God Is Our Refuge and Strength

From the forthcoming book, God Is Our Refuge and Strength: 150 Devotionals Through the Psalms
by Bill Boekestein and Rob Ventura, Published by The Banner of Truth, October 2026

What Is a Psalm?

The biblical psalms have always been cherished by God’s people. That is why, for example, when standalone New Testaments are printed, the psalms are often included. This portion of Scripture has served as an enduring source of comfort, giving voice to our deepest emotions as we cry out to God in any situation.

But the psalms will only remain special to us if we know and use them. Sadly, many believers today hear and sing fewer psalms in congregational worship (though others are in churches that are leading a revival in psalm use). Compared to past generations, fewer Christians today could probably summarize a single psalm, perhaps outside of Psalm 23. When the psalms become unfamiliar, they can feel like a foreign language—one we struggle to speak. This is especially true of the judgment or imprecatory psalms (e.g., Psa. 137). But God’s people need to know all the psalms, not just the familiar ones. We must pray the psalms in our spirit and ‘with the understanding also’ (1 Cor. 14:15 KJV). That’s a biblical command (Col. 3:16). And there are many compelling and encouraging reasons why you and your family should grow more acquainted with the biblical psalter.

However, before we can benefit from the psalms, we must have a good grasp on what a psalm is. Many modern Christians have an uneasy relationship with the psalms. We believe that the psalms, as with all Scripture, are ‘breathed out by God and profitable’ (2 Tim. 3:16). Yet, reading and singing them can feel uncomfortable. In the psalms, we sometimes declare things that don’t seem true of us: ‘I have trusted in the Lord without wavering’ (Psa. 26:1), or ‘I flood my bed with tears’ (Psa. 6:6). Other times, we find ourselves reciting words we may not know how to process, such as the blessing in Psalm 137 upon those who commit ruthless violence (verse 9).

How can we improve our relationship with the psalms so that we can use them to praise God with our spirits and minds (1 Cor. 14:15)? Understanding three key attributes of the psalms can help.

The Psalms Are Poetry

Poems—even biblical ones—can be a nuisance to impatient people who want only what is practical. Instruction manuals are practical. But no one turns to them when grappling with grief, pain, longing, or love. Poetry, however, reaches deep into our hearts and minds through artistic language.^[1] John Piper put it this way:

Poetry is an expression of the fact that there are great things that are inexpressible … for the poet, this limitation of language does not produce silence; it produces poetry. Poetry is a kind of verbal resistance to the impenetrability of human experience. The poet will at least try.^[2]

At times, poetry is the only way to capture the weight of an idea. It is one thing to say, ‘God observes your sorrow.’ But isn’t it far more stirring to say, ‘You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in a bottle’ (Psa. 56:8)? It’s true, as the saying goes, that men are mortals. But doesn’t it land with greater force when we read: ‘As for man his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field’ (Psa. 103:15). The psalms’ poetic nature also helps us to understand their raw expressions of judgments. The most unsettling cries for justice have, as one commentator put it, ‘the shocking immediacy of a scream, to startle us into feeling something of the desperation which produced them.’^[3] So, when David screams, ‘Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?’ (Psa. 139:21), we feel his fierce loyalty to God’s holiness. The New Testament refines and deepens our understanding of such passages. But their intensity still teaches us something valuable.

As divinely inspired poetry, the psalms help us express what must be said—even when the truth is clothed in the abstract language of verse.

The Psalms Are Prophecy

Many expressions in the psalms don’t seem to fit our experience. That’s true because they aren’t exclusively about us. They ‘bear witness about’ Christ (John 5:39). Peter makes this clear when he interprets Psalm 16, stating that David, ‘being therefore a prophet … foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ’ (Acts 2:38, 39). Even when a psalm reflects the personal struggles of its human author or Israel’s corporate experiences, it often foreshadows the greater story of Jesus who is the true Davidic King and representative of God’s people.

