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Post by Admin on Feb 9, 2024 15:03:43 GMT -5
NOV 01, 2023 CREATION On Earth as It Is in Heaven Share
g3min.org/on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven SCOTT ANIOL
pink petaled flowers inside building On Earth as It Is in Heaven | Scott Aniol When we witness terrible atrocities on earth, we must interpret them in light of the heavenly reality. Heaven is a palace from which God rules sovereign over all, and heaven is a temple where he is worshiped as he ought. This is the reality.
How, then, do these visions of God in his heavenly palace/temple impact our understanding of what happens here on earth? What is essential to recognize is that when God created the heavens and the earth, he intended for this reality of the palace/temple of heaven to be extended to the earth. As Psalm 104 states, God stretched out the heavens like a tabernacle. God created the heavens to be a tabernacle of his presence. Further, as Isaiah 6:3 states, it is not just the heavenly temple that is filled with the glory of God, the whole earth is full of his glory. God created the earth not only as the kingdom realm of the sovereign King, God created the whole earth to be his holy temple, filled with his glory.
When God created the heavens and the earth, he intended for this reality of the palace/temple of heaven to be extended to the earth.
The Garden Sanctuary Consequently, a biblical understanding of the nature of heavenly worship and its relationship to God’s plan in history must be situated in God’s intention for mankind as articulated in the creation narrative. On the sixth day of creation, God created man in his image, and God blessed him, saying,
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
This blessing given to mankind at creation crowned him with rule over the earth, granting man the privilege and responsibility to subdue and have dominion over all things. “Subdue” (kābaš) and “have dominion” (rādāh) are royal terms, the former term later used to describe Israel’s subduing of the land of Canaan (Num 32:22, 29; Josh 18:1), and the latter term used to describe the Messiah’s future reign (Ps 110:2). Made in God’s image, man is given the role of God’s regal representative on earth. As Eugene Merrill notes, “Man is created to reign in a manner that demonstrates his lordship, his domination . . . over all creation.” God is sovereign king over all creation, but he formed man in his image to be his vice-regent on earth. This is what David later describes when he says in Psalm 8:4–8,
What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
The realm of this kingdom over which man was to rule as God’s regal representative was a garden God planted as his earthly palace (Gen 2:8). God placed the man whom he had formed in his palace, adorned it with rich food and gold, and put Adam to work:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Gen 2:15)
Yet here the language shifts from royal language to priestly language, revealing a second role man was to play in the garden realm. The phrase “work it and keep it” signifies much more than the duties of a gardener; rather, as Allen Ross explains,
In places where these two verbs are found together, they often refer to the duties of the Levites (cf. Num. 3:7–8; 8:26; 18:5–6), keeping the laws of God (especially in the sanctuary service) and offering spiritual service in the form of the sacrifices and all the related duties—serving the LORD, safeguarding his commands, and guarding the sanctuary from the intrusion of anything profane or evil.
In other words, the four verbs in Genesis 1–2 that describe man’s purpose in the garden indicate that God created man, not only to be his kingly representative, but also to be his priestly representative. The garden was not only God’s earthly palace, but also his earthly temple. God was present with his people in the sanctuary as he “walked” with them in the cool of the garden (Gen 3:8). Notably, the verb for “walked” (hālǎḵ) in Genesis 3:8 is used later to describe God’s presence in the tabernacle (Lev 26:12; 2 Sam 7:6–7). Man was supposed to “keep” the palace-sanctuary, that is, to guard and protect its purity, preventing those who would attempt to usurp God’s reign and defile his temple.
Man was supposed to “keep” the palace-sanctuary, that is, to guard and protect its purity, preventing those who would attempt to usurp God’s reign and defile his temple.
Thus, what God intended for man in the garden was that he serve as a perfect king/priest within what Meredith Kline describes as a “holy theocracy,” a perfect union between kingdom and cultus, between reigning and worshiping. I am using the term “cultus” here, of course, to refer to the public acts of worship performed by a religious community. Man’s regal work and his priestly work were unified in one kingdom/cultus, an earthly manifestation of the heavenly reality.
However, we know what happened. When the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 8, which claims that God has put everything under the feet of man, he says in the next verse, “At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him” (Heb 2:8). Adam failed. He disobeyed God’s command to have dominion over creation by allowing a creature, the serpent, to be king. He failed to guard God’s garden sanctuary by allowing Satan to defile it. As the representative of all mankind, Adam failed to be God’s perfect king/priest, and he was exiled from the palace-sanctuary of God’s presence.
Adam’s failure did not end the universal sovereign reign of God over all things, of course, and many of the passages in Scripture that speak of God ruling over all refer to that continual, never-ending cosmic reign of God on his sovereign throne that Isaiah and John witnessed. All aspects of the universe still fall under the sovereign rule of Yahweh. Even Adam’s failure was part of God’s sovereign plan.
Nevertheless, Adam’s failure did end his role as king/priest, and God pronounced a curse upon Adam and Eve and all creation. Yet as part of his curse upon the serpent, God provided a glimmer of hope:
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Gen 3:15)
God promised that one day a seed of the women—a Second Adam—would accomplish what the First Adam failed to do. He would crush the usurper’s head and cleanse the defiled Sanctuary, fulfilling the God-given role of the perfect king/priest.
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Post by Admin on Mar 16, 2024 19:46:24 GMT -5
Is Culture the Same as Ethnicity CultureEthnicityManRacial UnitySocial Justice
SCOTT ANIOL
Blog-2016 Many Christians are talking about culture these days, but unfortunately, few have given any serious thought to what culture is, especially in biblical terms.
The term “culture” is a concept that has developed in the last few hundred years as a way to explain different behaviors between groups of people. “Culture” originally meant something more along the lines of what we would call “high culture,” but now it has come to take on a broader meaning. British anthropologist Edward Tylor defined culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” This understanding has come to be the standard definition, and evangelicals have adopted the concept as well, as evidenced in Lesslie Newbigin’s definition: “the sum total of ways of living built up by a human community and transmitted from one generation to another.”
Very simply, culture is the shared behavior of a particular group of people. The question for Christians, then, should be this: what in Scripture best parallels this concept of “culture”?
Most Evangelicals automatically assume that when the Bible talks about a “nation” or “ethnicity,” it is the same thing as “culture.” This is clear because when most Evangelicals defend cultural neutrality or stress the need for multicultural churches, they appeal to passages that talk about ethnicity, such as Matthew 28:19 or Revelation 5:9. This is also evident by the way Evangelicals insist that it is racist to criticize certain cultural expressions.
However, what should be evident after careful biblical reflection is that “nation” or “ethnicity” is not the same thing as “culture.”
Ethnicity (I deliberately use the term “ethnicity” instead of “race” because biblically speaking, there is only one human race) refers to people united by common ancestry. The Bible is clear that God desires to save people (and, indeed, will save people) from every ethnicity, and consequently, we Christians have the responsibility to spread the gospel to people from every ethnicity. God ordains ethnicities. They are all equally good and valuable. People from every ethnicity are all united into one body in the church of Jesus Christ. One day, redeemed people from every ethnicity will surround the throne of God in the worship of him.
On the other hand, culture does not refer to people per se but rather to how people behave. Culture describes the collected behavior of a group of people that flows from their collective beliefs and values. Over time, a particular civilization develops a common way of thinking, valuing, and believing that affects how they live. This pattern of behavior then develops over time and becomes what we describe as “culture.” But, since culture is behavior, and since all cultural behavior flows from values and beliefs, not all culture is equally good. Some cultural behaviors are reflections of values consistent with God’s will and Word, and other cultural behaviors flow from values hostile to God and his will.
Indeed, behavior in Scripture is far from neutral; it is always either moral or immoral. Thus while it would be horrendous racism to criticize a person for their physical features or ancestry, it is well within biblical practice—indeed, it is a biblical mandate—to criticize particular behavior that contradicts Scripture, whether or not that a group of people shares behavior.
The New Testament often speaks of behavior with these kinds of cultural overtones. For example, in Galatians 1:13, Paul describes a kind of behavior that formerly characterized him as a Pharisee; persecuting Christians was part of his “culture,” but that behavior changed on the road to Damascus. Likewise, Peter refers to certain behavior that his readers “inherited from [their] forefathers,” but from which the blood of Christ nevertheless redeemed them. In other words, part of their inherited culture must be rejected in favor of behavior that is holy (1 Peter 1:13-19).
Culture understood biblically as behavior must be evaluated as moral or immoral because behavior reflects religious values and beliefs. Or, to put it in the words of Henry Van Til, culture is “religion externalized.”
It is important to distinguish between ethnicity and culture because if we don’t, we only fuel volatile hostility between groups like white supremacists and multiculturalists.
Instead, we should insist on two complementary ideas:
All people are equally valuable and have equal capacity for good or for evil. We must judge some behaviors as good and others as evil, seeking to sustain and nourish systems of behavior (that is, “cultures”) that are inherently good. Only when we make these kinds of careful distinctions can we hope to combat the sin of racism and encourage ways of living that best sustain human flourishing.
For a more in-depth discussion of these issues, see my book, By the Waters of Babylon: Worship in a Post-Christian Culture.
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 15:46:01 GMT -5
Disclaimers to Inspiration? Share
g3min.org/disclaimers-to-inspiration/ KEVIN BAUDER
Bible Covenants The Bible affirms its own inspiration. Both testaments have the authority of Christ behind them. The New Testament authors treat their own writings as authoritative. They even cite one another’s writings as Scripture. Their affirmations about the text imply verbal inspiration, which in turn entails the inerrancy of Scripture as originally inspired.
Nevertheless, critics cite a handful of passages from the New Testament as evidence that at least some passages must not be inspired. Read in a certain way, these passages appear to disclaim inspiration. In them, the biblical writer seems to be insisting that his words are merely his and not divinely chosen.
Read correctly, however, these passages do not disavow inspiration. Instead, they serve to bolster the claims that the writers speak with divine authority. Three of the most commonly cited passages occur in the writings of Paul.
The first of these is in Romans 3:5 where, in the middle of his argument, Paul interjects the parenthetical statement, “I speak as a man.” Taken in isolation, the statement seems puzzling. Is Paul suggesting that during this particular discussion he is merely offering his own human perspective rather than speaking as the oracles of God?
As so often occurs, the answer becomes clear by paying attention to the context. The epistle to the Romans is a tightly reasoned theological treatise. In advancing the argument of this epistle, Paul anticipates that he will have to deal with objections that will occur to his readers. His strategy is to raise the objections himself, usually as if they were posed by some imaginary interlocutor.
For example, near the end of Romans 3 Paul says that God justifies Jews as well as Gentiles through faith (3:30). That observation raises a possible objection, and Paul frames the objection as a question in the next verse: “Do we then make void the law through faith?” Paul then answers his own question by exclaiming, “God forbid” (3:31). He then gives the reasons that this objection is mistaken. Paul has raised the objection simply so that he can refute it.
Similarly, in Romans 6:1 he asks, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” In 6:15 he follows up by asking, “What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace?” Paul’s answer to both questions is, “God forbid.” Clearly, he is not endorsing the objection. Instead, he raises it so that he can dispatch it.
Another instance occurs in the opening verses of Romans 7, where Paul argues that God’s law works through human depravity so as to provoke sin and bring death. This teaching might leave the impression that the law itself is a bad thing. Paul anticipates this objection and raises it himself: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin?” (7:7). Again his answer is, “God forbid.”
In each case, Paul not only states these objections and denounces them as wrong but also goes on to show why they are wrong. He shows where the reasoning of these questions breaks down. By the time readers reach Romans 7, they should have become accustomed to this pattern, and Paul continues to employ it through the rest of his argument (see 9:14, 19; 11:1).
