The book of Psalms serves as a profound exploration of human emotion and divine interaction, aptly described by our guest, Shane Heilman, as God's Songbook intended to be sung. In this episode, we delve into the significance of the Psalms, examining how Shane's ministry, The Psalms Project, endeavors to set all 150 Psalms to music, thereby enhancing the experience of engaging with these sacred texts. Through this musical endeavor, we uncover the benefits of memorizing scripture through song and the importance of internalizing the rich theological content embedded within the Psalms. Shane shares his journey as a worship leader, revealing how his passion for the Psalms emerged from a desire for deeper, more theologically robust worship experiences. Together, we reflect on the transformative power of the Psalms in our lives, emphasizing their role in guiding us through various emotional landscapes while fostering a closer relationship with God.

Links referenced in this episode:

• psalmsproject.com
• stopandthinkpodcast.com
• soulfishingministries.org

The book of Psalms could rightly be called God's Songbook.

Do you realize that God's Songbook was actually meant to be sung?

Well, let's dive into today's episode.

Thank you for taking this time to stop and think about it.

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You're listening to Stock and Think About It, a podcast for the Christian Thinker.

In a day when sound biblical preaching has been replaced by man centered entertainment and the church is becoming increasingly anti intellectual, this podcast will encourage believers to think biblically and theologically.

So please join me as we get ready to stop and think about it.

Greeting friends and foes, saints and sinners.

We're here at the G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, and we're here with our good friend that we just met, Shane.

I met him just a little while ago.

I saw he had a unique ministry where he actually sings the psalms.

And so I just wanted to ask him some questions about his love for the book of Psalms.

Why is he singing them?

Why he made an album of all 150 you made.

We're through 46 right now.

Okay.

As far as what we've released, we've released the first 46 Psalms put to music in their entirety.

So every verse of each psalm.

Amen.

So tell us your name and the name of your ministry.

Sure.

So I'm Shane Heilman and we are the Psalms Project.

And so we're a community of musicians putting all 150 Psalms to music in their entirety.

So we put the Psalms to modern, fully produced music, fully produced arrangements that we hope would be really pleasant to listen to for Christians.

But also we sing the entire Psalm from verse one to the end of that chapter in each song.

So we try to use music to enhance the experience of listening to the psalms and help people understand them, internalize them, learn them, put the scripture in their heart.

But also, music is a great teaching tool to be able to help people comprehend the text, understand the text and what's going on emotionally, theologically in the psalm.

So I want to tell the entire story of the entire Psalm with music without censoring them, without editing them.

Let's just sing the pure scripture and let it sit.

Let people wrestle with it, let people deal with it, let it bless them.

So that was kind of the vision of the project, and that's what we do.

That's awesome.

So I'M a public school teacher in New York City by trade, I guess you would say.

And so just going to school for my master's in education.

What you're doing is right within as far as it being a teaching tool for your own soul.

Singing leads to memorizing.

So if you ask somebody to memorize a verse, Colt, which I do, it's one thing.

But if you put it to music, if I ask you to sing a song, verse, quote a verse, many times, the song comes to mind quicker than the verse.

But if you marry those two things together, like you're doing, I mean, that's a beautiful husband, wife, relationship, so to speak.

Two sides of the same coin.

So that people are memorizing God's word by singing it, singing along with you.

And I like.

Because sometimes some Christian music can be kind of hokey, and it just doesn't catch in the heart and the soul.

And psalms is meant to be emotive and theological at the same time.

You raised that.

What led you to do this?

Yeah, so what led me to do was really my experience as a worship leader.

So I started leading worship, gosh, like 20 years ago.

And, you know, led worship in a lot of contexts.

You know, led worship at a Lutheran church for a while.

Led worship actually in some Pentecostal churches back in the day.

And that experience led me to long for something different than what I was singing.

Because, you know, in a lot of.

Of course, we all know a lot of modern worship songs.

Not very theologically rich.

That's true.

Not.

Not well grounded in the scriptures a lot of times.

