With stringed instruments
April 30, 2009
Old friend and first-rate picker from Macon, Georgia Stephen Barnes, with short but sweet string renditions of O Sacred Head Now Wounded and Alas! And Did my Savior Bleed. (used with permission). Enjoy.
Twin Lakes Fellowship audio
April 21, 2009
Thanks to Josh Espinoza, the sermons and lectures from last week’s Twin Lakes Fellowship are available for streaming or download here. While each one is worth your time, I would highly recommend listening to Dr. Douglas Kelly’s sermon from Deuteronomy 23:3-6, “God Turns Curses into Blessings,” and Dr. Derek Thomas’ sermon from Romans 11:33-36, “The Majesty of God.“
Flavel: Lord, the condemnation was yours
April 9, 2009
John Flavel (courtesy of Justin Taylor):
Lord, the condemnation was yours,
that the justification might be mine.The agony was yours,
that the victory might be mine.The pain was yours,
and the ease mine.The stripes were yours,
and the healing balm issuing from them mine.The vinegar and gall were yours,
that the honey and sweet might be mine.The curse was yours,
that the blessing might be mine.The crown of thorns was yours,
that the crown of glory might be mine.The death was yours,
the life purchased by it mine.You paid the price
that I might enjoy the inheritance.
John Flavel (1671), from his sermon, “The Solemn Consecration of the Mediator,” in The Fountain of Life Opened Up: or, A Display of Christ in His Essential and Mediatorial Glory.
Pardon my Greek…
January 27, 2009
Last night I watched Travel Channel’s curmudgeon/culinary tourist Anthony Bourdain‘s program on his visit the Greek islands. While on the isle of Crete, his host said to him at the table in heavy Greek accents, “If want to speak to the English, speak English. If want to speak to God, speak Greek!” This opinion is not too far off from what many in the church believe as well: that people who have studied the original biblical languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) have a special “in”–special access to the meaning of the biblical texts. This is nonsense at best and dangerous at worst. It begins, as most nonsensical and dangerous ideas do, with a bit of truth. We need an educated ministry, and study of the original languages is a vital part of that education. It takes at least a working knowledge of Hebrew or Greek to work with the substantial commentaries and language helps. But to believe that “if you want to speak with God, speak Greek” inevitably involves exalting the preacher as the definitive interpreter of the Bible. How can an untrained person disagree with an “expert”? George Bernard Shaw wrote in Act 1 of Major Barbara:
“Let me advise you to study Greek, Mr. Undershaft. Greek scholars are privileged men. Few of them know Greek; and none of them know anything else; but their position is unchallengeable.”
That being said, I need to come clean and admit that although I made good grades in seminary in languages, I am by no means a scholar of Greek or Hebrew and certainly not Aramaic. Frequent flaunting of my supposed knowledge Greek in a sermon is nothing less than false advertising and pride. As a result, I studiously avoid Hebrew and Greek discussions in my sermon. On the rare occasions that I do bring it forward, it is because I think that we can gain some significant insight or illustration of the meaning of the text by so doing. I think there is no place for placing the weight of novel or controversial interpretations on alleged nuances and subtleties of Hebrew or Greek studies.
Dr. Bill Mounce, who is a true scholar in biblical languages, recently blogged about this subject. He has outlined some principles for preachers to follow. I wholeheartedly subscribe to his views and found them to be good encouragement and correction. I never want someone to say to me after a sermon, “Well, I never would have gotten that out of that text.” But my heart rejoices when someone says, “Of course, there it is! I could have drawn that out of the text.” Baffling people with Greek exegesis and erudite presentations makes much of the preacher. However, it rarely makes much of Christ. Here is Mounce’s warning:
…people want to put you [the preacher] up on a pedestal. They want to think that you are different from them. But as I have told people many times from the pulpit, we are all gifted people in the same body, and only Christ is the head. My gift puts me up front and puts me in a position of leadership, but I am still just one gift in the midst of other gifted people.
Pray for your pastor(s)
January 22, 2009
I am still humbled and encouraged when people tell me, “Pastor, I pray for you.” Some remember us every day. In 2007 I shared with the prayer meeting group some suggestions as to how people can pray for the pastors (and John Piper’s influence is all over this piece). Here is the outline:
Pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ…that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak (Colossians 4:3-4).
