I am going to take on a slightly daunting task (for me): to study through the Psalms in 30 days and document each day on this blog. (That will mean a post for every day of the work-week. On weekends, I’ll sabbath.)

The goal is devotional, not so much theological – I am hoping to get to know Jesus better through these old poems, to hear his Spirit’s voice speaking through them. The reason is simple: I need it. I need to know Jesus. He has the words of life.

If you are thinking that perhaps the Psalms aren’t the best place to hear from Jesus because king David wrote most of them hundreds of years before Jesus was born, and they’re in the Old Testament, and they just might be too legalistic or something, I offer you this encounter between an unrecognizable resurrected Jesus and a couple disciples:

He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

“What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

And a little further down he reminds them, “‘This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”

In other words, when it comes to the Bible, it’s all about Jesus, it’s only about Jesus, it’s always about Jesus.