“That’s what I needed to hear”

but not in the good sense. Well, maybe.

A friend was telling me of his desire to go on a short term missions trip this summer. The thing holding him back is that he needs to take summer class because the class is only offered in the summer and may very well conflict with a short term missions trip. He needs it for grad school.

I thought about what to tell him. Is it really such a clear cut issue? Missions vs. career or sanctification vs. worldliness. Not even sure those are valid representations of his dilemma. It seemed easy enough for him; of course he’d choose God over school. I advised to think more about the issue and consider other factors involved in the decision, i.e. parents, career. If God wants for you to go, He’d make it all work out, right?

But I digress, that’s not even the issue I’m getting at.

His response to someone else’s advice for the same issue was more troubling for me. It caught me off guard and initiated a set of unsettling thoughts.

That night, I overheard him asking my roommate for advice. “Missions, of course” or something to that effect was the answer given by my roommate and this was followed by a most controversial response from the friend: “Good, that’s what I needed to hear!”

What?

It’s not that I was troubled that my roommate’s advice drastically differed from mine. I made sure of that.

It’s just that his response seems wrong on so many levels. It seems so impulsive and irresponsible. Are people that irresponsible in their thinking? It bothers me because I know I think that way too. Trouble is, it only bothers me when I see it in other people and not myself.

Adding fuel to the fire

It’s been a little over a week since my conversation with a new believer. At the time, I’d almost forgotten how encouraging it is to hear about evidences of God’s grace.

Imagine that.

Anyways, it just so happened to occur right after Justin’s message from Romans 1:1-7 about the gospel. The freshness of the gospel in his mind and heart was refreshing to hear and I could feel his excitement. At the same time, his excitement was tempered by the knowledge that the Christian walk is not an easy one; trials will come, sooner or later, but His grace abounds still more. What was even cooler was not just his understanding that his salvation was a work of God’s grace, but that his future sanctification is also God’s grace in his life.

That was a good conversation.

Oh yeah, I recently came across something that accurately illustrates a Christian’s struggle in sanctification. I thought it was really cool. It’s from E. Prentiss’s book Stepping Heavenward (if you’re asking why I read this book, it was for the following reasons: it was just sitting around on Steve’s desk, I like reading books, and it’s a good book. I was surprised at how quick a read it was).

Here’s the excerpted passage on sanctification, after Mrs. Campbell has given Katherine a set of instructions during their meet-up time:

I was much struck with these directions; but I said, despondently:

“If peace can only be found at the end of such hard roads, I am sure I shall always be miserable.”

“Are you miserable now?” she asked.

“Yes, just now I am. I do not mean that I have no happiness; I mean that I am in a disheartened mood, weary of going round and round in circles, committing the same sins, uttering the same confessions, and making no advance.”

“My dear,” she said, after a time, “have you a perfectly distinct, settled view of what Christ is to the human soul ?”

“I do not know. I understand, of course, more or less perfectly, that my salvation depends on. Him alone; it is His gift.”

“But do you see, with equal clearness, that your sanctification must be as fully His gift, as your salvation is?”

“No,” I said, after a little thought. “I have had a feeling that He has done His part, and now I must do mine.”

“My dear,” she said, with much tenderness and feeling, “then the first thing you have to do is to learn Christ.”

“But how ?”

“On your knees, my child, on your knees!”

 

It’s better not to forget that sanctification is salvation too.

 

Who knew…

…that a simple illustration could be so unintentionally misleading? Illustrations in sermons can work both ways: either be really effective in making your point or it can cause a lot more confusion than really necessary.

Case in point: today’s guest preacher in first service gave a typical example of God as a righteous judge. He represented our sins as a traffic citation. We appeal to the judge and He takes it from us and rips it to shreds. Debt canceled.

At first, the illustration seemed okay, but upon some more thinking, I noticed something fundamental was missing. What about substitutionary atonement? Isn’t the judge supposed to be the one who has paid our debts instead of one who merely tears it to shreds as if nothing happened?

Perhaps, substitutionary atonement is implied in the illustration. Maybe the reason the judge ripped the citation was because He had already paid the debt. It’s still kind of dangerous to leave substitutionary atonement in ambiguous terms.

I’m thankful for the sermon though. Psalm 32 definitely was a refresher. Chiasma involving confession, forgiveness, restitution, and a free conscience.

good stuff.

Why memorize…?

If you don’t, you’ll play like this:

But if you do, you might get to play with Victor Borge.

It’s too bad shows like these aren’t on TV anymore.

…not with a whole heart.

During Spring Break, my home church pastor, in one of his sermons, made a reference to King Amaziah from 2 Chronicles 25. As I read the account of Amaziah from the Bible, I found one phrase quite peculiar and unsettling. This is Amaziah’s legacy as recorded in the Scriptures:

“Amaziah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. He did right in the sight of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart.” (2 Chronicles 25:1-2, emphasis added)

Why would the Bible offer that slight contrast? It almost seems like an afterthought, but it’s a striking statement. The implication is that an individual can be doing all the right things, yet not with a right heart. King Amaziah was initially obedient to the Mosaic Law but later became obstinate and turned away from following the Lord and was killed by his own people.What a stern warning against half-hearted service to God.

