Warning: Long Post Ahead

Wait for it!

Wait for it!

It's a little more - okay, a lot more - about prayer. For one's self. For others. For what God wants.

I've got a good start on it, but I need some time to do it right, and I don't have a lot of time right now. I need to finish re-naming and posting new pictures to my church's online database, post a couple or three New Wineskins articles, and I've got a full weekend of getting my son to an out-of-town chess tournament and back, plus two back-to-back reception events for friends Saturday night.

So, visit some other blogs and speculate about what I might turn up in my post.

Since I'm still doing the research, I have no idea myself.

Numbers

Sometime during the next 24-48 hours it looks like my little counter will tick off my 50,000th unique visitor.

That's kind of a misnomer. It really means that the same handful of people have logged in to the internet 50,000 times and have visited my site in the last 22 months. And while each of them is unique, there aren't 50,000 of them.

I'm not much into stats and origins of visitors, numbers of lurkers, etc. - so I don't have a fancy package to tell me all those things.

I'm just glad to have been ticking off people since 2005.

I don't really have in mind any kind of prize or celebration.

Does that tick you off?

Pray For Your Enemies

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. - Jesus, Matthew 5:43-45

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. " - Jesus, Luke 6:27-28

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse." - Paul, the apostle; Romans 12:14

In a scathing rebuke of those who claim to follow Christ but do not pray for their enemies, Mark Twain wrote a short piece - unpublished during his lifetime - called "The War Prayer." In it, a man claiming to be a messenger of God re-prays the prayer of support for a war that a congregation has just heard, the unuttered but implied prayer:

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

A little over six years ago, late in the day September 11, 2001, I heard a very different prayer pour forth from the heart of a brother asked to lead a prayer for our enemies as our church family gathered to mourn the dead and pray for safety. He is an elected official, as American as you can be; as Republican as you can get. He humbled himself and the rest of us before God and prayed for our enemies. He confessed that he would rather pray like David did about his enemies and God's enemies, but that the love of Christ constrained him otherwise and that he was determined to feel that love only. He prayed that our enemies' hearts would be turned. But he prayed that our hearts would be turned, too; opened to others who see themselves as our enemies.

I wonder if - among all the accusing and correcting and reproving and rebuking that we Christians do, within and among our various fellowships - I wonder if there are even a few of us who pray for the brothers and sisters whom they regard as enemies of their conviction and enemies of God.

Doctrine Is Important

I think it is both intellectually and spiritually dishonest to level the charge against anyone who disagrees with your interpretation of scripture, "Then you must not believe that doctrine is important."

"Doctrine" means "teachings, beliefs." Doctrine is vital. Scripture could not be clearer on the matter. What we may disagree upon is whether your interpretation of scripture - or mine or anyone else's - is doctrine, or not.

I find these items to be doctrinal:

• "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16


• "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." - John 14:6


• "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." - Mark 16:16


• Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: "Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son." - John 2:22


• Jesus came from God incarnationally: "Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist." - 2 John 1:7


• "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." - John 1:21


• "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." - Galatians 5:6


• "As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean." - Romans 14:14

These are in no particular order; nor are they intended to be comprehensive. There are, for instance, a good number of imperatives Jesus shared, most of which are applicable to His followers today. But I believe the items cited above represent foundational principles of the apostles' doctrine - and the points of departure for the heresies of the first few centuries of Christendom.

You will not find most of those items in current debate among followers of Christ today, except perhaps the last one - which is terribly inconvenient to the mindset which preaches that everything is an issue; everything one can do is either intrinsically right or wrong; pleasing or displeasing to God; commendable by heaven or condemnable to hell.

There are simply some things we can do - choices we make and actions we take - about which God says nothing.

They are matters of conscience.

We get into trouble when we elevate matters of conscience to something else; try to superimpose scripture upon them and make them look like God's law. That's what Jesus took the Pharisees and teachers of the law to task for, over and over again. Matters of conscience are opinions, not doctrine.

So you can believe what you want to about a good number of items which simply are not doctrinal. And the context of the Romans passage above indicates that it is wrong for you to judge your sibling in Christ regarding an item of conscience as surely as it is wrong for that sibling to flaunt his or her freedom from conscience in the matter in order to make you violate yours.

We can disagree about matters of conscience - even teach what we disagree about - but there are limits.

One limit is calling them "doctrine."

There are matters about which we are to be "of one mind." There are others which are not.

