Reading Psalm 23 As Resurrection Hope In Christ

Psalm 23 is so familiar that we can miss how daring it really is. We sit with “The Lord is my shepherd” and read it in its wider setting, between Psalm 22’s crucifixion shadow and Psalm 24’s picture of Christ the King, and suddenly the green pastures and still waters carry the weight of resurrection confidence. As we trace the psalm line by line, we find ourselves asking a sharper question: whose voice are we hearing, and what kind of hope is being taught to us?

Paul Blackham brings a close reading that highlights how the Hebrew can open fresh meaning, including a striking nuance in the final line that points to Christ “returning” to the house of the Lord. That detail turns Psalm 23 into more than comfort for hard days; it becomes a glimpse into Jesus’ own prayerful trust as he looks through death towards life with the Father. We also talk about why this is the right psalm to read with the dying, not as sentiment, but as a way of learning steadiness from the One who faces death without fear.

Our guest, evangelist Stephen Lungu of African Enterprise, shares the human story beneath the theology: abandonment as a child, the bitterness that drove gang violence, and how Scripture interrupted his path before a moment of destruction. He explains what it meant to “personalise” God as shepherd, how “He restores my soul” becomes “He gives me back my life again”, and why the rod and staff are comfort when the world is unjust. We finish with the anointing oil as a picture of the Holy Spirit’s power for calling, courage, and witness.

If Psalm 23 has become background noise, let this conversation make it vivid again. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs hope, and leave us a review with the line of Psalm 23 you return to most often.

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Transcript

Jesus In The Psalms Theme

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Book by book. Here we are once again for the next in our series of studies, and we're taking the Book of Psalms, particularly those between Psalm 20 and 30, which speak so much of Jesus. So Jesus in the Psalms. That's our theme today. And I'm Richard Buse greeting you here. Paul Blackham is with me, my colleague, and uh he works in London with me. And then our very special guest is Stephen Lungu from Malawi, who's the team leader for African Enterprise in that part of the world. And it's a great thrill to have you here, Stephen, as a world evangelist, and of course, particularly based in Africa. I think what we should do today is to have a reading first of

Psalm 23 Read Aloud

SPEAKER_02 1:40

all. It's Psalm 23. Ah, the famous Psalm. Let me read. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul, he guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Well, of course, this psalm is oh it's gone all over the world. Billy Graham once preached it, uh, Stephen Lunger, right in your own country by the uh by the great uh Victoria Falls. Then he told me later that he preached it in Harvard University, preached it in the Cambridge University, and he was able to preach exactly the same message because it has the same application everywhere. So, what we'll do is to now have some chat together about this um particular psalm, if we may.

Between Cross And King

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Maybe I'll start with Paul Blackham. Paul, can I ask you? I've often read this psalm, as you must have done as a clergyman, many times to people who are dying, with this theme of the resurrection, hope, and confidence. But this psalm sits between a psalm about the well, we are thinking in Psalm 22 about the cross of Christ, and then in the next Psalm 24, which is related to the ascension of Christ the King. What are we to make of that?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Well, that tells us or strongly indicates that we're to expect this is going to be about the resurrection of Christ as well, just as those two, so that there's a the sequence flows on. And what's amazing is the more we study it, the more detail we get into, the more that we notice that that's true. I have here a copy of the Hebrew scriptures with me. And when you study that more closely, you'll begin to see that there's things which sometimes don't come out as clearly in the English. So just pick one thing. When it says I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, strictly speaking, it should be I will return to the house of the Lord forever, which tells us, oh, that must be Christ talking. He's looking forward to returning to the house of the Lord. Whereas we will go to the house of the Lord forever if we trust in him. He returns to the house of the Lord forever. So that tells things like that show us that it's him in his meditation thinking as he's on the cross, thinking about that resurrection that he's got confidence in.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

So we're able to read in this psalm into the soul of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in a very strange way and wonderfully.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yeah, his own hope, his own absolute confidence. He's showing us. So that's why it's right when we're with someone and they're dying to read this psalm because although it's Christ's prayer of resurrection hope, he's showing us how to have resurrection hope when you're dying. He I mean, how can we learn of anyone better than him? He's the master of prayer. Teach us to pray, Lord. He has done in the Psalms.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Oh, it's very good.