And so different in content than what you see in God's songbook.

Yes.

So you start thinking about, why is this.

Why is what we're singing in modern worship so different than what the inspired songs that we have in the Bible, like that.

Something about that is not right.

Yeah.

So I got to tell you.

So we used to.

I came from Pentecostal background.

Many of the songs we sang, we called them 711 songs.

Have you ever heard that?

I haven't heard that term.

No.

Seven words sung 11 times.

Y.

So there was no.

There's no depth to it.

But you were saying.

Yeah, so at the time, I.

I had this idea I was leading worship at a church that was very young, very passionate, you know, Pentecostal in slant, but it was a RCA church, Reformed Church of America.

So it's kind of a more like Reformed Church of America plant with kind of those.

Kind of a young crowd that was very passionate about the Lord, but not Very well grounded in the Scriptures.

Okay.

So.

And I was a little bit older than most of the population there.

I was in my 30s.

Most of them were in their 20s.

So I kind of saw it as my role to help disciple them in the scriptures somewhat.

So I taught a spiritual disciplines class at the church.

But also when I was leading worship, I would incorporate more and more scripture into the worship service and just saw how impactful that was.

People would just say to me, like, wow, I loved it when you just read from the Bible or read from the psalms.

And I would recite psalms from the stage while I'm playing.

Just recite entire psalms to people just to.

Just to minister.

Kind of like a liturgy.

Right.

To minister to them, like, oh, we want more of that.

And I think it led to this idea.

I was on a mission trip and just came out of nowhere.

Like, what if I just sang entire psalms to, like, a modern worship style somewhat?

So, like, still using the modern instruments, the modern arrangements, you know, these beautiful instruments and this powerful music.

But let's put scripture to it instead of, you know, kind of semi shallow, repetitive stuff.

Yes.

So let's sing the rich scripture and see what that happens.

So wrote the first few songs, and they came out a little weird.

So I'm like, maybe we wouldn't sing this in a corporate worship setting, at least these songs.

But I still liked the idea and the challenge of writing songs that help people comprehend the psalms and help them to internalize them, memorize them, experience them.

And again, telling the entire story of the entire psalm with music.

I just found that to be a really interesting songwriting challenge.

Like, if I was going to sing this, what would it sound like?

What would the melody be like in this section?

What would the instrumentation be like in this section?

How can we kind of produce this in a way that helps people get it, you know, And.

And of course, as you.

The psalms were meant to be sung.

That's how they're supposed to be experienced.

Yes.

Right.

And so started doing it and pretty quickly just got hooked.

Like, I just couldn't do anything else.

How did you figure all this stuff out?

Like, how should it sound?

And all the stuff that you just mentioned?

Yeah, my process kind of went like this.

First of all, I memorized the psalm to try to get it into me.

And then I would study the psalm and several commentaries so that, you know, if there's an obscure phrase, I'm making sure I'm understanding it all that.

So really kind of getting the lay of the land before I start writing.

It so like, for example, Psalm 1, you know, it's obviously, you know, a meditation on the righteous and the wicked.

It's kind of a didactic psalm, it's a wisdom psalm, it's a teaching psalm.

So, okay, it's not gonna be a rock song probably, right.

You know, it's probably gonna be a little more of like a meditative.

I mean it references meditation.

Right.

Meditate on the word day and night.

So it's probably gonna have a more subdued, meditative kind of arrangement, kind of a feel slower song.

So again, internalizing the song, myself, memorizing, studying, you kind of get a feel for, okay, what's the emotion here?

What's the purpose?

How would this sound?

And of course that can be kind of subjective, right?

But something like Psalm 2 just sounds a little more aggressive.

It's a little more in your face.

It's like, you know, Jesus is king.

All these political entities planning against him.

He's just going to wipe them away.

Right.

Basically the end is like worship Jesus or else it's kind of like the, you know, the context, the message.

A very like aggressive message in your face message.

So that turned into a really high tempo rock song.

Just like nations repent, Jesus is king, he's the Lord, worship him.

