“We cannot meditate too deeply or too often on Psalm 23” by Christopher Ash
“1. It is good, before we appropriate this psalm to each one of us, to take time to meditate on what it would have meant for the Lord Jesus to take comfort and assurance from its words during His life and trials on earth.
2. Our main response, once we are settled in Christ, is to dwell, to our very great comfort, on each image in the psalm, rejoicing that the Father is our shepherd, that Christ is now our good shepherd, and
a. that He gives us (Ps. 23:2) “all things that pertain to life and godliness” through “His precious and very great promises” (2 Pet. 1:3–4);
b. that He promises us His guiding hand to keep us in righteous living and grant us repentance when we stray (Ps. 23:3);
c. that He assures us we need fear no evil, not even death (23:4);
d. that there is a victory banquet in store with uncountable blessings and untold joy (23:5); and
e. that, on the one hand, His unchanging goodness and covenant love follow us every day of our lives and, on the other, we will dwell in His immediate presence forever (23:6).
We cannot meditate too deeply or too often on these privileges, and we do well to devote ourselves to this practice when things are easy, that these truths may flow in our bloodstream for comfort when we walk through darkness.
3. Philip Eveson observes, “The ministerial office in the Christian Church is based on this shepherd image” (cf. 1 Pet. 5:1–4). Those entrusted with the office of pastor (Ps. 23:1) can meditate on what this will mean for them. For they too, as undershepherds answerable to the chief shepherd, are called
a. to feed the flock (23:2) with the word of God (Acts 6:2, 4), whatever this costs them (John 21:15–19);
b. to use the Scriptures “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16) that the sheep may walk in paths of righteousness (Ps. 23:3);
c. to prepare the dying for their death, that they may walk through the valley of the shadow of death confident that they need fear no evil (23:4); and
d. to keep the eyes of the sheep on the Messiah’s banquet (23:5) and their eternal home (23:6).
4. It is a proper response for us to belong with loyal gladness to a church. Expounding Psalm 23 “after grace at the dinner table” in 1536, Luther waxed eloquent on the blessings of being fed by the word of God; he went on to say this:
As often, therefore, as the Christian who belongs to a church in which God’s Word is taught enters this church, he should think of this psalm. With the prophet he should thank God with a happy heart for His ineffable grace in placing him, as His sheep, into a pleasant green meadow, where there is an abundance of precious grass and fresh water—that is, for being enabled to be at a place where he can hear God’s Word, learn it, and draw from it rich comfort for both body and soul.”
-Christopher Ash, Psalms 1–50, vol. 2, The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024), 2: 274–275.
