Protecting the Weak and the Vulnerable

The last seven Commandments

Thinking about the Ten Commandments lately (Exodus 20:1-17). Wondering whether every one of them could be seen as providing protection for the weak and the vulnerable.

In our modern culture, the rigid rules of the Bible are considered oppressive. The very word “commandment” triggers images of a God with a harsh desire for control.

But are they really oppressive? Or are they more protective?

That purpose is obvious in some of the commandments. The stronger person murders and steals from the weaker. The one who gives false testimony or who has sex with someone else’s spouse exercises power over the more vulnerable. The Sabbath protects the vulnerable from being overworked by the powerful, and the weak from overdoing.

But what about coveting? Or honoring our parents? Who’s weak or vulnerable in those situations?

Does it really do any harm to covet someone else’s property or spouse? Yes. Harm occurs if the coveter expresses his bitterness, anger, and jealousy toward the one whose property or wife he desires. Even if he doesn’t cause any physical damage, he can wear down the weak and the vulnerable emotionally. And if he doesn’t express it outwardly, it festers inside him, wearing him down.

Either way, coveting hurts the coveter. Her focus becomes wanting what others have instead of being satisfied with, or even thankful for, her own life. It eats away at her. It steals her joy. It damages her relationships with others. It weakens her and makes her vulnerable.

Then there’s the command to honor our parents. I usually think of children as the weak and vulnerable ones in the family. But as I was pondering this whole idea of every commandment being given to protect the weak and the vulnerable, I started looking at it from a different angle.

Who’s weaker than a couple of new parents? They can’t get enough sleep. They’ve been thrust into a world that they’ve never experienced before. They’ve suddenly been given the greatest responsibility they’ve ever known, at an age when they’re still pretty immature themselves.

Their lives are turned upside down as new priorities take over. They’re expected to know what’s best for a total stranger who has limited powers of expression. And to make it even worse, these little humans keep changing month by month and year by year, requiring the parents to keep adapting as they face new challenges.

It doesn’t end when the children grow up and leave home, either. Now those sons and daughters are out in the world, where they can be seriously hurt or make bad choices that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Moms and dads are weak. They’re vulnerable. They need the protection of a law that honors them.

Worshiping God

But what about those first three commandments? The ones that say not to worship any other gods, not to make an idol, and not to misuse God’s name. Is He so weak and vulnerable that He needs protection from His own creation?

I wrote in an earlier post that God somehow feels real pain. Does that make Him vulnerable?

That depends on the exact meaning of the word. Dictionary.com's first definition is “capable of or susceptible to being attacked, damaged, or hurt.” God is being attacked all the time. He can hurt in the sense of feeling real pain. But He cannot be damaged by those attacks or that pain.

The way I’m using the word here is in terms of susceptibility to being damaged. When I think of groups of people who are considered vulnerable, the ones who come to mind are those who are easily victimized. But maybe that’s too limiting. We all have our tender spots. We’re all fallen. We’re all susceptible to being damaged.

Like the last seven, these first three commandments are intended to strengthen and protect us. We are all weak and vulnerable. God is not.

We were created to have perfect fellowship with Him. To lead sinless lives. Lives of continual joy and pleasure and love and peace.

When we worship other gods, when we make idols, when we misuse His name, we don’t do Him any personal harm. He can take it.

But for us, suffering enters the picture. We damage weak and vulnerable people by leading them astray.

We harm our own weak and vulnerable selves. We lose or lessen the joy and pleasure and love and peace that living in His presence brings. We become slaves to the gods we worship.

God’s grace at work

Disobeying God’s commandments brings His wrath and judgment (two more words that modern Americans recoil from). That judgment isn’t meant for the sole purpose of punishment, but to open our eyes to the harm that we’re doing. To draw us closer to Him and into a more fulfilling life.

I recently heard a description of the stages of alcoholism. In the first stage, excessive drinking seems fun and harmless. But as a person progresses through each stage, he hurts a little more as a direct result of his habit. In the final stage, he’s suffering physically, emotionally, socially, and financially. He’s ruined. Or dead.

