Matthew 24, Zechariah 9, and the Muddiness of Inspiration
A passage has been throwing me for a loop over the past few days. It's Matthew 24:4-7. Let me lay out the arguments. Matthew quotes Zechariah 9:9, directly, in verse 5: "“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” (ESV) In verse 7, the disciples bring both a donkey and a colt to Jesus. Afterall,...
How I Evaluate Worship Music
I heard a new, fantastic worship song. It has a striking hymn feel, and doesn't have the swelling bridge that I do love, but the lyrical depth and content is just so rich. Give it a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5nUTO4m9oA As I listened to this, I started to wonder - how do I decide what is a "good" worship song? What are the criteria I implicitly use when I decide which songs I like...
Suffering Leads to Belief in God
The following is an excerpt from a larger piece I'm working on. That piece (and this section) is unedited - and the piece is largely unfinished. But I want to share elements of it as I continue to write. Before we dive into the fuller nature of what we can and can’t know, I want to spend just a few moments and wrestle with a truth that we cannot miss - we cannot ignore. It’s both poignantly...
The Role of Elders
Table of Contents Introduction I'm working through forming language and an overall vision for church leadership, governance, activity, and responsibility. In this post, I'm going to start wrestling with the role of the elder. It's part of a larger series that starts with the very succinctly titled Towards Church Leadership; Elder/Deacon/Congregational Organizational Distinctions – an Overview. I...
A fantastic example of poor worship lyrics.
One of the things I've occasionally observed in worship music is an attempt to write passionate, heartfelt, and moving lyrics - but missing that target and instead writing heresy. It hurts my heart. I stumbled on a song recently that perfectly fits this bill. I'll offer two caveats before I complain: first, I could be misinterpreting the song lyrics. I don't really think I am, but music is an...
Understanding Passages that Don’t Match our Experiences.
There are passages in Scripture that don't feel like they match our expectations. How many of us have faced a horrible situation - one which we have prayed over, cried over, struggled through? A situation that seems to clearly have a right and wrong outcome? Perhaps it's a situation with a faithful, true friend facing cancer; perhaps it's pleading for freedom from a toxic job situation or...
Towards even greater precision in talking about interpretation
Just a language clarification: I want to use the phrase "non explicit interpretation" - or else "implicit interpretation" - rather than "non literal interpretation." Because interpretation is concerned with unearthing meaning, and the literal interpretation should be the meaning, whether explicit or implicit (perhaps buried in cultural context or alluded to through cross reference), any accurate...
On Reading the Bible – concepts whereby we take words on principle rather than at ‘face value’
In reading the Sermon on the Mount, my family discussed whether Matthew 6:17 should be take literally. That is, Jesus says, "when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face" (CSB). The specific question was, "When you fast, are you required to put oil on your head ("anoint your head" ESV)? If you don't, aren't you going against what Jesus clearly says? The obvious answer is 'no.' Jesus is...
Simultaneous Presence of Christ
I'm reading through Jesus Ascended; The Meaning of Christ's Continuing Incarnation by Gerrit Scott Dawson. For quite awhile, Jesus' continuing incarnation has puzzled me; I didn't understand its necessity, I didn't see it in Scripture, and it just seems... ridiculous. How am I to believe that Christ will wear humanity for eternity? Dawson is doing a wonderful job answering my tensions - but...
Towards Church Leadership; Elder/Deacon/Congregational Organizational Distinctions – an Overview
What is the nature of biblical church leadership; the role, responsibilities, limits, and exclusions? And why do those exist? I want to define three categories of church leadership and their corresponding responsibilities that I see in Scripture. As I'm using "the ministry," it will also cause me to write an addition post where I ask the question, "What is the work of the church?" I also want to...