Making The Shepherd Personal

SPEAKER_02 4:51

And oh, Stephen Lungo, the Lord is my, it's personal, my shepherd. How does that make him such a good shepherd uh for us? When I think of you, as you were involved in gang warfare and um you know terrorist activities in Harari and elsewhere in your earlier days, uh, and I think of you also as a as a boy who was left by his mother on the street at the age of how old were you? About four years old. Yeah, you weren't old at all to be left on the street. Um how can we how can we he be a good shepherd to us?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Uh he can be a good shepherd the moment you surrender your life to him and you personalize him as your father and mother. And taking it from Psalms 27, uh, verse 10, which says, Though my father and mother forsake me, but the Lord will receive me. It was in that moment when I surrendered my life to Jesus, he became my shepherd, and he was taking me from one step to another at a time. And it was that time where I felt that God was real in my life after spending a lot of time eating from the garbage binnings, um, sleeping under a bridge, and felt rejected. But when Christ came into my life, he became my father and my shepherd.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Because Psalm 27, that was the the psalm that spoke to you when you finally got to that meeting, you were going to blow up with explosives. That's true. And the word of God got to you before you d reached detonation point, which was an amazing and wonderful thing. That's right. Yeah. We'll come on to that later when we get to Psalm 27.

Abandonment Rage And Violence

SPEAKER_02 6:39

So looking back now, um that time when you were an abandoned boy, what were your emotions at that point when you were growing up? Eight, nine, ten, eleven.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Well, I I felt my emotions was that I wanted to express the bitterness against my mother, my father who dumped me in the streets. Uh so every time when I did all the bad things like stabbing people, you know, killing people and so on, I felt, well, if I had seen my father or my mother, this is what I would have done to them.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

But I think there's a terrible moment in your book, uh, Out of the Black Shadows, but of course that was the name of your gang, the Black Shadows, when you suddenly at one point saw your mother and you flung a knife at her. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

And that's a terrible moment for you, I'm sure. Well, I was under the influence of drugs at that time, and I went to visit my aunt if I could get some food. And instead of giving me food, she just said, uh, greet your mother. And I looked at this woman, and the moment I was in a rage of anger, and took a knife, threw it at her, aiming at uh her chest, and the knife missed her by inches, and I left without even greeting her. So it was trying to express this anger which was in me, and so it went on to other people.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

So this psalm is really saying to me, we all need a shepherd. Exactly. Jesus is the shepherd we need, and Jesus can become my shepherd. My to

He Gives Me Back Life

SPEAKER_02 8:13

you. Paul Blackham, this phrase, he restores my soul, all these familiar phrases from Psalm 23, what does that really mean?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Well, again, it it sometimes if we retranslate it a little bit to get perhaps slightly more accurate, he gives me back my life again. It sometimes then focuses a little bit more. That again helps us to see it's about the the resurrections very much in view. So though I die, he'll give me back my life again, which you know that's the ultimate hope of of all. And it also for our own, when we when we pray this prayer ourselves throughout life, it also helps us to know that that power of the resurrection is also experienced by us day to day. Yes, you know, that we yes, there's going to be a new body for us and he'll give us back our life from the grave. But even now we experience the power of the resurrection. So that when many of us have been in that situation where you know we just think, oh, you know, I'm completely finished, and yet amazingly we trust in Christ and He restores us. He gives, we experience the resurrection, power that He Himself achieved for us.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

You feel refreshed in our life with a new life, resurrected.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Well, that happened to you the very day after you turned to Christ when you were on the buses preaching, even though you were illiterate at the time. Mind you, you can now preach in I think it's seven languages, including Dutch. Am I right? Yeah, about ten languages. Ten languages, including Dutch. That's right. I think that's very exciting, very wonderful.

Rod And Staff Versus The Gang

SPEAKER_02 9:44

This rod and the staff that we read about, the rod and the staff of God. Um, you know, you were without all of that, all of that guidance. When you were in the gang, what was happening in the gang at the time? What was your the mindset of those gang leaders and the gang members?

