ON READING

I came across this today and I thought that it could be of some help. I found it to be a rich reminder about the goal of Christian reading.

"Read as an act of worship. Read to be elevated into the great truths of God so that you may worship the Trinity in Spirit and in truth. Be selective about what you read, however. Measure all your reading against the touchstone of Scripture. So much of today's Christian literature is froth, riddled with Arminian theology or secular thinking. Time is too precious to waste on nonsense. Read more for eternity than time, more for spiritual growth than professional advancement. Think of John Trapp's warning: 'As water tastes of the soil it runs through, so does the soul taste of the authors that a man reads".

Quote taken from: Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching, Soli Deo Gloria Pub. 120.

Admonish One Another in Song

I have recently grown ill over the lack of emphasis, both by myself and others whom I know, on corporate singing as a part worship. For myself, I am not a huge "music person". I know nothing about it as far as melody, measure or rythm is concerned. However, as I said, I am now growing ill over the lack of emphasis that is placed upon singing among Christians in corporate worship.

Consider that the five books of the Psalms compose the largest literary section of all the Scriptures. The original title in the Hebrew for the book of Psalms means "songs of Praise" (tehillim). The books are saturated with the people of God responding to God's redemptive acts on their behalf for his own sovereign pleasure. The writers are writing with a congregation in view. The context of nearly every Psalm assumes the presence of the congregation of the people of God. Unarguably, the function of the Psalms was for both public and private WORSHIP. That is to say, if you take the title "Songs of Praise" and combine it with the books overall function "worship" you would have the largest portion of the Holy Scriptures functioning as a "Hymnal" of sorts (or preferably a book containing thousands of sweet Sovereign Grace worship songs). The Psalms were sung as a part of Israel's public worship!

Unfortunately, I have long missed this so OBVIOUS truth that I have argued that the NT is nearly silent on the issue of music and therefore music must not truly matter in the local church. That is to say, if we were to just toss out the "song service" altogether and get right to the preaching than I would be all for it. I now shout to myself, "How UNBIBLICAL!" How can a biblical ministry survive when it fails to recognize the importance of "adminishing one another" by "singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Col. 3:16-17)?

In this new thread of thinking I take away two key thoughts:

(1) All of us who have down played the role of music in corporate worship have really missed the boat.
(2) Singing songs with emotional responses is truly biblical (the Psalms represent every emotion possible). Our singing cannot be lifeless or we are not truly singing at all. Read the Psalms and remember that they were written for corporate singing! How is it that we can sing without ANY emotion to Jesus Christ our Savior? How does that "admonish" anyone?
(3) Consequently, the "battle" for sound Christian music within the local assembly, a part of the corporate worship of God's people, is a "battle" worth going through. That is for all of you who remain in affiliations were music remains to be an issue (namely, any church where Bob Jones graduates attend) i.e. Fundamentalism.
P.S. This is not an attack on any one person from Bob Jones, I have friends from BJ, rather it is just an honest assessment of the musical thinking be propagated from the university and thus penetrating the local church.