2025 Week 09
Hello, Springers!
This Sunday, we’ll continue our series on the Book of Acts. I want to point out something that won’t be a large part of the sermon: Peter quotes from Psalm 16.
When we examine the Psalms in their original context and how people in the New Testament use them, we learn something about how we can use them as well.
Is that important? Yes.
We want to learn how to use the Bible well. It’s not a magic book. We can’t just pluck verses randomly and decide what we want them to mean. To learn how to use the Bible well, we want to examine how New Testament writers use Old Testament Scriptures.
This will help us see the real point of Scripture and apply it in our own lives.
Begin with Psalm 16 in its original context. The title of the Psalm says that David wrote it. David was Israel’s king, and he wrote songs for his people to use in worship. This particular psalm is personal in nature. David says “I” a lot in it. He’s letting his people know his personal experience. This isn’t because he is full of himself but because he is trying to model prayer and worship for the people he leads.
Three lines stand out to me from this king. First, in v. 3, he calls his people the saints in the land, and he expresses delight in them. Second, in v. 6, he says that the lines have fallen for him in pleasant places. The king recognizes that he has boundaries set by the Lord. Third, in v. 10, he refers to himself as God’s holy one.
The king delights in his people. Even the king has boundaries. The king is known as God’s holy one.
What should his people understand when they sing this song? They are a people who are loved by their king and they should delight in their neighbors in his kingdom. If the king has boundaries, so do his people. The king is an honored position set in place by God.
How does Peter transform this Psalm when he quotes it in his sermon in Acts 2?
He points out that David, though he was king, and sang about the holy one not seeing the decay of death, he died. So how could he be incorruptible as the psalm says if he died and was buried and decayed?
Peter says that David wasn’t talking about himself. David was talking about a greater king who would not see the decay of death. David was pointing forward in his psalm to Jesus, who rose from the dead.
Peter is teaching us to see that the fulfillment of the Psalms of David is Jesus. He is the greater David to whom all of David’s psalms point.
Does that matter to you and I today? Yes.
Jesus is the king who delights in his people, the church. Jesus bound himself to us by being God who took on human flesh. Jesus didn’t decay because he never sinned. He is the true holy one of God. When we are united to Jesus by faith, his holiness affects us. We are set apart to belong to him.
There’s always more to say on so rich a subject, but may this give you a taste of what we can find when we learn how to read the Psalms as Peter did.
in Christ,
Pastor Tag