Paul first deploys this strategy early in Romans 3. There he asks a cluster of rhetorical questions that constitute objections to his argument. The first is, “For what if some [Jews] did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?” (Rom 3:2). He answers this question with the phrase that becomes his standard reply: “God forbid.”
His answer to that objection, however, raises a more serious objection. “But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?” (3:5). As in other instances, Paul does not think this is a good question, and he does not think that it advances a sound argument. In this case, however, Paul wishes to distance himself from the objection even more than usual. He wants people to understand that he is not endorsing it. So he inserts the parenthetical qualification, “I speak as a man.”
What Paul is saying is that this is the kind of argument that sinful humans are likely to cook up. He is imagining some guy who doesn’t want to believe the truth and who tosses this argument into the debate to confuse the issue. When Paul says, “I speak as a man,” he is saying, “This is exactly the kind of argument that that guy would make.” Paul then rejects the argument with his standard denunciation: “God forbid,” going on to expose its flaws.
In other words, Paul does not intend to make any statement at all about his authority or the inspiration of what he writes. Instead, he intends to put a bad argument, framed as a question, in context. Paul is saying that this isn’t his argument, but the kind of argument that an unbeliever would make. As in the other instances, Paul raises the question only to be able to answer it and to refute the bad thinking that it embodies.
In no sense does Paul disclaim divine authority for his teaching or divine inspiration for his writing. The text stands as a model of persuasion, with Paul dismantling every objection that sinful humans throw against his argument. As an objection to verbal inspiration, Romans 3:5 simply fails.
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Post by Admin on Apr 19, 2024 21:54:10 GMT -5
Is Culture the Same as Ethnicity CultureEthnicityManRacial UnitySocial Justice Share
g3min.org/is-culture-the-same-as-ethnicity/ SCOTT ANIOL
Blog-2016 Many Christians are talking about culture these days, but unfortunately, few have given any serious thought to what culture is, especially in biblical terms.
The term “culture” is a concept that has developed in the last few hundred years as a way to explain different behaviors between groups of people. “Culture” originally meant something more along the lines of what we would call “high culture,” but now it has come to take on a broader meaning. British anthropologist Edward Tylor defined culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” This understanding has come to be the standard definition, and evangelicals have adopted the concept as well, as evidenced in Lesslie Newbigin’s definition: “the sum total of ways of living built up by a human community and transmitted from one generation to another.”
Very simply, culture is the shared behavior of a particular group of people. The question for Christians, then, should be this: what in Scripture best parallels this concept of “culture”?
Most Evangelicals automatically assume that when the Bible talks about a “nation” or “ethnicity,” it is the same thing as “culture.” This is clear because when most Evangelicals defend cultural neutrality or stress the need for multicultural churches, they appeal to passages that talk about ethnicity, such as Matthew 28:19 or Revelation 5:9. This is also evident by the way Evangelicals insist that it is racist to criticize certain cultural expressions.
However, what should be evident after careful biblical reflection is that “nation” or “ethnicity” is not the same thing as “culture.”
Ethnicity (I deliberately use the term “ethnicity” instead of “race” because biblically speaking, there is only one human race) refers to people united by common ancestry. The Bible is clear that God desires to save people (and, indeed, will save people) from every ethnicity, and consequently, we Christians have the responsibility to spread the gospel to people from every ethnicity. God ordains ethnicities. They are all equally good and valuable. People from every ethnicity are all united into one body in the church of Jesus Christ. One day, redeemed people from every ethnicity will surround the throne of God in the worship of him.
On the other hand, culture does not refer to people per se but rather to how people behave. Culture describes the collected behavior of a group of people that flows from their collective beliefs and values. Over time, a particular civilization develops a common way of thinking, valuing, and believing that affects how they live. This pattern of behavior then develops over time and becomes what we describe as “culture.” But, since culture is behavior, and since all cultural behavior flows from values and beliefs, not all culture is equally good. Some cultural behaviors are reflections of values consistent with God’s will and Word, and other cultural behaviors flow from values hostile to God and his will.
Indeed, behavior in Scripture is far from neutral; it is always either moral or immoral. Thus while it would be horrendous racism to criticize a person for their physical features or ancestry, it is well within biblical practice—indeed, it is a biblical mandate—to criticize particular behavior that contradicts Scripture, whether or not that a group of people shares behavior.
The New Testament often speaks of behavior with these kinds of cultural overtones. For example, in Galatians 1:13, Paul describes a kind of behavior that formerly characterized him as a Pharisee; persecuting Christians was part of his “culture,” but that behavior changed on the road to Damascus. Likewise, Peter refers to certain behavior that his readers “inherited from [their] forefathers,” but from which the blood of Christ nevertheless redeemed them. In other words, part of their inherited culture must be rejected in favor of behavior that is holy (1 Peter 1:13-19).
Culture understood biblically as behavior must be evaluated as moral or immoral because behavior reflects religious values and beliefs. Or, to put it in the words of Henry Van Til, culture is “religion externalized.”
It is important to distinguish between ethnicity and culture because if we don’t, we only fuel volatile hostility between groups like white supremacists and multiculturalists.
Instead, we should insist on two complementary ideas:
All people are equally valuable and have equal capacity for good or for evil. We must judge some behaviors as good and others as evil, seeking to sustain and nourish systems of behavior (that is, “cultures”) that are inherently good. Only when we make these kinds of careful distinctions can we hope to combat the sin of racism and encourage ways of living that best sustain human flourishing.
For a more in-depth discussion of these issues, see my book, By the Waters of Babylon: Worship in a Post-Christian Culture.
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Post by Admin on Apr 22, 2024 19:30:51 GMT -5
The Lord Reigns
g3min.org/the-lord-reigns/ SCOTT ANIOL
The Lord Reigns | Scott Aniol There are several fundamental reasons many churches don’t sing the Psalms today, and I wrote my book, Musing on God’s Music, in order to help correct some of those reasons.
But one key reason Christians shy away from some of the psalms is the sometimes violent imprecatory language found in them. If Christians today do use the psalms, they tend to exclusively gravitate toward psalms of comfort—Psalms 23 is the most likely, or psalms of praise like Psalm 100.
But most of the psalms are not songs of comfort or praise. You can’t even get past the first psalm before you read, “the way of the wicked will perish.” In Psalm 2 we read, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.” Psalm 7: “Arise, O Lord, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies.” Should Christians be singing that? Where is the grace?
And, of course, it gets even worse. Should we really sing from Psalm 58, “O God, break the teeth in their mouths. . . . Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun”? The psalm concludes, “The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.” And then there is probably the worst imprecatory curse of all in Psalm 137, which proclaims,
O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!
What are we to do with psalms like these? The fact is that the dark, grim, sometime violent language of many of the psalms has been a stumbling block for many Christians. Isaac Watts said,
Why must I join with David in his legal or prophetic language to curse my enemies, when my Savior in his sermons has taught me to love and bless them? Why may not a Christian omit all those passages of the Jewish Psalmist that tend to fill the mind with overwhelming sorrows, despairing thoughts, or bitter personal resentments, none of which are well suited to the Spirit of Christianity, which is a dispensation of hope and joy and love?
Likewise, C. S. Lewis considered the imprecatory psalms “devilish,” naive, “diabolical,” given to “pettiness” and “vulgarity.” He stated that their “vindictive hatred,” full of “festering, gloating, undisguised” passions can never be “condoned or approved.”
But on the contrary, I would like to show you why not only can we sing psalms like these, but why we must sing psalms like these. We will see that psalms like these are deeply rooted in confidence that God is the Sovereign King of Kings, and therefore to sing them helps form within us a hope-filled longing for the Return of the King.
Imprecatory psalms are deeply rooted in confidence that God is the Sovereign King of Kings, and therefore to sing them helps form within us a hope-filled longing for the Return of the King.
One of the most important things to recognize about the psalms that will help us understand the purpose of imprecatory language is to recognize that the Book of Psalms is not just a random collection of songs. Most Christians today don’t recognize that the 150 psalms were intentionally organized by Ezra or someone like him following the Babylonian exile into five books, and these five books of psalms were arranged to teach us some very important truths. They are organized in such a way that these songs progressively develop several significant themes about God and his plan for the world. And you can find out much more detail about that in my book.
One of those central themes that is developed through the five books of Psalms is the universal, sovereign kingship of God.
The psalms are filled with imagery that affirms the universal sovereignty of God. In Psalm 2:4, David says that God “sits enthroned in the heavens.” Dozens of psalms refer to God as King. The psalms sing of the scepter of God, the throne of God, and the crown of God, all meant to picture God as the sovereign King. The psalms refer to God as Judge of all the earth. Even the well-loved image of a Shepherd to describe God in psalms like Psalm 23 was a royal image. Psalm 80:1, for example, equates the Shepherd of Israel with the one who is enthroned in heaven.
From the first to the last, the Psalms proclaim the universal sovereign rule of God Almighty: Psalm 103:19 proclaims, “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.” “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,” David sings in Psalm 145, “and your dominion endures throughout all generations.”
From the first to the last, the Psalms proclaim the universal sovereign rule of God Almighty.
Psalm 89, the last psalm of Book III of the Psalter, portrays this vividly. The first half of the psalm praises God for his universal, cosmic, sovereign rule over all.
Psalm 89:6: For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord.
Psalm 89:9: You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.
Psalm 89:11: The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them.
Psalm 89:14: Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.
God is sovereign over all.
Yet there is a group of psalms in Book 4 that give special, focused attention to the sovereign rule of God. I mentioned earlier that the psalms were deliberately organized into five books, and the psalms within each of the five books were deliberately organized to communicate specific truths.
This is clearly apparent in a group of psalms in Book 4 often called “Enthronement Psalms.” While, as we have seen, many of the psalms affirm the sovereign rule of God in some way, Psalms 92–100 do so with vivid focus.
Psalms 92 and 100 form bookends to this grouping, and between them we find a powerful, repeated acclamation of the sovereign rule of God: Yahweh malak—The LORD reigns.
Ps 93:1: “The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt. Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.
Psalm 96:10: Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.”
Psalm 97:1: The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!
Psalm 99:1: The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
There is perhaps no more a succinct, vivid expression of the sovereign rule of God over all in Scripture than this acclamation: Yahweh reigns.
There is perhaps no more a succinct, vivid expression of the sovereign rule of God over all in Scripture than this acclamation: Yahweh reigns.
Yet here’s what’s fascinating about this acclamation: the phrase, “Yahweh reigns” only appears in all of Scripture in Psalms 93, 96, 97, and 99. Except one other place: 1 Chronicles 16.
1 Chronicles 16 records a song that David the warrior king wrote. And, in fact, these Enthronement psalms are drawing from portions of David’s song in 1 Chronicles 16. It was originally written by King David on the occasion of bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. You’ll recall that the Philistines had captured the Ark years earlier, and it was only now during David’s reign that he successfully returned it to its proper place in the Tabernacle in Jerusalem.
First Chronicles 16 records the service of dedication that Israel held in honor of the event. David appointed musicians to play and sing during the service, and verse 7 says, “Then on that day David first appointed that thanksgiving be sung to the Lord by Asaph and his brothers.” After this dedication service, David apparently took the song he had written and rearranged it into a couple different songs that Israel then regularly used in its worship and that appear in the book of Psalms.
Do you remember what happened when the Philistines had put the Ark in their temple to Dagon? They got up the next morning, and the Dagon idol was flat on his face—and so when David recovers the ark, he sings, “All the gods of the people are worthless idols! The Lord reigns.”
“For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods” Psalm 95:3 proclaims. Psalm 97:9 asserts, “For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.” This is what David boldly proclaims in his song of thanks when he recovers the Ark of the Lord.
But God not only rules over the false gods of this earth, he rules over all the earth.
Psalm 93:4: Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty!
Psalm 95:4–5: In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
Psalm 97:4–5: His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth.
Psalm 99:2–5: The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples. Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he! The King in his might loves justice. You have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!