This is an illustration of God’s grace at work. The first time we indulge in a sin, it seems fun or it brings relief from a difficult situation. It feels good. We might not experience any negative consequences at all. God tries to get our attention and turn us back through gentle means, such as a word of warning or a sense of guilt.

If we continue in that sin, though, we suffer a little more. We weaken friendships. We might get in trouble with the law or lose some of our financial resources. Our health might be affected. With sexual sin, we reduce our ability to form the long-term, intimate, emotionally satisfying relationships that we all crave. We wander away from the comfort and peace that we find in God’s presence. He’s still speaking to us, still trying to draw us to Him, but since the lighter approaches didn’t work, He’s now using pain.

The further we fall, the more we hurt. Just as an alcoholic only goes into rehab after reaching rock bottom, suffering as a result of our sin is God’s gracious means of bringing us to the point where we’ll turn to Him. Satan uses that pain to torment us. He delights in our agony. God uses it to save us. He delights in our redemption.

As my pastor said recently, the one who suffers the most when someone fools around with sin is the sinner herself. But God specializes in redeeming us fools. All of His commandments are given to protect all of us weak and vulnerable people from being hurt and damaged even more.

 

 

 

Don't Get Used to it

Holy vs. common

The first time I heard a Bible teacher define “holy” as “set apart,” it really bugged me. Being set apart in and of itself doesn’t necessarily mean better or higher or deeper or richer. Or worthy of worship. I could set apart paper plates for casual dining. That wouldn’t make them more valuable than my fine china. I want something more, something bigger, in any definition of that very special word.

Many years later, my Sunday school teacher described holy as the opposite of commonplace. That’s when it clicked. In His holiness, God is the complete opposite of the commonplace. He is set far apart from all that is common.

The common doesn’t hold our attention. God is more beautiful, more gracious, more creative than anything we can imagine. We will spend an eternity with Him and still be unable to take our eyes off of Him.

The common is ordinary, mundane. God is extraordinary, full of surprises. His compassions are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). We will spend an eternity with Him and still be delighted by His presence.

The common can easily be discarded and replaced when it wears out or when something better comes along. God will never wear out or run down. He is always the same gloriously perfect Lord whose years will never end (Psalm 102:27). There will never be anything better than Him.

We don’t worship the common things in life. In ancient times, people made idols out of the precious metals, gold and silver. One reason those metals are valuable is because they’re rare. Not common.

Our idols today are the best-looking actors, the most skilled athletes, and the most talented artists. They go so far beyond the ordinary that we recognize them as set apart from the rest of us.

Getting used to it

We worship God because of His greatness. He is the King above all kings, the Lord above all lords. We worship Him because of our sense that He is set apart from us. But as we grow in Him, He becomes closer to us. We see His hand working in our lives. We get used to having Him around. We begin to treat Him as common.

The most blatant example of this tendency is Israel’s journey from bondage in Egypt to the blessings of the promised land. God appeared in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to guide them (Exodus 13:21). Their clothes didn’t wear out for forty years (Deuteronomy 8:4). Manna supernaturally appeared six mornings a week to nourish them (Exodus 16:4-5).

But because all these signs of God’s presence and provision happened every single day, they became common in the people’s eyes. Ordinary. Expected. Deserved. The Israelites lost their sense of awe and wonder at the miracles that were happening all around them all the time.

Some professional athletes refuse to honor America while the national anthem is being played before a game. They accept our amazing prosperity and freedoms and legal system as ordinary, everyday, expected parts of life. Instead of being grateful for them, they focus on the faults that remain. They magnify those faults out of proportion to their actual size in comparison to our country’s strengths.

Brittney Griner, of the WNBA, made it a point to leave the basketball court during the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Then she went to Russia. When she arrived, customs officials found vape cartridges in her luggage. She was arrested for drug smuggling, convicted in a closed court with no jury, and given a nine year sentence. She spent ten months in prison before President Biden was able to negotiate her release.

