I am persuaded that without knowledge of literature pure theology cannot at all endure. . . . Certainly it is my desire that there shall be as many poet rhetoricians as possible, because I see that by these studies, as by no other means, people are wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it skillfully and happily. . . . Therefore I beg of you that at my request (if that be of any weight) you will urge your young people to be diligent in the study of poetry and rhetoric. (Martin Luther, “Letter to Eoban Hess, 29 March 1523”[1])

A minister of the Word aims for the heart no matter what Scriptural text he is preaching. But he is never more conscious of this as when he handles biblical poetry. All poets insist upon making an impression—one that is to be felt. They draw from an ample collection of devices and images to provoke the imagination. Lyrics compress language in one stanza, while metaphors expand horizons in the next. Poetry sets the heart on fire.

Divine poetry goes even further. Its revelations dive as deep as the human heart can bear. Words of flesh and blood are authorized to bear the “living and active” word, which pierces and divides unseen things within. What first appears in swaddling clothes proves to shroud eternal truth.

Application is always a challenge, but with poetry, the test begins with exposition. The most compressed, stylized, symbolic, metaphorical language in all of Scripture causes even the most experienced preacher to be confronted by his literary limits and quietly muse, “Who is sufficient for these things?”

Nevertheless, the “approved worker” must “rightly divide” all the Word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15), including the one third that is shaped poetically. It is a sobering stewardship. Yet rarely does the preacher’s task admit such beauty or permit him to pull at the intimate strings of a pilgrim’s heart as when preaching poetry, especially the psalms. His task is to rise to this challenge and handle these elegant forms with care, using every God-given aid to take aim at his quarry, the hearts of God’s people.

Our Aim: The Heart

We aim at the heart in preaching because man’s entire inner self is governed from this one point of unity. The heart is the fountainhead of every motive, the seat of every passion, the center of every thought, and the spring of conscience.[2] It is the “hidden control-center” in every person.[3] All of your inner life is bound with it and from it “flow the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23). As Abraham Kuyper stated, the heart is “that point in our consciousness in which our life is still undivided and lies comprehended in its unity.”[4] It is the helm of the ship that sets the bearing your life will follow. Everything in your life—whether it is your treasure, inner beauty, repentance, faith, service, obedience, faithfulness, worship, love, daily walk, or seeking the Lord—all of it is to be done “with all your heart.”[5] The preacher must not aim at anything less.

The word heart is different from the other words in the Bible that describe our interior life (like “soul,” “spirit,” “conscience,” or “the inner man”). Within the unity of the heart there resides a triune complexity of functions: the mind, the desires, and the will. That is to say, the heart includes what we know (which is our intellect, knowledge, thoughts, intentions, ideas, meditation, memory, imagination); what we love (what we desire, want, seek, crave, yearn for, feel); and what we choose (our decision-making—whether we will resist or submit, whether we will be weak or strong, whether we will say “yes” or “no”).[6] The heart “combines the complex interplay of intellect, sensibility, and will.”[7] This threefold scheme of the heart (mind, desires, will) was foundational to the Puritans who understood the importance of preachers aiming for the heart. The word “heart” in Scripture is simple enough to reflect our inner unity and comprehensive enough to capture our inner threefold complexity.

Preaching to the heart means preaching to all of it—the heart’s mind, desires, and will. A preacher must bear in mind that the heart’s threefold complexity does not eclipse the heart’s unity. What the heart knows, desires, and chooses are in constant, mutual interaction. Every function of the heart is inseparably related to the rest of the heart’s capacity. We are not capable of dispassionate reasoning. The health of our mind is connected to the health of our desires, just as it is joined to the resolution of the will. The mind, desires, and will work in tandem. It is the way God made us. The poetry he gave us makes that clear.

Our Terrain: The Psalms

“Just as we taste food with the mouth,
so we taste the psalm with the heart.” (Bernard of Clairvaux)

When discussing the genre of poetry there are a variety of categories one can use. Those of form, thought, and image will guide our reflections here.

Form

When it comes to form or structure, a poem reminds us that it is not just what is said, but the way it is said. Accordingly, a psalm should be read in the way that it is constructed. Most modern translations print the Psalms with the structure that helps us recognize them as poems. Setting a psalm into verses, strophes, and stanzas displays the lyrical symmetry that gives the psalm shape. It is not a mash-up of phrases. It is a sculpture.

Psalms are structured artistically. Some are arranged acrostically, in which the first letter of each colon (Ps. 111), line (Ps. 34), strophe (Ps. 37) or stanza (Ps. 119) is in the successive order of the Hebrew alphabet. Some psalms have a symmetrical structure, as in the case of a chiasmus—where phrasing or ideas are marked by matched repetition. The main point may lie at the center of the symmetry (Ps. 22), or it may be repeated in the opening and closing thoughts (Ps. 1). Some psalms are stylized by a cyclical form, which repeats one or more themes (Ps. 25).