Yahweh reigns! The Lord is the sovereign King over all the earth. That is a centrally important theme that is developed in the psalms.
Next week, we’ll see how this theme impacts our understanding of the imprecatory psalms.
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Post by Admin on Apr 24, 2024 13:09:41 GMT -5
Decently and in Order: The Spirit’s Work in Corporate Worship Share
g3min.org/decently-and-in-order-the-spirits-work-in-corporate-worship SCOTT ANIOL
worship Decently and in Order: The Spirit's Work in Corporate Worship | Scott Aniol Often when Christians today think of the Holy Spirit’s work in worship, they anticipate that if he is working, then there will be high euphoria, and surprising, spontaneous outbursts of praise. But is that really how we ought to expect the Spirit to work in corporate worship?
The metaphor of the Spirit building believers into a temple for God in Ephesians 2 helps us understand his role in corporate worship corporate worship. The temple metaphor is not coincidental; the gathered NT church is the dwelling place for the Spirit of God in this age in the same way that the temple was God’s dwelling place in the OT economy. Paul describes the body of individual believers as “a temple of the Holy Spirit within you” (1 Cor 6:19), which refers to his indwelling presence of individuals believers. But Paul also uses the temple metaphor in several texts with plural pronouns, describing the gathered church collectively, such as 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 2 Corinthians 6:16. Here is the same language in Ephesians 2:
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Eph 2:19–22)
Peter also uses the same language:
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Pt 2:4–5)
The church collectively is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit dwells within the gathered church in a manner distinct from his indwelling individual believers. And, as Ephesians 2:18 makes clear, this happens through the person and work of Jesus Christ “in one Spirit.”
This also may be what Christ meant in John 4 when he said that God is seeking those who will “worship the Father in spirit and truth” (v. 23). Since “God is a spirit” (v. 24) and does not have a body like man, true worship takes place in its essence in the non-corporeal realm of the Spirit, which is why it is essential that the Holy Spirit dwell within the NT temple—the church—in the same way he dwelt in the temple of the Old Testament. God promised Israel that he would dwell among them (Ex 29:45), and we are told that his Spirit did so in order to instruct them (Neh 9:20; Hg 2:5). And while in the Old Testament, worship was specifically localized to that physical, Spirit-indwelt temple, “the hour is now here” (v. 23) that worship takes place wherever two or three Spirit-indwelt believers gather together, for there he is “in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20).
God of Peace Furthermore, Scripture clearly teaches that Holy Spirit’s work in corporate worship is one of ordering. The key passage for this focus is 1 Corinthians 14:26–40. Apparently, Christians in the church at Corinth had similar expectations about the Holy Spirit’s work in worship being extraordinary experience as contemporary Christians do.
Yet Paul corrects their expectation by emphasizing that even if the Holy Spirit works in extraordinary ways in worship, like with tongues or prophecy, “God is not a God of confusion”—in other words, disorder—”but of peace” (v. 33). The meaning of the term translated “peace” is a state of completeness, soundness, and harmony. Paul’s argument here appears to be that even within a context of expecting the Holy Spirit to work in miraculous ways in Corinth, confusion and disorder are evidences that he is not working. It is a God of peace who is at work in corporate worship.
This should not surprise us. From the very first work of the Spirit in creation through each of his works in Scripture, the Spirit’s purpose has been one of peace—bringing completeness, soundness, and harmony to God’s world and God’s people. The Spirit is the beautifier of creation and the beautifier of human souls. He brought harmony through giving revelation and through inspiring Scripture. And he brings harmony to the body when peace rules therein.
We see something of this in Colossians 3, where Paul describes the church as a body where rightly ordered love “binds everything together in perfect harmony” (v. 14). How does that happen? We have already seen how. Our loves are rightly ordered by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, and we are bound together in perfect harmony as the Spirit builds us into a holy temple. Paul continues, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed. You were called in one body” (v. 15). That peace, too, describes a wholeness, right ordering, and harmony. Again, we have seen this happens only through the work of the God of peace.
And how does the Spirit cultivate such harmony, peace, and unity of the body of Christ, his holy temple?
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col 3:16)
We let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly as we allow the Spirit to fill us with his Word (Eph 5:18). This is the purpose of corporate worship. In corporate worship, the Spirit fills us with the Word of Christ, binding us together in perfect harmony, cultivating peace and order in the body as we sing to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
The God of peace brings harmony and order to the body in corporate worship.
Disciplined Formation This is Paul’s central argument in 1 Corinthians 14, the only full chapter in the New Testament given entirely to the subject of worship. He argues that in the context of a corporate gathering of the church—”when you come together”—the believers in the Corinthian church should desire the gift of prophecy over the gift of tongues. He summarizes his thesis in verse 5:
Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.
I believe that both the gifts of prophecy and tongues have ceased because of their temporary nature; however, what this chapter teaches about these gifts within church gatherings reveals the Spirit’s work of bringing harmony to the body through corporate worship. In other words, the reasons Paul gives for why the Corinthian believers should desire prophecy over tongues in corporate worship helps us to better understand the essence of the Spirit’s work in worship.
Paul’s argument is that for corporate worship, the gift of prophecy—divine revelation from God—is more desirable than the gift of tongues—which was an individual’s expression of praise to God in a known language that no one else in the congregation understood. The nature of those two gifts is important: prophecy is from God to men; tongues are from men to God. Prophecy is understandable to all; tongues are only understandable to the one speaking (if no one else in the congregation speaks that language). Prophecy is for corporate edification; tongues are for individual expression.
Now why does Paul argue that for corporate worship, the Corinthian believers should desire prophecy over tongues? Notice the core reason Paul is making this argument throughout the chapter:
On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. (v 3)
The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church. (v 4)
Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up. (v 5)
Now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? (v 6)
So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said?For you will be speaking into the air. (v 9)
So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. (v 12)
For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up. (v 17)
Nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue. (v 19)
And this point really all climaxes in verse 26:
What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.
In other words, one of the core reasons Paul insists that the gift of prophecy was to be desired over tongues in corporate worship is that the Spirit’s purpose for corporate worship is edification of the whole body, not just individual experiences.
This argument helps us understand that one of the fundamental purposes of a corporate worship service is for the Spirit to build up and order the body. The Spirit’s primary role in corporate worship is that of disciplined formation through his Word. We come to worship to be built up by God’s Word, to be formed into the image of Christ by God’s Word, to have our affections sanctified anew by the God’s Word. We come to a corporate worship service so that our responses of worship—our lives of worship—might be shaped by God’s Spirit through his Word.
And notice also that Paul tells us exactly how this kind of edification in corporate worship takes place: edification in corporate worship takes place through order, not disorder. Christians in the church at Corinth assumes that true worship will be spontaneous, and too much structure stifles the Holy Spirit. True worship takes place when I am uninhibited; no constraints.
But Paul is emphatic in verse 33: “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” And remember, Paul is dealing here with Holy Spirit given miraculous gifts. Arguing from the greater to the lesser, if the Holy Spirit worked in corporate worship through order even when he gave miraculous gifts, certainly his work is orderly once those gifts have ceased. It is a God of peace who is at work in corporate worship. The Spirit’s work in corporate worship is that of disciplined formation.
Structure and order within a worship service does not stifle the Holy Spirit’s work; he works through the structure and order. Structure and order within corporate worship does not hinder our relationship with God, it builds our relationship with God. It is through structure and order that the Holy Spirit sanctifies us, edifies us, and forms us into worshipers of God.
On this basis, Paul provided clear principles for order in the Corinthian worship services, fully consistent with the Holy Spirit’s ordinary activity. “Only two or at most three” people may speak in tongues in any given service, “and each in turn” (v. 27). If there is no one to interpret the tongues, “let each of them keep silent” (v. 28). Only two or three prophets should speak, others should weigh what is said (v. 29), and they should do so one at a time (v. 30). Far from expecting the Holy Spirit to sweep through the congregation, causing worshipers to be overcome with his presence, “the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets” (v. 32). Far from quenching the Holy Spirit, order within corporate worship is exactly how the Holy Spirit works, desiring that “all may learn and all be encouraged” (v. 31).
Thus in corporate worship, exactly because of how the Holy Spirit ordinarily works, “all things should be done decently and in order” (v. 40).
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Post by Admin on Apr 24, 2024 15:04:49 GMT -5
@scottaniol A thread on what led to segregating children from their parents in the church:
If biblical and historic precedent has been to welcome children in the primary gatherings of the church as the central means by which they come to know, love, and obey God, why have many churches today created age-segregated teaching and worship programs?
Several developments in the nineteenth century radically changed the way Christians viewed children and thus altered the well-established model of including children in the corporate worship gatherings of churches. Part of the shift that occurred in how churches viewed the evangelization and discipleship of their children took place with the advent of Sunday Schools in the late eighteenth century. Sunday Schools began simply as a means to educate factory children who were unable to attend schools; the primary objective of Sunday Schools was to teach children to read the Bible. Most often held on Sunday afternoons, the only day factory children could attend, soon their purpose shifted to broader religious education. Although these meetings were not originally held at the same time as regular church gatherings, they did begin to shift Christians’ views regarding the best way to disciple children. By the early nineteenth century, Sunday Schools shifted from educating unchurched children to training children of Christian parents as well. While this may have been grounded on noble motives, the underlying philosophy was impacted by secular philosophies that considered segregated education the best way to educate children. Some Christian leaders objected to segregating children into separate Sunday Schools, such as Thomas Burns, a Scottish pastor, in 1798: "My great objection to Sunday schools is that I am afraid they will in the end destroy all family religion, and whatever has tendency to do this I consider it is my duty to guard you against. I might also show that these schools are hurtful to public religion, for it consists with my knowledge that children stay at home from church to prepare their questions for the event; and their families are divided when they ought to be together." Though certainly well intentioned, Sunday Schools began the separation of children from their parents and the primary church gathering. The revival movement lead by Charles Finney in the mid-nineteenth century changed how churches viewed the discipleship of their children even more profoundly. Finney denied that people are born inherently sinful. He taught that “all the sinner needs is to be induced to use [his natural moral powers] and attributes as he ought.”
And so Finney taught that both conversion and spiritual growth could be replicated through the “right use of the appropriate means.” He taught that in order to affect change in people, religious meetings needed to be fresh and exciting, rejecting outdated traditions, and accommodating to the constantly changing expectations of the dominant culture. He said, “God has found it necessary to take advantage of the excitability there is in mankind, to produce powerful excitements among them, before he can lead them to obey.” So, he argued, “there must be excitement sufficient to wake up the dormant moral powers.” Finney’s philosophy affected evangelical churches across the board, including how churches evangelized, discipled converts, and worshiped. It is not surprising, then, that these philosophical and methodological changes trickled down into views concerning the evangelization and discipleship of children as well. For children to be converted, the assumption became, they need to be convinced of the gospel through engaging means, and since the “adult” service isn’t at “their level,” churches need to offer children’s programs that bring children to faith and interest them in the things of the Lord. Alongside these two religious movements, fundamental changes in philosophy of education also contributed to a shift in the way Christian families and churches viewed the discipleship of their children. In the mid-nineteenth century, around the same time Charles Finney was revolutionizing theology of conversion and spiritual growth, education philosopher Horace Mann was arguing for similar philosophies in the realm of public education. Mann argued for the systematization of education in which students were grouped into peer groups of similar ages and locked into fixed learning paces.
Later, Granville Stanley Hall, a Darwinian evolutionist who also had a significant impact on the dominant education philosophy of the day, taught that children evolve from a primitive stage to a more enlightened stage, mirroring the evolutionary stages of humankind, and thus children must be educated apart from their parents lest their development be hindered.
