Proclaimer Blog
Doing justice to an acrostic
I'm preaching on Psalm 145 at the weekend. It's one of the acrostic psalms – each couplet begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I have been thinking how a preacher in the 21st Century, preaching in English, does justice to this memorable structure. It's almost certain that David wrote the psalm in this way to make it memorable – and indeed many preachers incorporate that into their title – "The A-Z of praise" of "An ABC of the greatness of God." All well and good – but it doesn't really reflect the nature of the psalm does it? Is there any way to be faithful to the nature of the psalm?
Here's one idea – my four teaching points were originally:
- Praise the Lord for his greatness (4-7)
- Praise the Lord for his grace (8-13)
- Praise the Lord for his faithfulness (14-16)
- Praise the Lord for his salvation (17-20)
I've now rewritten these to be:
- Praise the Lord for he is AWESOME (4-7)
- Praise the Lord for his BLESSINGS (8-13)
- Praise the Lord for he is the CARER (14-16)
- Praise the Lord for he DELIVERS (17-20)
Perhaps, just perhaps, people will now think A-B-C-D and it will make the message (and the psalm) more memorable?