Note: The following article was adapted from a teaching outline I developed for a women’s Bible study taught in Spring 2026.
In a recent article, I mentioned a magnetic whiteboard on the wall in our kids’ room. It holds two things: the magnets that my husband brings home for our kids after every mission trip, which hold up the prayer cards of personal friends who are serving as missionaries around the world. Last I counted, there were 24 cards covering the board. We’ve added more since and that number doesn’t include all the friends whose cards we do not have. Safe to say, international missions holds an important place in our family.
Last year, I had the opportunity to join the teaching team for our women’s ministry. When we decided to go through the Psalms for our Bible study, each member of that team handpicked some of our favorite Psalms to teach. Needless to say, Psalm 67 was one of mine.
When we think of the Psalms, we often consider the personal benefits we receive from reading them. The Psalms help us worship, rejoice, grieve, hope, lament, and even express anger. The Psalms remind us of the absolute empathy God has for his people, by giving us this book that so speaks to our human condition and helps us walk the path of righteousness amid our own brokenness.
However, the Psalms also point us towards God’s mission and our calling to join Him in it. Psalm 67 is such a psalm. Because God has been gracious to us through Christ, we have become vessels of the gospel as God uses us to bring about his salvation to the nations. This Psalm reminds us of the ultimate goal: that all nations will one day worship God in the new heavens and the new earth.
The Psalm bookends with the mention of a blessing bestowed by God on his people, and the chiastic structure of the chapter indicates the purpose of that blessing: so that all people will praise God with joy. I think the Psalm breaks down three ways in which God’s blessing leads to His praise. In this first article, we will discuss how God blesses His people so that all nations may know Him.
Hashtag: Blessed
The first two verses open with a callback to the priestly benediction from Numbers 6:25-26:
“May the Lord bless you and protect you, may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”
Here, the psalmist turns these words from a blessing proclaimed over the people into a prayer spoken by the people, requested this blessing from God. But God’s people don’t seek this blessing for their own personal gain, or even the gain of their own community. This is where verse two comes in. It is the purpose behind the prayer. God’s people seek His blessing “so that [His] way may be known on earth and [His] salvation among all nations.” Derek Kidner writes that “the first overflow of from Israel’s own blessing will be the spread of life-giving knowledge.”
The purpose of the blessing is so that all nations may know God, personally acknowledge Him as Lord, and experience His salvation. And the primary means by which the nations come to know God in this way is through His people. God’s people become vessels of the very same blessing that they themselves have received. This is what “blessed to be a blessing” truly means: those who have received God’s blessing then extend that blessing to those who have not yet received it, inviting them to experience for themselves.
God’s blesses His people so that all nations may know Him. In part two, we’ll turn to the center of Psalm 67, where knowledge turns to gladness as the nations rejoice in God’s rule.
Photo by Casey Lovegrove on Unsplash
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