And it's a very exuberant worship song, you know, so.

So again, each psalm is so different when you read them on a surface level.

A lot of times they can all sound the same sometimes if you don't read them deeply.

But when you really study them through, you see how unique the situation and the message and the, and the progression is the journey is in each psalm.

And so you get a feel for, okay, how would this sound, you know, emotionally.

Right.

Because a lot of the psalms are very emotional.

They are, sure.

And like psalms, you, some are political.

So, you know, how are most, most political songs, you know, like, kind of sound a little more like, you know, punk rock, aggressive, you know, like that kind of thing.

Psalm 2 doesn't sound punk, but you know, you know what I mean?

So a lot of those political protest songs tend to be rock songs.

So that's kind of my process for figuring out, getting a feel for, okay, how is this going to sound?

How's this going to come out musically in every respect?

Yeah, actually I preached on Psalm 1 and I preached on Psalm 2.

The whole Bible, I guess, is sort of like Psalm 1.

It's all about the righteous and the unrighteous, that God is calling or leaving.

And then one of my incredible things that I learned studying for Psalm 2, when it says kiss the sun lest he be angry.

Many people think about that as kissing the face, but it's actually kissing the feet.

That's right.

And if you don't kiss the feet, because apart from Christ, there was no peace, he'll use that foot to crush you with it.

So either you're going to kiss the feet or those same feet will crush you.

And it was like, wow.

It was just very intense.

But that's what raging nations deserve.

But they need to know who the real kings are, who the real king of kings is, and it's not them.

And so, yeah, I see that.

I think Martin Luther called the, the Book of Psalms a little Bible is a guy has all the theology and all the doctrines and all the emotions.

I tell people anything you, you will ever go through in your entire life is you dress in the Book of Psalms.

I think it's the.

I think it's the longest.

It's the longest book in the Bible.

Right.

And yet many people just kind of skip by it.

We're starting to use that as our call to worship.

We read a psalm every week.

And then throughout the week, I have a couple of brothers and we'll take that psalm and we'll read a couple of verses every day and we'll pray.

I'll read some commentary and discuss and then we'll just pray concerning that in respect in light of the things we're going through and things like that.

So it is just absolutely so rich.

When did you kind of like fall in love with the Book of Psalms, so to speak?

Yeah, I'd say I fell in love with it pretty early on when I was a believer.

So I was raised Catholic in kind of a nominal Catholic home.

And so obviously not deep into the Bible.

You know, that's really not, you know, that's not really not most Catholics thing, you know.

And so I got saved at a retreat.

I attended a retreat in my teens called Teens Encounter Christ.

Heard the Gospel, just got rocked.

Filled with the Holy Spirit, believed in the gospel and life was.

Was different after that.

This was a non Catholic thing you went to?

Yeah, it was a non Catholic retreat.

Okay.

So it was, it was kind of more of like an ecumenical Christian retreat, but obviously very Protestant in its theology.

Okay.

I think the Reformed Church started it.

I think so Reformed America started, I think.

But anyway, heard the gospel there, things were different.

Started to read the Bible, get into it.

Imagine that.

And very early on in my journey as a believer, just really felt an affinity for the book of psalms because of the.

The way it depicted the relationship with God as very close, very honest, you know, So I really was drawn to that and just felt close to God reading them because it just felt very authentic, very real.

It was very.

Yeah.

It doesn't feel, you know, like sometimes, you know, worship music or whatever you want to call it, you know, it can feel a little bit fake, but this didn't feel fake.

It felt like very, very honest, very raw.

Like, this is what real life feels like.

Does that make sense?

Pretty earthy, you know what I mean?

I don't know if I described that well, but.

And so I felt the affinity right away to it and always put it in my Bible reading plan because it's a great way to start Bible reading for me because it starts with worship.

Right.

The approach to God, Enter his gates with thanksgiving, enter his courts with praise.

The approach to God as worship.

I really like that.

Reading the psalms first and then getting into the rest of the.

My Bible reading.

So that's when I got really into it.

