Psalms 1

Psalms 1 - Overview


Let's read Psalms 1:1-4 and then think about what it means.


Great blessings belong to those
    who don’t listen to evil advice,
who don’t live like sinners,
    and who don’t join those who make fun of God.
Instead, they love the Lord’s teachings
    and think about them day and night.
So they grow strong,
    like a tree planted by a stream—
a tree that produces fruit when it should
    and has leaves that never fall.
Everything they do is successful.

But the wicked are not like that.
    They are like chaff that the wind blows away.


Darius I

Discussion Questions


Why does listening to God's teachings make us strong like a tree?  How is a tree strong? 

Why does listening to God's teachings make us like a tree that produces fruit?

List other qualities you like about trees.  Could any of these qualities apply to you when you are following God's teachings?

The Tree and the Chaff


Verse 4 mentions chaff. To understand what chaff is, we need to understand an old way of farming known as winnowing.  You can see a picture of two women winnowing on the right.

After collecting grain from a plant, there is a lot of other debris mixed in. By throwing the grain in the air, the grain will land in a pile, and the lighter elements, that are light like straw, blow away in the wind. Chaff is the lighter debris that blows away in the wind that is useless and no one want to eat.


Darius I

David Haberlah at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons

Discussion Questions


So think about the contrast between this grand tree and chaff.  List contrasting qualities between a tree and chaff.  For instance, one is strong and the other is weak.  Think of some other contrasts.

What does the tree represent?  What does the chaff represent?

Activity


Get some art supplies and draw the tree in Psalm 1 that is by the water.

Return to Bible Units

Taken from the HOLY BIBLE: EASY-TO-READ VERSION © 2001 by World Bible Translation Center, Inc. and used by permission.