Honestly, I think that if God had taught that we must worship while standing on one foot, Satan would find a way to split us into right-footers and left-footers, leaners and non-leaners, hoppers and non-hoppers, plus those who would disfellowship all the people who have had to have their feet amputated.

And a few who would cut off one foot to prove how "right" they are.

In a few short words, matters of conscience are never to become a game of "I'm right; you're wrong."

That's doctrine, as I see it, folks. And it is important.

So I close with the most dangerous challenge of all: Think for yourself. Study scripture for yourself. Don't accept what I say - what anyone says - as automatically right or wrong. Go to the Source. Prove all things. Hold fast what's good.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. - 2 Timothy 3:16-17

First Man, Last Man

Romans 5:12-21 presents an interesting contrast between Adam (through whom sin and death came into the world) and Christ (who conquered sin and death for the world). In a treatise on the resurrection body, Paul elaborates on the metaphor in I Corinthians 15:42-49, calling Christ the "last Adam."

Pondering those thoughts in a Romans class that I co-teach with one of my elders (he was teaching last night), it dawned on me that there are even parallels in the temptation each faced, comparing Genesis 3:6 and Luke 4:1-13:

1. Hunger: A basic human need and craving. Eve "saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye." The devil tempted Jesus - starving from a 40-day fast - to turn stones into bread. His response was to quote the first part of Deuteronomy 8:3: "Man does not live by bread alone," which concludes in the original scripture, "... but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." Jesus was fasting; a commitment that He had made which was undoubtedly accompanied by meditation and prayer in that lonely, desert place. God's word was sustaining Him; providing the strength He needed in preparation to begin His ministry for His Father. You don't interrupt a commitment to fast to satisfy a momentary hunger pang. And if you're the Son of God, you don't use the extraordinary abilities given to you to benefit yourself. And that's the attraction to this temptation: Isn't it natural to be hungry? Doesn't God expect us to eat? Of course He does - but the health risks now faced by millions of overweight people in this country alone testify that He does not want us to supersatiate every appetite He has given us. Serving self costs.


2. Ambition: Eve had been led by the tempter to believe that the fruit was the key to gaining wisdom and equality with God. The devil quoted scripture, a Messianic prophecy (Psalm 91:11-12) to entice Jesus into stepping off from a high place (Matthew 4:5 says it was the highest point on the temple) so that angels would bear Him up and prove His divinity to all. Jesus returns to the law in Deuteronomy 6:6 for His response, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." There is a way to be like God, even to reign with Him at some point: that Way is His Son. There is no other.


3. Collusion: Eve drew her husband Adam into the temptation, compounding the charges with conspiracy: "... She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." The devil's temptation of Jesus involved taking Him to a very high mountain (or "place," as Matthew calls it) and showing Him "in an instant" all the kingdoms of the world. This, too, was a temptation to power used for self, but at a price: partnership with Satan himself. Collusion. Conspiracy. Again, Jesus quotes the law (Deuteronomy 6:13): "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only."

That's really the heart of it, isn't it? At the center of every temptation is the lie that we can serve self and still serve God. That lie denies self-sacrifice. It ignores Christ's example. It says, "You shall not surely die." It whispers, "You're as important as God, aren't you? Doesn't He want the best for you? Didn't He give up His Son for you?"

He did, of course. And He does want the best for us. It's just that He sees what's truly the best for us, and we see what we want and think it's the best for us.

So we fall, as we have always fallen - all the way back to the first man, Adam.

But it's not a bad posture, as long as we use it in worship to the last Man standing.

The Sinner's Prayer

How many people can you think of in scripture who specifically prayed to God to be forgiven of their sin(s) and received what they asked for?

The closest I can come is a suggestion from Peter and John to Simon, the would-be spiritual sorcerer - and the "perhaps" seems to be no guarantee that God will automatically forgive:

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money and said, "Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit." Peter answered: "May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin." Then Simon answered, "Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me." - Acts 8:18-24

Simon seems to have perceived that he needs the prayers of someone else, just as James recommends:

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5:14-16

Nor is he alone. In the Old Testament, Pharaoh seems to recognize the same need:

Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you. Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the LORD your God to take this deadly plague away from me." Moses then left Pharaoh and prayed to the LORD. Exodus 10:16-18

In fact, there are lots of examples in scripture where someone prays for another for the forgiveness of their sins: Abraham (Genesis 20:17); Moses (Numbers 14:19-20); Samuel (1 Samuel 12:19-24); Asaph (Psalm 79:5-8); Solomon (I Kings 8:46-51); Daniel (Daniel 9:17-19); Jesus (Luke 23:34); Stephen (Acts 7:59-60). You'll note in many of the Old Testament citations, the prayer is for all the people, not just a particular individual. You might even recall that Samuel (I Samuel 15:24-26) would not accept Saul's penitence and plea for forgiveness because God had rejected him as king - possibly because he had just lied about his disobedience, compounding sin upon sin.

