Matt Stafford

An Axios-Ipsos poll this week found that 79% of people surveyed say that America is falling apart, a view shared by a fairly equal number of Democrats and Republicans. According to Mike Allen at Axios, this pessimism “reflects the collision of crises besetting the country – the backdrop of a pandemic, recession, decoupling of red/blue […]

Psalm 30 was written by David and it recounts a dramatic reversal in his life. He had apparently had some kind of near-death experience, and God miraculously healed him. He was brought back from the brink of death, and he wrote the psalm as a personal testimony that would later be used publicly at the […]

There’s an old Jewish joke that goes like this: What’s the difference between a pessimist and an optimist? The pessimist says, “It can’t possibly get any worse than this.” The optimist says, “Of course it can!” As an incurable optimist, I’ve thought about that joke quite a bit over the last week. Just a week […]

(For Part 1, check here.) One of the most fascinating set of lenses to wear when reading the psalms are the “Jesus glasses.” We can be quite confident that Jesus grew up hearing, reading, praying, and singing the Psalms. Raised in a Torah observant Jewish home, attending weekly synagogue services, at the age of twelve […]

There may be no more familiar book in all of literature than the Book of Psalms. Out of all of the sixty-six books of the Bible, it’s doubtful that there is any book that has been read and spoken more than this collection of 150 prayers, songs, and poems. Their words have inspired men and […]