Category: Theology

Classic Arm Chair Theology at its best (or should that read worst?)

Welch's Grape Juice, Worldly Wisdom, and Wine

~ fundyreformed ~ 31 Comments

With wine on the mind, I thought I would discuss the interesting role of Thomas B. Welch in the controversy concerning the use of alcohol.

Thomas Welch is remembered as the inventor of modern grape juice. He applied Louis Pasteur’s new pasteurization process to grapes: the result was unfermented wine better known as grape juice. But what many do not know is that Welch had a specific reason for experimenting with grape juice. He was a minister who objected to alcoholic wine being used for communion. So much so, in fact that he refused to touch it even though he had been elected communion steward. After developing his unfermented communion alternative, he tried, unsuccessfully to substitute it in his church’s communion. Eventually, however, he convinced his church and many others to use the unfermented wine, furthering his temperance movement cause. The family business soon grew and his son Charles E. Welch developed the business into the large company it is today.

So there you have it. A centuries long practice of using alcoholic wine in communion is overturned by a prohibitionist and profiteer. To substantiate my history claims above look no further than Welch’s own company history. At the bottom of this article there are further resources.

Now I do not want this article to say too much. I definitely want to be fair and honest in my presentation of the facts. For instance, it appears that Welch was moved more by conviction than capitalism (at least initially). And also the fact that Welch invented the modern method of preserving grape juice does not imply that there were no other methods prior to 1869. For instance the link provided here gives some documentation of ancient methods of preserving grape juice which may have been used in Bible times and after. I am not advocating that every instance of the word wine in the Bible must only be understood as alcoholic wine. However, in my research I believe there are numerous places where the Bible affirms the intoxicating nature of wine (thus fermented wine) as a gift of God, see my first post on the topic here.

The link provided above goes on to cite evidence that unfermented wine was the normal practice of the early church. While I have not looked into all that evidence closely, I do believe there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. For instance Keith Mathison claims that fermented wine was the universal custom of the church for 1800 years, see this link to a pertinent excerpt from his book Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. History unequivocally testifies that from 1500 until the late 1800s it was universal practice among Catholic, Protestant, and Anabaptist groups to use alcoholic wine in communion and daily life. It should be startling, therefore, to learn that the prohibition movement and a particular representative of it, Thomas Welch, were extremely instrumental in changing that consensus into the great controversy of the present. Today, many churches and even entire denominations decry any use of alcohol and act as if this has always been the position of God’s church.

Before I close, let me briefly discuss the prohibition movement. The movement was spawned from a worldly wisdom not a Christian belief system: the church joined the bandwagon of the secular movement, not vice versa. This claim is easily substantiated through basic research. I encourage you to peruse this article to gain an understanding of the previous widespread consumption in America and the birth of Prohibition. The article goes on to document the underhanded tactics used by the prohibitionists. They censored school textbooks and paraded pure fallacies as documented fact. Also of note is prohibition’s view that alcohol was bad and that which inherently caused drunkenness and alcoholism. They saw many of the problems of society traced to the disease of alcoholism with alcohol as the culprit. In this focus the movement practically denied the Biblical contention that what is inside a man defiles him, not what comes into him. They thought society could be cured of its evils by purging it of alcohol, but society is only cured through its submission to the Lordship of Christ.

When anyone wants to develop a position on alcohol and hopes to prove whether or not Scripture permits its use they must not ignore the facts presented here. Failing to admit that the practice and doctrine of churches were influenced by the secular temperance movement will not permit the investigator to understand that he may be severely prejudiced through his own church traditions of the past one hundred or more years. In this discussion, therefore, it is vital to remember the role Thomas Welch and the worldly wise temperance movement made in the history of the church and its views concerning wine.

Resources and Documentation:

Welch’s Grape Juice

Prohibition

picture borrowed from here

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7

Regeneration, Reception, and Faith

~ fundyreformed ~ 47 Comments

Calvinists and non-Calvinists alike agree that unregenerate man is dead in his sins. He is lost and blind–even captive. In short, he needs help! And Christ provides the help. So far, so good, yet a fork in the road lies just ahead. One group (Calvinists) insists such a man needs regeneration before he can receive the word and believe. The other group sees the desperate sinner as hopeless apart from the gospel. Yet with the gospel’s proclamation, this dead man can receive the truth of the gospel and believe. Arguments over the interpretation of the death metaphor aside, a few Scriptural passages seem to plainly contradict the second view.