This philosophy was applied by the father of modern public education, John Dewey, who further argued that parents were incapable of educating their own children. Dewey was also one of the key philosophers of the new ideas of pragmatism. Therefore, the public school, not the home, was considered ultimately responsible for the instruction of the next generation. It wasn’t too long before Christians began to accept and adopt this underlying philosophy of education. While Christians initially rejected the Darwinian foundation of this philosophy, they nevertheless bought into the idea that experts were better equipped to educate children than their parents. Even worse, this philosophy began to make its way into churches, impacting philosophy and practice of the discipleship of children. The growth of the public education system, with its graded structure of peer groups, further exacerbated the shift in church education philosophy; since children and youth were accustomed to spending most of their time in peer groups, away from their parents and most other adults (except the “expert” teachers), they no longer wanted to be a part of intergenerational church gatherings. The fact that savvy entrepreneurs deliberately created sales markets based on increasingly fragmented age and social demographics only increased divisions between generations within churches. It was in this environment, both within the church and without, from which programs grew like modern Sunday Schools—church education hours for children often substituting for regular spiritual discipleship in the home—and children’s church—a meeting for children during the regular “adult” service. Some churches have even created gatherings and substitute services for teenagers, not expecting integration into the larger body until after graduation from high school, if even then. I do not question the motives of parents or church leaders who favor these kinds of programs. Most often they advocate for them because they truly believe that their children will be evangelized and discipled best when expert teachers, using “kid-friendly” methods, instruct the children “at their level.” They also often advocate for removing children from corporate worship out of fear that children will be a distraction to the evangelization of unbelievers in attendance and to the spiritual growth of the adult Christians in the congregation. Yet what I believe these well-meaning Christians fail to recognize is that their programs actually hinder the spiritual growth of their children and work against the very goals they are trying to accomplish.
—Excerpt from Let the Little Children Come: Family Worship on Sunday, and the Other Six Days, Too
g3min.org/shop/books/let-the-little-children-come-family-worship-on-sunday-and-the-other-six-days-too-scott-aniol/
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Post by Admin on May 1, 2024 9:36:21 GMT -5
Be Filled with … Emotion? Worship Share
g3min.org/be-filled-with-emotion SCOTT ANIOL
people raising hands on white room Be Filled with ... Emotion | Scott Aniol First Corinthians 14 is clear that the central purpose of corporate worship is the disciplined formation of God’s people. All things should be done decently and in order in corporate worship, for the purpose of building up the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit’s work in worship, therefore, is to bring order and discipline to the worship of God’s people.
With orderly, disciplined formation being the expectation for how the Holy Spirit will work in worship, what role does emotion and music play in worship, and how are they related to the Holy Spirit? This question is particularly relevant since emotion and music are central to the contemporary expectation of how the Holy Spirit works.
Very simply, understanding the ordinary way the Holy Spirit works in worship leads to the conclusion that emotion and singing come as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life, not as a cause of the Holy Spirit’s work. This is one of the primary misunderstandings of many contemporary evangelicals today, who expect music to bring the Holy Spirit’s experiential presence as they are filled with emotional rapture.
Emotion and singing come as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life, not as a cause of the Holy Spirit’s work.
Calvin Stapert helpfully corrects this thinking with reference to Ephesians 5:18–19 and Colossians 3:16:
“Spirit-filling” does not come as the result of singing. Rather, “Spirit-filling” comes first; singing is the response. . . . Clear as these passages are in declaring that Christian singing is a response to the Word of Christ and to being filled with the Spirit, it is hard to keep from turning the cause and effect around. Music, with its stimulating power, can too easily be seen as the cause and the “Spirit-filling” as the effect.1
“Such a reading of the passages,” Stapert argues, “gives song an undue epicletic function and turns it into a means of beguiling the Holy Spirit.” By “epicletic,” Stapert refers to the expectation that music will “invoke” or call upon the Holy Spirit to appear. Stapert argues that such a “magical epicletic function” characterized pagan worship music, not Christian.2
This is exactly what contemporary Pentecostalized worship expects of music. Historians Swee Hong Lim and Lester Ruth note how the importance of particular styles of music that quickly stimulate emotion rose to a significance not seen before in Christian worship. They observe, “No longer were these musicians simply known as music ministers or song leaders; they were now worship leaders.” The “worship leader” became the person responsible to “bring the congregational worshipers into a corporate awareness of God’s manifest presence” through the use of specific kinds of music that created an emotional experience considered to be a manifestation of this presence. This charismatic theology of worship raised the matter of musical style to a level of significance that Lim and Ruth describe as “musical sacramentality,” where music is now considered a primary means through which “God’s presence could be encountered in worship.”3 As Lim and Ruth note, by the end of the 1980s, “the sacrament of musical praise had been established.”4
With this theology of the Holy Spirit, rather than using music to contribute to the goal of disciplined formation, music is carefully designed to create a visceral experience of the feelings that then becomes evidence of God’s manifest presence. This results in music that must be immediately stimulating, easily arousing the senses and sweeping the listeners into an emotional experience which they interpret to be a work of the Holy Spirit.
In contrast, when we have a more biblical expectation that the Holy Spirit is a God of peace who works to order our souls in corporate worship, the role of music and emotion take on an entirely different function. Often psalms and hymns serve as God’s words to us, either directly quoting from or paraphrasing Scripture itself. As 1 Corinthians 14 makes clear, this is where biblical worship must begin: God’s Word that builds us up, that sanctifies into mature worshipers. This is why our music must be profoundly biblical and richly doctrinal.
The purpose of what we are singing is not merely to express what is already in our hearts; the purpose of what we sing is to form our hearts, to shape our responses toward God.
And second, psalms and hymns can also give us language for our responses to God’s revelation. But it is important to remember that the purpose of what we are singing is not merely to express what is already in our hearts; the purpose of what we sing is to form our hearts, to shape our responses toward God. The goal of this worship is discipleship—building up the body.
Furthermore, while the New Testament does describe certain “emotions” that rise out of the heart of a Spirit-sanctified believer, such as the “fruit of the Spirit,” these will be characterized, not by extraordinary euphoria, but by what Jonathan Edwards calls “the lamb-like, dove-like spirit or temper of Jesus Christ.” Truly Spirit-formed “religious affections,” according to Edwards, “naturally beget and promote such a spirit of love, meekness, quietness, forgiveness, and mercy, as appeared in Christ.”5
Contrary to caricatures, this kind of disciplined formation in worship is deeply emotional, but the music is not intended to stimulate or arouse emotions; rather, deep affections of the soul are cultivated by the Holy Spirit through his Word, and music gives language to appropriate responses to the Word. As we have seen, to be filled by the Spirit is the same as “Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you.” So that comes first: The Spirit fills us with his Word, then we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs that teach our hearts to express rightly those gracious affections that have been formed in our hearts by the Spirit of God through the Word of God.
Because the characteristics of the Spirit’s fruit consisting primarily of qualities like dignity and self-control, care ought to be given in corporate worship to avoid music that would cause a worshiper to lose control.
In fact, particularly because the characteristics of the Spirit’s fruit consisting primarily of qualities like dignity and self-control, care ought to be given in corporate worship to avoid music that would cause a worshiper to lose control. Historically, Christians with a biblical understanding of the Spirit’s work recognized that although physical feelings are good, they must be controlled lest our “belly” (a Greek metaphor for bodily passions) be our god (Phil 3:19).
Rather, since the Spirit cultivates reverence, dignity, and self-control within believers, music should be chosen that will likewise nurture and cultivate these qualities and the affections of the soul like compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience (Col 3:12) and love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:23). The fact is that qualities like intensity, passion, enthusiasm, exhilaration, or euphoria are never described in Scripture as qualities to pursue or stimulate, they are never used to define the nature of spiritual maturity or the essence of worship, and they are never listed as what the Spirit produces in a believer’s life.
The God of peace cultivates peace in the hearts of worshipers, not unbridled passion.
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Post by Admin on May 3, 2024 12:16:54 GMT -5
Why music should be central in your homeschool HomeschoolMusic Share
g3min.org/why-music-should-be-central-in-your-homeschool SCOTT ANIOL
person playing upright piano My goal in this essay is to convince you that it is important that music be a part of your homeschool. My goal is to persuade you that music is essential to your children’s educational development. For you this may not be necessary—you recognize the benefits of music in the lives of your children. But perhaps you view music as simply a recreational perk in people’s lives, and if your child demonstrates interest or talent in music, then you would be happy to encourage that child participate in musical activities. But if another of your children doesn’t particularly care for music, then he or she is just fine without it. I am going to try to convince you that every child—every person—should have music in his or her life.
Now you probably expect me to cite scientific studies about how music helps cognitive development and convince you as to the validity of the “Mozart effect.” I will do some of that here, because I do believe that those kinds of benefits do exist. However, I do not think that these are the best arguments to defend music education. There is a more fundamental reason that music should be a part of your home, and we will get to that shortly.
Every child—every person—should have music in his or her life.
As Christian parents, you are bringing up your children in the training and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
As Christian parents, I know that you have a burden to educate your children. It is your objective to develop every element of your child’s person so that he will grow to be a mature adult. The Bible gives parents instruction about the educational development of their children that can provide principles for how you can help in that education. I want to give you two examples—one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament—that will lay out an outline for this of how you should be educating your children, and we will see how music can significantly help in all these areas.
Take, for instance, the example of God’s command to the Israelites to teach the Hebrew confession of faith to their children. The central statement of belief for God’s chosen people is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-6, and it is interesting what command he gives them at the end of these verses:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Here is a command to impress these important truths on their children, and what is important for our discussion is what elements of a person are emphasized in this confession of faith. God addresses the whole of man—what we think, what we do, and what we feel. He first addressed what they must believe in their minds: that God is one and that he is Yahweh. He then addressed their emotions: they are to love that God. And finally, he addressed their wills: they must obey that God. The rest of Scripture deals the same way with man—his mind, will, and emotions are to fall under the rule of God. All three work together in order for a person to glorify God: intellect, action, and affection.
The other Scriptural example I would like to highlight is from Jesus Christ’s educational development. Luke 2:52 says that Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” “Wisdom” refers to his academic knowledge and his ability to use that knowledge to make good decisions. “Stature” refers to his physical development. “Favor with God” references his spiritual maturity. And “favor with men” deals with his social abilities. This verse has always provided a good basis for a well-rounded liberal arts educational philosophy.
Based on these two passages, I am going to lay out a basic outline upon which you are already focusing your children’s education, and I will demonstrate how music can be instrumental in accomplishing each of them. In some areas music will serve only as an aid to your educational goals. But in others—one in particular—helping your child reach his full potential will be virtually impossible without some musical influence in his or her life.
It is my goal to demonstrate how music will help your children:
Physically Academically Socially Morally Emotionally Spiritually Music will aid your child’s physical development. Music can help particularly infants and young children in their physical development. If your children are already in their awkward teenage years, then it may be too late for them! I’ll actually mention some ways that even teens can be helped physically through music, but it is when children are first developing physically that music can be a great help.
Children develop physically through movement, and music is essentially movement. Physical therapists tell us that repetition of movements is important for brain and motor development. Rhythm, tempo, and different kinds of sounds in music all help make a child’s physical growth both quick and smooth.
Children will naturally move to music, and studies show that as they rock and sway to the rhythm of the music, their inner ear is developed and their balance improves. As they grow older, an internalization of steady beat helps them with coordination and the ability to walk steadily.
Another important skill that children learn at an early age is something called inhibitory control—the ability to stop and stay still. We’ve all seen children who can’t quite do this yet; they often run into things. Exposing children to music with varying tempos (speeds) will help them develop this ability sooner.
We all know how perceptive young children are. They notice any small changes in their environment. When children are exposed to music with all its wonderful array of variety in sounds, children learn to be active listeners. This helps them to be able to distinguish between different kinds of sounds—high and low, loud and soft—and this kind of sound discrimination stimulates the child’s first foundations for learning the variety of sounds of language. Studies have shown that children who are exposed to music at an early age usually develop language skills more easily. Furthermore, listening to vocal music will quicken a child’s pace in learning to speak as well, just as speaking to him would.