Hopefully, if somebody were to write a short narrative of my life, it won’t be like Amaziah’s. It’s still a scary thought nonetheless.

Millenium, huh?

Eschatological differences aside, I thought this was pretty cool.

A preview of the millenium:

So this is what it will be like, haha.

Melodious Sonnets

On the way home from church on Sunday, my friend Dave and I casually discussed the fulfillment experienced when singing Chris Tomlin choruses, most likely because of the sing-ability and simplicity of his songs. So I decided to attempt blogging about something which I had forsaken since I originally intended to blog about it during winter break.

Some worship songs, whether it be hymns or contemporary praise, have melodic lines that greatly surpass the lyrics in terms of depth and beauty. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true in many instances. In these songs, the lyrics are so poetic and profound that the music accompanying it does not do justice in matching up with the text and falls short of musical aesthetic. And frankly, some songs are just not as fun to sing as others. Melodious sonnets can probably be defined as songs that contain wonderful biblical language, an aurally pleasing melody, and a fulfilling sing-ability.

So, what makes a melody good?

[Melody here is used in the context of congregational singing and limited to praise songs/hymns.]

Let’s start with sing-ability. A melody must be singable by the congregation. This has a few implications. The melodic line should be relatively easy to sing, which means it should not have crazy leaps, strange rhythmic activity, or an extended range. Basically, the simpler it is, the better for we all know that a good portion of the congregation do not have “great” voices.

A melodic line is more simple when it is dominated by steps but does contain a few leaps. When there is a leap, it would be best to “fill in” the space created with stepwise notes going the opposite direction. Say you have an ascending skip of a nice minor sixth, A to F, to fill it in, you probably should put it one or two descending notes that would normally occupy the space, e.g. E, D, C etc. [depending on the key of course]. A melody should not have successively repeated skips (or steps for that matter), called oscillations. Oscillations can also refer to short phrases consisting of more than two notes that repeat successively; one that comes to mind is a section from the chorus of Chris Tomlin’s “Indescribable”, where it goes “…You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name…”. Oscillations make the melodic line stagnant due to lack of variety and it may be kind of boring to sing. In the song “Praise to Jesus Christ”, admittedly the harmonic progression is quite good though not uncommon, but what detracts from the song are the repeated occurrences of oscillations. The repeated perfect 5th skips make it somewhat annoying to sing and uninteresting too. Although after a series of oscillations, the skip does get filled in with step-wise motion, the damage has been done. It gets only slightly better in the chorus because it moves away from the oscillations but alas, they return again just when you thought they were gone for good. Some melodic lines are not worthy of the lyrics that they accompany. We as Christians should strive to compose music and text to exalt the Living God in such a way that “the gift of language combined with the gift of songs” to proclaim the Word of God.

Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” theme from his Ninth Symphony was written for a chorus representing humanity in proclaiming a triumphant ideal. Notice how simple it is and the seemingly lack of skips in the melodic line.

Yet somehow, it is still considered to be beautiful and well, it sounds good too. Naturally, this 9th symphony theme was also set to Christian, well, more biblical language, and now it’s a commonly sung hymn in churches today.

Next, a melodic line with a nice contour is quite important. A natural rising and falling action is basic in the art of musical phrasing. Overall, a song should have a period of buildup leading to the climatic point, usually occurring in the chorus, and a decline to give a sense of finality. What would be even better would be to have the high point of the text and the music match up, so that the music not only enhances the text but the text gives even more meaning to the melody. An obvious apex in the music and the text makes the song that much more enjoyable to sing because we are drawn to focus even more on the text as it proclaims the glories of the great God we are worshipping. One particular song that comes to mind is “The Power of the Cross”. The words and the music work together in a powerful way to further our thoughts into the wonders of the Gospel because the lyrics are excellent and the musical construction of the piece is worthy to have such lyrics. Not only does it have a nice contour in each verse, but it maintains a certain flow throughout all the verses, not because the music is any different but because of the effect of the text on the music to make us think that it keeps building up. Of course, key changes and instrumental arrangements help too but that’s the performance aspect of it. Other hymns that work well in this manner are “Be Thou My Vision”, “Before the Throne of God Above”, and “Come Thou Fount” just to name a few.

Melodious sonnets are something to be sought after and used extensively in worship music because they put together two wonders of God’s creation, language and music, and use it for the edification of the Church and ultimately for His glory.

.
Oh, and I came across an interesting essay about double predestination

Polemic

 

Though I have only finished the Introduction, I am already quite fond of the approach and irenic style that Robert A. Peterson and Michael D. Williams use in the book, Why I Am Not An Arminian.

