Christopher Ash: Christ, the Psalms and us

Following the publication of the new book, The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary, en reviews editor John Woods spoke to the author, Christopher Ash, at Tyndale House.

Christopher is a Scholar-in-Residence at Tyndale House in Cambridge.

en: What is your first memory of the Psalms?

CA: I went to a very old-fashioned school, where in our school assemblies that we called chapel, we used to chant Psalms very badly. I remember thinking: I have no idea of what these Psalms mean.

en: What is the greatest contribution that the Psalms have made to you as a person in your life?

CA: Since my conversion at 17 they have really helped to shape my prayer life and life of praise. I have particularly felt the weight of the laments (it may be because I am a melancholy person). These have been the thing that have shaped my prayers so that I can move from just being sorrowful to bringing that sorrow into the presence of God, and praying in ways that God has given us to pray.

en: When and how did you realise that the way we read and preach the Psalms needed a reset?

CA: I think gradually, really. I began teaching Psalms at the Cornhill Training Course and, as so often with teaching, I was learning just ahead of the teaching. I gradually realised that the ways we have been reading the Psalms have been influenced by the so-called Enlightenment and probably too much by the Romantic movement. So, we read them sentimentally, cherry-picking the bits we like. Gradually I was reconnected with the first three-quarters of Christian history, seeing Christ front and centre in Psalm interpretation.

en: Have you received any pushback?

CA: Yes, some. I still struggle to know what the issues are. Some of us are more in the shadow of the Enlightenment than we realise. There are differences theologically in the way that we see the relationship between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. I have come to Reformed convictions that there are substantial continuities, as well as newness, that help to shape this sort of reading of the Psalms. Others who see a greater discontinuity would feel that is wrong.

en: You write: ‘Like an adventurer planting a flag in occupied territory, I want to reclaim the Psalms for Christ.’ In a few sentences could you summarise what you mean by that?

CA: I think I mean that there has been an eclipse of Christ, certainly in a lot of Old Testament scholarship, and sometimes in popular writing as well. If you pick a commentary off the shelf written in the last couple of hundred years, Christ might not be there at all in a Psalms commentary, or there will be a little end note about Christ or connections with links to the New Testament.

en: What does it mean to reclaim the Psalms for Christ in reading and preaching?

CA: It needs to begin with the conviction that this is the meaning of the Psalms; that we are not adding some layer of meaning to them. If we are persuaded of that, then preaching that means unashamedly believing in the Holy Spirit, believing in prophecy, believing that a Psalm can speak of Christ or for Christ. Then to preach with Christ front and centre, rather than adding Christ as a little postscript (the approach is laid out fully in the introductory volume of this commentary).

I was struck that the Lord Jesus learned the Psalms as we learn them; from His parents and from the synagogue. They were chronologically prior to Him but, in eternity as the Eternal Word, He is the One who with the Holy Spirit and the Father spoke the Psalms.

en: Were there particular Psalms that you found difficult to treat in this way?

CA: I wrote something for Christian Focus called Teaching Psalms, where I possibly oversimplified things. Working through them slowly again I realised that I needed to nuance things. For many Psalms it can be understood as Christ speaking, sometimes it was a case of the Psalm speaking of Him. When I studied the quotations and echoes from the Psalms. I could see that the basics of a Christ-centred reading are true, but that there is a great richness in the way that Jesus and the apostolic writers echoed the Psalms. I tried to reflect that a bit more. Having to comment on all 150 Psalms helped me to do this!

en: What was your breakthrough in dealing with the penitential Psalms?

CA: The general answer is that of understanding Jesus as our covenant representative head. I was greatly helped by the account of Jesus being baptised by John the Baptist in a baptism of repentance and insisting that it was the right thing to do.

Subsequent to that I had a fascinating time grappling with Psalm 51. I had an interesting correspondence with Philip Eveson, who has written a very good commentary on the Psalms, and Gary Williams, who is a fine systematic theologian. They had different views on whether we could see Jesus leading us in Psalm 51. That was very instructive. In my commentary I have said that there are different views on this; this one is mine, but I might be wrong.

en: The style of your commentary is not technical, and the structure is simple – what made you decide to organise the commentary in this way?

CA: It is because I am a pastor and a preacher. If I am a scholar, it is as a self-taught one. My Hebrew is not especially good. I use it, but am not an expert. I am thinking of what would be most helpful to a Bible study leader or preacher. I have tried to look in the orientation section at the context in history, the whole Psalter, and Biblical theology.

en: When you think about people reading your book – what is your greatest nightmare and what is your greatest dream?

CA: The nightmare is that people will pick the commentary up and think that this is some nice simple scheme and preach it in a schematic way that does not do justice to distinctiveness of a particular Psalm. There is always the danger that a big idea can dominate our approach to the text. The dream would be that Jesus would be honoured and that our hearts would be drawn to Him as we see His beauty in the Incarnation.

en: What advice would you give to a young preacher beginning to preach the Psalms, and what advice would you give to a seasoned preacher who feels they need to reset the way they preach on the Psalms?

CA: For a young preacher, I would counsel them to make sure they preach the text. Not to worry about leaving some things on the side of the plate but concentrate on preaching the heart of the text. Also not to be afraid to say: ‘I am not sure about this detail.’ That is quite a winsome thing for a young preacher to say.

For a seasoned preacher, I think it is much harder if have been brought up to read Psalms in a way that leaves Christ on the margins, apart from the big famous ones where the New Testament is clear about them. The advice I would give is to ask: ‘What might it have meant for Jesus in the days of His flesh to say the words of this Psalm?’ I think that is a very revealing question. The answer will not always be the same, but is worth asking the question.

en: The Psalms bristle with imagination and they call for imagination in preaching; how can preachers foster greater imagination in their preaching?

CA: That is a very interesting question. Part of the problem is that in our culture very few of us do poetry. We don’t read poetry aloud; we don’t hear poetry read. I remember one of my students at Cornhill saying: ‘I don’t do poetry’. I said to him: ‘You need to learn to do poetry because there is a lot of it in the Scriptures.’

I think that reading out loud is a great thing, and trying to hear the tune and feeling the feeling of the Psalm as well as thinking the thinking.

I feel much more than I did 30–40 years ago. That is probably in part because of all the bumps and bruises in life, and having been a pastor who rejoices with those who rejoice and weeps with those who weep.

I pray that the Psalms will get into my bloodstream, into my thinking and feeling, and remembering that as a preacher my aim is to place the Psalm in the head and on the heart of my hearers so that they too can make this Psalm part of their life of prayer and praise. It is a different kind of preaching; it is a different tone, just as wisdom is a different tone.

en: Has what you have learned in reflecting on the Psalms helped you in looking at other Biblical genres?

CA: It helped me in preaching on the Book of Lamentations in three places this summer. The Psalms’ immersion helped me in this. It has made me ask the big whole Bible questions when looking at any text.

en: What about the singing of the Psalms?

CA: The Psalms are very oral. I don’t want to cause needless controversy, but it seems that Paul in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 assumes that the Christian churches will sing Psalms. The challenge is for musicians to help us sing them congregationally.

en: Do you have a soundtrack for this book?

CA: No. I work in silence. I have just bought some noise-cancelling ear buds, which are really effective for aircraft travel and also useful for being at my desk.

I guess that sometimes we could all do with valuing the sound of silence! Thank you, Christopher, for your time and for your painstaking efforts in getting this valuable commentary over the line.

THE PSALMS:
A Christ-Centred Commentary
By Christopher Ash
Crossway. Hardback 4 volumes 2,480 pages. £117.99
ISBN 978 1 433 588 419