There are two areas in a child’s physical development that will aid even older children and teens, and both of them are especially true of children who not only regularly listen to music but also participate in musical performance. The first is in creativity. As a child experiences the varieties in music and even pieces of music with interesting story-lines or plots, he will be drawn into the creative endeavor. The other is further development in coordination. If you’ve got teens who have trouble knowing the difference between their left foot and their right, music might be the answer! Playing musical instruments, whether piano or trumpet or flute, helps develop motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and even lung capacity (if a wind instrument).
Music will aid your child’s academic development. Now this is where we’ll get into the so-called “Mozart effect” a bit. You’ve probably heard or read research that indicates that music makes children smarter. Well, I’m here to tell you that’s not entirely true. There’s no proof that music actually makes a person smarter. However, research does seem to indicate that there is a correlation between participating in music and academic achievement. And let me say at this point that in all these areas, actually participating in music is always more beneficial then just listening to music, although listening is also crucial and beneficial.
Now I’ll not bore you with a whole lot of statistics and research, but I will reference one research study as an example, and then explain how musical involvement aids academic development. Here is an excerpt from an article by a woman named Dee Dickinson published by New Horizons for Learning (1993) called “Music and the Mind.”
Recently a number of reports have appeared that attest to the connection between music and academic achievement. In a study of the ability of fourteen year-old science students in seventeen countries, the top three countries were Hungary, the Netherlands, and Japan. All three include music throughout the curriculum from kindergarten through high school. In the 1960’s, the Kodály system of music education was instituted in the schools of Hungary as a result of the outstanding academic achievement of children in its “singing schools.” Today, there are no third graders who cannot sing on pitch and sing beautifully. In addition, the academic achievement of Hungarian students, especially in math and science, continues to be outstanding. The Netherlands began their music program in 1968, and Japan followed suit by learning from the experience of these other countries.
Another report disclosed the fact that the foremost technical designers and engineers in Silicon Valley are almost all practicing musicians.
A third report reveals that the schools who produced the highest academic achievement in the United States today are spending 20% to 30% of the day on the arts, with special emphasis on music. Included are St. Augustine Bronx elementary school, which, as it was about to fail in 1984, implemented an intensive music program. Today 90% of the students are reading at or above grade level.
There are a variety of reasons that musical involvement aids academic achievement, some of which are purely practical reasons. For instance, playing a musical instrument requires discipline, concentration, patience, and hard work. These are skills that are also necessary for academics.
But there is also evidence that participation in music does increase a person’s ability to think abstractly, which would help in mathematics and science. It also, as we have already seen, aids in a person’s language development, which is crucial in academics. Finally, because music is both rational and abstract, music helps bridge between the left and right sides of the brain.
Music will aid your child’s social development. Involving children in musical groups such as choirs, music classes, bands, or orchestras provides them with wonderful tools for their social development as well. Participation in such groups teach them teamwork, humility, and the ability to interact well with others.
Music will aid your child’s moral development. As Christians, you are concerned with teaching your children biblical truth that will guide their lives. One hymn-writer famously said, “Things learned in song are remembered long.” Many of you have probably used music to help you learn the books of the Bible or some other facts. Musical tunes stick in our heads, and if we match music with biblical truths, it aids in our retention of those truths. Of course, singing hymns accomplishes these goals.
Music will aid your child’s emotional development. Now up to this point the use of music to aid your children’s physical, academic, social, and moral development is not the only method for maturing your children in these areas. I have tried to demonstrate how music would definitely be a help in these areas, but you would obviously need other activities to develop your children. For instance, athletics aid a child’s physical development, active involvement in a local church is essential to a person’s moral development, and obviously your children need to be taught academic disciplines in order to mature intellectually.
But what about this next area of your children’s education—their emotions? I dare say you probably haven’t given much consideration as to the emotional development of your children, or at least not nearly as much as in these other areas. However, if you know your Bible at all, you know that a person’s affections are just as important as what he believes or what he does. For instance, the greatest commandment in all of Scripture, according to Jesus Christ, is to love the Lord with all of our being. The maturity of our emotions is crucial.
So how can you, as Christian parents, help to develop and mature your children’s emotions in the same way that you help them develop physically or morally or intellectually? Certainly, biblical truth is the root of right affections, so the use of words through teaching and preaching does help to mature believers’ emotions as well as their intellect and morality. But the fact of the matter is that emotions simply cannot be adequately put into words. If I want to tell you what you should believe, I use words. If I want to tell you how you should act, I use words. But if I want to tell you how you should feel, words are inadequate.
Furthermore, words are not only incapable of telling you how you should feel, but they are also inadequate as expressions of how you feel. Any husband knows what it is to be unable to adequately express with words the love he has for his wife. No wife is satisfied with an occasional, “I love you”—only words to express what can be better expressed by other means. Sometimes a look or a touch does more to express heartfelt affection than any words can. Or this is why we have love poems—they help us express love in a way that cannot be expressed with just words. Likewise, Christians need another language than just words to both prescribe the affections they should have and describe the affections they do have.
That other language is music.
If you as a parent are concerned with the full development of your children, then you must be concerned with their emotional development just as much as their physical development or their academic development. God has given us music as a tool to help us express right emotions. Any casual reader of Scripture will recognize the clear connection between music and emotional expression. Here are just a few examples:
How did Moses and the people of Israel express their joy in being delivered from Egypt? “Then Moses and the Israelites sand this song to the LORD: “I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted.” (Ex. 15:1)
When the Israelites defeated the Canaanites in Judges 5, they sang a song: “Hear this, you kings! Listen, you rulers! I will sing to the LORD, I will sing; I will make music to the LORD, the God of Israel.”
When David wanted to express a broken and contrite heart to the Lord, he did so through music in Psalm 51.
In Psalm 108, David specifically says that he will sing and make music with his soul, linking music and the expression of emotions.
Psalm 147 says that we should express our thanksgiving through song.
And, of course, the Psalms are filled with commands to express our affection and praise to the Lord through music.
Ephesians 5:19 says that we are to sing and make melody with our hearts to the Lord.
In Acts 16 when Paul and Silas were in prison and probably fearful for their lives, what did they do? They sang hymns to God.
James 5:13 says: “Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing a song of praise.”
And the fact of the matter is that we will be singing as an expression of our affection for God for all eternity! (Rev. 5:13)
Scarcely is there a mention of music in the Bible without some connection to emotion. If anything is clear from the Bible’s discussion of music, it is that God thinks that music is important. So should we. Music provides a language for a right expression of emotion, and good music actually educates our emotions so that they develop to maturity.
This is why those who say that music is only for recreation or simply for enjoyment are completely missing the function of music. Even those who argue that the primary benefit of music is to aid in the physical or academic development of people are missing the fundamental function of music. Certainly music can help in other developmental areas, as we’ve seen. But teaching—words—is really the best way to develop a child’s intellect. Music can be an important aid, but it is through words that children learn math and history, and science. This confusion may be the reason music is viewed with so much indifference in our society and especially in our educational system. Music is seen only as enjoyment or a means to an end, and not an end in and of itself. But a proper understanding of music as the language of emotions, and the only thing that can adequately mature a person emotionally, would emphasize the true importance of music.
I firmly believe that a progressive neglect of music education in our society is one of the primary reasons for so many societal problems. There are, of course, many other reasons for the many problems in our society, not the least of which is the depravity of mankind. But the fact is that our society is emotionally ill-developed. Why? Because fewer and fewer people are educated in good music. People are angry and bitter and irrational. Why? Because they do not involve themselves with good music, and the only music they do hear is the angry, bitter, irrational music that permeates the radio waves.
Which raises an important point: Music educates the emotions, but it can educate them for either good or bad. Not just any music will mature a person’s emotions. Some music will debase your emotions. Therefore, it is important that we be discriminating in what kind of music to which we expose ourselves and our children.
So music can truly help mature your children physically and academically and socially and morally. But the primary benefit—the crucial benefit—of music education in anyone’s life is that it is really the only thing that God has given us to help mature our affections. If you are truly concerned about your children’s full development, then I truly believe that you must include some kind of music education in your children’ lives (and your life for that matter).
Music will aid your child’s spiritual development. The final area of your child’s development that I want to briefly discuss is his spiritual development—his “favor with God.” I mentioned a moment ago that according to Jesus Christ, proper affection for the Lord is the greatest commandment. And we also saw many Scripture passages that emphasize that music is the greatest way to shape and express our affections for God. This is why we have music in churches! And this is why you should have music in your home. Good music will help shape your children’s affections for God and will give you a language for the expression of right affections to God.
Practical suggestions for incorporating music into your child’s development I hope I have convinced you today that music should at least be a part of your regular homeschool activities. I’d like to conclude with some practical suggestions of how you can make music a part of your family, and specifically how you can make sure that it is educating your affections and your children’s affections in the right way.
Make sure that the music you have in your home is educating your children’s affections for the good and not debasing them. Just as there are right and wrong kinds of emotions, so there are right and wrong kinds of music depending on what kinds of emotions it expresses. Therefore, you must be discerning as to what kind of music you will allow in your home. Just as you would do research to determine what kind of food is healthy for your children or which textbooks would educate your children’s minds the best, so you must do the research to determine how music communicates emotions and what kind of music is best for your family.
Expose your children to recordings of good music. You may say, “My children don’t like classical music.” Well, then it is up to you to change their tastes. You do this with vegetables, don’t you? If it were up to your children, they would eat bubblegum and cotton candy all day. But you know that meat and potatoes and vegetables are better for them, so you require them to eat them, and pretty soon they develop a taste for what is better. The same is true for good music.
Take your children to good concerts. Your children’s appreciation and love for good music will further increase if you expose them to live music. In fact, one of the best ways to get your children interested in pursuing a music instrument themselves is with live music.
Involve your children in good musical groups. Along with helping to educate your children’s emotions, being involved in musical groups will help develop their social skills and has other benefits as well.
Encourage your students to start a musical instrument. Listening to good music is good, but playing a musical instrument is better. Many of the benefits of music discussed above are only fully realized when you actually perform music—especially with a group. Find a local music teacher, invest in an instrument, and get your children playing, even if you don’t think they have a particular musical talent. You might be surprised.
Consistency is the key. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard of parents who allow their children to start a musical instrument or a choir, and then after a few months or a year when the novelty wares off (which it inevitably will!), they let their children quit. This certainly will not help to develop patience, endurance, and discipline in the child, and only consistent participation in music will have longterm effects.
Sing, sing sing! Get ahold of a good hymnal or two, and make singing a regular part of your day. Sing in the morning, sing before meals, sing during the day, and sing during family worship. The more you sing, the more your children (and you!) will be truly nurtured in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, and the more they will grow in wisdom, in stature, and in in favor with God and men.
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Post by Admin on May 4, 2024 19:50:13 GMT -5
The Son of God Goes Forth to War Share
g3min.org/the-son-of-god-goes-forth-to-war SCOTT ANIOL
white clouds and blue sky during daytime The Son of God Goes Forth to War | Scott Aniol Many Christians struggle over whether we should be singing imprecatory psalms in our current age of grace. Should we be singing, “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock” (Ps 137:9)?
One major theme in the book of psalms that helps us to understand why we should sing imprecatory psalms is affirmation of the sovereign rule of God over all things. The psalms boldly proclaim, “The Lord reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity” (Ps 96:10).
So how does the theme of God’s sovereign rule help us to understand the purpose of the imprecatory psalms? This leads us to a consider a second major theme that is developed in the Book of Psalms.
Not only do the Psalms affirm the universal sovereignty of God, the psalms also acknowledge the current rebellion of man against that sovereign rule. Over two thirds of the psalms are laments about wickedness, pain, suffering, and defeat.
