Preaching and praying the Psalms is a 14-week online class about drawing on the Psalter as a spiritual resource.

The course considers the literary shaping of the whole Psalter: its deliberate introduction (Pss 1-2), its internal divisions, its overall arc from lament to praise. The course addresses difficult psalms of imprecation (like Psalm 137), and it pursues close readings of significant, individual psalms. In concert with the lectionary readings from the Psalms for Morning Prayer, it engages works on the use of Psalms in the Christian spiritual life (Athanasius, Bonhoeffer, Eugene Peterson). Its overall goal is to deepen students’ familiarity and facility with the Psalms: as prayers and as material for teaching, preaching, and the practice of ministry.