1. Pray that we would be single-minded and united in our work: being resident theologians and missiologists, discovering the meaning of Scripture, developing a life of prayer and holiness, cultivating, and working for the cure of souls. Many little things conspire against this.
2. Pray for our purity. Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41). Pray that our minds and bodies be pure. If they are not, we become weak and useless. Who wants to drink water out of rusty cup?
3. Pray for our doctrinal faithfulness. Never take this for granted. An elder must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it (Titus 1:9). Keep a close watch on…the teaching (1 Timothy 4:16). Pray that a hundred years from now the leaders of FPC will believe and love and teach and obey the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27).
4. Pray for joyful, Christ-exalting marriages—marriages that set an example for others, that ease the burdens of the ministry, that display the mystery of Christ’s love for the Church, that bless our children, and that protect us all from scandal. It is easy for pastors to neglect this (1 Peter 3:7; Ephesians 6:4).
5. Pray for boldness and earnestness in proclaiming Christ and him crucified. Pray that no difficulty would deter us and no disappointment dishearten us. Pray that we would fear God more than we fear people.
6. Pray that we would be “unbusy.” What I mean is that we would work hard but not vainly crowd our day with conspicuous activity nor let others fill our schedules with imperious demands. Being “unbusy” frees us to do our proper work–for visionary, creative energy. Pray that we not be lazy or domineering or cynical. Pray that we would be sharp and unhindered. Pray that the edge of our blades will not get dull (Ecclesiastes 10:10)
7. Pray for the Spirit’s power. We do not want to counsel and pray and lead and plan and teach and preach without power. Ask the Lord to open hearts and change people through our ministry. Pray that we will be sharp instruments in the Redeemer’s hands–part of a great, global awakening of doctrinally mature, Christ-exalting, God-centered reformation of worship, teaching, nurture and reaching.
Calvin: staring at the sun
January 12, 2009
When the mood strikes, I’ll throw in something especially sweet from John Calvin, as I’m joining with a lot of others in reading through the Institutes of the Christian Religion this year, which happens to mark the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth. This is from the opening chapter, in which Calvin contemplates knowing ourselves and knowing God–and how the two connect and feed one another. Too often we measure ourselves by ourselves or by the standards of others. Calvin says that we think we see well enough on a sunny day until we look up at the sun and find ourselves blinded and confused by its brilliance. He continues,
As long as we do not look beyond the earth, being quite content with our own righteousness, wisdom and virtue, we flatter ourselves most sweetly, and fancy ourselves all but demigods. Suppose we but once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and to ponder his nature, and how completely perfect are his righteousness, wisdom, and power–the straightedge to which we must be shaped. Then, what masquerading earlier as righteousness was pleasing in us will soon grow filthy in its consummate wickedness. What wonderfully impressed us under the name of wisdom will stink in its very foolishness. What wore the face of power will prove itself the most miserable weakness. That is, what in us seems perfection itself corresponds ill to the purity of God.
As an added (and rather unrelated) bonus, here’s a link to the video for U2′s 1997 single, “Staring at the Sun.”
Orthodox, catholic, and charismatic
January 6, 2009
Is your church orthodox? Is it catholic? Is it charismatic? Around these parts, those words aren’t typically used to describe the church. In our ordinary usage, those terms mean something like this:
- Orthodox: dead, sterile and formal OR the kind of churches Greek people attend
- Catholic: affiliated with or sympathetic to the Church of Rome
- Charismatic: possessing magnetic charm OR tongues-speaking, pew-jumping worship that values spontaneity at the expense of decency and order
I agree with Dr. Donald Macleod that every authentic church must be orthodox, catholic and charismatic. Such words rightly understood would mean:
- Orthodox: professing and defending biblical truth (1 Timothy 4:6; Titus 1:9; 2:1; Jude 3)
- Catholic: belonging to the one church that Jesus has established and continues to build (Matthew 16:18; Acts 9:31; Ephesians 1:22; 5:23; 1 Timothy 3:15)
- Charismatic: depending upon the power, gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit for our survival and growth (John 3:5; 16:13; Romans 8:2, 9-11; 14:17; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 12:4ff; Galatians 5:5; Ephesians 2:18-22; 4:4; Revelation 22:17).