And then again as a worship leader, just getting more and more into worship.

Leading psalms just fit naturally into that because, you know, it's the songbook.

Yeah.

You're trying to see how does this square with what we're doing now, you know?

Yeah.

So, you know, in the intro, it talked about how, like, Paul wrote to the Romans, you know, you know, who the audience is to the Romans, to the Ephesians, but then the book of Psalms.

Who's the book of psalms written to?

Right, right.

It's written to God.

Yeah.

And that, like, learning that just blew me away.

I just never considered that.

Yeah.

You know, the simplicity of that.

Yet it was profound.

Say this wrong.

This.

This book is written to God to worship and glorify him.

And we're supposed to use it for that purpose, not, you know, how do I have my best life now?

Let me find a psalm that, you know, tells me how to do that.

No, it's about the worship of God in the entirety of our lives.

Because sometimes I think in Christianity and our churches, we think of worship and we compartmentalize it to only be music.

Right.

But even though it's meant to be sung, it's singing about our lives and what we go through.

Every emotion is in there.

Everything you ever go through, you're feeling down, you're feeling worried, you're feeling anxious, feeling fearful.

It's.

It's all in there.

It is.

Has there been any particular psalm that really, like, just anchored you and times you were going through or.

Yeah, yeah, man, jeez.

Psalm 32 has been a big one because the doctrine of justification is right there, of course, like blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is coming, covered, to whom the Lord does not impute any iniquity.

You know, Paul uses that in Romans 4 as like a bedrock for the doctrine of justification.

So that idea of, you know, just complete, perfect forgiveness, all that, I mean, that's huge comfort.

Obviously when I'm going, I've gone through some really stressful times as a public education administrator, you know, those kind of things.

You know, Psalm 38, another one where most of the psalm is very, very deep lament.

I mean, most of the psalm just describes the depths of his pain.

Most of it in all kinds of ways, physical, mental anxiety, emotional, relationship wise.

He's been abandoned.

Like, it's almost like a job kind of psalm.

But there's this little ray of hope in that psalm that.

But you, oh God, you will hear me, you will answer.

That's like the only positive verse in the psalm.

And just clinging to that, like, God, I know this is what's going on, but I know that you're gonna hear me and answer, like, I know that's going to happen.

And I think more so than one particular psalm that just rocked me because again, like I could talk about, I could go through each single one.

Sure.

More than that, it's like the overall pattern I saw, which was psalms starting with David often.

And this isn't every one of them.

Right.

But a lot of them start with David describing a really difficult situation.

Yes.

Usually his life is being hunted, like he's literally being pursued by murderers.

Right, right, yes.

Bad situation, he's in a bad scrape or he's living in a cave, hiding out from these people, something like that.

And then he describes the situation to God.

Well, first of all, he approaches God.

Very important.

Right.

Because when we're going through a difficult time, it's easy to reach for other things, you know, like to medicate through, like entertainment or substances or food or whatever it is, addictions to kind of numb the pain.

David always goes to God.

That's his go to.

Right.

But then he describes the situation to God, which you would think, like, well, God knows what's going on, he doesn't need to do that.

But very helpful for us to articulate what's happening, process it.

And then he starts to basically tell himself what he knows is true about God.

But I know that you're God over this.

I know that you do This, I know you're faithful in.

This speaks to his soul.

He speaks.

Yeah.

He preaches to himself almost.

Right.

And that gives him reassurance.

Like, oh, yeah, this is true.

This is true.

This is true.

God, you've promised this, you promised that.

And then he shifts into some intercess.

He shifts into some intercessory prayer and supplication.

Right.

God, considering all that, please do this.

Please deliver me.

Please, you know, wipe out my enemies.

Take them out so they don't take me out.

You know, and he starts getting into that.

And then by the time he's done praying, he's got this supreme confidence.

It's almost like he's no longer even in that place he was at the beginning of the psalm.

The psalm just ends with worshiping.

He's just worshiping.

He's worshiping God for the deliverance that in his mind has already come.