Both sides affirm that sinful man needs regeneration. Rom. 8:8 states, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Both sides also agree that faith and regeneration are intimately connected. Either faith immediately results in regeneration, or regeneration is seen as producing faith (and most would say this happens almost immediately after regeneration).

Now, I ask, how can non-Calvinists affirm that unregenerate men cannot please God, and also affirm that unregenerate men can become regenerated by believing in God–thereby pleasing Him (Heb. 11:6)? Can they just decide to believe and please God? Remember, they are in the flesh when they are unsaved. Not being in the flesh would indicate that they had been born again–regenerated. So just prior to their exercising faith (which pleases God), they are actually still “in the flesh”, and thus they cannot please God!

A solution is offered by some. Since God regenerates us with the Word of Truth (James 1:18), and since “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17), then with the preached word the sinful, unregenerate man is enabled to accept or reject the gospel message. The Spirit imparts life through the Word (John 6:63), so the argument goes, and thus the dead sinner becomes able to receive the gospel and believe.

Taking a step back, that last sentence sounds an awful lot like the Calvinist view which argues that the Spirit regenerates us, using the Word of Truth, before we are enabled to believe. And there is much in the non-Calvinist view which might attract people to its position. It offers a harmonization of passages which seem to imply unsaved man can respond to God’s message with those that teach he cannot. God is seen as extremely nice–giving all a supposedly equal chance. It saves face for mankind by proving that he is not a mere puppet.

Yet this view–that men are enabled to receive the gospel and believe through the preaching of the gospel and the interaction of the Spiritual Word upon their hearts–flies in the face of several key passages. 1 Cor. 2:14 seems very decisive: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” So this verse says that when the Word of God and the preaching of the gospel message interact with the unregenerate, these lost people do not accept the gospel because they think it foolish and further, they cannot understand it, since it is spiritually discerned! Far from enabling them, the preached word is trampled under foot like pearls given to swine. Paul explains this further in 2 Cor. 4:3-6: “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Here the lost are said to be blind to the message of the Gospel. Further, there appears to be no in-between-stage half way from sight and blindness. There is no period where the lost is enabled to believe, considers the message of the Gospel for a while, and later makes his verdict. Rather, they cannot see or even understand the message as an unregenerated person–but in a moment God shines in their hearts giving them the light of the Gospel of the glory of God in Christ. (Keep in mind that God’s word is describing what actually happens inside a person–we cannot use our experience to correct the word. It may appear to us that some are in an in-between-stage, yet Scripture interprets that experience differently.)

Now, I have encountered several people who claim to reject Calvinism yet affirm that repentance and faith are gifts of God. They claim God gives them to those who begin to respond to the Gospel, having been enabled by the life-giving words of the Spirit. I have yet to understand how this idea can fit in with verses like 2 Tim. 2:24-26: “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” Here repentance is God’s gift to those who are captured by the devil. Notice, that God “may perhaps grant”. Now how exactly is repentance a gift? If all who hear the Gospel are enabled to repent and receive/believe, then the gift of repentance is not merely the opportunity to repent. And if before you have the gift you are captured by the devil and possess no repentance, it seems to me that when you receive the gift of repentance, you are set free and enabled to repent for the first time. One moment you have no repentance, the next moment you have it–as a gift of God!

More could be said, for sure! But this is to say that regeneration, reception, and belief happen in this specific sequential order. Regeneration happens internally resulting in a heart that receives the word and then believes in Christ. All of this is a gift of grace from a merciful and loving God to a totally undeserving criminal of a sinner.

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7

Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves

~ Bob Hayton ~ 2 Comments

Recently there have been some good comments here, concerning the importance of encouraging others and ourselves with the Gospel. Under my brief post about C.J. Mahaney’s sermon on Encouragement at Bethlehem (my church), Alana Asby Roberts wrote:

That thought about speaking the gospel to other Christians is interesting. After my “new” and final conversion experience at nineteen, I found that I enjoyed the gospel as food, loved to sing its truths, etc.

When we got a new pastor, he began by preaching his first Sunday morning series on “The Nature of Saving Faith” and was going deep into the truths, usually neglected, of the full gospel. He abruptly switched, I am sad to say, to a series about the Ten Commandments (with all of their possible ‘applications’). We later found out that people had been complaining about having to listen to all these “salvation messages” when they were already “saved”.

But it is the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ. What could be more edifying or encouraging? He comes to us in it again and again, no matter how long we have been walking in the Way.

