How to Teach Biblical Poetry in Youth Ministry
This month’s series is focusing on how to teach the different genres of Scripture to youth. We all know there’s a big difference between a Ezekiel and Psalms, but how should that effect the way we study and teach those portions of God’s Word in our ministry? Subscribe to the blog to get forthcoming articles in this series.
I loved poetry in high school. I read it, wrote it and was really into Christian rap. There was something unique about the way that English poems utilize rhyme schemes to help the reader navigate a story, while also employing imagery and metaphor to help them see important concepts in their mind and feel them in their heart.
The Bible also contains lots of poetry. However, given that it was written in Hebrew, in a foreign land, and during biblical times, the structure, emphases, and imagery look unrecognizable to the poetry I used to write. Not only do the Bible’s poems not rhyme, but they don’t have a set format, style, author, or message. There are like 7 kinds of Psalms. Proverbs has it’s own unique style and themes. There are poems running through the prophets and historical narratives. Then there’s Ecclesiastes, where trying to make sense of the main point can seem meaningless.
But the poetry in the Bible is the inspired word of God and is there for our benefit. Discovering that benefit requires us to learn how to read it, in context, as it was intended by the original author.
Here are some principles when preparing to teach biblical poetry:
Look for the People: Author/Audience
Context matters. The meaning can shift dramatically depending on who is writing, who they are writing to, and when they are writing it. If David is writing Psalm 3 during a season of righteous persecution, it makes sense. If he wrote Psalm 51 during the same season, you might get a little confused as to whether he deserved the trials he was facing or not. If Solomon is writing Ecclesiastes at the end of his life, it is the reflection of a wise man looking back over his life with clarity and wisdom. If it’s in his younger days, someone probably needs to give him a big hug.
In Job 38, you might think God is unnecessarily harsh or mean until you recognize it comes after Job’s challenge to God in chapter 31. Every poem in Scripture was written to a particular people, in a particular time, for a particular reason. If we can grasp those details, it will help us understand the passage correctly.
Look for the Patterns: Parallelisms, Stanzas, and Repetition
The biggest interpretive help in biblical poetry is the way it is arranged. Whereas English poems use rhyme schemes, Hebrew poetry uses structure. There are a couple of big things to look for:
Parallelism
This is where lines in a poem are connected, either to highlight or emphasize a similar idea between the two lines, or to set up a contrasting point, where the latter lines will oppose the former.
Highlighting God’s Eternality in Psalm 90:4
(Line 1) For a thousand years in your sight
(Line 2) are but as yesterday when it is past,
(Line 3) or as a watch in the night.
In Psalm 90, Moses is reflecting on the difference between God and man, but specifically, he is reflecting on the concept of God’s eternity, so he pairs two concepts about perception of time to emphasize this unique attribute of God.
Contrast in Proverbs 2:21-22:
(Line 1a) For the upright will inhabit the land,
(Line 1b) and those with integrity will remain in it,
(Line 2a) but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
(Line 2b) and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.
In Proverbs, there is often a contrast between the wise man and the fool, the righteous and the unrighteous. These kinds of parallelisms continually remind the reader of these two paths in life one can take by contrasting the ends they bring about.
Stanzas
Sometimes, entire stanzas (rather than individual lines) are grouped together to emphasize a particular idea, where between three and six lines are connected around one thought, then the following stanza will shift to another concept.
Example in Psalm 3:1-4:
Stanza 1 - “O Lord, how many are my foes!
Many are rising against me;
many are saying of my soul,
‘There is no salvation for him in God.’
Stanza 2: - “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
I cried aloud to the Lord,
and he answered me from his holy hill.”
In this Psalm, David highlights the struggles and fears that are befalling him in his escape from Absalom, then he reminds Himself of the truths he knows about God. By the end of the Psalm, the reader is encouraged to do as David has, to turn to the Lord in their trouble and find help in their time of need. The stanzas reinforce the movement of the Psalm as a whole.
Repetition
One final pattern used in biblical poetry is the use of repeating words, phrases, or ideas for emphasis. For example, in Ecclesiastes, Solomon reuses the phrases, “Meaningless”, “Striving after the wind”, “Under the Sun”, etc., which builds the main themes of the book: apart from God (who is “The Sun”), everything in this life is meaningless, and those who chase meaning there are pursuing something they will never attain…like trying to grab hold of the wind.
Look for the Pictures: Metaphors and Imagery
Obviously, all poetry utilizes imagery in communicating ideas. In biblical poetry, imagery can be used in either culture-specific ways or to call to mind earlier passages of Scripture. When you encounter a piece of imagery or a metaphor that is unfamiliar to you, do some research, both in Scripture and outside of it and you’ll often find a point of reference the biblical writer likely had in mind while writing.
Examples:
Psalm 77: “Your path was through the sea; your way was through the great waters, but Your footprints were unseen”
This is meant to recall the Exodus climax at the Red Sea to remind Israel during a season where God has not yet delivered them from difficult circumstances, when they had reasons to doubt His deliverance would come. It is a call to remember what God had done before!
Prov. 5:15: “Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, your flowing waters in the streets?”
In Solomon’s day, your family cistern/well was a source of nourishment and life for your family, something to be guarded/valued. To scatter it in the streets was to either waste it (as if it weren’t important) or to give it to strangers (leaving your own household thirsty). Solomon connects this to adultery, where the cistern is the marital bed: a source of nourishment, life, and value to be guarded and protected, not scattered or shared.
Look for the Point: Exegesis
Once you know who is writing, who they are writing to, how they have structured the poem, and the main images they use, then you can begin to put it all together.
What is the point? This is the end goal, what the entire section is trying to communicate. How does David’s confession in Psalm 51 model for us what repentance and faith look like? How does Solomon’s understanding of “eternity in man’s heart” in Ecclesiastes 3 help us make sense of our purpose? How does God’s announcement of His attributes in Job 38 humble us, knowing how much greater our God is than us? These are all big questions, born out of the text, that give us the foundation of our teaching.
Poetry is not everyone’s strong suit, but it is another form of divine revelation to us, which means how we approach it matters. I hope that as you seek to teach biblical poetry to students, you will be encouraged, uplifted, and when necessary, warned by them – learning to know their truths with your mind, and feel them in your heart.
