Songs of Redemption Project

I’m super pumped to announce that I’ll be in the studio this week recording a  6 song EP. The songs include…

• “There is a Fountain” (William Cowper)
• “He is Risen!” (Eric Schumacher)
• “Come Lord Jesus to Redeem Us” (Gary Parrett)
• “Upon this Mount (Isaiah 25:6-9) (Gary Parrett)
• “Look Ye Saints the Sight is Glorious”(Thomas Kelly)
• “Christ is Coming! Let Creation” (John R. MacDuff)

Each of these songs build the theme of Redemption from Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to our waiting for his return and our celebration of his return. This is an exciting project not only for me but also for our music team, our church and Jesus’ Church everywhere because the end result will be more Truth-saturated music in the ears, hearts and minds of many!

“By Thy Mercy” New Acoustic CD by Indelible Grace

One of my favorite sources of music for not only gathered worship but also driving down the road is Indelible Grace. And the cool news is that they just released a new, acoustic CD, “By Thy Mercy”! The men and women of Indelible Grace take old, forgotten and oft times neglected hymns and write new arrangements and melodies. You can be sure all their songs are truth-saturated, God-centered, and Christ-exalting.

You can check it out here at AmazonMP3.

You can preview the 10 tracks, too:

1. By Thy Mercy [feat. Matthew Smith]
2. Jesus Lord We Look To Thee [feat. Jason Feller]
3. A Prayer For The Broken Hearted [feat. Chelsey Scott]
4. Rock Of Ages When The Day Seems Long [feat. Mp Jones]
5. Greater Than Our Hearts [feat. Matthew Smith]
6. Salvation To The Lamb [feat. Emily Deloach]
7. Hallelujah Praise Jehovah [feat. Jeremy Casella]
8. Great God From Thee [feat. Andrew Osenga]
9. My God My Father Blissful Name [feat. Justin Smith]
10. Lo The Storms Of Life Are Breaking [feat. Sandra McCracken]

HT Vit Z

Admit it–You are a Glory Thief!

Lasting change takes place when people are not only shocked by the evil in their world, but by the degree to which they have lived as glory thieves, demanding for themselves what belongs only to the Lord.

–Paul Tripp, Instruments in theRedeemer’s Hands, p. 226.

Spurgeon Sabbatical 09

From June 22-July1 I have the uber privilege of being part of the Spurgeon Sabbatical. Here’s what I shared with my uber-supportive church as I get ready to live in Exile (aka Massachusetts) for wee bit.

Hello Church,

One of the things of love most about WBC is the passion and commitment to be generous towards the Kingdom of God, all around the world, locally and globally. Not just when it’s convenient but whenever God calls and enables us to.

Well, I want to thank you ahead of time for being generous to God’s people, specifically a group of pastors  that I will be serving at the Spurgeon Sabbatical, June 22-July 1. Your generosity in sending me to serve these pastors who come from all over the States and even around the world has been recieved with thankfulness by them in the past and I know will once again this year. They realize that it is a loving sacrifice for your pastor to serve you  “from a distance,” catching up with emails and phone calls in the afternoon and coming back just for the weekend.

This will be my 3rd time leading the gathered worship aspects of the Sabbatical–each day will begin and end with a time worshipping God together in song, Scripture reading and prayer. These times are meant to bookend our rigorous study and lively fellowship. This year’s topic is “Romans 1-5 Judgment and Justification: Keeping the Main Thing in Ministry, the Main Thing.” Our two texts will be Simon Gathercole’s Where is Boasting: Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1-5 and Mark Noll’s edited Where Shall My Wond’ring Soul Begin?  The Landscape of Evangelical Piety and Thought.

My time at the Spurgeon Sabbatical is more like a short-term mission trip than a vacation or simply attending or even leading a conference.  It will be exhausting. I will be away from my family. The days will be long. There will be intense soul-surgery. So…I humbly ask you to pray:

• Pray that God would encourage Heidi in my absence.
• Pray that I would serve with the strength that God supplies.
• Pray that God would free me from the tempation of self-importance.
• Pray that the 15 pastors would be personally renewed in their faith by our study of the gospel in Romans.
• Pray that these men would return with their eyes fixed firmly on the Lord Jesus Christ as their only hope and goal for their families and ministries.

We Become What We Worship, Chapter 5

Chapter 6 bridges the gap between idolatry in the Old and New Testaments. But the odd thing about the gospels is that they don’t talk about idolatry! At least not overtly. This lack of “idol talk” might lead one to believe that idolatry was no longer a problem. Perhaps the Babylonian Exile cured Israel of her idolatry?!

Beale doesn’t buy that argument. Israel was not cured of her idolatry. She simply exchanged her old idols for some new ones.