Brittney now stands beside the basketball court during our national anthem (source: WORLD magazine Opinions, “Britney Griner finds gratitude for America,” June 19, 2023). She’s gone from seeing this country as common and ordinary and even despicable, to developing a sense of appreciation for the progress made in trying to offer freedom and justice for all.

As a Christian, it’s so easy for me to take my salvation, my answers to prayer, my many other blessings for granted. I might not say it out loud, but my attitude becomes something like this: Of course God saved me. Because He loves me so much. God is love (1 John 4:8). What else could He do? After a while, there doesn’t seem to be anything spectacular, anything beyond the ordinary in the extraordinary idea that I will spend an everlasting eternity in the presence of the most spectacular Being that exists.

It’s easy to think of God as my big buddy in the sky. In John 15, Jesus calls His disciples His friends. My friends are just like me. Common, everyday people. It’s easy to lower God to their level. Or raise myself to His.

It’s easy to get used to the idea that I can take all my burdens, all my pain, and all my joy to the Lord of the universe. Prayer becomes a routine practice, rather than an incredible privilege.

It’s easy to resent spending time reading my Bible when there are so many other things that I need to do. God’s Word becomes nothing more than an ordinary book, rather than the supernatural revelation of God Himself.

It’s easy to talk about salvation and Jesus and answered prayers as if they’re just common, expected parts of life. Shouldn’t we, instead, feel a powerful sense of wonder and awe every time words like God, forgiveness, and eternity pass our lips?

Some churches I’ve attended seem to try to overcome this tendency to get used to the miraculous and the holy by generating excitement. Worship turns into a pep rally. But pep rallies and excitement are common, ordinary things. We need something more, something different, something set apart from the ways of the world.

Near and far away

That’s one of the reasons why I’m thankful for my church. My pastor teaches about the God who loves us so much that He sacrificed His most precious and perfect Son to save us from our sins. Pastor encourages us to take all our troubles to a God who is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). He reminds us that this God cares about every detail of our lives and is ready to forgive us no matter how many times we go astray.

But he also emphasizes the need to remember that we are not just slightly lower than God. By our very nature, there’s a great distance between Him and us. Even the angels in Isaiah’s vision, who are without sin, were so awed and humbled in His presence that they covered their faces and their feet (Isaiah 6:2). They recognized their complete unworthiness compared to His glory. Thank you, Pastor, for helping us to walk in God’s miraculous grace without just getting used to it.

What happens when we start to take God for granted? Sometimes only suffering can bring us back to a better appreciation of who He is and what He’s done. The Israelites’ journey to the promised land illustrates this reality. Every time they treated God as common and ordinary, every time they began to grumble against Him, He afflicted them in one way or another. Their grumbling stopped. Their awe and wonder were restored.

Brittney Griner is an example from the secular world of the way hardship can help us appreciate a blessing or privilege that we’re treating as common and expected and deserved.

God is holy. Set apart. The opposite of commonplace. I pray that we as believers would be better at fighting our natural human tendency to lower Him to the level of the ordinary and expected, to take Him for granted, to get used to having Him around. The consequences of losing that battle are always painful.

The Body is More Important

My body is important

Noticed something for the first time today in Matthew 6:25. Jesus says, “Is not . . . the body more important than clothes?” (my emphasis). Jesus Himself is actually calling my body important. Never really thought about that before. In verse 33, He promises to provide for it. When He walked this earth, He spent much of His ministry healing physical bodies. Sounds as if our bodies matter to Him, as if He has a special affection and purpose for them.

I know the Bible tells us that we’re created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). But God is a spirit, so I’ve always spiritualized that idea. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the possibility that my physical body somehow represents God.

Rebelling against my culture

As a young Christian, there were times when I was absolutely dogmatic about the unimportance of the body. I’d seen the idolatrous way many believers were bowing down to the god of appearance and I’d gone to the opposite extreme.

