Week 10: Prophecy

• Key verses: Psalm 2:7; 22:1
• The Messianic Psalms
• Parting thoughts

Key verses

Psalm 2:7 (NLT)

The king proclaims the Lord’s decree: “The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son. Today I have become your Father.’”

Psalm 22:1 (NLT)

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help?

The Messianic Psalms

As part of the reading this week, I read Psalms 22, 110, and 118. These are three of the Messianic Psalms. I could see some of the pieces that could relate to Jesus the Christ or the Messiah. This got me thinking about the historical context. What did the Jews at that time believe about these Psalms?

So, I decided to dig into it some more. I started out with Microsoft Copilot (AI built on OpenAI models, the same ones that run ChatGPT). I wasn’t confident of the results, and the tone was not great.

This led me to shift my research over to Andy’s Christian Theology GPT. Andy Pattison is the son of our teaching pastor at Capitol City Christian Church. He built this ChatGPT community project on trusted theological sources. This is nice because it filters out the nonsense and the tone is much better.

I used the following prompt to get answers to my questions:

Why are Psalms 22, 110, and 118 considered messianic? Show the specific New Testament quotations and usage of these Psalms. Describe the early Jewish interpretation of these Psalms.

Here’s a couple of thoughts I gleaned from the results that were pertinent to me.

• Jewish teachers at that time viewed many of the passages in question as Messianic. With the rise of Christianity, later Jewish teachers moved away from this interpretation because it meant acknowledging Jesus as the promised Messiah.
• Jesus, who inspired the Psalms, uses them about himself. He is the one who should know. He appeared to teach the apostles the same thing as Peter showed in his sermon in Acts.
• Paul reinforced it in his teaching. Paul was a devout Pharisee who learned under some of the greatest rabbis of his time. He would know what was Messianic.

I encourage you to check out Andy’s GPT. Try my prompt. If you discover something new or impactful to you, share it in the comments below.

Parting thoughts

I had questions this time. I often use AI to help. Andy’s GPT is really helpful. I am reading some of the references firsthand. All AI summarizes the material. No matter what you are looking at, but especially spiritual material, you should check the references to better understand the perspective of the original authors. Remember AI doesn’t create new content. It regurgitates existing material.