Much of the first three books of Psalms, the first 89 psalms, are filled with lament after lament—the enemies of God seem to be prospering, and the people of God seem to be crushed. As David says in Psalm 86:1, “I am poor and needy,” a phrase that appears multiple times in the psalms.
We often experience this, do we not? You look around you, wickedness seems to be everywhere, and you wonder, where is God in all this? Isn’t he Sovereign? And not only that, the wicked are prospering! They are defeating God’s people. Isn’t God King? You see that kind of thing over and over again in the psalms, and we experience it all the time.
If God is sovereign King, why does wickedness appear to be reigning on earth?
If God is sovereign King, why does wickedness appear to be reigning on earth?
The Two-Fold Rule of God Well it is critical to recognize that the Psalms portray the rule of God in two distinct ways. One is the cosmic, sovereign reign of God that appears throughout the psalms and particularly in the Enthronement Psalms. Yahweh reigns. He is King. This is a universal, eternal fact.
But the second way the reign of God is portrayed is with relation to what is going on right now in the history of the earth. With regard to the sovereign rule of God, there is no opposition—Yahweh reigns. But with regard to the history of the world, “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh” (Ps 2). “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God’” (Ps 14). God is sovereign over all, and yet it appears right now as if wickedness reigns on the earth.
The Psalms embody this tension between God’s sovereign rule and how things currently appear. They acknowledge it. They don’t ignore it. They don’t try to escape from the tension. The wicked are everywhere, they are prospering, and the Book of Psalms is structured to portray that because it is an unavoidable reality.
We often try to avoid that reality, do we not? We try to escape it, to ignore it. We pretend the wicked aren’t here. We tend to skip over those passages about the wicked in the Psalms; we get to the parts that talk about the Edomites and the Amorites and the foes and the enemies, and we just sort of glide through those sections, looking for the stuff about shepherds and singing and praise. Perhaps we assume those are just David’s enemies and they have no relevance for us today. This is what Isaac Watts essentially did; when he paraphrased the Psalms, Watts typically glossed over any references to the wicked as if they do not really have any relevance for Christians today.
The Psalms predict the day when God’s Anointed King will make war with his enemies. But these psalms do have relevance for Christians today, because wickedness around us is still a reality.
But a third major theme that is developed in the psalms helps us to know how we can resolve that tension. The psalms affirm the universal sovereign rule of God, the psalms acknowledge the current rebellion of man against that rule, but third, the psalms predict a day when God’s Anointed King will make war with his enemies and conquer them all.
The psalms predict a day when God’s Anointed King will make war with his enemies and conquer them all.
The Five Books of Psalms are deliberately designed to artistically portray God’s plan for human history: God’s intent to make his universal, sovereign cosmic reign over all things a visible, physical reality in a human king who will reign over all the earth.
This was God’s intent from the beginning of Creation. God created the heavens and the earth, and then he blessed Adam, made in his image, with dominion over all the earth. He appointed Adam to be the King and Judge of all, his vice-regent, his earthly representative of God’s cosmic sovereign rule.
Yet Adam failed. When God cast the rebellious Satan from heaven to the earth to be judged by his vice-regent, Adam failed in his kingly duties and instead bowed the knee to an imposter king. And the fact that wickedness appears to be reigning on this earth even now is due to that failure of the king to exercise dominion.
But God still intends to accomplish his original plan. As part of his curse again the serpent, God promised that one day a seed of the women—a Second Adam—would accomplish what the First Adam failed to do. He would crush the usurper’s head and exercise dominion over all the earth (Gen 3:15).
I flesh out this plan of God to exercise his sovereign rule through a human king in my most recent book, Citizens and Exiles: Christian Faithfulness in God’s Two Kingdoms.
This plan is powerfully portrayed in the Book of Psalms. The psalms affirm the universal sovereignty of God over all, but they also affirm a confident expectation in the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15.
God intends to have an earthly king whose kingship represents his Sovereign rule over all the kingdoms of the world. This is what God promised to David right after he brought the ark to Jerusalem when he declared, “I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.” And so Psalm 2 affirms, “I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.”
This is why David bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem was so important and why the song he wrote on that occasion is featured prominently in the Psalms. When David brought the ark—God’s throne on earth—to Jerusalem where he had his throne, he was submitting his earthly kingship to the sovereign kingship of Yahweh. He was, in a sense, foreshadowing the day when the cosmic rule of the sovereign King of Kings will be united with the earthly rule of an Anointed One. And that is why he so prominently sings, “Yahweh reigns.” David’s offspring will rule the earth, but he will do so in submission to and as an expression of Yahweh’s sovereign rule over all.
Yahweh reigns. That is a never-changing reality. God is sovereign. And so we can have confidence that he will accomplish his purpose to establish David’s throne forever.
So how will he do that? This is where the imprecatory language comes in. David’s Son will take dominion over all the earth as an expression of Yahweh’s sovereign rule by making war with his enemies and crushing them in defeat.
David’s Son will take dominion over all the earth as an expression of Yahweh’s sovereign rule by making war with his enemies and crushing them in defeat.
This is what the prophets of old foretold. For example, Isaiah prophesied,
Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of his fierce anger. 14 And like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with none to gather them, each will turn to his own people, and each will flee to his own land. 15 Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. 16 Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.
Isaiah 13:13–16 The psalms don’t gloss over this. God’s Anointed King will conquer his foes. He will crush the serpent’s head. “You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps 2:9).
You see, the imprecatory language in the psalms is not unbridled expression of personal rage and vengeance made in a moment of passion. Imprecatory language is not the equivalent of cursing in anger.
Rather, imprecatory psalms are expressions of confident trust that God will accomplish his purpose for mankind that he established at the beginning of history. When the psalmist prays, “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock,” he is simply affirming what Isaiah prophesied God will do.
And neither are these expressions of what we intend to do. We do not take up arms and crush our enemies with the sword. We have been commanded by Christ to love and pray for our enemies, to boldly proclaim the good news of the gospel, confident that God will save his elect through the gospel, turning enemies into friends. We currently live in an age of grace in which God through our proclamation of the gospel is gathering his people unto himself from out of the nations.
No, we do not attempt to subdue the enemies of God with physical force, like Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne did when he forced pagans to be baptized at the point of a sword. No, who is it who will one day take vengeance upon the enemies of God? Who will break the rebellious kings of this earth with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel? Who will dash their little ones against the rock?
It is one sitting on a white horse “called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war” (Rev 19:11).
Dominion over all the nations of the earth will be accomplished by the God-Man, David’s Greater Son, the Anointed One, the only one who can perfectly be a human King who exercises an earthly rule corresponding to God’s cosmic sovereign rule. Jesus Son of the woman can do that because Jesus is Yahweh, and Yahweh reigns.
Dominion over the earth will not be accomplished by any sinful human Prince, even if he is a Christian Prince. Dominion over all the earth will be accomplished when the King returns to conquer all who oppose him.
This is what the Psalms portray when they cry out for vengeance. They cry out for the return of the King! And Book V of the Psalms vividly portrays that coming day.
The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. 6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. 7 He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.
Psalm 110:5–7 So why should we sing them, then? I will answer that question next week.
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Post by Admin on May 8, 2024 9:31:53 GMT -5
MAY 08, 2024 THE HOLY SPIRIT Worship and the Word Worship Share
g3min.org/worship-and-the-word SCOTT ANIOL
open book Worship and the Word | Scott Aniol The central work of the Holy Spirit is to bring order to the people and plan of God, and he does this work primarily through the Word that he inspired. This is no different for corporate worship. Paul stresses this in 1 Corinthians 14:36–38:
Or was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? 37 If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. 38 If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.
Paul was inscripturating direct revelation from the Lord here; carried along by the Holy Spirit, Paul was contributing to that “prophetic Word more fully confirmed,” the written Word of God, which always carries the final authority. Paul highlights this as well in the fact that prophecy given in a corporate worship service had to be tested (v. 29), a standard that was exactly the same for prophecy in the Old Testament (Dt 13:1–5, 18:15–22). The Spirit works in worship, as he does in all of his works, primarily through his authoritative written Word.
If we truly want our worship to be “Spirit-led,” then the way to ensure that happening is to fill our services with the Scripture that the Spirit gave us and through which he has promised to work. We ought not place priority in corporate worship upon the individual authentic expression of worshipers. Rather, the emphasis ought to be placed upon the corporate edification of the congregation as the Spirit speaks to us through his Word read, preached, prayed, and sung—everything about a Spirit-led worship service ought to mold and shape us into the kinds of people who will worship God acceptably each and every day of the week as the Spirit produces sanctified fruit within us through his Word.
Everything about a Spirit-led worship service ought to mold and shape us into the kinds of people who will worship God acceptably each and every day of the week as the Spirit produces sanctified fruit within us through his Word.
Build up the Body Because of the influence of first revivalism in the nineteenth century, and then Pentecostalism in the early twentieth century, evangelical worship today has come to be defined primarily as private authentic experience rather than edification of the body. But understanding what the New Testament clearly teaches about the active role of the Holy Spirit in corporate worship, we ought to work to return to a more biblical understanding of worship itself.
In fact, modern evangelicalism tends to view salvation, sanctification, spiritual gifts, and worship as primarily private experiences. But what we need to recover is an understanding of how all of these works of the Spirit are connected to the corporate gatherings of the church. While the Spirit does absolutely work in individual lives, he does so through the body of Christ and by his Word.
In fact, the gathered worship of the Spirit-indwelt temple, the church, is the primary nexus of the Spirit’s active work today. The Holy Spirit does work outside of corporate worship to be sure, but the gathered worship of God’s people is where the Spirit accomplishes most of his work.
The gathered worship of God’s people is where the Spirit accomplishes most of his work.
In corporate worship, the Spirit convicts men of sin and assures them of pardon in Christ. In corporate worship the Spirit sanctifies his people, producing his fruit within them. In corporate worship, the Spirit’s gifts are manifested as believers exercise those gifts for the building up of the body. And the Spirit accomplishes all of this in corporate worship through the Word that he produced.
So if you want to experience the Spirit’s active work in your life, then look to the church. Join a faithful church, commit to faithful participation in all of its meetings, and actively seek to build up the body as God intends. In and through your active participation in the church of Jesus Christ, you will truly experience the Holy Spirit’s works in your life.
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Post by Admin on May 10, 2024 14:04:03 GMT -5
The Reformation of Worship
SCOTT ANIOL
The immediate causes for Reformation in various regions, as well as what caused divisions among various Reformation figures, are diverse. However, much of what lay at the core of what both unified Reformers in their reaction against the Roman Catholic Church and what ended up dividing them in the end, involved theology and practice of worship.
Yet what is remarkable is that some of the very same problems with worship that the Reformers criticized with medieval worship have appeared again in contemporary worship. No, the contemporary church has not denied the five Solas or submitted once again to Rome; rather, the practices of contemporary worship suffer from some of the same fundamental problems that Rome’s worship did at the start of the sixteenth century.
Core Problems with Medieval Worship Although much of the development of worship during the Middle Ages was originally rooted in biblical prescription, example, and theology, heresy did grow, and several aspects of how many Christians worshiped by the end of the fifteenth century made significant reformation necessary.
Problems specifically with worship can be summarized with the following categories:
Sacramentalism One of the first significant errors in late medieval worship was sacramentalism, attributing the efficacy of an act of worship—especially the eucharistic elements—to the outward sign rather than to the inner working of the Holy Spirit. Christians during this period came to believe that just by performing the acts of worship, they received grace from God, whether or not they were spiritually engaged in the act. Along with this belief came the idea of ex opera operato (“from the work worked”), the belief that the acts of worship work automatically and independently of the faith of the recipient.
