5th September 2025

Here the gospel writer, Luke, is recounting the Apostle Paul’s address to people gathered in the synagogue in Antioch, now Antakya, located in southern Turkey. He is writing of King David. 

The details of David’s life story are laid out in the accounts in the Old Testament books 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. The Psalms attributed to David capture this same narrative but from a different perspective. They reveal a poet, a musician, an emotional man given to outpourings of praise and love, as well as anger and depression. Hidden away in many of the Psalms are David’s deeply emotional reactions to the events in his life. The Psalms give us a window into David’s mind when he ponders these events. And beyond that there is the recurring message that looks forward to a glorious future kingdom that follows the perfect and painful sacrifice of a promised Messiah whose ministry, sacrifice, and rulership find echoes in David’s story. Jesus himself endorsed this connection when he stated, “Everything I told you while I was with you comes to this: All the things written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets, and in the Psalms have to be fulfilled.” (Luke 24:44). 

The Book of Psalms is a collection of 150 songs, poems and prayers, 73 of them the work of King David, that were brought together to take a reader through a journey of the seemingly opposed responses of lament and praise: regretting much that is in the past and present, praising what is good, and always looking to the future.

Our own lives are often made up of these contradictory emotions – lament or sadness, turning to joy and praise – asking God why we’re suffering, and begging for the suffering to be taken away, turning to rejoicing in the evidence of His love and goodness. 

David’s story is a story of a young shepherd who, to everyone’s surprise including his own, is anointed king; who spends somewhere between 12 and 20 years waiting for his kingdom – as a fugitive with a motley band of men; who struggles identifiably with sin; who lives out his reign always being threatened by those who seek his downfall; who leaves the most amazing legacy of poetry – once set to music – which takes us through that life. But it does more. As a man, who God described as a man after his own heart, David’s poetry, in these 73 psalms, also looks forward to a kingdom that will exceed his own, ruled over by the longed for Messiah, that was an integral part of his people’s history. His story and the fulfilment that is found in Jesus’ own story will be the focus of future studies. 

Local congregation:
GCI Market Harborough
9 The Point
Rockingham Road
Market Harborough 
LE16 7QU

Meeting time:
Sunday 4.00 pm

Local congregational contact:
Sinead Henderson 
Email: sinead.henderson@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church