Your Turn for 09/30 - 10/01/2023 - Psalm 105:1-11
Welcome to the weekend, Seeds of Faith community!
Because this is a reflection on scripture using the SOAP method (Scripture-Observation-Application-Prayer), part of the purpose is sharing an example of what you might practice in your own scripture reading. So, the weekend invitation is to practice your own SOAP reflection.
Each weekend, I share a passage of scripture to work from. If you’re up for sharing in the comments, I’d love to see what you come up with. This week the prompt is Psalm 105:1-11, which you’ll find below. If you share, please copy and paste the sentence or phrase you are reflecting on.
Brief guidelines for a good practice:
The Basic Method. Pick a sentence or phrase in the scripture passage that stands out to you. Write down something you observe going on in that sentence or phrase. Reflect on how that observation gives insight that might apply to your faith and life. Write a short prayer about that.
Observe Well. Think about what the sentences and phrases are saying and not saying. Take care also not to extrapolate more than is there.
Stay Balanced. Focus on the particular scripture while keeping the whole witness of scripture (as well as you know it) in mind. Isolating a verse or passage from the whole can lead us to heresies, but reading each verse or passage deeply and well makes for a robust understanding of the whole. This is one purpose of the early creeds (Apostles’ and Nicene)—they summarize the major points of Christian scripture and doctrine so as to help us read individual biblical passages faithfully.
Psalm 105:1-11
1 Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;
make known among the nations what he has done.
2 Sing to him, sing praise to him;
tell of all his wonderful acts.
3 Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
4 Look to the Lord and his strength;
seek his face always.
5 Remember the wonders he has done,
his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced,
6 you his servants, the descendants of Abraham,
his chosen ones, the children of Jacob.
7 He is the Lord our God;
his judgments are in all the earth.
8 He remembers his covenant forever,
the promise he made, for a thousand generations,
9 the covenant he made with Abraham,
the oath he swore to Isaac.
10 He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree,
to Israel as an everlasting covenant:
11 “To you I will give the land of Canaan
as the portion you will inherit.”
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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