Although these forms permeate the Psalter, they are unwieldy in the pulpit. How does saying “this psalm is acrostic in the Hebrew” do the listener any practical good? It may come off as elitist or nerdy, but rarely as helpful. The same is true of chiasms. It is a rare day that drawing attention to this structure will benefit the congregation. It would be better to trace the thought of the psalm in an unpretentious way and simply say, “the psalm closes with the same thought it began with” or “look how these same ideas are repeated, only in opposite order.” Even so, whenever we can highlight the aesthetic construction of Scripture to underline its supreme dignity and beauty, we are not laboring in vain. Such moments give the people of God another reason to “look up” with thankfulness to the master designer.

What some have characterized as the distinguishing feature of Hebrew poetry is its parallel structure—in which a phrase is repeated (Ps. 19:7, 8), contradicted (Ps. 1:6; 25:3), or explained (Pss. 23:1; 125:2) by the following line. It is “the same in the other” as C.S. Lewis puts it.[8] The wonderful advantage of this feature of Hebrew poetry is that it “survives in translation.”[9] The preacher can readily show how successive lines nuance the earlier line. He can explain how they advance the thought—either by addition, contrast, or specification.[10] After all, the point is to trace the idea no matter which way it develops. A preacher does well to pause and draw his congregation’s appreciative eyes to the sculpted text. Beauty is inevitably the fascination of a curious believer.

The phrasing of Hebrew poetry is also shaped by various devices. Psalms use alliteration, in which the same consonant sound is repeated, or assonance, in which the same vowel sounds are repeated in discernable ways. Yet here again, a reader must be acquainted with the Hebrew language to detect these features. One feature that transcends the original language is personification, where something inanimate takes on human characteristics. For example, the creation is often directed to praise its Creator, as only humankind can do. The “trees of the forest” are commanded to “sing for joy” (Ps. 96:12). The “mountains skipped like rams” (Ps. 114:4, 6). And the heavens are to “bow” (Ps. 144:5). These expressions are readily accessible to the reader, and the preacher can single out their presence and their purpose. God enlists his creation and creatures to carry out his purposes—whether it is raining fire and brimstone; sending locusts, frogs, and hail; causing the sun to stand still; making the sea divide and then drown; or closing the mouths of lions. The psalmists regularly summon creation to prompt God’s image-bearer to give the Creator his due, whether with adoration or allegiance. Where the Proverbs would shame a lazy man to look down and consider the ant (Prov. 6:6), the Psalms inspire a man to look up and consider his God (Ps. 8:3). The psalms dare the heart to soar and the faithful preacher should not get in the way.

Thought

The first rule, as is true with all poetry, is to read the psalm through without stopping. The second rule is to do it again, only this time reading it out loud.[11] It is better to get a sense of the lay of the land before choosing your spots for mining. The psalm was composed as a complete unit of thought, and it was meant to be heard that way. Isolating a single verse or section from the wider flow of thought stops us from hearing the psalm’s wider patterns and hinders us from appreciating its overall unity. The poet asks us for patience, since his art is adapted for appreciation and contemplation.

I think of this initial stage as listening for the melody. We recognize and remember a song by its melody, which is usually the song’s main theme. The same is true with the Psalms (which after all, are poems put to tunes). Each psalm has its own voice and message that one needs to hear. Eventually the melody emerges with more and more clarity so that you can “hum the tune” of it when you recall it. As soon as we begin to detect this melody or theme, then a second task confronts us. We need to reflect on how the melody of our psalm connects to the wider themes of the Bible.

The great themes of the Bible are large rivers, which are fed by a variety of smaller tributaries. Your psalm is one of those smaller streams that probably supplies one of the Bible’s great themes—like creation, redemption, covenant, the land, the temple, the king, human suffering and persecution, the faithfulness of God, the hope of future salvation; or perhaps God and his titles, attributes, works, and providence. Your psalm is like a phrase of notes that make a single impression and then contribute to the richer and longer song.

One can link to these larger biblical themes by way of “echoes” and “references.” An echo looks back, while a reference looks ahead. Does your psalm echo (repeat or answer) another significant Old Testament text or event? An echo is more than another passage that happens to have a similar word or idea. It reflects a momentous historical event or a conspicuous passage. “The sea” in Psalm 18:15 refers to Israel’s crossing the parted Red Sea, not to every verse that mentions water. A reference has in view those places in the New Testament that quote or allude to your psalm (only twenty-nine psalms are not). The real challenge here is deducing how credible an allusion is. What may first appear as an “obvious” allusion may ultimately prove to have flimsy evidence to support it. While upon further study some less obvious connections show themselves to be quite credible.

