Introduction: The Songs in the Middle of the Bible

“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!” — Psalm 150:6

If you open a Bible right in the middle, you will probably land in a book called Psalms. And next to it are books called Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

These books are different from the stories in the other books of Tell Me the Story. They aren’t mostly stories. They are songs and poems and wise sayings.

The Psalms are the songbook of God’s people. There are 150 of them. King David wrote many of them, and other people wrote others. Some are happy songs, full of praise. Some are sad songs, from people who were frightened or lonely or hurting. Jesus knew the Psalms and sang them. When He was dying on the cross, He prayed words from a psalm.

Proverbs is a book of wise sayings, many of them from King Solomon, the king who asked God for wisdom. They are short and easy to remember, and they teach us how to live well.

Job is the story of a man who lost almost everything, and what he learned about God. And Ecclesiastes is a book by a wise teacher who thought hard about what really matters in life.

In this book, each chapter takes one song or one wise saying. Sometimes the Bible tells us the story behind a psalm, and we’ll tell it. Sometimes we’ll imagine a child today, to help you see what a proverb means. When we imagine, we’ll say so. Everything else comes straight from the Bible.

These songs and sayings are for you. You can sing them, pray them, and learn them by heart. They have helped God’s people for three thousand years, and they can help you too.

Dear God, thank you for the songs and wise words in the Bible. Please teach me to pray them, to sing them, and to live them. Amen.