The relationship between Calvinism and Arminianism has always been a polemical issue. Sadly, many times the debate is not glorifying to God because Calvinists have resorted to name-calling, caricature, epithet by labeling Arminians as Pelagian, Socinian, Erasmian, rationalist and liberal. It has not been completely one-sided either, for I’m sure you can think of the things that Arminians accuse Calvinists of being. The following is what may result because of pride and the notion that we (whatever side you’re on) are the most orthodox and hardly ever wrong:

Calvinist: “The Arminian believes that he is capable of making significant contribution to his own salvation, and this destroys the gospel. He is a heretic.”

Arminian: “The Calvinist believes that God has foreordained the salvation of some while damning all others, and thus destroys the gospel call to believe. He is a heretic.”

Anyways, I like the authors’ approach to polemic and how it is important to understand that “polemic must serve advocacy” and it must be “subordinate to theological construction”.

They argue via the false-choice fallacy that “constructive argument is stronger than polemical”. This is their summary of the false-choice fallacy:

When one argues for a position as true, the argument includes an implicit denial of all counter claims. Arguing against a position or belief, however, does not automatically commend or advocate a counter belief. The false-choice fallacy, which suggests that if a claim is false, its counter claim is true, is false because a counter claim, even a claim that is designed to be the polar opposite of a known falsehood, may be just as false as the other option.

Thus, the false-choice fallacy renders a polemical argument as best “couched as an affirmation”. Here are two reasons for why polemic should be pursued through affirmative construction, according to Peterson and Williams:

1. A strictly, polemical argument commends no belief and serves only as a warning against that which is evil or dangerous.
   • E.g. Cyanide is not an appropriate beverage additive.
   • Theologically, polemic only removes options but does not state truth.
   • Possible real-life example: If an attack on a particular millenial view gives no real guidance to how a person should “believe concerning a biblical vision of the future, it may only sour [that person] against all biblical eschatology.”
2. Affirmation = proclamation of truth
   • the best defense is a good offense
   • best theological defense = fidelity to the Word of God
   • “truth is not merely the denial of falsehood”
   • “truth must be sought, and sought for its own sake”
   • 1st/2nd century example: “It was the faithfulness of early Christian apologists to the biblical depiction of Jesus as God incarnate who came to save sinners that put to flight the false understandings of Christ held by such heretical groups as the Ebionites and the Marcionites”.

I like this approach to this controversial issue and how the authors have carefully scripted out their plan of argument against Arminianism by affirming Calvinism and by avoiding spewing rhetoric that does not promote greater understanding of the division between these two issues. I’m looking forward to the rest of the book. =)

大長今的狗

A cute Korean dog, all dressed up.

Hopefully it’s not been eaten yet. =p

Weariness

Upon some reflection this morning and in light of events that have occurred in the last two weeks, I am inclined at this moment to examine the root and cause of the weariness I have been experiencing. I started by picking up my NASB and flipping to the concordance in search of passages related to “weary” and there were several listed under that word. I think I’ll look at one of them for now.

Isaiah 40:30-31:

“Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.”

In one of my favorite passages of Scripture, the prophet Isaiah extolled God as Creator and challenged the Israelites to put their full trust in Him. Isaiah reminded them of the special revelation they have received from the Lord and admonished them for being foolish in attempting to compare their Sovereign Lord to the pagan gods of the Babylonians. As Matthew Henry puts it, “What they had known, and had heard, was sufficient to silence all these fears and distrusts”. Looking at verses 30 and 31, the passage admits that youths and able-bodied young men will stumble and grow weary despite their robust appearance. However, immediately following is a refreshing contrast: waiting on the LORD will yield us new strength. Exactly what kind of strength is this? The prophet describes it with three examples.

• mount up with wings like eagles
• run and not be tired
• walk and not be weary

Those that wait upon the LORD will be empowered with the type of strength that allows the seemingly impossible to occur. Fueled entirely on the power of God, those that patiently wait upon Him will be able to run and walk as never before and experience the complete sustaining power of the LORD.

As humans, it is impossible to strive and run, fueled by our own abilities and pride, and not experience fatigue somewhere down the line. Sooner or later, the inevitable will occur–weariness. The young men and youths represent those who appear to be strong and consider themselves to be stronger than they really are. They will be faced with the harsh reality of tiredness and will eventually stumble badly for they trusted not in God. They relied upon themselves to carry their burdens and obligations. Yet, it seems obvious in this passage that to do so is utter foolishness. If we could only wait upon the LORD, the Almighty God of the universe who never tires or becomes weary, then we will not tire under the stresses of trials and wilt under the burdens of daily life. The passage reveals that if we submit ourselves to God and commit ourselves to the divine guidance of the LORD, then God will renew us in mighty ways. He will renew us in our affections for Him as our souls are lifted up from the depths of despair. He will renew us in our perseverance for Him as we press on constantly with perseverance in full obedience to His commandments. He will carry us above all difficulties (in our trials and sufferings) and will enable us to “lay hold of the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus”. To think, we will not be weary (!) even in the slightest degree for our God is the Everlasting God, the LORD, and the Creator of the ends of the earth.

Frets, fears, and anxieties shall be swept away by humble dependence on Him and Him alone. The LORD sustains and He strengthens.

O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.