As I’ve said in sermons, we really don’t want people to remember us for our worst failures. So we should not do that to Jesus’ disciple Thomas, who believed far more than he doubted. I liked this cartoon, by Josh Harris, on the subject.
posted 8/2/10
Here’s a thought-provoking post from Tim Challies called “The People of the Beep.”
(posted 5/3/10)
One of the first things that a visitor to Old Peachtree notices in our worship service is that we still sing hymns. I say “still” because many churches have put hymns aside in favor of more contemporary praise choruses. In this day when many churches are falling all over themselves in an effort to appear “relevant,” why continue to sing hymns? There are a number of reasons that hymns still have great value today and that we continue to sing them at OPPC.
1. Heritage – When we sing hymns, we are singing words (and in some cases, tunes) that Christians have sung for centuries, or even for a millennium or more. Words that comforted, strengthened, and taught our spiritual forbears continue to do the same for us. How sad that many children grow up in churches today yet are robbed of this part of their Christian heritage.
2. Singability – Because of their regular meter (rhythm) and well-established tunes, hymns are easier for groups of people to sing. Many of the contemporary praise choruses in use today were originally performed by a single performer or a group. The artist is able to take liberties with the tune, performing the song different ways at different times. So people have heard the song different ways. (And even those who can read music have usually never seen any music to the song.) So people sing the song different ways. (It does not help when the “praise team” up front itself take liberties with the song even as they are supposed to be leading the congregation in the singing of it.) Many modern tunes use syncopation (emphasis on the off-beat) more than older hymn tunes, making them harder to sing. Granted, there is some variation in hymn tunes as well, but to a much lesser extent. And not all old hymn tunes are equally singable, and some are not singable at all! But on the whole, the consistency, regularity, and “regularity” of hymn tunes make them easier to sing.
3. Durability – One of the advantages of using a hymnal like The Trinity Hymnal is that we are singing words and tunes that have stood the test of time. How many of today’s praise choruses will be sung next year? In a decade? In a millennium? A church that sings only what is new is singing much that is fleeting.
4. Theology – What we sing shapes our theology more profoundly than we realize. I will be the first to acknowledge that there are hymns with lousy theology. But the better hymns over the years are packed with solid theology, along with the development of it and application of it. (“Whatever My God Ordains Is Right” comes to mind). Obviously, a praise chorus based on a verse of Scripture has good theology, but the truth of the verse is often simply repeated (chanted?) rather than developed.
5. Neutrality – The hymns, musically speaking, belong to no one demographic. That is to say, my age group didn’t grow up listening to hymns on the radio as “our” music. “A Mighty Fortress” wasn’t on the Top 40 countdown when I was growing up. Precisely for that reason, hymns are neutral ground, musically speaking. Because hymns belong to no one, they belong to everyone. They belong to the church. If not hymns, then whose style will prevail—the boomers? The busters? Gen X?
This article is not a screed against contemporary worship music (though at least some of it could use some “screeding!”). Nor am I saying old is good and new is bad. There are some old hymns best consigned to the dust bin of history. There are some popular new songs that are superb and may stand the test of time (Getty & Townend’s “In Christ Alone” comes to mind, a strong song both in words and tune that—it’s worth noting—is quite hymn-like in its qualities). My purpose is merely to point out the value of hymns, explain why we use them at Old Peachtree, and encourage their further use in the church.
(posted 3/31/10)
February 14 is Valentine’s Day, the day we set aside to celebrate love. Love means many things to many people: warm fuzzy feelings, romantic dinners, a special someone. While love biblically defined doesn’t preclude any of those things, it does have a sharper focus and a more practical bent. To love someone, biblically speaking, means to seek their well-being, even at cost to yourself.
1 Corinthians 13 is the great “love chapter” of the Bible. While it is often read at weddings (and certainly does have something to say about marriage), it actually applies first to believers generally in their relationship to one another in the church. Notice how the chapter is sandwiched between a discussion on cooperation (ch. 12) and spiritual gifts and worship (ch. 14).
Paul tells us in verses 1-3 that there is no substitute for love. Talk (v 1), knowledge (v 2), and religious devotion (v 3) may be good things, but they cannot take its place
In verses 4-8 Paul paints what is arguably the best picture of love ever:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
These words define love without killing it. They give it shape and a robust vitality. They are a yardstick by which to measure our own love for others. They move love out of the mushy and sentimental into the day-to-day reality of life.
Finally, Paul shows us how love is an aspect of Christian maturity. There is a permanence to it, a rock –like quality. Other aspects of the Christian life may pass away, if not in this life, then in heaven. But love remains.
Taken together, the verses of 1 Corinthians 13 show us Christ. They describe how he loved. He wasn’t just noise, he wasn’t just sentimental mush, he wasn’t just a flash in the pan. His love sought our well-being, even at unspeakable cost to himself.
How is your love life?
(posted 2/15/10)
Here’s a quotation from from chapter 7, “Resist Spirituality,” of Paul Tripp’s book Broken-Down House :
We are comfortable with a little bit of holiness, a little bit of ministry, a little bit of sacrifice, a little bit of wisdom, a little bit of the satisfying glory that only the grace of Christ is able to give us. I am deeply persuaded that we must resist with all of our might the kind of self-satisfied spirituality that marks the life of so many believers. And I am further persuaded that this pseudo-spirituality is one of the cruel deceptions of a wily enemy.
As the chapter explains, it really comes down to this: Do you love Christ or the world? Many professing Christians actually love the world, not Christ, and their faith proves not to be real.
But those same tendencies–to settle for a little bit–are present even in genuine believers. We fight hard against those tendencies.
Is Christ your life or merely an add-on?
(posted 10/22/09)