Psalms. There's over 150 of them marked in the book by the same name in the Old Testament.

How can we read them? Are they more useful as a narrative thread or as a spice to season our spiritual diet?

We'll discuss that, and much more on today's episode of Abide, a Maxwell Institute podcast.

My name is Joseph Stewart. I'm the public communication specialist of the Neill A. Maxwell Institute for religious scholarship at Brigham Young University.

Christian Heel is a research associate of the Maxwell Institute.

In each week, we discuss the week's block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

Come Follow Me Curriculum.

We aren't here to present a lesson, but rather to hit on a few key themes from the scripture block, so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission, to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of

their restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and engage the world of religious ideas.

Today we are once again joined by Rachel Madsen, one of our research assistants for the Abide

podcast. Rachel is an English teaching major here at BYU, and after graduating, she plans to teach in secondary schools and eventually obtain a graduate degree in educational leadership to work in academic administration.

Welcome back, Rachel.

It's great to be here.

We are thrilled to have you back.

Now, Christian, we know that ultimately there are going to be three weeks on the Psalms.

What's the sort of overview that you think that we should know from the outset?

We've already encountered hymns and songs earlier in the Bible,

most notably the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15, the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32,

and Deborah's song in Judges 5. These three early poems

reverberate with the same structures, cadences, and images that are found in the Psalms,

and seem to belong to the same world. Like many of the Psalms, they are occasional poems,

celebrating God's present victory in the context of salvation

...