And Job (Job 7:20-21) begs God for forgiveness, but God's reply is only a question: "Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?" (40:8). Yet, at the close of the encounter, God indicates that He will forgive Job's friends for their impertinence if only Job will pray for them (42:7-9) and He does so - after he has prayed for his friends (42:10). On the other hand, though God restores Job's losses by doubling them, no mention is made of forgiveness.

While Jabez prays for a blessing that God grants (1 Chronicles 4:9-10), nothing is said about forgiveness there, either.

David prays for God's mercy and relief from bloodguilt in Psalm 51 ... but there is no response. Did he receive what he asked for?

Jesus instructs that prayer should be plural when asking forgiveness in Matthew 6:9-15. In Mark 11:25, He instructs that a forgiving spirit in prayer must be a prerequisite to God's forgiveness. He tells a story in Luke 18:9-14 about a publican who admits to God he is a sinner and begs for mercy, and goes home justified before God. Is that the same as forgiveness? If it is, was the publican a real person, or a character - a loner with no friends to pray for him - in a story meant primarily to illustrate the futility of confidence in one's own righteousness and the power of confession in a public way, in a public place?

Some time back I blogged that "I have come to pray less for myself and more for others," (Answers to Prayer) without really explaining the scriptural basis of why I believe "this is where much of the power of community in God's kingdom lies."

So am I missing something?

Can you come up with someone in scripture who prayed for forgiveness for himself or herself, and received what was requested?

Or is it possible that there is something more vital to our need for community, confession, transparency, humility and public penitence than we have generally recognized?

Jesus and the Law

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. - John 1:7

The fourth gospel opens with this testimony that with the arrival of God's Son on this world, things were different. The apostle Paul expands on that difference:

... through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. - Romans 8:2

Where did this new view of God's relationship with mankind come from?

I would maintain it came from Jesus Himself.

Jesus had a disdain for the practice of "using" the law to deny relief to the suffering, the tired, the hungry. See the story of the man with the withered hand: Matthew 12:9-14, Mark 3:1-6, and Luke 6:6-11. He was questioned - called down, really, by the Pharisees - for doing good, but still working, on (heaven forbid) the Sabbath! See what precipitated that; the fact that some of Jesus' followers ate grain but did work by picking and rubbing the husks off on (horrors!) the Sabbath; the day of rest: Luke 6:1-5. They're still following Him to document Sabbath violations later, so in Luke 14:1-6, Jesus again asks them, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" Right in front of them, again He heals someone; this time a fellow with dropsy. And they have nothing to say.

Healing people on the Sabbath wasn't covered in the law. But lack of coverage in God's law didn't stop the Pharisees and teachers of the law from "interpreting" every new possibility and legislating it from that point onward. Then it became "law," though they sometimes were honest enough to distinguish it as just "the tradition of the elders." When His followers didn't wash their hands before eating - one of those "traditions" - Jesus' response was that they had set aside God's law for their tradition of "Corban" (Matthew 15:1-20). But when Jesus didn't wash His hands before eating, his Pharisee host's surprise triggered His denunciation of all kinds of self-righteousness (Luke 11:37-54), including two that got right to the heart of what they were doing:

And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. (v. 46b)

Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering. (v. 52)

Doubtless you will note that these encounters with Jesus would simply strengthen the resolve of His opponents to seek a way to put Him to death. Well, shouldn't they have? Doesn't Exodus 31:14-17 say explicitly that "Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day must be put to death."?

Doesn't "any" mean "any"?

Jesus' response in Mark's account of His followers picking grain to eat it on the Sabbath includes this phrase: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27)

So was Jesus "anti-law"? Hardly:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 5:17-20

What did He mean by that?

I think Paul fleshes it out for us:

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! - Galatians 2:21

The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.- Romans 5:19-21

He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. - 2 Corinthians 3:6

Jesus also had a disdain for the practice of "using" the law to deny relief to the sinful, the hopeless, the lost. So much disdain, it was worth His life to provide that relief. That's what He achieved when He uttered the cry on the cross: "It is accomplished!"

