Hearing Lyrics Rather Than Saying Them

When David Powlison, in his session at the 2005 Desiring God Conference on Suffering and the Supremacy of Christ, presented the hymn “How Firm a Foundation” as a means for counseling our souls, it was a new idea to me. Sure I had sung hymns before, and often I had even read through some of them as a personal call to worship, but I had never considered reading or using a hymn, or song in general, as a means of counseling or for the purpose of speaking truth to someone for the redemption that we always need in some area. It was a new and intriguing exercise then as Powlison walked us through the lyrics of this song, line by line (or “verse-by-verse” in a different way, if you like that phrase). One of the interesting things about that particular song is its unique point of view. It is different from most songs in that we are not singing truths from the position of us to God, but the words after the first verse take the vantage of God speaking to us. Because of that it has quite the impact if read and reflected upon intentionally. (If you want to know more about that particular song or Powlison’s message, you can listen to it here.

RUF (Reformed University Fellowship) has redone many older hymns in a new and more upbeat manner that is more accessible and pleasing to many of us. I would highly recommend their CD’s as well as the song’s they are bringing back to our attention (by the way, you can probably listen to it on iTunes over the network). As I was listening to the Belmont RUF CD, “For All the Saints: Indelible Grace III,” the very first song struck me as one that is so rich in its lyrical content that it also could have the capacity to counsel our own beings as well as others at needed times. If one reads the words while listening to the CD it is a penetrating and powerful song in its ability to exhort and rebuke, to make us hungry and to nourish us. The song is “Jesus, I Come.” It is not like “How Firm a Foundation” in its viewpoint, rather, in this song we speak words to Jesus. My hope is that these words in a small way can provide for some of you what we often need, a reminder and a return back to Jesus and what we possess in Him, as well as what we put off from ourselves and this world.

Jesus, I Come
1. Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,Jesus, I come; Jesus I come.Into Thy freedom, gladness and light,Jesus, I come to Thee.Out of my sickness into Thy health,Out of my wanting and into Thy wealth,Out of my sin and into Thyself,Jesus, I come to Thee.
2. Out of my shameful failure and loss,Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,Jesus, I come to Thee.Out of earth’s sorrows into Thy balm,Out of life’s storms and into Thy calm,Out of distress into jubilant psalm,Jesus, I come to Thee.
3. Out of unrest and arrogant pride,Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.Into Thy blessed will to abide,Jesus, I come to Thee.Out of myself to dwell in Thy love,Out of despair into raptures above,Upward forever on wings like a dove,Jesus, I come to Thee.
4. Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.Into the joy and light of Thy home,Jesus, I come to Thee.Out of the depths of ruin untold,Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,Ever Thy glorious face to behold,Jesus, I come to Thee.
© 2000 Greg Thompson Music.
The lyrics and an audio demo of the song, although it’s not the RUF version I was listening too, are at this site (see, “Jesus, I Come”) http://igracemusic.com/igracemusic/hymnbook/hymns.html

Biblical Theology of Sexuality: Introduction

Recently a request was made for an appropriate Christian response to homosexuality. While I wanted to just fire off an answer, I quickly realized that my response to homosexuality is contigent upon my Biblical theological understanding of sexuality. Thus, in order to give an adequate response, that is, to avoid the common cliches and unfounded claims, I'd have to show my work. After all, this blog isn't here for me to indoctrinate the readers on my say-so; if there is any indoctrination, let it rest directly and visibly upon the Word.

That said, I'm going to be starting a series on a Biblical theology of sexuality, the focus of which, I believe, is the marriage covenant. Call that last part my thesis, I guess. This will bring out a response to issues of all sorts, including the proposed response to homosexuality. I've got a few other topics to address as well. Our intent at Moodybloggers is not to upset or alienate anyone throughout the course of these posts, but to know our Lord better through the persuit of His truth. If, in the course of this, you are upset by anything posted, please let us know - dialogue is of utmost importance with issues this volatile. Our aim is the edification of those who read and the giving of glory to Christ.

A second request - if you want anything specific to be addressed, say so. If it's in the scope of the study, there's no reason we can't do the work.

Thanks for reading.

The Knowledge of God (Tues. Founder's Week)

This morning's message from Christian Barbosu was used by the Spirit of God to convict many of us, and as with Dr. Easley's sermon last night, covered a broad spectrum of information relatively quickly. While most of my thought during Mr. Barbosu's sermon was on his major theme, my mind wandered to one of the points he made in passing as I filed through the lunch line on Culby 2. Well, that and the fact that he sounded eerily like Bela Lugosi, anyway.

That minor point was concerning the knowledge of God. This is, of course, a touchy subject with implications in every aspect of theology (and thus in every aspect of life). Mr. Barbosu spoke specifically concerning II Cor. 10:1-5

"I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!— 2 I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete."

This plays so stongly into our context here in the Moody world, and will be even more important when we leave (that isn't intended as a reference to graduation [seriously, get out of here every once and a while]). If we are talking about the knowledge of God (I take this to be 'knowledge concerning God'), what does it mean to "not [wage] war according to the flesh"?

Mr. Barbosu made an excellent point against mankind's rationalistic approach to God. In this sense, man thinks first of himself and all other subjects subordinately. In his mind, he is the final judge of what is logical, and thus believable. When a rationalist considers Christianity, he thinks of himself primarily (as judge) and of God secondarily (as the subject of judgement). If the rationalist decides God is up to par with his idea of what is logical, he becomes a Christian.