Make her wastes rejoice
December 29, 2008
As 2008 passes, The Sweet Dropper hopes that, whatever “bane and blessing, pain and pleasure” has come your way, Christ Jesus is more precious to you now than he was a year ago. Thanks to the digging and blogging of Tullian Tchividjian, here’s a glorious hymn by 19th-century Scotsman Horatius Bonar:
The Church has waited long,
Her absent Lord to see,
And still in loneliness she waits,
A friendless stranger she.
Age after age has gone,
Sun after sun has set,
And still in weeds of widowhood,
She weeps a mourner yet.
Saint after saint on earth
Has lived, and loved, and died;
And as they left us one by one,
We laid them side by side;
We laid them down to sleep,
But not in hope forlorn;
We laid them but to ripen there,
Till the last glorious morn.
The serpent’s brood increase,
The powers of hell grow bold,
The conflict thickens, faith is low,
And love is waxing cold.
How long, O Lord our God,
Holy, and true, and good,
Wilt Thou not judge Thy suffering Church,
Her sighs, and tears, and blood?
We long to hear Thy voice,
To see Thee face to face,
To share Thy crown and glory then,
As now we share Thy grace.
Should not the loving bride
Her absent bridegroom mourn?
Should she not wear the signs of grief
Until her Lord return?
The whole creation groans,
And waits to hear that voice
That shall her comeliness restore,
And make her wastes rejoice.
Come, Lord, and wipe away
The curse, the sin, the stain,
And make this blighted world of ours
Thine own fair world again.
Two kings
December 23, 2008
Can I give you a ‘once upon a time’ story? Once upon a time, a little more than two thousand years ago, in a land the Romans called Judea, two kings were alive at the same time and in the same place. One king was about seventy years old; the other king was an infant. The big king was evil; the little king was pure. The big king was rich and powerful; the little king was poor. The big king lived in a palace staffed with servants; the little king was born in a stable. The little king’s mother was a young peasant girl from an obscure village, and his adoptive father was a carpenter.
Of course, you know the names of the two kings. The big king’s name was Herod. He was known as “Herod the Great.” He was a master builder, starting an ambitious expansion of the Temple in Jerusalem. A large portion of a supporting platform of that Temple structure, now known as the Wailing Wall, is still standing today.
But there are a couple things you ought to know about King Herod. He was a puppet-king. Judea was under Roman control and occupation. The Roman emperor allowed Herod to ‘rule’ in Palestine. Herod was appointed governor of Galilee in 40 BC, and later that year the Roman senate declared him “King of Judea.” He was a king, but a king who would not dare displease Rome.
In Judea Herod was not considered to be so “great.” In fact, most conservative, observant Jews of his day would say that he was not even Jewish! His ancestors were Edomites and not Jews—and his grandfather’s generation had embraced Judaism because there were a lot of swords were pointed at them. He could never be recognized as a true king of the Jews. He was not of the tribe of Judah. He was not related to David.
No, I’m not writing a special for the History Channel. What I want you to understand is the insecure position Herod was in during his reign. In Herod’s life, reality didn’t quite match up with outward appearances. That is something worth remembering.
One day Herod receives some unusual visitors from far away—“Magi from the East,” as Matthew describes them. [Nowhere is there an indication of how many there were!] Magi were most likely Persian [think Iranian] priests of Zoroaster, who were into the interpretation dreams and the study of astrology. The Magi came to Herod because they were following a heavenly object [“a star at its rising/in the east”]. Their search led them to Judea. “We have come to worship him—he who has been born king of the Jews.”
No wonder Herod was greatly troubled. He didn’t like the idea of another king in his realm, especially a true king whose birth was signaled by signs in the sky! He consults the chief priests and scribes about Messiah. [By the way, I wonder why the chief priests didn’t go along with the Magi—perhaps indifference?] He tried to fool the wise men. He met with them secretly and asked them how to find this newborn king. He lied to them. His fear and obsession with keeping his kingdom intact turn him into a liar. When his plan fails after the Magi scoot back to Persia without reporting to him, Herod becomes enraged, and you know what happens next. Herod becomes a mass murderer, ordering the slaughter of all male children in the area of Bethlehem under two years of age. But God warned Joseph in a dream, and the young family fled to Egypt. In a short time Herod the Great died, and the new king came back from Egypt.