And under the comments for my post on “The Gospel Song” , Capt. Headknowledge said:

Mahaney’s book [The Cross Centered Life] helped me realize I can preach the Gospel to myself when I find I’m going without it in my own “worship experience.”

Sadly, Alana’s experience is all too common, and Capt. Headknowledge’s discovery isn’t. Believers do not want to have the gospel preached at them, so of course they don’t preach it to themselves! The Gospel is just for the lost (they say), and of course once they pray the sinner’s prayer, then all is good and well, right?

The ESV and other modern versions capture the essence of the Greek of 1 Cor. 1:18 better than the old KJV. It says:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (emphasis added)

Salvation is in one sense a process. The common expression “whoever believes will be saved” in most of its occurences could be understood as “the believing ones will be saved”, based on the literal sense of the Greek. Belief commences when we convert to Christ but it is to continue our whole lives [see this post which emphasizes that]. And belief is nurtured through hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:17). And the phrase “word of God” most often in the NT refers to the gospel message of Christ–“the word of the cross”.

John Piper in his book When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy encourages us to preach the Gospel to ourselves!

We must not rely only on being preached to, but must become good preachers to our own soul. The gospel is the power of God to lead us joyfully to final salvation, if we preach it to ourselves. (emphasis in the original)

Piper points out that Martin Lloyd-Jones emphasized this truth in his book Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures. The book is…

“an exposition of Psalm 42, especially verse 5: ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance’ (KJV).”

Piper and Lloyd-Jones point out that the psalmist is preaching the promises of the Gospel to himself. I will end with just a quote Piper gives from Lloyd-Jones and then point you to Piper’s book pgs 80-82 (and also 88-89) which is available online for free here. Lloyd-Jones, then will conclude this post for us:

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself….You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condmn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: “Hope thou in God”–instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way, and then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and…what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: “I shall yet praise Him for the help of his countenance, who is also the health of my coutenance and my God.” [Ps. 42:11b, KJV]

[For my treatment of how the Gospel should be the focus of each and every public sermon in church, see here]

Stomping Toes and Stomping Souls: The Moralistic Bent to Fundamentalist Preaching

~ Bob Hayton ~ 32 Comments

DISCLAIMER: Although I am dealing specifically with fundamentalist preaching, the problem of moralistic messages without explicit reference to the redeeming work of Christ permeates all of evangelicalism.

Billy SundayIndependent Fundamental Baptists love preaching! And when I say preaching, I mean hell-fire and brimstone, Bible-waving, Satan-trouncing PREACHING! Amen? The best preaching is usually accompanined by the most screaming, hollering, spitting, snorting, and a good dose of preaching “antics”.

An example of this I’ll never forget would be the preaching of George Griffis, camp director of Camp Victory in Somerset, KY. My church made the long drive from the Detroit area to Camp Victory every summer when I was a teen. There would be various preachers, but always Bro. George would preach. When he got worked up, he would be screaming and crying at the same time. He had a knack of jumping from the edge of the platform and grabbing the rafters of the old-fashioned tabernacle, where the preaching was done. He would swing and scream with all his might! A few hundred wide-eyed teens was always the result…. He had his heart and soul involved in his preaching for sure!

toes.jpgNow another aspect of the kind of preaching fundamentalists savored was what is called toe-stomping. Yes, if you are thinking of the image of someone stomping on your toes–that is what is meant. It seems the preachers job was to make us feel guilty about all of our failures. If we really felt like he had put us through the ringer, so to speak, it was thought the preacher had really done his job well. This is why a full altar meant a great sermon. When all kinds of people felt the weight of their guilt to the point of coming forward and “getting things right” with God, the preacher had done his job well. No pain, no gain! Amen?

This view of preacing had many direct and indirect results. In many spheres of extreme fundamentalism, theatrical antics, brashness, an almost uncouth mouth, and emotional manipulation became the tools of the trade for the kings of the sermon. And even among those who were not so keen on showmanship, Billy Sunday remained a hero. Still, in most IFBx churches, if one does not holler one is not really a preacher. “We need preachers not teachers”, as the saying goes. Expositional preaching does not serve this view of preaching as easily as topical preaching, and so in many spheres of fundamentalism expositional preaching was outright condemned, while in others it just became more and more rare.

While the loss of expositional preaching is great indeed, I would venture to say another result of IFBx’s view of preacing is even more troubling. I would say the tactic of heaping guilt on the hearers and calling them to reform and seek revival, has led to a kind of moralistic preaching which is most perilous indeed!