‘The Psalms are full of Christ. They not only explicitly prophesy the coming of Christ (e.g., Pss. 2; 33; 110), but the message of the Psalms always pulls the soul to Christ and his great saving work.’^[4] Both Jesus and the apostles saw the psalms as rich with messianic meaning (Luke 24:44, 45). They tell the story of Jesus—his incarnation (40:6-8), righteousness (7:8), suffering (69:9), betrayal (41:9), death (22:15), resurrection (16:8-10), and final judgment (7:6-9). The psalms don’t just speak about prophecy they portray it. As one scholar observes, ‘The special quality of the Psalter’s Messianic prophecy … is that it is lived out, as well as spoken out.’^[5]

Some of the hardest-to-understand verses in the psalms only make sense when interpreted as prophecy. Psalm 109, for example, is an imprecatory psalm, filled with curses—but in Acts 1:15-20, Peter identifies it as a prophecy about Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. Likewise, even psalms in which the author confesses sin preview Christ’s intense association with sinners. The psalter’s prophetic character allows believers to affirm every sentence in the book, even when some lines describe Jesus better than ourselves. The wonder of the gospel is that, by faith, we are so united to him that his experiences become ours. We share in his sorrows, his prayers, and his ultimate victory.

The Psalms Are Only One Part of Scripture

God reveals himself progressively throughout Scripture. The Old Testament is entirely true, yet it remains incomplete without the fulfilment found in the New Testament. The psalms are God’s word, but not God’s last word. To understand them fully, we must read them in the light of the New Testament.

This perspective helps explain why some psalms might feel harsh to modern readers. Like Abel’s blood, the psalms cry out for justice (Gen. 4:10). Written in an era of longing for a redeemer, the psalms capture the desperate prayers of harassed and helpless victims waiting for the coming of the Good Shepherd (Psa. 123:2). They, like the Jewish ceremonial laws, have a preliminary character. They anticipate the cross at which God’s enemies were judged (Col. 2:15). Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation doesn’t cancel believers’ cries for justice; it answers them. And to no surprise, it changes our outlook. Like Jesus, we should also now pray for those who persecute us (Matt. 5:44).

But though the psalms were written before the earthly ministry of Jesus, their message does not conflict with later revelation. For example, the New Testament does not dismiss the imprecatory psalms; rather, it echoes their themes and points to their final fulfilment, culminating in the last judgment. Their strong expressions pale in comparison to Jesus’ own words against the enemies of his kingdom (Matt. 23), God’s swift judgment of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5), or the blinding of Elymas for obstructing gospel ministry (Acts 13). The enemies of the cross, who align themselves with the powers of darkness, must be resisted. Rightly understood, ‘the cursing psalms are a peaceful, petitionary participation in God’s promise to strike the seed of the serpent and restore the peace of the garden.’^[6]

The psalms can seem strange to us. ‘We will never fully understand or appreciate much of what is in them. But precisely because of their strangeness they speak … a language which possesses validity for every age and which can be heard anew in every age.’^[7] They are not just a legitimate part of the Bible; they are its beating heart. Flowing from the heart of God, through the hearts of the human authors, they speak deeply to our hearts about the story of redemption. Still, some psalms are harder to grasp than others.

[1] A. Berkeley Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible: A Book of Basic Principles for Understanding Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), 323.

[2] John Piper, ‘God Filled Your Bible with Poems.’ Desiring God. August 16, 2016. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/god-filled-your-bible-with-poems.

[3] Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1973), 28.

[4] W. Robert Godfrey, Learning to Love the Psalms (Sanford, FL: Ligonier, 2017), 4.

[5] Kidner, Psalms 1–72, 25.

[6] Trevin Wax ‘What C. S. Lewis Got Wrong About the Cursing Psalms.’ The Gospel Coalition. March 21, 2023. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/ trevin-wax/cs-lewis-cursing-psalms.

[7] Claus Westermann The Psalms: Structure, Content and Message (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1980), 11.