He made it simple for us to enter the kingdom of heaven, rather than making it harder. One commandment, predicated upon the two He deemed greatest in the law:

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. - John 15:12

Can we justify making it more difficult for others and ourselves; making it more complicated than it needs to be to have relief from sin and a relationship with God the Father through Him, after what Jesus has done to simplify?

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned." - Mark 16:15-16

Do we dare insist upon creeds of conformity, patterns of perfectionism, laws of legalism, or doctrines of damnationism in light of the simple law of Christ?

Fred Peatross

No, I don't know what's happened to his blog ... or to him!

His Grace Awakening site is still live.

As is the old Abductive Columns archive blog on Blogspot.

I've e-mailed him. I'm hoping he'll let me know.

Because there are very few free-thinkers who can challenge and irritate and annoy and needle me like Fred does.

And I need that.

A Cappella and the Ancient of Days

All scripture aside ... all hermeneutics aside ... all logic aside ... all passion aside.

With all that put aside, let me tell you why at the core I cannot agree with the proposition that God would condemn to eternal hell a soul who praised Him with a musical instrument.

Because I would not want for God to take me into a private closet at judgment and ask me: "Keith, I gave you a beautiful little daughter, didn't I? A joy to your life and the delight of your eye? With a sweet voice that goes straight to your heart?

"Keith, If she had ever bounced into the room where you were sitting and said, 'Daddy, I'm so happy I just don't know what to do!' and you answered, 'Well, I'd love it if you sang me a song,' and she ran and got her little blue electronic keyboard that you bought her for Christmas and sang to you with it ... Keith, would you have flown into a rage and cursed her and screamed, 'I said SING! I never said ANYTHING about PLAYING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT!' and bound her up and threw her into a burning city dump to die?

"Is that the kind of Father you think I AM?"

A Cappella and the Ancients

Have you ever written something in vehement and vociferous opposition to something you like?

If you really enjoy watching a particular television program, do you spend a lot of words taking it apart piece by piece, critiquing the acting, the script, the cinematography, the score, the special effects and the editing?

If you feel it has a place in the world of entertainment, do you mention it at all in your writing? Or just enjoy it?

The reason I ask is that one of the claims made by those who seek to condemn instrumental praise is that "The early church didn't use it."

That, simply put, is a conclusion drawn from a handful of non-biblical historic critiques of the practice from people who obviously did not like it.

The source which makes that implication is none other than Eusebius of Caesarea (A.D. 275-339) in his commentary on Psalm 91:2-3:

Of old, at the time those of the circumcision were worshipping with symbols and types, it was not inappropriate to send up hymns to God with the psalterion and cithara and to do this on Sabbath days ... We render our hymn with a living psalterion and a living cithara with spiritual songs. The unison voices of Christians would be more acceptable to God than any musical instrument. Accordingly in all the churches of God, united in soul and attitude, with one mind and in agreement of faith and piety we send up a unison melody in the words of the Psalms.

He makes this statement at a time in church history when Christians could not agree on the relationship among God and Christ and the Holy Spirit. So it is possible that he writes of the way he feels the church should be, though not necessarily as it was. His remarks are, after all, commentary. (Though it's also possible he polled all of his fellow bishops at the Council of Nicea [A.D. 325] and states an accurate summary. It's one of those writings that you can easily accept as indisputable fact if you're inclined to do so, seeing no other possibility.)

And his contemporary, Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354-430), gives a clue why he might have felt that way when describing the singing at Alexandria:

... musical instruments were not used. The pipe, tabret, and harp here associate so intimately with the sensual heathen cults, as well as with the wild revelries and shameless performances of the degenerate theater and circus, it is easy to understand the prejudices against their use in the worship.

Now obviously their predecessor by a century, Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 190), didn't like instruments either - and wrote that each of the instruments of the scriptures he knew actually meant the human voice:

