Where Your Treasure Is: Psalms that Summon You from Self to Community

by Eugene H. Peterson

This is a bold book. It has to do with changing the life of American society, from the inside out, through "source action" of prayer. "I have written a book for Christians," says Eugene Peterson, "who want to do something about what is wrong with America and want to plunge into the center, not tinker at the edge. I have chosen eleven psalms that shaped the politics of Israel and can shape the politics of America, and I have taken them seriously...I have written to encourage Christians to pray them both as children of God with eternal destinies and as American citizens with daily responsibilities in caring for our nation." Peterson is concerned with the "unselfing" of our self-preoccupied, self-bound society through the action of praying together with other believers. He offers insightful, thought-provoking reflections on eleven select psalm-prayers that can help us overcome such things as self-centeredness, self-assertiveness, self-righteousness, self-sufficiency, self-pity, self-service, and self-love. Originally published under the title Earth and Altar and now being reprinted for wider distribution, Where Your Treasure Is provides solid fare for any thoughtful, concerned Christian. But the book is especially suitable for group study and what Peterson writes here will serve to stir small groups of Christians to pointed reflection and prayer-action.

Genres: Christian, Christian Living, Theology, Spirituality, Religion, Christianity

190 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 1993

About the author

Eugene H. Peterson was a pastor, scholar, author, and poet. For many years he was James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also served as founding pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland. He had written over thirty books, including Gold Medallion Book Award winner The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language a contemporary translation of the Bible. After retiring from full-time teaching, Eugene and his wife Jan lived in the Big Sky Country of rural Montana. He died in October 2018.

Reviews

[Simon Emmerich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gebet als die Befreiung vom Selbst. Ich mag Eugene und das Buch ermutigt mich zu beten!

„Prayer is action that builds a bridge across the chasm of self-assertion to a life of humility, which means getting more interested in and excited about what God is doing than in figuring out what I can do to express myself or improve the world. Such acts are major, albeit unobtrusive, contributions to the commonweal.“

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm afraid I have now come to the end of the list of Eugene Peterson books. I've read them all. This was a good one to end on, nobody writes better on the psalms then Peterson.

[Alex Strohschein · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Eugene Peterson's earliest books (originally published as Earth and Altar: The Community of Prayer in a Self-Bound Society) and one of my favourites of his. Insightful and wise meditations on the psalms.

‘To the objection “I prayed and cried out for help, but no help came,” the answer is “But it did. The help was there; it was right at hand. You were looking for something quite different, perhaps, but God brought the help that would change your life into health, into wholeness for eternity. And not only would it change your life, but nations, society, culture.” Instead of asking why the help has not come, the person at prayer learns to look carefully at what is actually going on in his or her life, in this history, its leaders, its movements, its peoples, and ask, “Could this be the help that he is providing? I never thought of this in terms of help, but maybe it is.” Prayer gives us another, far more accurate way of reading reality than the newspapers. “Think of it!” exclaims Bernanos’s country priest, “The Word was made Flesh and not one of the journalists of those days even knew it was happening!”’

[Melissa Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, Peterson's writing is thought-provoking and challenging. I can't read his books straight through with stopping, because they draw me into prayer again and again. I really like the way he describes Christian faith as being personal but not private; God is in personal relationship with each of us, but we are called to put that faith into action in the world for the good of the world.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though written over 35 years ago, this short book is perhaps even more relevant now. Peterson wrote this with the specific intention of helping us all let go of our obsession with (our)selves. He uses 11 Psalms that focus on a particular attribute of the self to explain how prayer can assist us in handing over that attribute to God and gaining some sort of victory over it.

He starts with a chapter titled "The Unselfing of America" using Psalm 2 as his guide. All of us in the free world can relate to his analysis. Other chapters include such attributes as "Unself-Made" (Ps 87), "Unself-Centered" (Ps 110), "Unself-Help" (Ps 46) culminating in Chapter 11, "Unself-Love" (Ps 45).

