"We used to sing our theology"

This was a comment made to me by a class mate.  He was mourning the loss of theological depth in worship, believing that in many churches, songs focusing on a personal experience of God have supplanted songs focusing on the nature of God.

Now, I'm a big fan of both forms of worship, both Hillsong/Vineyard and Sovereign Grace/PDI, Matt Redman and Mark Altrogge, Michael W. Smith and Augustus Toplady.  Balance is wonderful.  If all I sing is experiential -- how wonderful God is to me -- then eventually my worship is more about me than about God.  If all I sing is objective -- how wonderful God is in Himself -- then I am not glorifying God fully, since part of praising Him is treasuring Him personally.  So I seek to emphasize first how wonderful God is, then reflect as well on how wonderful He is to me.

But that's not the main point of my wandering comment this morning.  I was looking through a hymnal at home last night, and was struck by the breadth and depth of these older hymns.

You see, I love old books.  Mostly I love to read them, but I also love to have them in my hands, if possible.  My grandfather was an enthusiastic collector of old books, all old books.  Library sell-offs (and cast offs), auctions, all of these were fertile ground for harvesting more old books.  His shelves are a fascinating collection of peculiar tomes ("The Life of Man as Illustrated in a Series of Woodcuts"), pragmatic pamphlets ("The Knotts' Berry Book"), long-forgotten editions ("Best Short Stories of 1912") and a few remarkable gems ("The Atomic Age Begins").

Amongst these was a short, stout, warped and tattered volume whose title can just barely be made out amongst the cracked leather of its spine: "Methodist Hymns".  The title page is a little more readable and voluble: "Hymns for the use of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Revised Edition, New York, 1854."  Written in pencil on the front and back inner pages, in a childish scribble, is the name Martha Long.  If I remember correctly, she is my great-great aunt.  Maybe there should be another "great" in there.

Now, being hard-core Calvinist, I am in disagreement with some significant elements of old Methodism (and even more with modern Methodism), but boy! could they sing!  All of the members of this church back in Aunt Martha's days had their own copies of this hymnal.  It was clearly designed to be used both on Sundays and throughout the week.  And talk about singing your theology!  Just look at the categories of songs in this 750+ page book:

• Introduction to worship
• The Divine Perfections
• Jesus Christ
• The Holy Spirit
• Institutions of the Gospel

  The Ministry

  The Church

  The Sabbath

  Baptism

  The Lord's Supper

• Provisions and Promises of the Gospel
• The Sinner

  Depravity

  Awakening

  Inviting

  Penitential

• The Christian Life

  Justification by Faith

  Adoption and Assurance

  Sanctification

• Means of Grace

  Prayer and Intercession

  Family Devotion

  The Clost

  Reading the Scriptures

• Christian Fellowship
• Duties and Trials

  The Warfare

  Patience and Resignation

  Growth in Grace

• Humiliation

  Unfaithfulness mourned

  Backslidings lamented

• Rejoicing

  Deliverance from Trouble

  Communion with God

  Prospect of Heaven

• Special Occasions
• Time and Eternity
• Close of Worship 

And let me just share one of these hymns with you.  This is number 676.  The songs did not for the most part have titles, but summary lines, which for this one is "Riches of God's word".

The counsels of redeeming grace
    The sacred leaves unfold;
And here the Saviour's lovely face
    Our raptured eyes behold.

Here light descending from above
    Directs our doubtful feet;
Here promises of heavenly love
    Our ardent wishes meet.

Our num'rous griefs are here redresse'd,
    And all our wants supplied;
Naught we can ask to make us blest
    Is in this book denied.

For these inestimable gains,
    That so enrich the mind,
O may we search with eager pains,
    Assured that we shall find.

Amen!

Experience is the best teacher?

Post removed by author.

John Piper on Evangelism

Love is doing whatever you need to do to help people see and savour the glory of God in Christ forever and ever.

>From Pierced by the Word, #1.

John Piper on Prayer...

Prayer is the echo of the freedom and sufficiency of God in the heart of powerless man.
John Piper.

John Piper speaks...