Leave the pipe to the shepherd, the flute to the men who are in fear of gods and intent on their idol worshipping. Such musical instruments must be excluded from our wingless feasts, for they are more suited for beasts and for the class of men that is least capable of reason than for men. The Spirit, to purify the divine liturgy from any such unrestrained revelry chants: 'Praise Him with sound of trumpet," for, in fact, at the sound of the trumpet the dead will rise again; praise Him with harp,' for the tongue is a harp of the Lord; 'and with the lute. praise Him.' understanding the mouth as a lute moved by the Spirit as the lute is by the plectrum; 'praise Him with timbal and choir,' that is, the Church awaiting the resurrection of the body in the flesh which is its echo; 'praise Him with strings and organ,' calling our bodies an organ and its sinews strings, for from them the body derives its Coordinated movement, and when touched by the Spirit, gives forth human sounds; 'praise Him on high-sounding cymbals,' which mean the tongue of the mouth which with the movement of the lips, produces words. Then to all mankind He calls out, 'Let every spirit praise the Lord,' because He rules over every spirit He has made. In reality, man is an instrument arc for peace, but these other things, if anyone concerns himself overmuch with them, become instruments of conflict, for inflame the passions. The Etruscans, for example, use the trumpet for war; the Arcadians, the horn; the Sicels, the flute; the Cretans, the lyre; the Lacedemonians, the pipe; the Thracians, the bugle; the Egyptians, the drum; and the Arabs, the cymbal. But as for us, we make use of one instrument alone: only the Word of peace by whom we pay homage to God, no longer with ancient harp or trumpet or drum or flute which those trained for war employ.

(Evidently Clement would have no difficulty with the singing group called A Cappella, which imitates instrumental sounds by using tongue and palate and lips.) Yet, in a work dated five years earlier, he weakens the argument by lauding the power of David's harp to send "daemons" fleeing from Saul:

Moreover, King David the harpist, whom we mentioned just above, urged us toward the truth and away from idols. So far was he from singing the praises of daemons that they were put to flight by him with the true music; and when Saul was Possessed, David healed him merely by playing the harp. The Lord fashioned man a beautiful, breathing instrument, after His own imaged and assuredly He Himself is an all-harmonious instrument of God, melodious and holy, the wisdom that is above this world, the heavenly Word." … "He who sprang from David and yet was before him, the Word of God, scorned those lifeless instruments of lyre and cithara. By the power of the Holy Spirit He arranged in harmonious order this great world, yes, and the little world of man too, body and soul together; and on this many-voiced instruments of the universe He makes music to God, and sings to the human instrument. "For thou art my harp and my pipe and my temple."

... and he makes an interesting claim that "He who sprang from David and yet was before him, the Word of God, scorned those lifeless instruments of lyre and cithara." One is led to presume he means Jesus, the only One who could have sprang from David yet preceded him. Yet the claim is unsubstantiated by scripture - unless the phrase that follows, "Thou art my harp and my pipe and my temple," is a snippet of scripture lost to us yet known to Clement.

John Chrysostom (A.D. 347-407) seems to echo Clement's interpretation, yet it is not immediately clear that he is expressing any disdain for instrumental praise; he may simply be building a metaphor for the unity and full harmony of mind and body:

David formerly sang songs, also today we sing hymns. He had a lyre with lifeless strings, the church has a lyre with living strings. Our tongues are the strings of the lyre with a different tone indeed but much more in accordance with piety. Here there is no need for the cithara, or for stretched strings, or for the plectrum, or for art, or for any instrument; but, if you like, you may yourself become a cithara, mortifying the members of the flesh and making a full harmony of mind and body. For when the flesh no longer lusts against the Spirit, but has submitted to its orders and has been led at length into the best and most admirable path, then will you create a spiritual melody.

Now, these are the most ancient of the sources I usually see quoted by folks who don't like instrumental praise and are convinced that God hates it too.

The oldest is still nearly a century past century one, and far more than a hundred years past the cross and Pentecost. If the New Testament does imply an early church beset by difficulties without and within - pagan and Jewish persecution, Judaizing teachers, pre-Gnostic and/or Gnostic teachers; Roman emperors ordering them hunted down, tortured and slaughtered - and if those difficulties continued and worsened for the next couple of centuries, it would be perfectly understandable that cell churches would have worshiped as quietly as possible to avoid detection ... followed by torture and protracted death, in many cases. Instrumental praise might not have been their first choice.

Expedience becomes practice; practice becomes precedent; precedent becomes tradition; and if we're not careful, tradition becomes law - whether two thousand years ago, or less than two hundred.

Nevertheless, nearly two hundred years have passed within the span of century one to century three about which these writings tell us only one point of view. And it's important to note that it is a point of view. It is commentary. It is not scripture. No one claims that these writers were inspired. They themselves do not claim it. Nor do these writings appeal to scriptures which directly support their point of view.

They are mere mentions among the volumes of works generated by some of these authors, which implies to me that their opinion on the matter was of distinctly less importance than many others they discussed.

