Psalms as Torah – Reading Biblical Song Ethically

"While the Psalms are a regular source of our thinking about theology, prayer, and worship, less attention has been given to what they have to say to guide our ethics. That gap has now been filled by Gordon Wenham's careful reading of the Psalter to uncover its various moral voices. An important contribution to both ethics and our insightful reading of the Psalms. "-Patrick D. Miller. , Princeton Theological Seminary"In Story as Torah. Gordon Wenham showed how biblical narrative texts, little used by ethicists, can inform Christian moral teaching. Here he applies the same idea to the Psalms, equally seldom used in building a biblical ethics. He shows the huge potential of the Psalter to shape our moral insight. "-John Barton. , University of Oxford"As increasing scholarly attention is given to Old Testament ethics, Gordon Wenham has become one of our most reliable guides. He makes such a clear case for the ethical centrality of Israel's Psalter that we wonder how so many before him failed to see the ways in which ethics are shaped by the prayers and liturgies of a worshiping community. We are deeply in his debt. "-Bruce C. Birch. , Wesley Theological Seminary"Wenham charts a fresh new course in studying the Psalms. He urges us to appropriate the psalms at a deeper level as a means of instruction (Torah), full of doctrine and ethical guidelines for life. This book is a rich delight, and I heartily recommend it to the scholar, pastor, and layperson alike. "-David M. Howard Jr. , Bethel Seminary"Wenham embeds the Psalter's ethical impact in the liturgy, explores its particular contribution to ethical formation, and connects its views with the rest of the biblical canon. This is a welcome and wonderfully profound and expansive study of a neglected area in the field of Old Testament ethics. "-M. Daniel Carroll R. , Denver Seminary"This richly satisfying book explores the depth and breadth of the book of Psalms in its ethical and formative power for the lives of God's people, individually and as a community in the midst of a fallen world. A model exercise in biblical theology at its very best-illuminating, nourishing, and challenging. "-Christopher J. H. Wright. , Langham Partnership International; author, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God.