Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we covered eight psalms that span a variety of tones and topics.

We started with Psalm 1, which contrasts the wicked man with the righteous man. It says

the righteous man will be different from the wicked man in the way he thinks, acts, and engages

with the world around him. And because of that, he's blessed. One of the things the righteous

man thinks about is the word of God. He delights in it. This delight in God causes him to flourish in every area that matters.

And no matter what the circumstances are around him, he'll be sustained and upheld by God's

word as his source of life. Psalm 2 was probably either written for or in response to David's

coronation. It's all about the new king and how the

other nations of the world set themselves up against him. They want to overthrow the power of Israel

as a nation. But God looks at Israel's enemies, who are his enemies, and laughs. Because it's laughable

to oppose God. We've touched on this briefly in the past, but it bears repeating.

The only time scripture shows God laughing is at his enemies. And here's an example of that.

But be careful not to imagine it as just some kind of maniacal laugh where he's rubbing his hands

together and squinting down at them. He's not cruel, He's just. Psalm 15 is a Davidic Psalm, and boy,

it makes it sound impossible to get close to God, doesn't it? He's specifically talking about the

state of a man's heart when he's entering the tabernacle or the presence of God. It reminds us that

God is holy and we are not, and that his standards are higher than we

could ever achieve, even on our best days. He shows so much mercy in drawing near to us and so

much love in wanting to dwell with us. I have a bit of a controversial opinion on the opening

line of Psalm 22. I'm definitely in the

minority on this opinion, and I'm not trying to convince you I'm right. But I do think it's

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