“Though words for idol or false god appear in the Gospels, this does not mean that there is no concept of idolatry there. Rather, though Israel’s reliance on idols in Jesus’ day did not take the form of bowing down to images, nevertheless, they did put their trust in something else besides  God, bringing judgment  on themselves, as it had come on earlier generations of Israel. Consequently, they were still idol worshipers in essence, though the outward form of it was expressed differently.” (p. 162)

Re-Formed Idolatry

Even though you never hear Jesus rebuking the Pharisees for bowing before a golden calf or for offering their children to Molech, he does in fact rebuke them for their re-formed idolatry. And as should be expected Beale connects the dots, showing how Jesus appeals to the foundational OT idolatry text of Isaiah 6 in nearly all of his rebukes against the religious leaders.

“There is reason to believe that Israel in Jesus’ time was, indeed, guilty of idol worship….Israel of Jesus’ day was idolatrous because it had worshiped tradition in place of God and his living Word, and this is why Jesus applies the idol text of Isaiah 6:9-10 in Matthew 13 to the Jews of his generation. New forms of idolatry were developing in Jesus’ time. Though Israel said, “We will never commit idolatry like our forefathers or like the nations,” they committed a differen and perhaps new form of idol worship….Israel’s predominant problem was replacing trust  in Jesus with worship of human-made tradition.” (p. 166)

Traditional Idolatry

In the OT Israel was described as “far from God” when they were worshiping idols and not God (Isaiah 29:13; Jeremiah 2:5). Jesus says the same of the Israel of his day when he calls to task for their overvaluing of tradition and their undervaluing of God’s Word (Mark 7:6-13).

“Therefore, the words which Jesus is quoting from Isaiah 29 concern the sin of idol worship in their originial Isaianic context. Mark 7:8 affirms that to neglect the “commandment of God” and hold to “the tradition of men” is to revere tradition  over God’s Word and thus to commit idolatry.” (p. 168)

What was the result of their idolatry? Blindness. Spiritual blindness. Matthew 15:14 records Jesus’ pronouncement of God’s judgment on tradition-worshiping Pharisees: “Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” The blindness of the Pharisees was a continuation of Jesus’ application of Isaiah’s prophecy in 6:9-10 and 29:13–idolaters  will be blinded, incapable of seeing God’s truth as trustworthy because they are trusting in their idol instead.

Reflect True Glory

“Israel of Jesus day was becoming spiritually dead as the human-made, stale, empty tradition to which they had committed themselves” (p. 176). This is why Jesus urged the crowds and taught the disciples to build their lives on his word, on God’s Word instead of man-made, idolatrous tradition (Matthew 7:24-27). To do this is to reflect true glory, God’s glory.

“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works [and how they reflect your Father's light], and glorify your Father who is in heaven [whose image you reflect].” (Matthew 5:16)

“Awesome” is a Pooped-Out Word

Isn’t it ironic that we’ll use “awesome” to describe everything from Jesus to a Popsicle?  Harold Best is fed up with it–”awesome” is simply pooped-out, here.

New Worship Blog

I just launched a new blog called Gathered Worship. I’ll be posting most of my thoughts about “worship”, planning and leading gathered worship, and living lives of scattered worship over there. I hope that it will be a resource especially for pastors, “gathered worship” leaders, music leaders, but also for everyone and anyone who has a role in leading and participating in gathered worship. That pretty much covers everyone! I also hope the blog will be a hub of humble, helpful, and holy conversation.

And…I’ll still continue to post my more random thoughts on theology, culture, Tolkien, ministry and life here at Eucatastrophe1o1.

Thanks for reading!

We Become What We Worship, Chapter 4

Chapter 4 explores “The Origin of Idolatry in the Old Testament.” And of course those origins go all the way back to The Beginning…Genesis 1-3. This chapter took me for a stroll down memory lane, during my Gordon-Conwell days with Gordon Hugenberger’s “Christ in the Old Testament” and “Theology of the Pentateuch.” Those were the days! Those were the days when I began to see the richness and beauty of biblical theology, the unity of Scripture, “tree theology”, Eden as the Garden Temple,  Adam and Eve as the vice-regent kings of God. Those were the days when I cut my teeth on Kline’s Kingdom Prologue. A very enjoyable chapter!

Beale admits right up front that Genesis 3 doesn’t explicitly portray Adam and Eve’s sin as “idolatry”, but his investigation reinforces his thesis: what we revere we resemble either to restoration or ruin. He argues that the moment Adam “stopped being committed to God and reflecting his image, he revered something else in place of God and resembled his new object of worship. Thus at the heart of Adam’s sin was turning from God and replacing reverence for God with a new object of reverence to which Adam become conformed.”

So he portrays Adam in two contrasting images, from the glorious to the un-glorious.

