I think you’ll find much benefit in this brief study of Psalm 8 by Daniel Stevens. Stevens models many great OIA principles, such as:
- Observing repeated words and phrases
- Comparison and contrast
- Gospel connection
- Implicational questions and answers (What I call “so what” questions, though Stevens doesn’t use that exact verbiage)
- Head application
Here is a taste:
What I want us to pay attention to as we look at this passage is first the framing of it, how we begin and end with the same words, “Oh LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” This is ultimately, first and foremost, a psalm of praise for the majesty of God. Within that, however, we’re going to find sets of contrasts and possibly even a story that moves along. When we look at the first stanza, and indeed the second and the third, what we’re going to want to see is the ways in which contrasts are used to show God’s glory and his kindness to us. In the first we find the high and the low, the great and the small. His glory is above the heavens. We are brought into the realm of all of the cosmos, the stars in the sky, and his strength is in the mouth of babies and infants. The grand stars of the heavens and the smallest infant, both together show the glory of God.