Fundamentalist preaching mirrors the fundamentalist view of sanctification by keeping rules. While not all IFBs and IFBxs claim to believe in sanctification by keeping rules, to one degree or another the fundamentalist emphasis on external conformity to standards conveys the idea that the more one adheres to these standards the more right with God he is. This results in the unconscious view that our own level of performance plays a big part in God’s acceptance of us. As I said in an earlier post,

“Often, the solution to struggling against sin was provided as merely gritting one’s teeth, and working harder. Character was the means to accomplishing my moralistic goals….IFB/IFBx churches stressed the importance of duty. But they did not address the question of human inability and depravity, so much. We all could do it, and if we didn’t we weren’t filled with the Spirit enough. Blame and guilt was applied as a means to motivate us to do right.”

What do I mean by moralism? I mean the mere attempt to be good. I have heard countless fundamentalist messages on having character, giving, being truthful, loving others, obeying one’s parents, reading the Bible, praying, going to church, courage, not quitting, leadership, and on and on the list goes. Yet many of these same virtues are extolled among people who have no true claim to the name Christian. Mormons extol family values, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are for many of the things on that list. In fact, non religious groups extol sacrifice, leadership, truthfulness, loving others, courage, even meditation, etc. These things are moral issues, and Christians do not have the market cornered on morality.

Recently, I came across another ex-fundamentalist blog called The Misadventures of Captain Headknowledge. In a few of his posts he emphasizes this very thing: how Christ needs to be central in preaching. Let me quote him in-depth from his post, “What am I Hearing in this Sermon?”, as he sums it up well.

“…the Law (what God is and does, and so what man ought to be and do) is imperative, and the Gospel (what Christ has done for sinners) is indicative.

In Christ-centered preaching, the logic will flow from indicative to imperative; from what God does, in Christ, to what man ought to do. We derive the proper motive and power to perform the imperatives of Scripture from the proclamation of the indicatives of Scripture.

Whenever the focus of the sermon is imperative, what we can or should be doing, and the indicatives of God’s work on our behalf rates as a secondary concern in the sermon, we unintentionally slip into thinking we’ll earn the indicatives (that which God grants by his grace) by performing the imperatives (that which God gave us to prove to us we must rely only on his grace). This is the danger of man-centered preaching.

Is Jesus mentioned in the sermons you hear? If he is, is he the subject of the verbs; is he the one doing the work, or is Man? If Jesus is the one doing the work, what work of his is being proclaimed? Is he proclaimed as our Problem-Solver, Example (WWJD), Therapist or Sugar Daddy? Or is he proclaimed as our Creator, Redeemer, Advocate, Mediator, Judge, Prophet, Priest or King?

The reason this matters is because ‘the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes’ (Romans 1:16). Salvation is an all-encompassing work, including not only our justification, but also our sanctification and our glorification. Preaching on sanctification is vitally important; there is much for us to do, in dependence on God’s gracious empowerment, to grow in sanctification, but this is not achieved by majoring on detailing all the imperatives alone, but the imperatives of preaching, what we normally call ‘application’ of God’s Word, must be built on the foundation of the indicative of the Gospel preached alone.” (emphasis his)

I believe he leans heavily on Bryan Chapell‘s book Christ-Centered Preaching. Chapell emphasizes that in every sermon one must relate the explanation of the Scripture passage to the redeeming work of God in the present. Otherwise, he insists, all you have is “simply a ‘sub-Christian’ call ‘to be’ or ‘to do’ something in one’s own strength” (quoted from an online summary of Covenant Theological Seminary‘s homiletical programs). Chapell’s book is simply a homiletical application of the Reformed approach to hermeneutics–redemptive historical interpretation, which I have discussed elsewhere. UPDATE: To listen to a message by Bryan Chapell which summarizes well his book, click here [or right click on it and select “save target as” to download it and listen to it later].