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He removed forever the wrath of God from all who trust Him.  God's disposition to us now is entirely mercy, even when severe and disciplinary. (Rom 8:1)

John Piper, Pierced by the Word, #27

A Work In Progress

Creation of this blog was a bit of a happy accident, but I'll see what sort of value I can provide. Meanwhile, here is an extract from a letter written by Samuel Rutherford (1660-1661) to a lady friend in Scotland.

This letter has been a great encouragement and challenge to me, to focus on the eternal splendour of our Lord and our final Home.

Tom

Mistress- Grace, mercy and peace be unto you. You are not a little obliged to His rich grace, who has separated you for Himself, and for the promised inheritance with the saints in light, from this condemned and guilty world. Hold fast to Christ, content for Him; it is a lawful plea to go to holding and having for Christ; and it is not possible to keep Christ peaceably, having once gotten Him, except the devil were dead. It must be your resolution to set your face against Satan's northern tempests and storms, for salvation. Nature would have heaven to come to us while sleeping in our beds. We would all buy Christ, as if we could any of us pay the price ourselves. But Christ is worth more blood and lives than either you or I have to give Him. When we shall come home, and enter into the possession of our Brother's fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, then we shall look back to pains and sufferings and then we will see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory. Our little inch of time -- suffering is not worthy of our first night's welcome-home to heaven. Oh, what then shall be the weight of every one of Christ's kisses! Oh, how weighty, and of what worth shall be every one of Christ's love-smiles be! Oh, when once He shall thrust a wearied traveler's head between His blessed breasts, the poor soul will think one kiss of Christ has fully paid him back for forty or fifty years' wet feet, and all its sore hearts, and light (2 Cor. 4:17) sufferings it had in following after Christ! Oh, thrice blinded souls, whose hearts are charmed and bewitched with dreams, shadows, feckless things, night-vanities, and night-fancies of a miserable life of sin! Shame on us who sit still, fettered with the love and fondness of a loan of a piece of dead clay! Oh, poor fools, who are beguiled with painted things, and this world's fair weather, and smooth promises, and rotten, worm-eaten hopes! May not the devil laugh to see us give out our souls, and get in but corrupt and counterfeit pleasures of sin? O for a sight of eternity's glory, and a little tasting of the Lamb's marriage supper! Half a swallow, even a drop of the wine of consolation, that is up at our banqueting-house, out of Christ's own hand, would make our stomachs loath the brown bread and the sour drink of a miserable life. Oh, how witless we are, to grow restless, and chase, and run, till our souls be out of breath, after a condemned happiness of our own making! And do we not think far too much of ourselves when we make it a matter of child's play, and drink a toast over paradise? We trifle with the heaven that Christ did sweat for, in return for a blast of smoke, and for Esau's morning breakfast. O that we were out of ourselves, and dead to this world, and this world dead and crucified to us! If we would fall out of love with all our masked and painted lovers, then Christ would win and conquer to Himself a lodging in the inmost chamber of our heart. Then Christ would be our night-song and morning-song; then the very whisper of our Well-beloved's feet, when He comes, and His first knock or rap at the door, would be as news of two heavens to us. O that our eyes and our soul's smelling should go after a blasted and sunburnt flower, even this plastered, fair (on the outside) world; and as a result we have neither eye nor smell for the Flower of Jesse, for that Plant of renown, for Christ, the choicest, the fairest, the sweetest rose that ever God planted! Oh, let some of us die to smell the fragrance of Him; and let my part of this rotten world be forfeited and sold for ever, provided I may anchor my tottering soul upon Christ! I know that sometimes I murmur, "Lord, what will you have for Christ?" But, O Lord, can you be trifled with and propined with any gift for Christ? O Lord, can Christ be sold? Or rather, may not a poor needy sinner have Him for nothing? If I can get no more, oh, let me be pained to all eternity, with longing for Him! The joy of hungering for Christ should be my heaven for evermore. Alas, that I cannot draw souls and Christ together! But I desire the coming of His kingdom, and that Christ, as I assuredly hope He will, would come upon withered Scotland, as rain upon the new-mown grass.