1. Adam as the image and likeness of the Creator.
2. Adam in the distorted image and likeness of the creation.

It’s no surprise that Beale spends most of his time examining the un-glorious, distorted image of Adam. Adam’s sin was bound up in his failure to guard the Garden temple from anything unclean. Rather than ruling over the unclean serpent, Adam becomes ruled by it. Rather than acting like the Creator-Judge and casting the serpent out of Eden, Adam becomes like the Snake-Accuser and finds  himself cast out of Eden.

We Become What We Worship, Chapter 3

It may not look like it, but I’m still working my way through Beale’s We Become What We Worship. (I’m actually in chapter 6.)

Chapter 3 “Evidence Elswhere in the Old Testament”  is a biblical theological road-trip. Heres the route Beale takes us on:   From Isaiah 6:9-10 turn left to Deuteronomy 29:4; then turn left to Exodus 32; next turn right to Psalm 106:20; stop at Hosea 4:7; don’t forget to turn around and go back to 1 Kings 17 and finally arrive at Jeremiah 2:5,11.

Here are some other highlights that I didn’t share in my previous (and misleadingly titled) post.

Glory-exchange

I benefited the most from Beale’s discussion on Psalm 106:19-20 (cf. Romans 1:23) and his explanation of how the post-Exodus Israelites “exchanged their glory” when they worshiped the golden baby cow. The simple and most common option is to understand “glory” as a synonym for God. In other words Israel traded YHWH for an idol; they should have worshiped the true God but instead worshipped an idol. Case closed.

Beale argues quite convincingly that this exchange of glory is more extensive. His summary:

“Thus Psalm 106:19-20 speaks of Israel not merely exchanging the true God for a false calf god but also includes the glory of God, which was demonstrated toward them and that they should have reflected, for the image of the idol that they subsequently reflected….[A] twofold reference is being made in the theologically packed expression their glory: a reference to God’s presence, and  his glorious attributes demonstrated toward Israel and which they were to reflect in themselves.” (p. 91)

The implications are the same for us as they were at the base of Sinai: our sin, our idolatry, our worship-gone-bad will make us more and more un-like God. We are either reflecting God’s glory or we are reflecting our idol’s un-glory. There is no stasis of the soul. Thank God that he is more committed to our reflecting his glory by conforming us into the image of Jesus than we are (Romans 8:28-30)!

Christian Hedonism

Beale sees this “glory-exchange” theme developed in other passages too. His analysis of Jeremiah 2:11-13 is nothing short of Christian Hedonism 101.

“Jeremiah 2:12-13 confirms this twofold notion in verse 11 of “his glory” (i.e. “his glory” including both exchanging worship of God and the reflection of his glory)….

Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
declares the Lord,
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jer 2:12-13)

It is “appalling what Israel has done in verse 11, and verse 13 gives two formal reasons for the appalling nature of this idolatry: (1) they have forsaken God and (2) have manufactured other gods….As a result of “forsaking” God, they are not able to share in the “living waters” that come form the “fountain” (God) from which they have cut themselves off, but now they share in “broken cisterns” that can hold no water; that is, they share in the “emptiness” of the false gods (who do not have the waters of life). Therefore, they have forsaken God for other gods and they no longer share in the life that emanates from God, but only the dead emptiness of their idols.” (p. 116)

Over the past month God has used this chapter to expose the ruinous nature of my idols, aka my “beloved sins.” By God’s marvelous grace I’m finding myself agreeing with Jeremiah, and I’ve been preaching my soul “Stop trying to find your joy, pleasure and security in these worthless pursuits.” I’ve wept in repentance and wept in rejoicing as I’ve sipped afresh from the Fountain of Living Water.  Who knew biblical theology could be so life-changing?!

We Become What We Worship, chapter 2

If you were to think of one special example, or a case study, of “worship gone bad” in the Old Testament where would you go? Well in chapter two of  We Become What We Worship Beale take us to Exodus 32–Israel’s idolatrous rendezvous with the golden calf. But the worship of the golden cow is not merely an occasional, isolated episode of idolatry. Nope. The wilderness generation’s idolatry is the paradigm for rightly understanding Israel’s future idolatry.

As the chapter title (“Evidence Elsewhere in the Old Testament”) suggests, Beale traces Israel’s idolatry throughout the OT. But he does so by “focusing on Exodus 32 and its reverberations later in the Old Testament” (p. 77). What is most striking is how the idol worshipers in each scenario are described as becoming like their idols, just as that first generation of Israelites had become like the cow. Beale notes how Moses describes them in a way to suggest they’d become like wild calves or untrained cows (pp. 77-78):

1. They became “stiffnecked” (Ex 32:9; 33:3, 5; 34:9) and would not obey, but
2. they “were let loose” because “Aaron had let them go loose” (Ex 32:25),
3. so that “they had quickly turned aside from the way,” (Ex 32:8) and they needed to be
4. “gathered together” again “in the gate” (Ex 32:26),
5. so that Moses could “lead the people where” God had told him to go (Ex 32:34).