Well, not quite all the way to the opposite extreme. I still showered and washed my clothes. I didn’t wear rags everywhere I went. But I chose a less-than-fashionable, easy-care hairstyle and inexpensive outfits. I gave up on makeup, and I went through one period when I no longer shaved my legs even though I wore shorts in the hottest weather. Here in America, that seemed pretty radical. It made me feel holier than the Christian women around me who spent hours doing their hair and faces, and big bucks financing their wardrobes.

Have I ever mentioned that pride is one of my greatest spiritual challenges?

If I’d been honest with myself, I would have had to admit that my response to America’s insane emphasis on appearance is actually more nerdy than spiritual. I’d probably overreact to it just as much even if I wasn’t a Christian.

I don’t really get fashion. My style has always been more practical than pretty. And it doesn’t help that my proportions aren’t what they’re supposed to be for a woman. I’ve got wide shoulders, a long body, and short legs. The latest fads usually look all wrong on me. (Think shoulder pads.)

The negative impact of my church

It also didn’t help that the youth pastors in my church chose the most popular, best-looking students for leadership positions. Not the ones most dedicated to Jesus. The pastors’ hearts were in the right place. They thought that the attractive kids would be more likely to bring large numbers of friends to our youth group. More souls saved. But they weren’t following a biblical model.

Where are those formerly popular kids now? Most of them are experiencing the effects of shallow roots and choking weeds (Matthew 13:3-23). Few of them are still professing their faith. Almost all of them are divorced or have live-in lovers, suffer from poor relationships with their adult children, and appear cynical and unhappy.

They’d had their reward many long years ago in the attention given to them by the youth pastors, rather than storing up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:1-21). I didn’t know it at the time, but all through high school they were leading double lives. They put on an appearance of obedience while filling important roles within our group, but when no one was looking they were rebelling against God’s commandments in their lifestyles.

I was deeply dedicated to Jesus as a teenage baby Christian. But within my church, I was a nobody. The youth pastors snubbed me in favor of the good-looking kids. The pain that I experienced in my church as a new believer was a powerful factor in turning me away from a biblical view of my body.

My body is a temple

But Jesus tells me that my body is important. Paul even says that it’s a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). Sounds mind-bogglingly important when you put it that way.

As I try to grasp this incredible concept, two aspects of the temple come to mind. The first one has always been emphasized by evangelicals: The demand to keep God’s temple pure. During my high school years, this idea was used to support all the rules on how to live. Don’t smoke, don’t have sex outside of marriage, don’t do drugs, don’t get drunk, and so on.

That’s one way that our bodies are important. They should reflect the purity and holiness of God.

But the body is more important than those don’ts. We should also be reflecting His image in our positive behaviors. Treating others with love and kindness and respect. Reaching out to those who are hurting. Being peacemakers. It takes a physical body to feed others with the spiritual fruit growing inside us. By placing all the emphasis on the negatives, my youth pastors failed me in this area, too. They didn’t have, and therefore couldn’t pass on to me, a biblical view of the body.

The second aspect of the temple relates to its physical design. In the Old Testament, God gave David and Solomon detailed instructions on how to build a temple filled with beauty (see “Joy From Sorrow”).

Humans everywhere demonstrate a desire to make their bodies look better. We have a natural tendency to decorate, to bring beauty, to everything within our reach. Just as God does. He wasn’t content to create a practical but plain or ugly universe. By His very nature, He dressed it up in loveliness. We’re imitating Him, acting as His image-bearers, when we care for and decorate our bodies.

So maybe it's okay to wear a little makeup and jewelry and to spend some time choosing outfits that look good on me. Maybe I’m simply enhancing my body as God enhanced His universe. Taking delight in creativity and beauty, as He does.

The challenge is to treat my body as a temple, a dwelling place for the Creator of this vast and beautiful universe, without turning it into an idol. To value it as something important and precious in His sight, but to seek God first and to worship Him alone.

 

In Spirit and in Truth

The importance of truth

Reading through 1 Corinthians 14. Suddenly the overall theme jumps out at me.

I’m a detail person. I usually see every individual tree, rarely the entire forest. For people like me, it doesn’t help that the NIV labels this chapter “Gifts of Prophecy and Tongues.” That might be the content, but it’s not the theme. The main point is the importance of engaging the mind in worship. A significant idea in these days of increasingly valuing the emotional and experiential at the expense of the understanding.

