder at the Savior who bore the forsaking that we might never be forsaken.
Watson's Puritan classic goes to the heart of Psalm 51 — the broken and contrite spirit that God will not despise. With searching clarity he anatomizes true repentance: what it is, its marks, and how it differs from mere regret, calling the reader from a shallow sorrow to the godly grief that turns wholly to God. It is the ideal companion to the course's unit on the penitential Psalm. Read it to feel the weight and the sweetness of true repentance — and to make David's prayer your own: ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God.’
Maclaren's exposition of the Psalms brings the touch of a great preacher to the whole book, opening one Psalm after another with insight, beauty, and warmth. He is especially fine on the Psalms of trouble and trust — the fearful heart, the seeming silence of God, the burden cast upon the Lord — that this course takes up. Accessible and deeply spiritual, it is a perfect middle companion between the vast commentaries and the single-Psalm studies, guiding the reader into the heart of many Psalms with a sure and gentle hand, and always toward the God who hears.
In this ancient and beautiful letter, Athanasius — one of the great fathers of the early church — explains how the Psalms are unlike any other part of Scripture: for in them we do not only read of the feelings of the soul, but find our own put into words, and given back to us as prayer. He shows which Psalms fit which occasions — for joy and for grief, for fear and for thanksgiving. It is a fitting companion to the course's units on the Psalms in ministry, and among the wisest short guides ever written for making the whole Psalter one's own daily prayer.
Prothero's remarkable book tells the story of what the Psalms have meant to men and women across the centuries — the words that soldiers sang, that martyrs died with on their lips, that comforted kings and peasants, the dying and the grieving, in every age of the church. It is a moving companion to the course's units on the Psalms in ministry, showing better than any argument how these ancient songs have carried the people of God through their darkest and brightest hours. Read it to see the living power of the Psalter — and to trust it the more for your own life and your care of others.
Binnie's classic stands back from the individual Psalms to consider the Psalter as a whole — how it came to be, how it is put together, what it teaches, and how it has been used in the worship and prayer of the church. It is an ideal companion to the course's capstone on the Psalms in ministry, giving the student a rounded understanding of the book's poetry, its doctrine, and its place in the life of God's people. Read it to gain not only a deeper love for particular Psalms but a firm grasp of the whole treasury — and of how to use it well in worship, in counsel, and in the care of souls.
Chapala Theological Seminary · Seminario Teológico de Chapala · free self-study in English, Spanish and French
Chapala Theological Seminary · Further Study
Further Study — Online
Optional resources for students with internet access — Psalms
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Short, well-crafted animated videos that walk through the whole of Scripture. In the video library, open the overview of Psalms to see its structure and message. Non-partisan and freely available.
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