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Well, a gang was like uh part of my family uh I could identify with. They were, you know, street boys rejected. So we talked the same language. And it was through this gang that you start, you know, going into drugs. You start with a cigarette and went into marijuana and um LSD glue. And so the next thing you find yourself that you had stolen guns which you use. So it was like trying to express this anger which was in you to other people, and and each time I stepped someone, I felt like satisfaction. Um, I was satisfied that I'd achieved something. I I've met someone, you know, lower than me. But at the back of my mind, you are thinking of your father and mother, that I I wish I could do this to my dad or mom. And so there was a vacuum, an emptiness, which I was trying to fill up with these otherworldly things. And the more I tried to fill up this emptiness, the more I became emptier and emptier.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

So it was a very hard um rod that you were under at that time, a different kind of rod. Here's here's the better rod. The rod and staff of God is a comfort to us and in death pool as well, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 11:26

It's a great comfort to us in these different It's great because the the rod of God, these judgment. Uh it's a great thing to know. I if we die, because we might die, and particularly this has been the case of so many Christians down through history, through great injustice and martyrdom and so many wrongs against them. But then they can die peacefully because they know that judgment belongs to God. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. We don't need to rage against the injustices of the world, because it all lies in the hands of God. His rod, his staff, he's the got the authority and the judgment, his rod and his staff. Tremendous comfort that we know that evil will not have the final word. Might have the final word in our own life and we die, but that's not got the final word. In the end, all judgment will be he'll see justice is done.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Exactly. I mean, here in in the this um studio group that's here of our supporters. I've got a cousin here, Robert DeBerry, and he's a clergyman like myself, and together we have seen hundreds of people on their deathbed. And the difference when there's belief and trust in Christ is enormous in the attitude, even though there may be pain or grief. Nevertheless, there's an underlying tremendous confidence, the rod, the rod of the Lord guiding us and

Oil As The Holy Spirit

SPEAKER_02 12:42

helping us. This oil between the two of you, would you like to start, Paul? The significance of the anointing oil?

SPEAKER_00 12:48

The anointing oil in Scripture, oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit. So we can see that very clearly when the very day that David is anointed as the king, he's filled with the Holy Spirit that very same day. So we see clearly the oil signifies the presence of the Holy Spirit. We see it. The priests had to be anointed with oil because they couldn't do their job unless they were full of the Spirit. And prophets Elisha had to be anointed with oil, same thing. Prophets, priests, kids had to be anointed with because they can't do the job without the Holy Spirit. So here, this thing, of course, Christ is for is full of the Holy Spirit. The word Christ means the anointed one, the Spirit rests on him without measure. So of course, the Father is happy to anoint his head with God, and we too receive the Holy Spirit. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

And you too, dear brother, as an evangelist. I mean you must find the I I've heard Mr. Graham, Dr. Graham, say, you know, that he feels like really flaked out just before speaking and drained, and then he sp stands up to speak and we watch it. Twenty years fall off him. I guess you've had the same experience, have you not, when you're faced by a big crowd, sometimes hostile.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Oh well, oh, my knees are always shaking, but uh uh I become myself in the mid in the midst of my preaching. And what happened with me to have this oil was just under that bridge when I c I just came from the tent. I cried out, I was just praying a prayer which I didn't know. I said, God, why couldn't I see the beauty of stars before? Why? Why? And I said, God, I'm not educated, I can't read, I can't write. And I said, I want to tell everybody about your love. And suddenly there was that power which came upon me. And the next thing I heard that audible voice inside me that, Stephen, I'm going to send you to the nations. You do not know. And I'll open your eyes. And the excitement and the joy is the one which took me in the bus the following day. From day one, witnessing about Jesus, and from my day one in Christ, I won seven people to the Lord. Uh and I've never stopped ever since.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

I think it's the lovely story. It's in the book of how they got out of the bus and said, How can we know this that you've just been talking about in the bus? And you said, kneel down in the dust, and then they say, What should we do now? You say, Well, I don't know, it didn't happen to me yesterday. Then you just said, Jesus, here are my friends, and so here they are. Yes. That started it for them. That's right, yes. I think it's about enough

Returning To The Father’s House

SPEAKER_02 15:19

for the moment. Unless you either of you want to say a tiny word about the house of the Lord. I think we can say Christ was to return to Paul.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

That's right, because I mean we all know John 14, verse 2, when he says, I'm going to my father's house to prepare a place for you. So he returns to his house, but he's prepared for us all. Yeah, what a psalm.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

What a psalm. We've only done it rather sketchily. You've got a Bible with you, I hope, there, maybe on your own, or maybe in a big group, or maybe in a quite a small group. Perhaps you've got study materials with you. May this Psalm 23 be a blessing to you, a blessing to all of us. God bless you today.