Of course, this comes into a problem. The Christian's knowledge of God is not arrived at by means of our evaluation of God, but by His gift of the mind of Christ (I Cor 2:14-16). This means post-modernism is under the gun as much as modernism is - even if a non-Christian doesn't value the modernist's faulty understanding of logic, he still acts as God's evaluator. To illustrate, think of either of these systems as a ladder. If we expect modernists to climb the ladder of modernism as high as it goes and then become Christians, we're expecting him to jump ladders. And I'm not talking about hopping up a couple of rungs, but leaping over to a ladder he simply can not reach - while staying at the same level. After all, he's been reasoning one way his whole life and now he's got to switch it all around. The same goes for post-modernists. To think that we can climb up with ourselves in the judgement seat and then become Christians and continue from the same place upward is absurd. It's impossible - we'd be denying the validity of the way we got there! If our method wasn't valid, how can our conclusion be valid?

We know according to I Cor 2 that the only reason we can understand the things of God is due to His giving of the mind of Christ. Instead of us climbing and jumping, he takes all of us - modernists and post-modernists alike - and places us in something altogether different, something altogether perfect as compared to our previous theory of knowledge, which was altogether absurd.

Our system of truth revolves around this imputation of the mind of Christ. We do not arrive at true knowledge of God via modernism. We do not arrive at the true knowledge of God via postmodernism. We arrive solely by His gracious hand, which pulls us off of our position on our futile ladders of false knowledge.

A man is not converted when he decides to find in favor of God, but when God finds in favor of him on the basis of Christ's completed work on the cross - God is the judge and we are what we are corresponding to what He wills.

In our daily challenge to "bring every thought captive" we must consider a few things. We have spoken of the objective placement that is common to all Christians. We all have the mind of Christ, due solely to God's work. Paul applied this specifically to the issue at hand in the Corinthian church - so how now do we "think Christianly"?

David Wells on the Disappearance of Theology

In No Place for Truth, sociologist-theologian David Wells answers what has happened to evangelical theology (that being the subtitle of the book). Part of his answer, to be simplistic, is that evangelical theology has disappeared. But it has disappeared in this way: “The disappearance of which I am speaking is not the same as the abduction of a child who is happily playing at home one minute and then is no longer to be found the next. No one has abducted theology in this sense. The disappearance is closer to what happens in homes where the children are ignored and, to all intents and purposes, abandoned. They remain in the home, but they have no place in the family. So it is with theology in the Church. It remains on the edges of evangelical life, but it has been dislodged from its center." (Wells NPFT 106)

His point is that many important traditional beliefs are not denied by evangelicals (as the latest Barna and Gallup polls continue to tell us), but that these beliefs have been moved from the center to the margins of evangelical life. So while most affirm God’s existence, life after death, the inspiration and authority of the Bible, and the effectiveness of prayer, these beliefs have little to no impact in their lives. Wells faults modernity with much of this, claiming it as the source for the polarization of our public and private lives. To give an example of this, “evangelical Joe” may have a Bible in his home and even believe it is God’s revelation, but this revelation does not determine Joe’s ethics or operations in how he conducts his financial business. For Joe, as for many evangelicals today, theology has become absent by being pushed to the margins, where its authority and effect are minimized.

Theology is “disappearing in the sense that while its articles of belief are still professed, they are no longer defining what it means to be an evangelical or how evangelicalism should be practiced. At its center there is now a vacuum into which modernity is pouring, and the result is a faith that, unlike historic orthodoxy, is no longer defining itself theologically." (Wells NPFT 109)
“It is in this sense that it is proper to speak of the disappearance of theology. It is not that the elements of the evangelical credo have vanished, they have not. The fact that they are professed, however, does not necessarily mean that the structure of the historic Protestant faith is still intact. The reason, quite simply, is that while these items of belief are professed, they are increasingly being removed from the center of evangelical life where they defined what that life was, and they are now being relegated to the periphery where their power to define what evangelical life should be is lost. This is not the sort of shift that typical polling [such as Gallup or Barna polls] will discover, for these items of belief are seldom denied or qualified, but that does not mean that the shift has not occurred. It is evangelical practice rather than evangelical profession that reveals the change." (Wells NPFT 108)

David Wells teaches Systematic Theology and Church History and by trade is both a theologian and a sociologist. This means not only does he know how to interpret the Word of God, but he also knows how to interpret the world wherein we live. For that he is a wise voice worth having his words heard and considered.

So consider what he has said in these brief quotes I extracted from one of his chapters. Consider it for yourself individually and consider it for the context which you live in. Some important questions that may need to be asked are where is evangelicalism today and how has it gotten there? (If you desired an answer to that question, No Place For Truth would be a good start.) Is theology and God’s Word [I see the former as being the church’s interpretation and explanation of the latter] at the core of my life, giving direction and definition to everything else, or has it been swept into the margins, not thrown away but put in the corner where it has no effect? As a Moody student, is it really at the center, or is it merely that thing that assists us in our academics and occasionally in our church life? Are your Christian family members, friends, or your church suffering from the diagnosis Wells makes of evangelicalism today, or do they remain part of the faithful few where the Lord still stands at the center exercising His rightful Lordship? If they are part of the first group, those who profess but do not practice their theology, how should and can you respond? And also, how do we live in a place where theology has disappeared and yet not let that happen to ourselves? (Wells just recently published a new book, Above All Earthly Powers, that helps with that question.)

What David Wells has said even in these few paragraphs deserves, no, it demands our attention. For if theology, which is the attempt to understand God based upon what He has told us about Himself in His Word, disappears from evangelicalism or from our own lives, then the result soon thereafter will be that God Himself will also disappear into the margins. Oh for God to remain at the center of our lives and at the center of our churches lives, where He is not inconsequential but is all encompassing and all determining. Friends, do net let theology disappear!