Captain Headknowledge goes on to say in another post:

“…and this is the point of my incessant howling about basing all application… in preaching on the basis of the Gospel preached…, and not only preached as an evangelistic appeal directed toward unbelievers, but preached also to the believers as the foundation and reason and source of the particular application of each and every ‘practical and relevant’ sermon. If application is preached as separate from the gospel, you have legalism. It’s not good enough to assume the listeners understand the foundation, it must be presented as a unified, package deal. It is ‘wickedness of the deepest darkness’ to preach application without explicitly basing it on the gospel. Imperative comes from Indicative; application comes from gospel; ‘do’ comes from ‘be’. Kind of like that old saying, ‘we sin (do, imperative) because we are… sinners‘. Likewise, we walk in righteousness because we are righteous, not ‘we become righteous by walking in righteousness’. How did we become righteous? Righteousness was given to us by God as a free gift of his grace (Romans 1:17; 3:24). Hello! Indicative! Followed by Imperative!” (emphasis his)

So what am I driving at? I am not concluding one should never encourage believers to obey God’s Word. Believers do need to be truthful, godly, etc. The Holy Spirit certainly may convict believers of their need to “do better”. But ultimately, we need to preach how the gospel touches each area of the believer’s life. We cannot, apart from God’s Spirit given to us based on the Gospel work on our behalf, ever be wholly truthful and godly. And even if we could, it would avail us nothing! We need to be reminded that God accepts us based on Christ and because of Christ we can obey and become all that we already are in Christ.

We don’t need more toe-stomping sermons. We need more sermons that direct sin-laden believers to feast their eyes on the glories of Christ. A greater appreciation of Him, a greater understanding of His work–these will give us hope and faith and courage to keep pressing on.

So whatever standards you hold, and whatever group you identify with, beware of moralism. Make much of Christ! Glory in the cross!

Picture of Billy Sunday borrowed from here.

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7

Chuck Colson, Sam Storms, and Jonathan Edwards on Music

~ fundyreformed ~ 7 Comments

Recently I became aware of a debate over the use of contemporary music in church–a debate taking place among evangelicals (or as IFBs might say, new evangelicals). It has centered on the web and is not really a huge debate or anything, but it has resulted in some helpful postings which deserve notice.

BACKGROUND: The debate started with an article, that Chuck Colson wrote for Christianity Today. The article points out that evangelicalism is “soothing [itself] to death”. He points to the prevalence of music on Christian radio as opposed to teaching and preaching. He even critiques how much of the music on Christian radio today is more about entertainment than worship.

The controversy, though, surrounds his opening paragraph where he describes his frustration over the song “Draw Me Close to You”, and by implication, others like it. He calls that song a “meaningless ditty” with “zero theological content” which could just as easily be “sung in any nightclub”.

Dr. Sam Storms responded to this article with an evaluation of that song entitled “Mr. Colson, I Respectfully Disagree”. Justin Taylor ,of Between Two Worlds, agreed with Storms, while Tim Challies, of TimChallies.Com (one of the most popular Christian blogs), disagreed with them both (siding with Colson). Finally, Bob Kauflin, of Worship Matters, gave his evaluation of the song which in effect was a middle of the road position.

HELPFUL CONTRIBUTIONS: I think everyone involved in this debate has made some helpful contributions. As Bob Kauflin points out, “We should be concerned with how we worship God, careful about what songs we sing and listen to, and discerning about our motives. I thank God that Colson’s article encourages us to think about all three.” And I generally agree with the main thrust of Colson’s critique. There is much Christian music out there which is not all that concerned about doctrine and truth. Entertainment is okay, but we need more than that–especially in the public, coorporate worship of our churches.

Justin Taylor served us all by publicizing Sam Storms’ article, so he gets credit. Storms took issue with Colson’s singling out “Draw Me Close to You”, and he also highlighted some important truths about music, which I will focus on here shortly.

Challies presented some great principles with which to test our music. I disagree with how he applied them to the song in question, but the principles themselves are great, nonetheless. The discussion after Challies’ post is full of good content also (at least the first score or so of the comments–the ones I actually read).

And, lastly, Kauflin helpfully pointed out the need for songs to make explicit how Christ’s work on the cross impacts our lives. The song expresses a desire for God to be near to us, but it “never references what God has done to bring us near through the atoning sacrifice of His Son”.

Before I go on to look at Storms’ contribution in particular, let me provide Kauflin’s conclusion to this saga, as he really does a good job of focusing our attention on what the issue really is.

