Psalms on Saturday ~ C.S. Lewis on the Psalms

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The first verse of the Psalms. . . 

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and he meditates on it day and night (Psalm 1:1-2, ESV).

Now, consider this quote by C. S. Lewis about the first verse of the Psalms. . .  

A person can’t always be defending the truth; there must be a time to feed on it.

Lewis writes my favorite commentary on the Psalms (click the image to purchase).

It’s not one of his scholastic writings, as Lewis describes this book. . .  

In this book, then, I write as one amateur to another, talking about difficulties I have met, or lights I have gained, when reading the Psalms, with the hope that this might at any rate interest, and sometimes even help, other inexpert readers.

C. S. Lewis doesn’t comment on the individual chapter in the Book of Psalms but on the themes that he finds throughout the book. Though some of his writing can be cumbersome (he’s an Englishman writing decades ago), there are two chapters that help immensely with understanding why and how to praise God.

In chapter 5 entitled The Beauty of the Lord, Lewis writes. . . 

David, we know, danced before the Ark. He danced with such abandon that one of his wives (presumably a more modern, though not a better, type than he) thought he was making a fool of himself.

The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express that same delight in God which made David dance.

And in chapter 9, Lewis focuses directly on praise. He gives subtle and sublime reasoning as to why we should dance like David in our praise of God.

When I first began to draw near to belief in God and even for some time after it had been given to me, I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should ‘praise’ God; still more in the suggestion that God Himself demanded it.

It was hideously like saying, ‘What I most want is to be told that I am good and great.”

The miserable idea that God should in any sense need, or crave for, our worship like a vain author presenting his new books to people who never met or heard of him. Even if such an absurd Deity could be conceived, He would hardly come to us, the lowest of rational creatures, to gratify His appetite. I don’t want my dog to bark approval of my books.

But I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds praised most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment. To enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.

Now, for the last verse of Psalms. . . 

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! (Psalm 150:6).

Amen. Peace out!