Key verse: “So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind” (vs. 15). (Okay, I admit it. As one who laments the loss of depth in the lyrics of so many contemporary songs, I just had to underline the second half of that verse in my Bible. Years ago.)

Throughout the chapter, Paul is stressing the greater importance of the gifts that lead to a deeper understanding of God’s Word. He in no way denigrates the more “emotional” gifts, as opposed to the more “intellectual” gifts. They’re both gifts of the Holy Spirit. (Yes, I need to hear that.) But he continues to emphasize the superiority of the latter gifts in building up the Body of Christ.

Verses 4 and 5: “He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified.”

Speaking in tongues at that time would be equivalent to the more experiential aspects of worship today. It’s a deep, rich communion with God, a worshiping in spirit. It’s not to be dismissed as an inappropriate emotional expression that has no place in our solemn worship services. (Again, I need to hear and remember this.) We are not to discourage those who seek a more spiritual/emotional/experiential means of expression.

But it is more important to teach (prophesy), to stress the “truth” aspect of worshipping “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Without the truth as a solid foundation, we will always do as we please, we will always go where we desire, we will always stray from God’s design. That’s the way fallen man always operates.

The importance of balance

I find it fascinating that God placed the famous chapter on love right before this chapter on worshiping in truth. He could have put them in completely different books. He could have used two different human authors to write them. He could have put one in the Old Testament and one in the New. But this is how He helps people like me to find a better balance. He placed them side by side.

Not that chapter 13 is all about emotions. Biblical love is not just a gooshy feeling inside that tends to come and go, as our culture understands love. Christian love includes our feelings. The emotional side of love cannot be denied, as I’ve heard some Christians teach. But biblical love is so much greater than other kinds of love. It always results in long-term commitment. It always leads to action in the treatment of others, as described in this passage. Not a legalistic “I must act as though I have patience with her even though she’s wrong.” But an ability to respond to others with a heartfelt patience that naturally springs from the emotion of godly love.

And, of course, that chapter 13 love should flow into chapter 14 worship. Even though Paul stresses the superiority of worshiping in truth, “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (13:2).

Worship and suffering

So why do I keep writing here about worship? (See my earlier posts Changing Churches and Sing Unto the Lord a New Song.) What place do these articles have in a blog whose theme is suffering?

The way that we worship reflects the God that we worship. Here’s the message I’ve picked up on in worship services where the greatest emphasis is on the emotional side: God wants and expects everyone to feel good, regardless of what’s happening in their lives. If you’re not smiling, you’re demonstrating a lack of faith. You’re not worshipping, and you’re not pleasing Him. There’s no need to work through your internal issues and struggles. He will instantaneously remove them all as you wave your hands and psych yourself up.

The result? Those who are suffering will live in denial of their pain as they continue to worship this God. Or they’ll walk away from Him after they fail over and over again to work up enough faith to heal the ache inside.

On the other hand, this is the message relayed in services I’ve been in where the truth was stressed at the expense of the spirit: God expects His followers to apply rules for overcoming their hurts without allowing them to pour out their hearts to Him. Get right with Him and everything will be okay. Read your Bible. Pray. Confess and forsake your sins. Go to church. Fellowship with other believers. If that doesn’t work, then do it a little more.

The same result will occur when suffering strikes. Either denial of the pain or walking away from a God who doesn’t seem to care.

But if we worship God in spirit and in truth, the emotional side of our worship will be based on the truth of who God is and what He wants for us. Not a psychological high that ignores the hurts of this world. Not an instant removal of all suffering if we just believe hard enough and smile big enough.

Instead, an understanding of the God of the Bible, who cares deeply for His people and yet uses pain and suffering to grow our faith and to bless the lives that we touch. Our hope and joy will be anchored on the solid ground of His character, as revealed throughout His Word, not just a weekly pumping up that fades away soon after we leave the worship center.