The big king died and now is remembered as a little king—pathetic, paranoid, murderous. The little king grew up. He is Jesus, and now he is King of all Kings and Lord of all Lords. His Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom.
A part of the Christmas story is the story of a king who missed the real king. His little, insecure, pathetic kingdom mattered more than the Kingdom which God was bringing into the world. Really it’s an old, old story. The little kingdom wars with the big Kingdom, and the kingdom of this world wars against the Kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of man wars against the Kingdom of God.
This war wages behind every human intention, decision, thought, word, desire, and action. Everything any of us does is done in pursuit of one of these two kingdoms. We were created, as Paul Tripp likes to say, for ‘big Kingdom’ living. But sin twists and perverts our allegiances and causes us to become Herods—fiercely dedicated to our little kingdoms, believing our kingdom is as good as it gets, and blind to transcendent, eternal glories of the big Kingdom—the Kingdom of heaven.
Think about Herod again. Herod’s greatest achievement was a religious one. He expanded the Temple. But even that was all about advancing and securing his little kingdom. This is how we get ourselves in trouble without realizing it. Most of us don’t wake up in the morning thinking in Kingdom terms. And without realizing it, we can do religious things (go to church, help others, study the Bible), all in the hope that God will ensure the success of our little kingdom.
We end up living for earth-bound treasures: success, someone’s affection, power and control, a certain lifestyle, parenting successful children, a trouble-free marriage, pleasure, or stuff. Let me ask you this: What makes your day a ‘good day’? What tends to make you happy and satisfied with life? If we watched a video of you during 2008, what treasure would we conclude that you are seeking?
We end up defining life in terms of our needs and anxieties. Herod felt stuck between keeping Rome happy and proving himself to skeptical Jews. Maybe you feel stuck in a similar way. You will never be able to control all the things that need to be controlled in order for you to guarantee that all your needs will be met and that your kingdom will come and your will be done.
Living for your little kingdom will shape the way you respond to everything God has placed in your life. Living for your little kingdom turns life into an endless, fruitless search for earth-bound treasure and an endless, fruitless focus on yourself. The Bible has a word for this way of living: sin!
We know what we like and the people we want to be with. We know the kind of house we’d like to own and the car we want to drive. We know how we want people in our family to respond to us. Without even recognizing it, we quickly fall into a ‘my desire, my will, my way’ lifestyle, driven by the cravings of our hearts. Like Herod, the more threatened my kingdom becomes, the more likely I am to manipulate, lie, become outraged, and destroy. But the promises of the Bible are an invitation to be a part of a bigger and better Kingdom—the Kingdom of God.
“It seems then,” said Tyrian, smiling himself, “that the stable seen from within and the stable seen from without are two different places.”
“Yes,” said the Lord Digory. “Its inside is bigger than its outside.”
“Yes,” said Queen Lucy. “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.” [C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle]
The big Kingdom really is big! Its purposes span all of history and spread to all of creation and speak to all kinds of people. After all, a group of Iranian Zoroastrian priest-astrologers are the first seekers! The big Kingdom of God and my little kingdom cannot co-exist peacefully. The Kingdom of God cannot be squeezed or chopped down to fit into the constricted space of your little kingdom. And that is a good thing: that is why we weekly call you all to worship. Worship is opening ourselves up to the grandeur of the Kingdom of God—acknowledging one greater than we are, whose Kingdom is greater and much, much better than ours—the Lord God is his name.
I want this Christmas to be a time when you reconsider Jesus the Messiah and ponder what it is to worship him and what it is to seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness—to welcome a new way of living, a way of living that recognizes a loving heavenly Father and his unwavering commitment to provide all his children need to live lives committed to his Kingdom. The little king born in Bethlehem came to tear down your kingdom and expose its emptiness. He gave his life to buy us, to bear our sins, and to welcome us into his Kingdom. By his grace may everyone hear be able to say with the Iranians, “We have come to worship him.”
God’s great and perfect wisdom in music
October 1, 2008
When man’s natural musical ability is whetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is, after all, His product and His gift; we marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance, where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress and embrace. A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.
(Martin Luther, 1538, in his foreword to a collection of chorale motets)