Necessity of faith Martin Luther stressed the need for personal faith in those who wished to participate in worship. The mass is not, Luther insisted, “a work which may be communicated to others, but the object of faith, . . . for the strengthening and nourishing of each one’s own faith.”[4] Martin Bucer’s most significant work on the subject, Grund und Ursach (“Ground and Reason”), called the Roman view of the Table “superstition.” He insisted that worship that is “proper and pleasing to God” must always be based upon “the sole, clear Word of God.”
These Reformers insisted that the sacraments were limited only to the two Christ himself commanded and were considered visible signs of spiritual realities. Though the sacraments are means of grace given from God, then are not effectual in and of themselves; rather the benefits of the means of grace to sanctify a person necessitate the sincere faith of the worshiper and were brought about ultimately by the inner work of the Holy Spirit.
Sacerdotalism Medieval worship also developed the error of sacerdotalism, the belief in the necessity of a human priest to approach God on the behalf of others. As a result of the drastic increase of church attendance in the fourth century, a strict distinction between clergy and laity had developed wherein the clergy did not trust the illiterate, uneducated masses to worship God appropriately on their own. Thus, the clergy offered “perfected” worship on behalf of the people. The pronouncement by the Council of Laodicea in 363 illustrates this: “No others shall sing in the church, save only the canonical singers, who go up into the ambo and sing from a book.” While this was a local council, it illustrates what became common among most churches in the Middle Ages.
The quality of worship became measured by the excellence of the music and the aesthetic beauty of the liturgy, and while this facilitated the production of some quite beautiful sacred music during the period, it resulted in “worship” becoming mostly what the priests did in the chancel, which eventually was often distinctly separated from the nave by high rails or even a screen. This clergy/laity separation was only exacerbated by the continued use of Latin as the liturgical language despite the fact that increasing numbers of people did not understand the language.
By the end of the fourteenth century, members of the congregation rarely participated in the Lord’s Supper, and even when they did, the cup was withheld from them lest some of Christ’s blood sprinkle on the unclean. Roman worship had moved from the “work of the people” (leitourgia) to the work of the clergy. As even Roman Catholic liturgical scholar Joseph Jungmann notes, “the people were devout and came to worship; but even when they were present at worship, it was still clerical worship. . . . The people were not much more than spectators. This resulted largely from the strangeness of the language which was, and remained, Latin. . . . The people have become dumb.” The people became mere spectators of the worship performed by priests on their behalf.
Congregational Participation Luther criticized this very reality in the Preface to his German Mass: “The majority just stands there and gapes, hoping to see something new.” The Reformers countered this mentality by insisting that each member of the congregation ought to be an active participant in worship, including praying, singing, receiving the sacraments, and hearing the Word. Martin Luther stated in the Preface to his Latin Mass:
I also wish that we had as many songs as possible in the vernacular which the people could sing. . . . For who doubts that originally all the people sang these which now only the choir sings or responds to while the bishop is consecrating?
Preoccupation with Sensory Experience Medieval Christians likewise became enamored with sensory experience in worship. Church architecture deliberately kept the nave dark and the elevated chancel bright and included ornate, elaborate decorations. Liturgy included rich vestments, processions, and other elaborate ceremonies that included bells and incense in order to create a mystical experience.
The Reformers rejected visual images as essential to worship. Even Luther considered them “adiaphora”—“things indifferent.” He said of worship in The Babylonians Captivity of the Church, “We must be particularly careful to put aside whatever has been added to its original simple institution by the zeal and devotion of men: such things as vestments, ornaments, chants, prayer, organs, candles, and the whole pageantry of outward things.” In On the Councils and the Church (1539):, Luther said, “Besides these external signs and holy possessions the church has other externals that do not sanctify it either in body or soul, nor were they instituted or commanded by God; . . . These things have no more than their natural effects.”
The Reformed wing argued that if they were adiaphora, they should be eliminated. For example, Ulrich Zwingli was committed to church practice being regulated by Scripture alone, leading him to advocate much more radical reforms than even Luther did. He insisted that worship practices must have explicit biblical warrant, causing him to denounce images, other ceremonial adornments, and even music from public worship since he could find no warrant for them in the New Testament. His new vernacular liturgy, Act or Custom of the Lord’s Supper (1525), was far simpler than Luther’s, consisting of Scripture reading, preaching, and prayer. Zwingli adamantly opposed the use of images in worship, a conviction that came to be known as iconoclasm. He was convinced that worship was at its core spiritual, and thus “it is clear and indisputable that no external element or action can purify the soul.”
Martin Bucer rejected what he considered ceremonies of human origin, including vestments, insisting that church leaders had no right to invent new forms or to “enrich” existing forms with such innovations which either hid or replaced the basically biblical signs in worship. He noted,
The Lord instituted nothing physical in his supper except the eating and drinking alone, and that for the sake of the spiritual, namely as in memory of him. . . . [Yet] we have observed that many cared neither to consider seriously the physical reception nor the spiritual memorial, but instead, just as before, were satisfied with seeing and material adoration.
Similar to Zwingli and Bucer, Calvin’s central goal was to return to the simple worship practices of the early church, strictly following biblical prescription. He argued that “a part of the reverence that is paid to [God] consists simply in worshiping him as he commands, mingling no inventions of our own.” He interpreted the Second Commandment as God defining “lawful worship, that is, a spiritual worship established by himself” and insisted upon “the rejection of any mode of worship that is not sanctioned by the command of God.” Calvin also agreed with Zwingli and Bucer concerning iconoclasm. He argued, “While the sacrament ought to have been a means of raising pious minds to heaven, the sacred symbols of the Supper were abused to an entirely different purpose, and men, contented with gazing upon them and worshiping them, never once thought of Christ.” He said elsewhere,
Our Lord Christ, says Augustine, has bound the fellowship of the new people together with sacraments, very few in number, very excellent in meaning, very easy to observe. How far from this simplicity is the multitude and variety of rites, with which we see the church entangled today, cannot be fully told.
Individualization of Piety All of this resulted in an individualization of piety. The only real benefit of corporate worship was the sacramental experience achieved only by a sacerdotal system and the splendor of the corporate setting. The Service of the Word diminished, and the Service of the Table became a mystical sacrament by which worshipers were infused with grace as they observed the clergy offering a sacrifice on their behalf. Herman Wegman diagnoses the problem: “The decline in medieval worship must first of all be laid to clericalization and the related individualizing of the piety of the faithful, a piety that grew apart from the liturgy. . . . This liturgy was marked by an excess of feasts, by popular customs, and by details and superstitious practices that overlaid the heart of the faith.”[21] The Reformers insisted that piety should be corporate.
Diagnosing the Problem Many factors account for the rise of heretical and erroneous theology and practice, including worship, during the Middle Ages. But perhaps one central factor is that in many cases, church leadership derived worship theology and practice primarily or even exclusively from OT Israel—an empire that essentially consisted of a union between the civil and religious found more support and guidelines from the OT than from the NT.
Therefore, the OT increasingly became the pattern for medieval worship theology and practice, the church becoming the “new Israel.” For example, early theologians explicitly explained the ecclesial hierarchy based on its parallels with OT high priest (bishops), priesthood (priests), and Levites (deacons). Theologians used the OT as the basis for priestly vestments, mandatory tithing, infant baptism, altars, sacrifice, richly adorned sanctuary, incense, processions, and ceremonies. As early as the third century, for example, Tertullian described standing “at God’s altar . . . [for the] participation of the sacrifice” and proclaimed, “we ought to escort with the pomp of good works, amid psalms and hymns, unto God’s altar, to obtain for us all good things from God.” Whether he meant this in the NT metaphorical sense is debatable, but this kind of language unquestionably became more literal in later worship practice.
Priority given to the OT for worship theology also accounts for the sacramentalism, sacerdotalism, and preoccupation with sensory experience that came to characterize worship by the end of the fifteenth century. Christians desired a “worship that can be touched” led by human mediators.
The Reformers criticized this rational in particular. For example, Calvin employed a particular argument of emphasizing the critical discontinuity between OT worship and NT worship in much of his worship reforms. In commenting on Roman Catholic worship, Calvin exclaimed, “What shall I say of ceremonies, the effect of which has been, that we have almost buried Christ, and returned to Jewish figures?” He complained, “A new Judaism, as a substitute for that which God had distinctly abrogated, has again been reared up by means of numerous puerile extravagances, collected from different quarters.” He criticized the priesthood, noting, “Then, as if he were some successor of Aaron, he pretends that he offers a sacrifice to expiate the sins of the people.”
However, a second factor contributing to errant theology and practice of worship was that some theologians, rightly understanding that Christian worship is participation with the worship of heaven (Hebrews 12:22–24), nevertheless failed to recognize that this is currently something to be accepted in faith as a spiritual reality rather than expected as a physical experience. Medieval Christians wanted to experience the worship of heaven tangibly here on earth, either expecting that heaven came down to them while they worshiped or that they were led into the heavenly temple through the sacramental ceremonies. Therefore, if not bringing into worship altars and incense and adornments by appealing to OT Israel, some drew from pictures of heavenly worship, especially those from the book of Revelation. Even the church architecture pictured this theology, with the nave where the people sat symbolizing earth, the “sanctuary” where the mass took place a picture of heaven. In this way, they desired a heavenly worship “that can be touched.”
Again, the Reformers objected. Calvin insisted, “The first thing we complain of here is, that the people are entertained with showy ceremonies, while not a word is said of their significancy and truth.”
Providing the Biblical Solution The first solution to problems in both medieval and contemporary worship is to submit to the authority of God’s Word over worship, what is sometimes referred to as the regulative principle of worship.
The first solution to problems in both medieval and contemporary worship is to submit to the authority of God’s Word over worship, what is sometimes referred to as the regulative principle of worship.
Affirming this principle alone would go a long way in preventing the errors of sacramentalism, sacerdotalism, preoccupation with sensory experience, and individualization of piety that has plagued both medieval and contemporary worship.
Worship That Cannot Be Touched But second, a proper application of New Testament Revelation to the theology and practice of corporate worship is essential for correcting errors. In Hebrews chapter 12, the author climaxes his argument with a vivid description of drawing near to God for worship in the Old Testament compared with drawing near for Christians. In verses 18–24, he contrasts two mountains—Mt, Sinai, representing Old Testament worship, and Mt. Zion, representing New Testament worship.
Approaching God in the OT is physical—it can be touched; it has visual sensations—burning fire, darkness, gloom, and storm; it has aural sensations—the sound of a trumpet blast and actual words spoken from God Himself. In other words, this OT worship was decidedly sensory.
In contrast, the author uses Mount Zion to represent NT worship. Christians are not actually worshiping physically in heaven yet, but in Christ they are worshiping there positionally in a very real sense—they “have come to Mt. Zion” (12:22). With the NT, God no longer has to condescend and enter the fabric of the physical universe to manifest Himself to his people; he can now allow his people to ascend into Heaven itself to worship him, which the author argues is superior to the former worship. This is possible because of Jesus’s mediation on the behalf of his people (12:24), and thus Christians can now approach God with full confidence in worship.
But here is the important point: this kind of superior worship through Christ is not physical in its essence. Living Christians are not physically in heaven yet; when they worship, they are positionally worshiping in heaven with all the angels and saints, but they are doing so spiritually. That is the essential difference between these two kinds of worship. OT worship was physical; it was sensory; it happened on earth. NT worship, however, is immaterial; it is spiritual; it takes place in heaven.
Simple, Spiritual Worship This is why the Reformers argued that worship should be spiritual and simple. Calvin said,
For, if we would not throw every thing into confusion, we must never lose sight of the distinction between the old and the new dispensations, and of the fact that ceremonies, the observance of which was useful under the law, are now not only superfluous, but vicious and absurd. When Christ was absent and not yet manifested, ceremonies, by adumbrating, cherished the hope of his advent in the breasts of believers; but now that his glory is present and conspicuous, they only obscure it. And we see what God himself has done. For those ceremonies which he had commanded for a time he has abrogated for ever. Paul explains the reason,—first, that since the body has been manifested in Christ, they types have, of course, been withdrawn; and, secondly, that God is now pleased to instruct his Church after a different manner. (Gal. iv. 5; Col. Ii. 4, 14, 17.) Since, then, God has freed his Church from the bondage which he had imposed upon it, can any thing, I ask, be more perverse than for men to introduce a new bondage in place of the old?”