And the intellectual side of our worship will be enriched by the experience of the Holy Spirit moving us to greater joy and hope and compassion, and leading us to greater expressions of heartfelt praise.

The psalmists, whose writings have been used in worship for centuries, freely voice all their needs to God. But they base their expectations and their words on what they know of His character from Israel’s long history of witnessing His actions in their lives. Truth is more important than emotion, but both have a prominent place in God’s Word and in our worship.

Sing Unto the Lord a New Song

Two songs, two styles

    Sang two songs back-to-back in virtual church on Sunday: “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord).” “Great is Thy Faithfulness” is all about God. His faithfulness, His unchanging nature, His compassion, His eternal nature, His mercy, His provision, His love, His forgiveness, His peace, His presence, His cheer, His guidance, His strength, His hope, His blessings. This faithfulness is “unto me,” so the song has a personal application. But the main focus is on God, not on us.

    Then there’s “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord).” For the first three stanzas, I’m mainly singing about myself. I bless the Lord, I worship, I sing. There’s only one mention of God’s character—He’s holy. It’s not until the fourth stanza that we sing about any of His other attributes: His rich love, His slowness to anger, His kindness, His goodness. The words say more about me than about Him. Is this really worship?

    In “Changing Churches,” I wrote about the struggles seniors face today as the songs they know and love are being replaced and forgotten. I freely admit to my preference for the old hymns, but it’s not just an unfounded bias or my discomfort with change (which I also freely admit to). I have a real concern about what we’re communicating. Are we here to glorify God for all of who He is, or only for what He does for me? This issue becomes even more urgent in times of nationwide suffering, as with the devastation caused by the current pandemic.

    And yet, some of the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) that we’ve used in church in recent years has had a powerful impact on me. Much as I’d sometimes like to, I can’t just rant about going back to the good old ways from the good old days. I’ve been forced to recognize that there is a time and a place and a purpose for most CCM, including “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord).”

    The book of Psalms is a compilation of songs and prayers that the Jewish people have used in worship for thousands of years. While many of them provide a more in-depth description of who God is and what He’s done (like “Great is Thy Faithfulness”), some of them simply voice the worshippers’ awe and joy as we praise Him, without providing details about His character (like “10,000 Reasons”). God chose to include both kinds in His authoritative Word. And all of them come from a deeply personal perspective, which is more common in CCM than in the old hymns.

The ministry of the hymns

    During my first depressive episode many years ago, the theology presented in the hymns was crucial to keeping me strong enough to resist the draw of suicide. I needed to know who this God is that I was depending on to see me through. I needed to know the richness and depth of His character. I needed to know that He transcends all my understanding and all my expectations. I needed to know that He has a greater purpose that goes far beyond my little life, even as He treasures and watches over that little life. Then I could know that He is big enough and powerful enough to handle something as dark and scary as suicidal depression.

    Putting this theology to music added a dimension that’s missing in the spoken or written word alone. I was often so moved by the lyrics and the melody combined that I couldn’t sing for the lump in my throat. I grew in strength and in my relationship with God as a direct result of those hymns. Today, in the crisis triggered by the coronavirus outbreak, we need this kind of strengthening.

The ministry of CCM

    Yet at the same time, I was listening to the CCM of the day on Christian radio. It ministered to me in a different way. It wasn’t as heavy on theology, which is probably why we weren’t using it in church, but it expressed much of what I was struggling with and helped me to work through it. Another source of growth.

    Fast forward to more recent years. We first sang the CCM song “Jesus Draw Me Ever Nearer” shortly after I’d been blindsided by the situation that I described in “Wounded by God.” God seemed so far away. My greatest need was for Him to draw me nearer and nearer. I wasn’t getting there by my own efforts or through the usual Sunday morning worship. Suddenly, with these words, with this song, I had a much-needed breakthrough.

    The opening verse of “Jesus Draw Me Ever Nearer” created a vivid mental image of being lost and alone in the middle of nowhere during a torrential downpour. That’s how I was feeling when the pastor introduced it. That’s how many are feeling today. It reminded me that, even for a Christian, sometimes life is hard work. Sometimes we have to “labor through the storm,” and it’s okay for us to admit that. The evangelically correct tend to deny it.