He acknowledges that some of the Psalms are ones less well known and I appreciated spending longer on some of these psalms that perhaps I had tended to pass over.

The final chapter on 'love' is worth the cover price alone and I'll be reading it repeatedly over the next few days/weeks as there is so much to digest about God's economy of love and how we can adopt similar in how we go about our daily lives.

If you appreciate Peterson's writing and theology you'll enjoy this and find it a useful guide to addressing these self(ish) attributes. Yes, there are some chapters that I found a little harder to fully grasp but a second reading is likely to assist in this regard.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had not heard of this book before, which was a little bit of a surprise, as I am a pretty big fan of Eugene Peterson, and have read a great number of his books. When this showed up at a discounted rate for the Kindle version, I snatched it up immediately.

Written over thirty years ago (1985), this book has a message for Christians in America. A sentence early in the first chapter grabbed my attention, and became the over-riding theme of the whole book. "America is in conspicuous need of unselfing." It's true. We most definitely have a self problem in the USA, and it certainly has not gotten better in thirty-plus years.

Peterson takes the reader through eleven different Psalms that have a message of driving us away from the "self" into community. And the main source of fixing the self problem, says Peterson, is prayer. He specifically recommends praying these specific Psalms with the purpose of "unselfing." In fact, each chapter title has the word "unselfing" in it.

Is this book political? You betcha. But not in the way you might thing. You see Eugene makes this bold statement in chapter 1: "It is both unbiblical and unreal to divide life into the activities of religion and politics, or into the realm of sacred and profane." I confess I have been guilty of trying to do that, as have a lot of people who don't follow Jesus and trust the government to "save" them. But this is a fallacy, just like trying to compartmentalize our personal lives into work and family and church. I'm a Christian, a Christ-follower. I do not set that aside when I got to work; I do not set that aside when I go out with my family; and I do not set that aside when I go to vote.

It is worth noting that this is not an attack on the alleged "separation of church and state" (which I hold to be a ridiculous notion, as both church and state are made up of people), but a book about prayer. Peterson believes that the self problem of America can be changed from the inside out by the work (not an easy one, mind you) of prayer.

This book is good enough and insightful enough that I am reading through it a second time, much more slowly, taking note of passages that inspire, convict, and challenge me.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been reviewing books for years and do not often have difficulty doing so. This book posed a challenge to putting my ideas into paragraph form. Rather they seemed to want to organize themselves into a three column table of portions that touched my heart and soul, portions that challenged me to think deeper, and portions that I had to trudge through. The last being at least partially responsible for the length of time it took me to complete this book.

The theme of the book certainly rings loud and true. As the author states, America is in conspicuous need of unselfing. The point is made that this great need is best addressed through prayer. Eleven Psalms are used to focus the reader on eleven areas in which this needs to occur. Author, Eugene H. Peterson connects this need for unselfing to the need to stop dividing our lives between religion and politics. He encourages us, through our prayer life, to allow our faith in Christ to fully permeate all areas of our lives.

I read through the first five chapters, taking notes, gleaning things here and there. Then, chapter six struck me deeply. The importance of humility, a forgotten virtue in our society where self-assertion is prized, and the importance of allowing God to assert Himself in and through us is beautifully unfolded in this chapter. Chapter ten also took me deeper; it is here that Peterson addresses our relationship with the rest of God's creation. Chapter eleven gives much food for thought as it focuses on the responsibility and impact a godly loving marriage is capable of having on our society.

I am grateful to have received a copy of Where Your Treasure Is from a friend.

[Jon Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most challenging part of reading this book was following exactly how Peterson was drawing the thoughts he presents from the Psalm texts he's studying. Most of the time, that connective thematic tissue or logic could be seen; there were other times where those themes, while a bit ambiguous, still appeared plausible enough.

