Located in the middle of our Bible is a collection of five books called Psalms.  I never noticed until now that the Psalms were divided into books.  And I am hard-pressed to find any division in the subject matter or authors that would identify them as separate books.

The root word is psallein, from the Greek, meaning “to play the harp.”  It seems that it might be difficult to sing songs of this nature, even accompanied by an instrument, although many today have attempted it with much success.

The first psalm was psung by King David when the Ark of the Covenant was returned to Jerusalem (I Chronicles 16:8-36).  In fact a lot of the chapters in the Book of Psalms were purportedly written by David, but the entire collection includes other authors.

Many of the Psalms are praise songs.  Not like the snippets of Psalms that are used in worship today, where they display it on an overhead projector, accompany it with a small band and sing the phrase over and over and over and over until you want to confess to something just to make it stop.

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I heard on the news that New York is leading the nation in total number of abortions.  That’s not a surprise since the state has a population of over 19 million.  What was interesting, though, was a recent poll about abortion in the state.  64% (consisting of 50% women) of New Yorkers felt that abortion was okay, but that there were too many being performed at the present time.

What?  Is it giving your state a bad name?  If you’re for abortion, then who cares what people think about your state?  And just how many is too many? Aren’t all of the unborn children being terminated?

Abortion has been, and still is, a hotbed for debate in political and religious circles.  The term “unborn children” sounds like an oxymoron.  If they’re not born yet, how can they be children?  But many mothers will identify and communicate with the child in their womb, preparing for the day when he or she will take their first breath.

Other mothers don’t even consider themselves mothers.  They see the “thing” as just a growth inside them, like a cancerous mass.  They need to remove it in order to improve their quality of life.  But malignant cancer, left to itself, will eventually kill you.  A fetus, left to itself, will become fully developed into another human being.

This “growth” will likely one day take care of you when you can’t care for yourself.

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Chapter 18 of Ezekiel is an excellent study on the justice of God.  It begins with God responding unfavorably to an often-quoted proverb, “The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (vs. 2).  I find comfort in his statement that “every living soul belongs to me” (vs. 4).

Then God goes on to explain (through the prophet, of course) that each person’s sins are accountable for their own actions.  No longer can they be blamed on the behavior of their parents or how they were raised.  You do bad, you die.  You do good, you live.

Now I’m not sure what is specifically meant by the term “death.”  Is it a physical death?  We all die, but does God take us out sooner if we’re bad? From looking around us, that doesn’t appear to be true.  Many apathetic, angry or miserable people still manage to live to a ripe old age.

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