Like, it hasn't come yet.

But he's so confident it's coming.

He's worshiping God for the deliverance that's coming, which is so powerful to me.

So really, that pattern you see over and over again has been.

That has affected me more so than any one individual psalm.

Just seeing David go from despair and seeming hopelessness to being full of joy and hope within a few verses, that has been so impactful.

That's powerful.

I'm thinking of David and Job, and we know that in Job, we kind of see the, you know, the backdrop of, you know, God is having conversation with Satan and you consider my servant Job, and then he allows him to go after Job, and then Job goes to God.

Yep.

So I'm thinking in that context, can you imagine Satan, every time he goes after David, it drives him to God.

Yeah.

I mean, that should be our lives.

Absolutely.

That whatever we face, we may talk about the problem, and we're not ignoring.

We're not pretending like it doesn't exist.

Glory to God.

Not cancer right now, you know, or whatever it is.

But we talk about the problem.

We get our emotions out there.

Yes, we.

But then we preach to our own soul and we go to him, and then by the end of it, we're in praise because we realize this is a light and momentary affliction that doesn't compare to the eternal weight of glory which awaits us.

Yes.

Like, if you had an opportunity to preach to people, like right now that were kind of downtrodden, like, step us through it.

Yeah.

I would tell him exactly that.

I would say, first of all, just cry out to God with what is Your central request, what do you need from him?

What do you desire from him?

David would often start with the central prayer.

Psalm 54 would be a great example.

David starts out with, oh, God, save me by your name, vindicate me by your might.

That was his central request.

God, deliver me from this situation.

This was the immediate threat.

God, deliver me from it.

But then he goes into describing his situation to God.

So once you, like, kind of state your central request, your central need to God, tell him what's going on and just.

And just lay that out for him.

Because again, it gives us perspective, helps us process.

And then declare what you know is true.

Think of those biblical promises that you've been given, and then state those to God.

God, I know you've promised this.

I know that you're the God who does this.

I know that you have.

You've said, you do this.

And then again, maybe get more specific in your prayers, like, ask them, you know, if there's more specificity to your prayer.

What would you like?

What do you want to see happen?

Right.

I think sometimes we're afraid to ask that of God because we feel like that's way too demanding or that's way too.

But your father.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, I love the story of the blind man, Bartimaeus, in Mark 10.

Yes.

Just real brief summary.

Jesus is walking along the road, and there's this blind man on the side of the road crying out, son of David, have mercy on me.

Have mercy on me.

And Jesus stops.

Something about it makes him stop.

He goes off the road, comes to Bartimaeus, and he looks at him and he says, what do you want?

What is it you want me to do for you?

So it's almost like he's giving this kind of like.

Kind of vague cry for mercy, which is kind of like what the beginning of the psalm sounds like sometimes, right?

But then Jesus walks up to him and says, no, what do you want?

What do you want me to do for you?

Which, of course, Jesus knows what he wants.

And he's blind, for crying out loud.

Like, you know, you kind of guess what he wants, right?

But he says, what do you want me to do for you?

I mean, imagine that Jesus comes up to you and says, philip, what do you want me to do for you?

Powerful, right?

Yeah.

What does Bartimaeus say?

I want to see.

Yeah.

Jesus says, okay, done.

Jesus made him verbalize it.

Exactly what his request was, exactly what he was wanting, desiring.

We shouldn't be afraid to do that.

God, this is what my heart desires you know, delight yourself in the Lord.

He'll give you the desires of your heart.

So he asked him what he desires.

And again, that's not like a prosperity gospel thing.

That's not like that.

It's just, what is your immediate need?

What is your desire from the Lord?

He can say, no, but we ask him what we desire from him, what we need from him.

And then Jesus heals him and on he goes.

So David does the same thing.

He gets very specific after that beginning of the psalm.

He'll say, like, God, I want this to happen to my enemies, yes.

Or I want this kind of deliverance.

And by the way, it'd be great if this would happen, too.