The final task regarding the thought of the psalm is discerning its flow. Here the task is tracing the direction of thought in your psalm and following its path to the main or final idea. The poet has made specific choices about what to say and how to say it, and all of it is meant to convey a thought. A drawing, painting, photograph, or sculpture is fashioned with beauty, but its creator is still sending a message. Similarly, poetry is stylized with grace and symbolism, but it is still telling a story. It has a point, and it does so by sustained argument. Even the most decorated psalm carries its main idea to a conclusion.[12] Whether its structure is linear (Ps. 73) or loopy (Ps. 25), your task is to find it and follow it to its intended end. An important marker of the success of your sermon will be whether your listeners can trace the psalm’s line of thought after you have preached it.

Discerning the melody, echoes, references, and the flow of thought all require our people to engage with their minds. John Flavel wrote, “The mind is to the heart as the door is to the house. What comes into the heart comes through the mind.”[13] The preacher does not apologize for asking his people to think. The Bible (especially the Old Testament) teaches that the heart is the seat of our intellectual abilities—our planning, ideas, meditation, imagination, convictions, and wisdom.[14] How does a preacher not appeal to a congregant’s mind when explaining the context and meaning of an ancient text before bringing him the significance? A sermon does not always need to “begin” with the mind, but it must never finish before making it a port of call.

Imagery

C. S. Lewis wrote, “Most emphatically the Psalms must be read as poems; as lyrics, with all the licenses and all the formalities, the hyperboles, the emotional rather than logical connections, which are proper to lyric poetry. They must be read as poems if they are to be understood . . .”[15] Figures of speech not only awaken the imagination, they also spur the desires (affections) of the heart. The language seems “intentionally emotive.”[16] With metaphor, God takes the dead bones of concrete things and breathes life into them to make them walk straight into our hearts.

The psalms use an array of images that touch the believer’s emotional life—feelings like anger, joy, envy, rage, anxious fear, longing, sorrow, anguish, despair, and others. One such desire is the intensity of spiritual longing, which is expressed in the language of “thirst.” Psalm 42 begins, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” The pitiful sight of an animal gasping in its desperate search for water portrays the worshiper who is in the spiritual wilderness, despairing and feeling far from God. The absence of communion has him distressed and frenzied. He is starting to panic.

Psalm 42 starts similarly, as David’s thirsty soul dwells in a grim dry place—far away from God’s presence in Jerusalem. Then, abruptly, David addresses his spiritual depression with a completely opposite set of images (in vv. 6–10). Now he hears the roar and turmoil of a waterfall. Like a piece of driftwood, he is cast into the turbulent water and is at the mercy of falling water as it cascades over boulders and rocks. Then the current takes him and spills him into a larger and deeper body of water, where wave over wave comes over his head. He is sinking. First, he was dehydrating, and now he is drowning. Spiritual desertion feels like that. One moment you seek God without satisfaction and the next you are completely overwhelmed and bogged down. What a picturesque way to appeal to God with, “Why have you forgotten me?”

Often insult is added to injury as David’s enemies taunt him with words like, “Where is your God” (Ps. 42:3, 10)? Their ridicule worsens his agony of spiritual desertion. They speak as those “who whet their tongues like swords, who aim bitter words like arrows” (Ps. 64:3; cf. 57:4). They are the one whose “speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords” (Ps. 55:21). These cutting words bring deeper wounds when they come from “my close friend in whom I trusted” and “my companion, my familiar friend” (Ps. 41:9; 55:13). Anyone who has been betrayed feels the edge of these words.

Thankfully such despondency is answered by the assurance of God’s promised comfort, whose words are “sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Ps. 19.10). When we turn to him in our time of need, he invites us to “drink from the river of your [his] delights” (Ps. 36:8). He is the shepherd who is with us, leading us, guiding us, anointing us, and restoring us, so that our cup overflows (Ps. 23). Our troubles fade when we read that our sovereign God “rides in the heavens . . . on the wings of the wind,” he “makes the clouds his chariot” (Ps. 68:33; 104:3). The images lift the heart to the heights, where God is.

Moreover, we are assured of comfort when we seek refuge in God’s strength and protection. Psalm 18:2 says, “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” David produces a cluster of images that highlight the security God provides to all who flee to him. The same word picture appears in Psalm 31. David goes to the rock, because this is what he needs the Lord to be. David once fled from Saul to the stronghold of Adullam and the rock in the Desert of Maon (1 Sam. 22:1; 23:24). But those places of refuge pale in comparison to his true source of security, which is found in the nearness of his God. Like David, our heart finds peace in the Lord’s sure protection.

Interestingly, the same metaphor (rock) can have a different nuance. For instance, David asks God, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I” (Ps. 61:2). David seeks something more than bare protection. Safety is more than having solid footing. It also means being lifted to a high vantage point, above the fray of the battle, where no one can reach you. Here is true comfort for the embattled soul. God not only lifts you out of the miry bog, but he has also placed you where you could not be more secure (Ps. 40:2).  