    Like many of the psalms, this song is a prayer. It’s a means of pouring out our souls to God in pain and supplication. It confirms that my heart’s testing will continue right up to the moment that I die. It’s not a request for relief from the struggles, but a desire for His presence and my growth as they continue. The theology of suffering, the crying out in sorrow, the pleading for His help and guidance—all set to music that amplifies their message—met my need better than any of the words I’d been trying to come up with on my own.

    A few weeks later, we sang “Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)” for the first time. It starts off with a calm and easy reflection on God as our Light and Sword and Shield, along with the question, “Whom shall I fear?,” repeated for emphasis.

    Then it bursts into the confident declaration that I’m surrounded on all sides by God’s presence and His armies of angels. The melody powerfully supports the message, communicating certainty and strength. At that point, at that time, I desperately needed to be reminded of that strength. Many people need that same reminder right now.

    In His wisdom and grace, God used these two CCM songs to comfort and sustain me in a special way. But even after all these years of thinking and praying through the issues in the “worship wars,” I still struggle with the conflict between the older hymns and the newer “praise and worship” songs. I struggle with that label, because praise and worship should be God-centered and God-focused, and so often the lyrics are more about me than they are about Him.

    Yet He can obviously use even our flawed attempts at glorifying Him through music. (Has any song sung in any church ever been perfect?) No matter how much I’m tempted to grumble and criticize on the outside, deep down inside I’m truly thankful for both hymns and CCM, and for the ways that they’ve both helped me to grow in Christ over the years. I pray that they would both continue to minister to worshipers around the world as we labor through the storms brought on by COVID-19.

Joy From Sorrow

Rethinking the Old Testament

    Rejoice! Celebrate! Those were God’s commands for His people in the Old Testament (for example, Leviticus 23:39-40). Yet I often hear that the Old Testament God is full of wrath and judgment, while Jesus is full of grace and love. I still remember my surprise and pleasure in discovering long ago that the seemingly mean God of the Old Testament told His people to celebrate and rejoice.

    But over time something happened to me. In more recent years, I’ve been reading the Old Testament with a heavier heart, seeing the sin and the suffering, missing the joy and the celebration. God’s been working on me in this area.

    About a year ago, in my daily Bible reading, I reached the book of Judges with a sense of dread. Ugh. Here comes that book that tells about all the failures of God’s people. They follow Him briefly, they prosper as a result, they turn away from Him in their prosperity, He sends judgment, they cry out to Him in their pain, He rescues them. And then the cycle begins all over again. I’ve been taught that the theme of the whole book is man’s suffering due to his failure to live up to God’s high demands. Pretty depressing.

    But last year, for the first time, I saw it a little differently. Yes, the Israelites vacillated between serving God and serving idols. But the stretches of peace, when they were being faithful, were much longer than the times of oppression in judgment for their sin. Looking at the book of Judges as a whole, Israel’s peace and prosperity lasted two to three times as long as their affliction under other nations.

    And they always turned back to God. God always rescued them. The relationship was always restored, regardless of how very many times they turned away. Joy always followed the sorrow of repentance. Not so depressing after all.

OT worship

    In the last few months, it seems like everywhere I turn I run into comments on the beauty and joy of Old Testament worship. The richly colored and intricately decorated cloth of the tabernacle, the abundance of sparkling gold and silver and precious gems, the ever-present instruments and voices raised in song. I need to replace my image of the tabernacle and temple as serious places focused solely on bloody sacrifices, with the biblical descriptions of singing and feasting in the presence of the Lord.

    What is it that distinguishes this God from the other gods of the time? Neighboring people were sacrificing their children to Molech (Leviticus 18:21) or cutting themselves with swords and spears in hopes of getting Baal’s attention (1 Kings 18:28). They gave to satisfy their gods’ selfish desires. There was no love expressed by those gods. There was no personal relationship.

