West Port Experiment

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The following is a book review of God Is Our Refuge and Strength: 150 Devotional through the Psalms, written by my good friend, Rob Ventura, and Bill Boekestein. Banner of Truth is publishing it, set to release this month.

* * * *

If you pick up a well-worn Bible from a serious Christian, you will often find a slightly darker band along the edge of the pages. Pretty much in the middle. Crack it open at that point, and you will find the Book of Psalms. And there’s good reason. In the library of Holy Scripture, the Psalms hold a prominent place in God’s self-revelation and strike the deepest chords in the heart of every believer. Bill Boekestein and Rob Ventura’s God is our Refuge and Strength: 150 Devotionals through the Psalms is a welcome offering for any reader of the Psalms.

This book is more a devotional than a commentary. And yet, it is a more dense devotional. Not that it is inaccessible, mind you. Hardly! I would hand this volume to a thoughtful high schooler. But by ‘more dense,’ I mean that Refuge and Strength is more intentional in dealing with the actual exegesis, or the historico-grammatical meaning of each psalm. Yet the density is anything dry or cumbersome; rather, it lets the psalm’s natural beauty and real devotional character breathe. You get biblical sentiment without sentimentality, romance without mush, piety without its sickly, saccharine look-alikes. This devotional flies much closer to the ground of the actual text—and thus to true religion!—with all its dread majesty, raw realism, self-abasing confession, and perplexity. But it does this all in manageable and engaging daily meditations.

Several other great features struck me in reading through the book. First, there is a refreshing honesty in coming to the text of the Psalms. “Many modern Christians have an uneasy relationship with the psalms. We believe that the psalms, as with all Scripture, are ‘breathed out by God and profitable’ (2 Tim. 3:16). Yet, reading and singing them can feel uncomfortable” (xix). That honesty of the reader fits with the very honesty of the Psalter itself. The “psalms are realistic. They provide a song for even mature believers who want to ‘be glad in the Lord’ (Psa. 32:11) but don’t always feel like it” (60; Psalm 42). The authenticity of the Psalter commends itself, especially to those who know something of the ‘dark night of the soul.’ “The writer is struggling. He feels trapped in darkness. He suffered from spiritual dehydration, stubborn sadness, and extreme uncertainty and pessimism. He feels trapped beneath the pounding torrent of God’s waterfall” (61; Psalm 42).

But beyond these recognitions of reality, the authors help the reader with any unease by offering helpful, theological categories to read, understand, and apply the Psalms to himself. Even the radiance of the Zion psalms can square beautifully our painful experience of the dysfunction and sin of the Church today. Why? Because the God of the Psalter “sees the end result of his work in the church. He can already see her as fully sanctified, cleansed, and splendid, ‘without spot or wrinkle or any such thing’ (Eph. 5:26, 27).

The honesty reaches also unto those darker themes of wrath, judgment, and the pleas for vengeance. God is a God of vengeance; and His saints love His vindication and the triumph of the righteous over the wicked. Yet again, the authors handle the fearsome subject with theological categories according to the analogy of faith, thus vindicating God from false imputations. The “‘God of vengeance’ isn’t mindlessly bent on revenge, but [is] ruthlessly committed to the truth” (134; Psalm 94).

And this leads us to the great attention Refuge and Strength devotes to the ‘Godhood of God.’ The psalms are not only about the God of the green pastures and still waters, He is the God who thunders, the God who rides on the wings of the wind, the Transcendent One who sits enthroned above the raging waters. “Scripture trains us to have great thoughts of God,” and the Psalms preeminently (132; Psalm 93). While prostration and trembling are His due, these lofty attributes come near to confirm, assure, and embolden. “Only a self-sufficient God can selflessly give help to needy people” (73; Psalm 50).

The major interpretive key of the Psalms—Christ as Head and members—is front and center. Is the Psalter about the believer or Christ? Yes: it is His, then ours. “The psalter’s prophetic character allows believers to affirm every sentence in the book, even when some lines describe Jesus better than ourselves” (xxi). And what we can’t say absolutely about ourselves we can both say and fully experience through Christ: “‘Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?’ I will. Not I alone. But in union with Christ I will stand in God’s holy place” (36-37; Psalm 24).

Refuge and Strength, then, is a thorough-going Christian reading of the Psalms. As it should be! And yet, the New Testament is brought in a more natural and refreshing way without any forcing and flattening of the original sense. For example, in writing of Jehovah’s awesome earth-shaking march through the desert in Psalm 114, we read, “And God will shake the earth to give believers a home. The book of Hebrews says that God will ‘once more … shake not only the earth but also the heavens’ (12:26; see Hag. 2:5-8). Believers today are ‘receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken’” (Heb. 12:28).

I also appreciate the attention to structure, movement, and style. Not so much as to breed tedium, mind you; but just enough to satisfy the renewed aesthetic of the child of God. After all, the Psalms are poetry. One example relates to the juxtaposition and significance of Psalms 103 and 104, “companion psalms.” The one extols the Lord for his “gracious, covenantal redemption,” but segues beautifully into a triumphant exultation of God in creation and providence (148; Psalm 104). And internally within Psalm 127, we encounter “two interconnected themes that at first seem unrelated, like two tiny independent poems.” But they tie it together in a natural, coherent, and sweet way: “Psalm 127 ultimately teaches that success, security, and seed [note the alliterations, preachers!] are not products of human effort alone; they are God’s gracious provision” (181; Psalm 127). Any serious student of the Bible will appreciate a succinct, artful, yet natural handling of the text. Experienced exegetes will value this book as much as the greener students of the Bible.

Last, this book is quite spiritually helpful and practical, replete with pastoral wisdom. Referring to David’s particular complaints, they write, “Problems that we don’t understand can easily overwhelm us. Naming our troubles puts us on the path to wholeness” (61; Psalm 62). And when the Psalmist soars when we seem to creep, how do we deal with the experiential disparity?

Maybe you couldn’t describe your desire for God in these same intense terms. But do you want to? The first step toward a closer walk with God is to want it, or even to want to want it. Perhaps you could modify David’s bold expressions of passion for God, turning them into prayer requests: Lord, I want to thirst for you. I want to value your steadfast love as better than life. Give me this desire (90; Psalm 63).

And so, Boekestein and Ventura lead the believer by the hand to mine the Psalms for personal, spiritual benefit in a sound, constructive way.

I commend the volume highly. I’m sure it will be well received by all lovers of the Psalms.

Read more by Michael Ives here.