And then it's almost like David gets this prophetic assurance that his prayer is answered, right?

You see that in several psalms, like Psalm 6 is a good example, David lays out this prayer, and then at the end he says, depart you enemies, for the Lord has heard my weeping.

He will receive my prayer.

So it's like David gets this, like, divine assurance, like, yep, this is answered.

Like the.

The fruition of the answer in.

In time has not come yet, but it's answered.

And David just like, excited about it, anticipating the answer before it even comes, right?

That confidence David has that God's going to come through with his promises is probably been the most profound thing I've seen in the Psalms, that David expected his prayers to be answered, like, in his lifetime, like in the here and now, like soon, soon.

Not later, but now.

I think sometimes, and I came out of a Pentecostal background, sometimes we run so far away from.

People used to ask God for everything, you know, name it and claim it, right?

And then we don't want to fall in that ditch, so we go to the other ditch and we don't.

We say, I don't want to ask God for anything, right?

And that's the wrong ditch, too.

So we have to stay.

We have to stay on the narrow road, and we're safe there.

You're safe with what God asked in the Psalms.

And there's some powerful prayers in the psalms, like, search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there be any wicked way in me, lead me in the way of everlasting.

That's not a health and wealth prayer, you know what I mean?

At all.

So there's lots of prayers like that that we can pray and know that God wants that to happen.

We know that God will answer that because we know that's his will.

We know that's what he wants for us, right?

Praise God.

You don't see David praying for health and wealth kind of stuff.

You see him praying for righteousness.

You see him praying for God's glory, like Psalm 57.

I love Psalm 57 because the context is David's in the cave, right?

That's when he's in the cave hiding from Saul.

And what's his core prayer that he repeats throughout that psalm?

Shoot, it's going to come to me.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.

Let your glory be over all the earth.

So when David's in this really difficult personal situation, what's his heart?

What's his desire?

What's he crying out for?

He's crying out for God to be glorified in all the earth.

That's what David wanted more than anything, to see that.

And so when he's asking for deliverance, it's not just for himself.

He's asking for deliverance because deliverance will vindicate God's name.

It will vindicate God's glory because he promised to deliver his people.

There's a depth to what he's saying.

And David's such an evangelist, too.

You see this all the time where he says, God, deliver me so that I can testify about it to other people, so I can tell other people what you've done.

In Psalm 34, he says he starts preaching in the middle of it.

He's so thankful for what God's done, he starts telling people, now listen to me.

Like, follow the Lord, follow his ways so you can experience what I'm experiencing.

Right?

You see that all the time.

You see it in Psalm 32.

He says, now listen to me.

Stay close to your master.

Don't be like the stubborn horse.

Stay close to your master.

Then you will experience the deliverance that I have.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, I appreciate your time today, Shane.

What's your website?

Where can they go to find your material?

Yeah, yeah.

Thanks for that, man.

So we are the Psalms Project.

That's the name of.

That's the artist's name for our music.

The psalms project.

The psalmsproject.com is our website, so there you can join our email list, listen to the music, and really interact with us in any way that works for you.

Amen.

I started listening to music.

I got your whole.

All six volumes.

It's six volumes?

Yes.

We've got, well, five volumes.

Plus we have another collection of just quiet, meditative psalm arrangements called Psalms for Sleep.

I made Psalms for Sleep specifically for people who struggle with anxiety and depression because it's those kind of psalms that address that.

Like Psalm 42, Psalm 23, Psalm 91.

Yeah, but we have five volumes of Psalms released that go from Psalms 1 through 46.

Okay.

Praise God.

Yeah, well thank you for taking this time to stop and think about it.

Also wrote a book, Behold the Wondrous Psalms of How to Pray the Psalms.

So we sing the Psalms, we pray the Psalms, we meditate on the Psalms, we believe them and we preach the Psalms to our own soul for the glory of God.

Thank you for taking this time to stop and think about it.

If you would like to contact us please email us@stopandthinkcrewmail.com.

you could also visit our website at www.stopandthinkpodcast.com.

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