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Studying the Scriptures and serving the Lord Jesus Christ are integral to the life of those whom the Lord has called into the ministry of the Word. Serving God ought to be supplemented with studying of the holy Scriptures so that the servants of God will know and do His blessed will rather than their own! While every born-again Christian has been redeemed to serve the LORD, not all are called into serving Him in the ministry of the Word. This ministry of the Word is to be complemented with continuous prayer (cf. Acts 6:4). Therefore, I am very thankful to the LORD my God for opening this door of learning again to me in the Far Eastern Bible College (FEBC), with the support of our beloved Pastor and the Board of Elders in Gethsemane Bible-Presbyterian Church (GBPC).

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven … and a time to build up” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 3b). “Re-signing” to study God’s perfect Word in FEBC is indeed a God-given privilege! One reason for returning to study is to equip myself and be rooted and built up in the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord and Saviour. Re-learning the biblical doctrines of the Reformed faith which I have been taught will surely strengthen the foundations that were earlier built. It would be like the reminder of Paul to Timothy, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). It will be very refreshing for me to hear again those wonderful teachings which we profess and hold on to! Moreover, there might be things for me to unlearn as well if I have unconsciously come to know them. Jesus said, “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:2). In the process, there would be some painful pruning or “sharpening”, yet it is needful! “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). In this regard, I long for your continuous prayer that the LORD sustains me both in college and in church for the next three years. It is a heavy responsibility to study the Word, not to mention to serve the LORD at the same time.

Next, there is nothing more meaningful and interesting in the life of a person called of the LORD into the ministry of the Word than the study of theology. To study the Bible continuously is joy unspeakable, especially when doing so with a grateful and prayerful heart together with many others. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving” (Colossians 2:6-7). Indeed, I am very thankful to the LORD for this opportunity to return to my alma mater, FEBC, to continue and complete the Master of Divinity (MDiv) programme, which I had started but left stranded for a while. “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). As much as there is joy within, fear is not absent either! The concerns regarding the ability to cope with all the demands during the course of study, especially in the subjects of Greek and Hebrew, are real but I trust in the LORD for help. For His grace is ever sufficient, and He “is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

The ministry of the Word to the inmates in Changi Prison Complex continues on Wednesday afternoons and sometimes on other days. The LORD is pleased to bless this work and has brought some of those inmates to our midst. Among them is Bro Vijay, who is attending our church service on Sundays and studying in FEBC on Thursday evenings. Moreover, teaching children from the Gospel of John during GCM on Saturdays, held concurrently with various fellowship gatherings, remains unaffected. May the LORD be pleased to save the souls of our young ones through the teaching and preaching of His infallible and inerrant Word, and even to call some to serve Him one day!

Serving the LORD gladly must be the desire of every born-again believer. It is the reasonable service of every saint to learn good doctrines of the Bible, and to present himself according to the truth thereof to serve God as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto Him (cf. Romans 12:1-2). Moreover, having learnt all these wonderful teachings from godly men in the faith, let us pass it on to the next generation for the blessings of God’s people, and for the extension of His kingdom here on earth. May the LORD our God be praised as all glory and honour belong to Him, the living and true God!

Today, I would like to publish, for the edification of all readers, some excellent thoughts on the use of the book of Psalms by Matthew Henry (1662–1714) in his renowned Bible commentary’s introduction to the book of Psalms.—Pastor Prabhudas Koshy

Matthew Henry on the use of Psalms

All scripture, being given by inspiration of God, is profitable to convey divine light into our understandings; but this book is of singular use with that to convey divine life and power, and a holy warmth, into our affections. There is no one book of scripture that is more helpful to the devotions of the saints than this, and it has been so in all ages of the church, ever since it was written and the several parts of it were delivered to the chief musician for the service of the church.

1. It is of use to be sung.
Further than David’s psalms, we may go, but we need not, for hymns and spiritual songs. What the rules of the Hebrew metre were even the learned are not certain. But these psalms ought to be rendered according to the metre of every language, at least so as that they may be sung for the edification of the church. And methinks it is a great comfort to us, when we are singing David’s psalms, that we are offering the very same praises to God that were offered to him in the days of David and the other godly kings of Judah. So rich, so well made, are these divine poems, that they can never be exhausted, can never be worn thread-bare.

2. It is of use to be read and opened by the ministers of Christ, as containing great and excellent truths, and rules concerning good and evil. Our Lord Jesus expounded the psalms to his disciples, the gospel psalms, and opened their understandings (for he had the key of David) to understand them, Lu. 24:44.

3. It is of use to be read and meditated upon by all good people.

It is a full fountain, out of which we may all be drawing water with joy.

• The Psalmist’s experiences are of great use for our direction, caution, and encouragement. In telling us, as he often does, what passed between God and his soul, he lets us know what we may expect from God, and what he will expect, and require, and graciously accept, from us. David was a man after God’s own heart, and therefore those who find themselves in some measure according to his heart have reason to hope that they are renewed by the grace of God, after the image of God, and many have much comfort in the testimony of their consciences for them that they can heartily say Amen to David’s prayers and praises.
• Even the Psalmist’s expressions too are of great use; and by them the Spirit helps our praying infirmities, because we know not what to pray for as we ought. In all our approaches to God, as well as in our first returns to God, we are directed to take with us words (Hos. 14:2), these words, words which the Holy Ghost teaches.

If we make David’s psalms familiar to us, as we ought to do, whatever errand we have at the throne of grace, by way of confession, petition, or thanksgiving, we may thence be assisted in the delivery of it; whatever devout affection is working in us, holy desire or hope, sorrow or joy, we may there find apt words wherewith to clothe it, sound speech which cannot be condemned.

It will be good to collect the most proper and lively expressions of devotion which we find here, and to methodize them, and reduce them to the several heads of prayer, that they may be the more ready to us. Or we may take sometimes one choice psalm and sometimes another, and pray it over, that is, enlarge upon each verse in our own thoughts, and offer up our meditations to God as they arise from the expressions we find there. The learned Dr. Hammond, in his preface to his paraphrase on the (sect. 29), says, “That going over a few psalms with these interpunctions of mental devotion, suggested, animated, and maintained, by the native life and vigour which is in the psalms, is much to be preferred before the saying over the whole Psalter, since nothing is more fit to be averted in religious offices than their degenerating into heartless dispirited recitations.”

If, as St. Austin advises, we form our spirit by the affection of the psalm, we may then be sure of acceptance with God in using the language of it. Nor is it only our devotion, and the affections of our mind, that the book of Psalms assists, teaching us how to offer praise so as to glorify God, but, it is also a directory to the actions of our lives, and teaches us how to order our conversation aright, so as that, in the end, we may see the salvation of God, Ps. 50:23.

The Psalms were thus serviceable to the Old-Testament church, but to us Christians they may be of more use than they could be to those who lived before the coming of Christ; for, as Moses’s sacrifices, so David’s songs, are expounded and made more intelligible by the gospel of Christ, which lets us within the veil; so that if to David’s prayers and praises we all St. Paul’s prayers in his epistles, and the new songs in the Revelation, we shall be thoroughly furnished for this good work; for the scripture, perfected, makes the man of God perfect.