The canonical book of Psalms may be viewed properly as the Bible’s own devotional book. Dietrich Bonhoeffer made this point in his brief work The Psalms: Prayer Book of the Bible.2 Indeed, it is the primary source from which all other devotional books have been drawn. … “There is no one book of Scripture that is more helpful to the devotions of the saints than this,” says Matthew Henry, “and it has been so in all ages of the church, ever since it was written.”3 But the Psalter is not only our prayer book, it is also and even primarily God’s hymnbook, given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “God…by the mouth of thy servant David hast said,” as the apostle Peter expressed it (Acts 4:24, 25). “From earliest times the Psalter has been both the hymn-book and the prayer book of the Christian Church,” say Derek Kidner and J. G. Thomson.4

Apostolic Church

“Psalmody was a part of the synagogue service that naturally passed ...