Why do we Read and Pray the Psalms?
Christians throughout history and across traditions—Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and beyond—have given the psalms a central place in worship.
The Church has prayed the psalms daily for millennia. Monks once recited the entire psalter weekly, and before the printing press, Christians were more likely to own a psalter than any other biblical book. But why such focus?
1. The Prayer Book of the Bible
The psalms are Israel’s prayers, sung by David and others, prayed for centuries, and still prayed today. They give us words to bring before God, teaching us how to speak to Him in joy, sorrow, repentance, and hope.
2. Worship as Response
The psalms remind us that worship is dialogue—God speaks first, and we respond. Our liturgy is grounded in Scripture so that our prayers are never detached from God’s Word. Eugene Peterson put it well:
“The first word is God’s word. [We are] never the first word, never the primary word…This massive overwhelming previousness of God’s speech to our prayers, however obvious in Scripture, is not immediately obvious to us simply because we are so much more aware of ourselves than we are of God. [But the language] of God is spoken into us;” Our words are always a response.”
3. The Honesty of the Heart
Praying the psalms forces us to face our true condition. Sometimes their words echo our own joy (Psalm 84). Other times they expose our emptiness (Psalm 63) or confront us with raw anger and lament (Psalms 137, 143). The psalms cover the full spectrum of human emotion and remind us that worship is not about our feelings but about God at the center.
4. Praying with Christ
Ultimately, the psalms belong to Jesus Christ. He prayed them, quoted them on the cross (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” – Ps. 22; “Into your hands I commit my spirit” – Ps. 31), and fulfilled them in his life, death, and resurrection. As Bonhoeffer reflected,
“A psalm that we cannot utter as a prayer, that makes us falter and horrifies us, is a hint to us that here Someone else is praying, not we; that the One who is here protesting his innocence, who is invoking God’s judgment, who has come to such infinite depths of suffering, is none other than Jesus Christ himself. He is who is praying here, and not only here but in the whole Psalter….The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word. He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer for all time…”
When we pray the psalms, we are joining our voices to Jesus, our High Priest, who prays them perfectly on our behalf. Tim Keller suggests imagining Christ praying them in his humanity, deity, suffering, and exaltation. The psalms are true not because they mirror our feelings, but because they are God’s Word in the mouth of Christ, who makes them our prayer too.
In short, the psalms are the Church’s prayer book, shaping our worship as response to God, confronting us with truth, and uniting us with Christ who prayed them first. This is why we pray them—because in them we find our voices joined with His.
So how can you incorporate praying the Psalms into your life?
First, if you participate in the Divine Service (how Lutherans refer to the Sunday worship service) you already are praying them every Sunday. Each week we read/pray a Psalm during the readings. Unlike the other readings these are done responsively because we understand that we are praying them in Christ. Perhaps this Sunday begin viewing these as prayers instead of simply listening.
Second, pray them at home. You can follow the Daily Prayer Guide that provides a daily Psalm to read/pray. You can also find a chart in the Lutheran Service Book (pocket edition) if you want to follow a more robust schedule. Pray one when you first get up, as you are eating breakfast, or before bed.