Rude Praise

When we read the Bible, we tend to race to our favorite passages. When we encounter a passage we don’t understand or like, or even one that is positively offensive, we tend to move on. We “eat the fish and leave the bones,” in a popular way of putting this approach to reading. But what if the bones are what we need? The psalms of Israel are full of glories that anyone can access: “The Lord is my shepherd.” “I lift up mine eyes to the hills.” But there are other, more infamous passages: “Happy are they who take your little ones and dash them against the rock.” Other passages insist that I, I alone, am righteous, and my enemies should be destroyed. These verses don’t find their way into needlepoint or cat posters at the dentist’s office. We usually ignore them in our teaching and devotional reading. But what if they’re in the Bible for a reason? What if they offer a kind of fiber in the diet that the body needs? What if they offer good, Jewish ballast so the ship of the church doesn’t tilt entirely over into saccharine spirituality and other-worldly Gnosticism? This book takes on the “rude psalms” that refuse to sit still and behave, and it sets them loose in the spiritual life of the church.