What helped my reading of this book to have such a significant impact was reading, discussing, and praying through it together with a friend, as Peterson himself recommends in the introduction. While Peterson's words were enriching, as usual, it was the weekly conversations and prayer with my friend that helped bring out the flavors of each chapter. The book was good; going through it thoughtfully and prayerfully with someone was better.

[Brian Virtue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written 30 years ago and was ahead of its time. It offers a prophetic voice for today, especially in an election year. It's a deep dive into many Psalms with an eye on how they can teach us to move from self to community, to move towards embodying gospel and kingdom life through "unselfing" in the radical ways we are intended to. This book is refreshing to the soul at many points, but it will also challenge those building their own kingdoms, protecting their own interests at all costs, and looking to find security in their own power. This book had been on my shelf for quite a while, but I'm so glad I finally went through it. I was pleasantly surprised and amazed at its contemporary relevance.

[JournalsTLY · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gave good reflections - and practical insights - about the difference between solitude and privacy . "Privacy is our attempt to insulate self from interference; solitude leaves the company of others for a time in order to listen to them more deeply, be aware of them, serves them"

A book with brisk but trusty scripture exegesis, grammar and word studies - that brings us to celebrate the psalms in renewed ways.

[David Meldrum · Rating 4 out of 5]

A typically beautifully written Eugene Peterson devotional book, taking a selction of Psalms and in each short chapter reflecting on how each one in different ways invites us to move from self-centeredness to God-shaped community. As ever, it's an excellent combination of pastoral insight and good scholarship and is never a chore to read - but rather to be reflected, meditated, chewed on.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read about how prayer helps us "escape the distortions and constrictions of the self and enter the truth and expansiveness of God." Peterson takes a handful of Psalms how shows how they direct us in prayer by moving away from being self-centered, self-righteous, self-reliant, etc., which is something America is in great need of. He also shows how prayer is not only foundational for forming the soul, but for shaping society, and in fact powerfully integrates the personal and public world.

“The self is not an environment in which you can live in any full, human sense. We need God under our feet and God in our lungs. We need creator and creatures and community. God is the great continent of reality on which we live. If we deny him in practice by attempting to live in the ocean of the self, we are soon fatigued.”

[Mary Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a Peterson fan and this book didn’t disappoint. Written 40 years ago but if anything even more true and important now in this selfie age.

[cara · Rating 1 out of 5]

i have never felt more hating energy course through my body than having to read all 11 chapters of this book that had no need to be written

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eugene Peterson's insights led our group to a deeper understanding of the power of prayer!

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

My copy of this book is its first edition, Earth and Altar. Peterson is aiming at unselfing America through Psalms and prayer and community (if not exactly church). I like these brief chapters that reflect on a psalm and use them to encourage prayer to overturn particular American vices making us unself-made, unself-centered, unself-serving, and so on. The book does not offer commentary, but uses the texts as platforms to address a Christian way of being more concerned with God and the wider society than with the individual self. The chapters stand on their own and are from good to great. The book could use a solid overarching structure to provide a bit more order and direction, but Peterson's ideas and language are wonderful and open up a much bigger picture of the role and necessity of prayer in all of life. It is not a private activity, but a kingdom activity. And despite his criticism of the way American society warps the Christian self he is ultimately hopeful in the power of prayer and the God who creates and redeems.

[Jeff Bjorgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peterson is always a breath of fresh air. His writing style hasn't changed much over the years, and this was one of his earlier works. Although not explicit in the title, this is a book on prayer, but the kind of prayer that incorporates all of life, that transforms our selfish approach to life. As mentioned in the sub-title, he builds his argument from the Psalms. My warning when reading Peterson is the same: do not skim his writings or read him when you are tired; Peterson has to be read slowly and with attention. That's part of the treasure.

[Dave Mcneely · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it as a devotional challenge and prayer focus, good insights and helps.

[Jon Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stuff on getting outside of ourselves and thinking about community, both for church and the wider culture.