More Reflections 1

My sister gave me a set of books for Christmas: Psalms by Derek Kidner [Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries]

Something I read this morning made me reflect back on Turtles Can Fly:

The author reminds us that the Psalms were written before the Gospels influenced our thinking.

"...To get fully in tune with the psalmists on this issue [the substance and tone of their cries for vengence] we should have to suspend our consciousness of having a gospel to impart (which affects our attitude to fellow sinners) and our assurance of a final righting of wrongs (which affects our attitude to present anomalies.) Without these certainties, only a cynic could feel no impatience to see justice triumphant and evil men broken; and these authors were no cynics. It would be better, in fact, to speak of their attuning our ears to the gospel than of our adjusting to their situation, for we can not truly hear its answers until we have felt the force of their questions. . ." [Kidner, p. 26]

We can't really hear how profoundly the Gospel answers the psalmists' grave questions about life unless we have truly felt the force of their questions. "Turtles Can Fly" illustrates the force of such questions...

This also jumped out at me: "What he [David] asked of God was no more - and could certainly be no less - than the verdict and intervention which a victim of injustice could expect from him, David himself, as king of Israel. The more seriously he [David] took his ideal of kingship from God . . . [the author quotes 2 Sam 23: 1, 3] the more unthinkable it was that he should slander Him by underrating His abhorrence of evil." [Kidner, p27]

David would be slandering God by under-rating God's abhorrence of evil.