The Heart's Cry: Psalm 98

Psalm 98

I've got to say that I am about to take umbrage with not the Psalm itself but rather the arbitrary title that the NRSV has given this particular Psalm, "Praise the Judge of the World." I may be completely off base but just because the Psalm ends with two sentences taking about God as judge I think it is a bit presumptuous to say that the entire Psalm is praising God for the coming judgment. I suppose I should first start by saying that there is nothing inherently wrong with praising God's judging attributes, there are in fact times when we should hope and pray for God's judgment to come, particularly in the face of true evil, not as a coming punishment for the evil but rather as Revelation speaks of, the coming culmination of God 'making all things new'. That said just because you have a line in a poem or song about something doesn't necessarily mean that the whole of the poem or song is about that line.

Which brings me to a slightly larger point of taking Bible subtitles with a grain of salt, just because the editors of your particular Bible says a section is about one things doesn't mean that it is only about that one thing, or that it is even about that one thing at all. The Bible did not come with subtitled sections in its original form, nor sections in the first place. There exist no chapter nor verse delineations within the original scrolls, and even the original printed versions of the Bible did not contain chapter and verse breakdowns, that didn't come until much later. Chapters came into being during the 13th century and verses didn't show up until the 16th. Now, obviously, this makes my job as a pastor easier, and it makes having Bible Studies easier and it makes making signs for sporting events easier, but we must make sure that we don't fall into the trap of thinking that one chapter has nothing to do with the next or previous chapter in a book and we need to make sure that we realize that just because a verse is a verse doesn't mean that it does not exist within a context of verses and chapters and books that surround it.

+ Have you come across a verse/chapter that has been taken out of context? Have you done it yourself?