The same idea can be conveyed by an alternative metaphor. Often the Psalmist asks God if he can “take refuge in the shadow of your wings” (Ps. 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 61:4; 91:4; cf. Ruth 2:12). Here is shelter, but it is of a different kind. Whereas the rock conveys the safety of solid strength, finding shelter under God’s wings suggests a safety that is more personal and intimate. It is the difference between what is inanimate and what is alive. One is cold, the other is warm—especially when you consider the maternal insinuation of the metaphor. This seems to be Christ’s intent when he tells Jerusalem, “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings” (Matt. 23:37). Feeling the safety and comfort that comes from your mother’s arms wrapped around you is different then the security of a six inch concrete slab under the house. There is a peaceful warmth that rises in one’s heart with the assurance of being enclosed by the “everlasting arms” of God (Deut. 33:27). This is the Psalms at their best— when they reach into the chest of a believer and bring the assurance of God’s enduring peace.

Conclusion

Augustine wrote that “an eloquent man must speak so as to teach, to delight, and to persuade . . . to teach is a necessity, to delight is a beauty, to persuade is a triumph.”[17] This is another way of saying that the preacher must appeal to the whole heart—to the right-thinking mind and a “well-directed love” and a right will.[18] The human heart and dynamic rhetoric of biblical poetry is a match made in heaven. The shape, form, and metaphorical language of the psalter run free in the thought of the awakened heart, inflaming its desires and spurring its courage.

Preaching the Psalms to the hearts of God’s people does this. It reaches into every corner of their heart—testing their thoughts, confronting their desires, and challenging their wills. Anyone who sits under such expositions will feel the effect of the Word of God as a hammer, sword, or fire and sense its comfort as a salve or taste its sweetness as honey. If preaching confronts all the heart, then its hearers will sometimes feel assured, consoled, and at rest; while at other times they will feel exposed, disrupted, and uncomfortable. Why should faithful preaching from the Psalms accomplish anything less? Yes, it is true that no minister of the Word feels equal to this task. But God has given us every advantage to do it, and to do it well. The variety of forms, devices, echoes, references, images, and symbols provide a plethora of tools that are within reach of the preacher. But more than this, what he handles is the “living and active” word of God, and it is able to reach the secret thoughts, the deepest of treasures, and the foundations of determination in every believing heart (Heb. 4:12). No genre can hold it back. Just let the lion loose.

Endnotes

[1] in Luthers Briefwechsel, in D. Martin Luthers Werke, 120 vols. (Böhlhaus, 1883–2009), 3:50. As quoted in The Beauty and Power of Biblical Exposition, 153.

[2] O. R. Brandon, “Heart,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter E. Elwell (Baker, 1984), 499.

[3] John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting (Eerdmans, 1989), 42.

[4] Abraham Kuyper, Calvinism (Eerdmans, 1943), 20.

[5] Matt. 6:21; Luke 6:45; 1 Pet. 3:4; Deut. 30:2, 10; 1 Sam. 7:3; 1 Kings 8:48; Jer. 24:7; Prov. 3:5–6; Deut. 10:12; 1 Chron. 28:9; Ps. 119:34; 1 Kings 2:4; Ps. 86:12; Zeph. 3:14; Deut. 10:12; Matt. 22:37; Isa. 38:3; Deut. 4:29; 2 Chron. 15:12; Jer. 29:13; Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37

[6] Gen. 6:5; Pss. 19:14; 49:3; 77:6; 139:23; Prov. 15:14, 28; Matt. 5:19; Luke 2:19; 6:45; Rom. 10:9; Eph. 1:18; 4:18; Heb. 4:12; 8:10

[7] Bruce Waltke with Charles Yu, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach (Zondervan, 2007), 225.

[8] C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (1958; reprint, HarperOne, 2017), 4.

[9] Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 3. 

[10] Dan G. McCartney, Let the Reader Understand: A Guide to Interpreting and Applying the Bible (P&R, 2002), 216.

[11] Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book (1940; reprint, Touchstone, 1972), 229–30.

[12] Gordan D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Zondervan, 2014), 173.

[13] John Flavel, Christ and His Threefold Office (Reformation Heritage, 2021), 79.

[14] Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, trans. Margaret Kohl (Fortress, 1975), 47.

[15] Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 3.

[16] Fee and Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 170.

[17] Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 4.27, in Philip Schaff, ed., The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1 (NPNF1), ed. Philip Schaff (Eerdmans, 1988), 2:583.

[18] Augustine, City of God 14.7 (NPNF1 2:267).

A. Craig Troxel is a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and serves as professor of homiletics in Westminster Seminary in California, Escondido, California, and is president of the Committee on Christian Education. Ordained Servant Online, December, 2024.