So when those who dislike vocal and instrumental praise maintain it is incontrovertible fact that the early church absolutely did not worship with musical instruments and none of the apostolic or successive leaders approved of it ... well, is it?

Really? When those who appreciated vocal and instrumental praise as they had known it in their previous worship - Jewish or pagan - would have felt no compunction to write against a cappella worship because they liked it, too?

Do these quotes prove anything other than the depth of history through which this difference of opinion extends?

And all those who followed - from Barclay to Clark to Knox to Luther to Spurgeon to Wesley; from Campbell to Franklin to Lipscomb to McGarvey to Stone to West, and all in between and beyond - surely had their opinions, too. Many of them are quoted by those who dislike instrumental praise. Do they not in those quotes state their own opinions, traditions, and interpretations on the matters of instrumental praise and a cappella worship, however well-researched and clever?

Would we agree with all of their opinions on other religious issues? With most of them? Would time change some of them? Might C.H. Spurgeon's nineteenth-century declaration "I would as soon pray to God with machinery as to sing to God with machinery" be altered were he alive today and he realized that electronic machinery could help him lead prayer to millions?

I believe that the conclusion we can draw from these quotes is just this: It has long been true some folks like vocal and instrumental praise, and some folks prefer their a cappella worship unaccompanied.

And God, in His new covenant with man, mentions them together not at all. But scripture is not silent. He approved of both in the old covenant, whether together or separately. His revelation to John of Patmos paints a vision of both throughout eternity - whether literal or metaphorical.

Does it really make sense that His silence blesses and affirms one and condemns the other to eternal hell, but only during this span between the dawn of church and the end of days?

Or that He expects us to connect the dots between the eras and worship with the gifts and preferences He has given us, with all our hearts?

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<sub>Footnote: I just received my copy of the eleventh ZOE Group album, Overflow two days ago. It is a cappella worship at its best, to my ears and heart. It is like being able to hear the songs as God must hear the rest of us singing: a blended, liquid, near-perfect praise. It is as refreshing as water, purifying to the spirit, expressive as the face of an uninhibited child. There are other a cappella groups who lead worship through their singing, and I love to listen to them and sing with them, too. I like some better than others, and some groups speak to the hearts of other listeners more keenly than to mine.

I love to sing in the gathered worship of my church family, multi-part harmony, completely without accompaniment. It is nowhere near perfection, but it is for the most part the honest expression of the hearts and voices of those I love, declaring their adoration of God and affection for each other. If someone were to try to introduce instrumental praise among them, it would violate the conscience of many and destroy that beautiful harmony. I would not ever wish that among my family. Causing such disunity would violate my conscience.

I also love to worship - though I have not availed myself of the opportunity very much - with voices accompanied by those whose expressions come through musical instruments. As with unaccompanied singing, this worship is not mere entertainment for those gathered, but I do believe it is entertainment for God. He hears His chlldren perform selflessly for His pleasure, together, for at least those brief moments. Sometimes this worship is quiet, reverent, meditative. Other times it is loud, thrilling, exhiliarating. And often it is somewhere in-between, because it is the collective expression of many, among whom are broken hearts and eager thanksgivings and givers and sharers and keepers and losers. There are thoughtful ones, achieving ones, social ones, private ones, analytical ones, experiential ones - and He made them and gifted them each to be unique.

And I believe His heart is touched by expression of praise of all these, His children, together. If He had intended for the expression of instrumental praise to be punishable by eternal hell-fire, I would think that at least a footnote to that effect would appear in His holy scriptures. If a cappella praise were to be required as a precondition to salvation, I should think that Jesus would have at least mentioned to God that His followers might always sing unaccompanied along with His petition that they might all be one.

So you must understand that I consider it very wrong for me to try to speak for God where God does not speak ... to add to or subtract from what He has said ... to judge when God has commanded not to judge ... to condemn when I am clearly not qualified to do so ... to rely solely on merely human knowledge and logic where divine matters are concerned. I want to hope that others share those convictions.

My personal preferences are not the same as God's law. But God's law is definitely my preference.</sub>

How We Are Saved

Not by law, through certainty
Nor concord, through unity
Nor uneasy community
But by grace, through faith

Not by works of our doing
Nor correctly construing
Nor judgmental spewing
But by grace, through faith

Not by logic contrived
Nor by having arrived
Nor by feeling revived
But by grace, through faith

Not by praising heaven
Nor by having striven
Nor by our blood given
But by grace, through faith

To reach every nation
with words of salvation,
why not this recitation:
"It's by grace, through faith."