He continued, “Then, as it has for the most part an external splendor which pleases the eye, it is more agreeable to our carnal nature, than that which alone God requires and approves, but which is less ostentatious.”
This same emphasis would go a long way in correcting many of the same errors characteristic of contemporary worship.
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Post by Admin on May 16, 2024 20:41:11 GMT -5
No, Women Can’t Preach
SCOTT ANIOL
Scripture contains many passages that are difficult to interpret—even Peter said so (2 Pet 3:16). What is “baptism for the dead” in 1 Corinthians 15? Who were the Nephilim of Genesis 6? What did Peter mean when he said that Jesus “went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” (1 Pet 3:19)? What does the Bible mean when it says that God regrets doing something (1 Sam 15:11)?
Some of those difficult passages concern the matter of women in the context of church gatherings. Does 1 Corinthians 11 require women to wear head coverings in corporate worship? Does 1 Corinthians 14:34 mean that women cannot speak at all in church gatherings? What does Paul mean when he says that women should “remain quiet” (1 Tim 2:12)?
Whenever we encounter difficult passages like these, we ought to follow an important principle: interpret unclear passages of Scripture in light of more clear passages. And a corollary principle is this: we ought never to base a core doctrine off of one or two unclear passages.
When it comes to the issue of whether or not women may preach and/or hold the office of pastor, it has become common to argue in favor of women preachers or women pastors on the basis of unclear texts of Scripture.
However, several texts regarding the nature of pastoral ministry are clear, and it is my goal in this post to briefly summarize these key texts and what they conclude regarding women and pastoral ministry.
The Gift and Office of Pastor Are the Same It has become increasingly common for some to argue that though a woman may not hold the office of elder within the church, she may have been given the gift of pastor-teacher, and therefore she may exercise that gift within the church, even with men present.
Often Ephesians 4:11 will be quoted to argue that pastor-teacher is a gift given without qualification to both men and women within the church, which is different from the office of elder.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
Eph 4:11–12 The key problem with this line of thinking is that this passage does not describe abilities given to individuals but rather offices given to churches. In other words, Paul is not describing certain giftedness that God gives to particular individuals; rather the gifts that God gives are particular offices within the church.
Paul does not say that God gave individuals the ability to be an apostle, the ability to prophesy, the ability to evangelize, or the ability to shepherd and teach. No, Paul says that God gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to the church for the purpose of equipping saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. Paul’s argument is that God gave individuals to the church, not abilities to individuals.
Now, of course, God did give these individuals whom he gifted to the church abilities requisite with their offices, but that is not the primary point of the text. Ephesians 4:11–12 describes offices within the church, not giftedness of individuals.
Therefore, “pastor-teacher” is an office gifted to the church.
Ephesians 4:11–12 describes offices within the church, not giftedness of individuals.
In light of this clear understanding of what Paul is saying in Ephesians 4, the next question must therefore be, who qualifies for the office of pastor (poimēn)?
Only Men May Serve as Overseers/Elders Scripture is clear that only men may serve in the office of overseer, if for no other reason than one of the qualifications for overseer (episkopos) given in 1 Timothy 3:1–7 is that he must be “the husband of one wife.”
Likewise, in Titus 1, Paul gives as a qualification for elder (presbyteros) that he must be “the husband of one wife.”
Once again, it would be impossible to argue from these two key passages regarding qualifications for overseers and elders that these can be held by women.
Pastor, Overseer, and Elder Refer to the Same Office On the other hand, Ephesians 4 does not say that overseers or elders have been given as gifts to churches, it says that pastors have been given to churches. So some may argue that while women clearly may not serve as overseers or elders, there are no biblical passages that clearly argue that only men may serve as pastors.
However, here is another truth that is unmistakably clear in Scripture: pastor, overseer, and elder refer to the same office.
Let me show you why this is unmistakably clear. First, in Titus 1:5–7, Paul clearly refers to the office of elder and the office of overseer interchangeably:
This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. 7 For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain.
Paul clearly describes one office using both the term elder (presbyteros) and overseer (episkopos).
Similarly, after Paul lists qualifications for an overseer (episkopos) in 1 Timothy 3, he uses the term “elder” (presbyteros) in the same context in 1 Timothy 5:17. Clearly, Paul considers “overseer” and “elder” to be two terms that describe the same office.
So what about “pastor” (poimēn)? Three additional texts clearly identify this term with the other two.
First, in 1 Peter 5:1–2, Peter admonishes elders to “shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight.” In addressing elders, Peter uses verb forms of the terms for pastor (“shepherd”; poinaino) and overseer (episkopeo). He is describing one office of the church using three terms: elder, pastor, and overseer.
Second, earlier in 1 Peter 2:25, Peter uses the terms shepherd (poimēn) and overseer (episkopos) interchangeably with reference to Jesus.
Third, in Acts 20:17–38, Paul assembles the “elders” (plural of presbyteros) of the church at Ephesus, refers to them as “overseers” (plural of episkopos), and exhorts them to “shepherd” (verb form of poimēn) their “flock” (poimnion) (v 28).
What is clear from these texts taken together is that the terms overseer (episkopos), elder (presbyteros), and pastor (poimēn) refer to one singular office, a gift that has been given to churches by God for their spiritual benefit.
The terms overseer (episkopos), elder (presbyteros), and pastor (poimēn) refer to one singular office, a gift that has been given to churches by God for their spiritual benefit.
And, consequently, if Scripture is clear that only men may serve in the office of overseer/elder, then it follows also for the interchangeable term “pastor” mentioned in Ephesians 4:11. This is the clear teaching of Scripture against which all other less clear passages must be interpreted.
Women Are Not Permitted to Teach Men One other matter must be addressed, however. Someone might agree that a woman may not serve in the office of overseer/elder/pastor, but she may be gifted in teaching and preaching and may therefore be permitted to preach in a church context as long as a church’s pastors permit her to do so.
On the contrary, another very clear biblical text prohibits such:
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.
1 Tim 2:12 Here again is a very clear text. A plain reading of this verse prohibits a woman from teaching Scripture (i.e., preaching) or in any other way exercising authority over men.
Some may argue that the passage only prohibits “authoritative teaching,” and therefore preaching under the authority of her pastors is permissible. But this argument fails both grammatically and logically. Grammatically, the “or” in this verse indicates that these are two separate activities that are prohibited. And logically, the preaching of God’s Word is always, by definition, authoritative.
Further, this very prohibition leads into chapter 3 where Paul gives the qualifications for an overseer, inextricably connecting the activity of preaching to the office of overseer/elder/pastor.
Scripture is clear: women may not serve in the office of pastor, which embodies both the activities of pastoring and preaching.
Scripture is clear: women may not serve in the office of pastor, which embodies both the activities of pastoring and preaching.
Women Sharing the Gospel or Teaching Women and Children Is Not the Same as Preaching One final point needs to be addressed. It is common for those who argue that women may either preach or serve in a pastoral function that to deny this is to deny a woman’s ability to share the gospel or teach other women or children. But this is simply not the case.
Scripture is clear, first, that all Christians are called to fulfill the Great Commission, not just pastors. Christian women should indeed share the gospel with others; this is not at all the same as preaching or pastoring.
Further, Scripture is also clear that women may and should teach Scripture to other women and children:
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children.
Titus 2:3–4 God certainly gifts Christian women with spiritual maturity, wisdom, insight, and teaching abilities so that they can teach other women and children to know and love God.
Praise God for how he gifts his people and his churches, and may we trust in how God has wisely chosen to do so.
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Post by Admin on May 17, 2024 21:01:14 GMT -5
War Songs of the King of Kings
SCOTT ANIOL
War Songs of the King of Kings | Scott Aniol Christians ought to sing all the psalms—including the imprecatory psalms—because the psalms are deeply rooted in confidence that God is the Sovereign King of Kings, and therefore to sing them helps form within us a hope-filled longing for the Return of the King.
We who have already submitted to the sovereign King of Kings are in a unique position. Like Israel in exile, we are citizens of God’s kingdom, but we are currently living in the midst of earthly kingdoms filled with wicked people.
So what are we supposed to do while we wait for the return of the king? Well there are several things Scripture commands us to do. We are to faithfully preach the good news of Jesus Christ, calling sinners to kiss the Son in repentant faith. We are to let our light shine before men so they will see our good works and glorify God on the day when he visits them with judgment. We are to stand firm under persecution, do good until all men, and pray for the salvation of souls.
But God also commands us to faithfully meet together, encouraging one another, and all the more as we see the Day of Judgment drawing near. And when we gather, we worship our King. And what should we sing as we worship our King? We should sing his inspired war songs. The Psalms are the spiritual battle cry of all who currently serve the King of Kings.
These songs express our humble submission to the sovereign King. These songs give us language to praise and thank our King. And these songs are expressions of trust in our Warrior King who will come and defeat all his enemies.
These songs help us to cry out to the only source of help and deliverance we can depend on: the one who is both Yahweh and Man: God’s Anointed, Jesus Christ. When we cry out with the psalms for Yahweh to save us, to deliver us, rescue us, guard us, redeem us, give us victory, and vindicate us, this is war language.
And these songs don’t just give us language to express these sentiments, God’s inspired songs form us to live in this present evil age with courage and hope and confidence that the King will come again and conquer all his enemies. They form us to live like kingdom citizens; the psalms are, as James Mayes so helpfully describes them, the liturgy of the kingdom of God.
These are the songs we sing as we march around the walls of Jericho, not because we are going to take up arms and break through the walls ourselves, but because God himself will conquer the city.
You see, when we see sin and wickedness around us, when we see the nations rage and the peoples meditating on a vain thing, when we see the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed, what can we do? What we don’t do is take up arms. We are in a war, make no mistake, but Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10 that we are not waging war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare, Paul insists, are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds, to destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.
What are those divine spiritual weapons? The weapons of our warfare are what we sometimes call the ordinary means of grace. If you’re concerned by the way godless ideologies are plaguing our society, then gather with the church—that is where the weapons are. Our primary battlefield is not in the political sphere or among the elite culture-makers, our primary battlefield is what we do when we gather as the church—the ordinary means of grace. Preaching, prayer, singing, Scripture reading, baptism, the Lord’s Table—these are the weapons of our warfare. This is our battlefield. Worship is warfare.
And the Psalms are spiritual divine weapons God has given us. When the culture around us raises up arguments and lofty opinions against the knowledge of God, when the fool says in his heart, “There is no God,” we take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and we boldly sing, “The Lord reigns! The gods of the people are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.”
When churches do not sing these war songs, their worship music inevitably devolves into happy-clappy escapist, feel-good ditties that form snowflakes rather than warriors.
We need the psalms, which is why we published Psalms and Hymns to the Living God, which contains settings of all 150 psalms plus hymns that match the character and quality of the God-inspired songs. These are the weapons of our warfare. These are how we battle against arguments and lofty opinions against the knowledge of God.
Without the psalms—the entirety of the psalms, churches are forming men without chests, brains filled with knowledge, but unable to navigate the realities of life in a sin-cursed world; unable to resist the fiery darts of the devil; unable to stand against the onslaught of growing persecution; unable to fight the spiritual battles God has called us to; unable to see with eyes of faith the conquering King of Kings who has promised to return and defeat all his enemies.
But by singing the Psalms—the war songs of the King of Kings, we are arming ourselves with exactly the spiritual divine weapons God has given us in this present evil age as we look for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
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