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Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible

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In this beautiful little book, Bonhoeffer guides the Christian to the Scriptures for lessons in how to pray. He affirms that the Lord's Prayer is the primary prayer of the Christian, which he asserts contains every prayer that a Christian ought to pray. Bonhoeffer also makes a startling but wise claim that jolts us out of the narrowness of our focus in prayer: "The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart." Thus we find the book of Psalms to be a rich treasury of prayers that are part of God's inspired word, and therefore a true place to learn how God would have us pray.

The book proceeds to give some general background on the history and use of the Psalms as the prayer book of the Bible. In the main part of the book he presents one possible system of categorizing the Psalms according to their petitions, and also points out that they can be organized according to the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. But the most valuable part of the book, in my opinion, is how he shows us how the Psalms are to be prayed in Christ, of whom the Psalms also testify (Luke 24:44). As Bonhoeffer says, "It is the incarnate Son of God, who has borne every human weakness in his own flesh, who here pours out the heart of all humanity before God, and who stands in our place and prays for us."

This is a fine book for the devotional/prayer life of the Christian.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, hung by the Nazis for his principled resistance to perversion of Christian life, leads us through the themes and value of psalms. These song-prayers, brought forth from thousands of years of human longing for connection with God, are just as powerful in their meaning of human life, today. Use this tiny volume as a study guide to psalm themes for better prayer life.

This is one of those good books that actually treat the Psalms for what they are: prayers. Many introductions and commentaries neglect this, treating the Psalms as though they were history, instruction or whatever. While history, instruction and a lot else is in the Psalms, their primary purpose is that we may pray after God, speaking His words back to Him.

The best introduction to the Psalms is probably to begin praying them, perhaps with the help of a good prayer book. But if someone's really green, this book will provide an understanding of the different types of Psalms, different human authors within the Psalmnody, and an overview of some of the difficulties we perceive within the Psalms.

My big complaint with the book is Bonhoeffer's occasional over-emphasis on his perceived need to pray (using the Psalms in this case) against an also-perceived wrath of God. This reflects an unfortunate -- in my opinion -- emphasis, one likely stemming from his Lutheran background. But it's a relatively minor issue with the book.

This book is a quick (it could easily be finished in an hour), easy read. The book's also divided into sections which could be used as subjects for daily meditation or for a series of classes.

Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible
Though a small book in size, a powerful presentation of prayer in various settings. Additionally, for those who perhaps stumble around about prayer, Bonhoeffer blesses such that the relationship with God is personal and precious. The power of Bonhoeffer's witness reminds one that we live a privileged life. Christians ought to have this in their library for rereading and rereading.

Some critical information is worth highlighting to the unsuspecting prospective buyer:
First, the book is roughly half the size of a normal book. So its 78 pages of content is equivalent to about 34 pages of a normal sized book. Second, 20 of its 78 pages are devoted to a short biography of Bonhoeffer. Third, there is no exegesis on the individual Psalms. Forth, much of the information in the book is available free in the internet.
In short, one is getting about 24 normal sized pages of general comments on Psalms and 10 normal sized pages of Bonhoeffer biography, much of which is available in the internet.

This is a very small book. It is too small to be a commentary on the Psalms. It is also too small to provide an adequate introduction to the Psalms.

Nevertheless, I think it sufficiently accomplishes its purpose. It helps us to begin praying with the Psalms. Prudence must be exercised here because no book can actually teach us how to do this. We learn in the doing. The book does give us good reason for beginning to do this. It gives the reader insights into the reality of what is actually happening when we do this, for instance, "The Christian will find scarcely any difficulty in the praying of these Psalms. However, the question could arise as to how one is to think about the fact that Christ also prays these Psalms with us."

The Master, Bonhoeffer also gives us situations wherein we can find prayerful help in praying the Psalms. The following are a sampling:

SUFFERING: The Psalter gives us ample instruction in how to come before God in a proper way, bearing the frequent suffering which this world brings upon us.... They do not deny it or try to deceive us about it with pious words.... Because it happens with God's will, indeed because God knows it completely and knows it better than we ourselves, only God can help."

GUILT: "There is such a thing as the confident leaving behind of sin for the sake of Jesus Christ."

THE END: "... the Psalms request fellowship with God in earthly life, but they know that this fellowship is not completed in earthly life but continues beyond it, even stands in opposition to it."

In these situations, Bonhoeffer points us to the Psalms most useful to us, for instance the Psalms of Lamentation.

It's a very small book worth the read.

This small book of Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the last publication he was allowed under the Nazi regime in the early 1940s. It serves as a powerful introduction to the most prayerful book in the Bible. The reader might gain insight into the book by first reading the last chapter, a short biography of Pastor Bonhoeffer's life. The first five chapters of the book discuss how to pray, the Psalms and their structure, use with music, and use in congregational and personal prayer. There is a chapter on classification, which provides Bonhoeffer's classification of Psalms into ten categories: The Creation; The Law; Holy History; The Messiah; The Church; Life; Suffering; Guilt; The Enemies; The End. As in any classification system there is some overlap. Yet, this system leads gently into praying the Psalms for personal use. The final two chapters are entitled: "Petition for the Spirit of Life" and "The Blessing of Morning Prayer." This is truly a gift for those who wish to pursue praying the Psalms.

This is a great book. You can't search by numbers on this book though. Which is disappointing since if you want to see what is written about Psalm 23 (for example) if you do a search for "23" it will not turn in any results.

The book was shorter than I expected, especially after reading some of Bonhoeffer's other works. However, I did find the book to be a very good summary of the Psalms. He puts the Psalms into groupings based on certain topics. I found this to be a very good idea and plan on using it as I read through the Psalms. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to start learning about the Psalms but also to those who are already familiar with them.

The publication of this book led Nazi Germany to forbid Dietrich Bonhoeffer to publish anything else. As was evidenced in their efforts first to control, and later to suppress, the Christian church in Germany, they felt threatened by the fact that Christians put Christ ahead of the Fuhrer.
Those who read this book will quickly discover that Christ is all in all to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is the attitude in which he teaches Christians pray the Psalms.
I have always enjoyed singing the Psalms in worship, and I have experimented with praying the Psalms privately. I always hit a snag, however, when I came to assertions of personal righteousness or cries for God to exact specific, brutal vengeance on enemies. How can such words be part of Christian prayer? Dietrich Bonhoeffer leads the reader to discover exactly how rich and honest every word of each Psalm can be, prayed as the prayer of Christ himself.
I fervently recommend this book to every Christian who wants to deepen his/her prayer life.