“Is Draw Me Close symptomatic of a larger problem in Christian hymnody? I think so. For more than a hundred years we’ve favored emotional, response-type songs over songs that magnify the nature, attributes, and works of God. We need both, and more songs that help us do both at the same time. We tend to pit doctrine against devotion and both camps end up the worse for it. Is singing this song proof that a particular church has gone off the deep end into subjectivism and man-centered emotion? No. Are there better songs to sing in congregational worship? I believe so.This is far more than an issue of hymns vs. contemporary choruses. There are sentimental, feeling oriented hymns, as well as contemporary songs with rich theological content. It’s an issue of pastors taking responsibility for what their churches are singing, leading them wisely into truth-based affections, and making sure that good fruit is being produced in their lives. It’s also an issue of all of us making sure that we’re not taking pride in the particular songs we sing or don’t sing.

May we all proclaim the beauty, authority, and truth of Jesus Christ with our lives, remembering that neither passion nor propositional truth is out of place when we worship God. They were meant to go together.”

STORMS’ CONTENTIONS: Sam Storms begins with some interesting observations: “But my suspicion is that many who express their disdain for contemporary Christian worship do so less out of theological conviction or from an objection to its alleged aesthetical shortcomings and more from a discomfort with the way in which such songs call for and facilitate personal engagement with God.” He goes on to point out how many hymns allow the soul to “keep God at arm’s length”–to avoid an engaging of the heart in worship. He criticizes a style of singing hymns which “never requires a person to honestly open their heart to God’s presence and encounter him in a truly vulnerable and honest way”. He says singing “about” God is important, but that this is not the same as singing “to” God in personal confession.

He then makes a startling assertion, “The fact is, the primary appeal of contemporary Christian worship is that its lyrics and melody have the capacity not merely to stimulate the mind but awaken the spirit and stir the affections and intensify the expression of our hunger for God and our satisfaction in him alone.”

THE BIBLICAL FUNCTION OF MUSIC: What most impressed me with Storms’ article, was his discussion of the Biblical function of music. He gives the following quote by Jonathan Edwards, from his book On Religious Affections, “[The singing of praises to God seems] to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections. No other reason can be assigned why we should express ourselves to God in verse, rather than in prose, and do it with music, but only, that such is our nature and frame, that these things have a tendency to move our affections.”

This is the main point I wanted to stress in this post. Music is designed as a vehicle for expressing our emotions to God. I agree with Sam that many wrongly suppress and fear emotions. And I also agree with Sam that modern worship songs are an excellent vehicle for expressing emotion. Several of my posts about the good modern songs we sing at my church, have me saying the same thing: “this song really lifts the heart and directs it toward Christ”. So many of these songs lift me out of myself and direct my hope and yearning–my very being–to Christ. They fill me with hope and faith and joy and life! This is why I really appreciate them. It is so much more than merely tapping my feet to the rhythm.

I will end with several pertinent paragraphs from Sam’s article, but for the specific words of the song in question and Sam’s final evaluation of it in particular, feel free to reference his article, here.

“Some actually orchestrate worship in such a way that the affections of the heart are reined in and, in some cases, even suppressed. People often fear the external manifestation of internal zeal and love and desire and joy. Though they sing, they do so in a way that the end in view is the mere articulation of words and declaration of truths. But if that were what God intended, why did he not ordain that we recite, in prose, biblical truths about him? Why sing? It can’t be simply for the aesthetic value of music or because of the pleasure it brings, for that would be to turn worship manward, as if we are now the focus rather than God.We sing because God has created not only our minds but also our hearts and souls, indeed our bodies as well, in such a way that music elicits and intensifies holy affections for God and facilitates their lively and vigorous expression.

The same may be said of how God operates on our souls in the preaching of his Word. Books and commentaries and the like provide us with “good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the things of the Word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men’s hearts and affections” (115). So, with a view to affecting sinners and not merely informing them, God has appointed that his Word be applied in a particularly lively way through preaching.

Therefore, concludes Edwards, when we think of how public worship should be constructed and what methods should be employed in the praise of God and the edification of his people, “such means are to be desired, as have much of a tendency to move the affections. Such books, and such a way of preaching the Word, and administration of ordinances, and such a way of worshiping God in prayer, and singing praises, is much to be desired, as has a tendency deeply to affect the hearts of those who attend these means” (121).

When people object that certain styles of public worship seem especially chosen for their capacity to awaken and intensify and express the affections of the heart, they should be told that such is precisely the God-ordained purpose of worship. What they fear, namely, the heightening and deepening of the heart’s desire and love for God, and the expansion and increase of the soul’s delight and joy in God, what they typically call “emotionalism” or even “manipulation” , is the very goal of worship itself. For God is most glorified in his people when their hearts are most satisfied (i.e., when they are most “affected” with joy) in him (John Piper).”

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7