    By contrast, the Old Testament God offers and seeks a living relationship with His people. He understands them and loves them. The name “Israel” means “wrestles with God” (Genesis 32:28). Would any other god tolerate such a group? And yet the Lord calls them His “treasured possession” (Exodus 19:5). There’s something special about this God.

    Yes, He is a God of judgment. He sets high standards for His people. But the standards are given to guide them into the best possible lives for themselves and the world, not as harsh, random demands. “Keep my commands and you will live” (Proverbs 4:4) isn’t just referring to His willingness to allow them to continue inhabiting this planet if they obey Him. It’s the idea that they will have the most peaceful, satisfying, and fulfilling lives. Why have I been imagining their worship as painful and depressing, recognizing the enormity of their sin without finding any relief?

    The animal sacrifices symbolized the seriousness of sin in God’s eyes. Only the shedding of blood (death) could atone for breaking His commands. That was solemn business. God doesn’t take the shedding of blood, even animal blood, lightly. The animals to be sacrificed had to be the most perfect, the most precious livestock the Israelites owned (Leviticus 22:21-22). It had to cost them something. To give less than their best would be a failure to take their sin seriously enough. This is the part of the worship ceremonies that I’ve been focused on. The sorrow for sin, the death, the judgment.

OT grace

    But the Israelites also had God’s promise that if they followed His prescribed rituals for confession and repentance, He would forgive them. Completely. Totally. Absolutely. Clean slate. Fresh start. This God is a God of grace. If His people expressed their faith in His character by confessing and repenting, they could experience a renewed relationship with Him, as if they had never turned away. What relief that would bring! What celebration and joy would naturally follow their sorrow!

    Thank You, Father, for correcting this image in my mind. Help me to continue to recall the joy of worshiping You, even in the Old Testament. The beauty of Your places of worship, the praise and celebration expressed through music, the feasting in the community of Your followers, the wonder and awe of knowing that the righteous God has made gracious provision for forgiving sin all through the ages. The joy of a renewed relationship that always follows the sorrow of repentance.

Changing Churches

Suffering seniors

    Things I’ve seen and stories I’ve heard:

    ● Committed Christian baby boomers, the backbone of evangelical churches for decades, joining the ranks of the unchurched and the church-shoppers. Or switching to more liturgical churches, with their greater sense of reverence.

    ● A local evangelical church demanding that every activity must be intergenerational. Never mind that the older folks have long periods of lonely availability during the daytime and hesitate to drive after dark, while the younger ones work all day and can only participate on evenings and weekends. Seniors have been forbidden to gather without younger generations being present. Result: Older members have felt unwelcome and unheard, and have left.

    ● Men and women in their eighties and nineties sensing that their lives are no longer valued by the very churches that they’ve supported for years. That which was most precious and meaningful to them within those churches has been discarded, leaving them feeling like they’ve been discarded, too.

    I don’t think our worship leaders realize how much real suffering they’ve brought on our seniors with the radical changes that have occurred in the last twenty years or so. Based on the biblical model, they expect mature Christians to graciously accept the authority of the pastors and elders when decisions are made. Those who complain or criticize are seen as selfish, disobedient, and unwilling to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

    I think these leaders are honestly seeking to please God and are trying to do what they believe is best overall. But the pain is there and it’s often unrecognized. It’s not just a matter of stubborn resistance springing from rebellious hearts, although I’m sure that happens in some cases. For many, though, important theological issues are at stake.

God's expectations

    One assumption made by those who support more modern worship styles is that God doesn’t care how we worship Him. Style is irrelevant in His eyes. But if that’s true, why was He so specific about how the Israelites were to worship Him when He brought them out of bondage to Egypt? Part or all of the following chapters provide His specific instructions on worship: Exodus 25-30 and 39-40; Leviticus 1-8, 16, and 22-23; Numbers 15, 18, and 28-29; and Deuteronomy 12 and 16-17.

    Was the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New Testament? No. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Psalm 102:27, James 1:17). How we worship matters. It matters to God. It should matter to us. One weakness in today’s evangelical churches is the lack of a theology of worship that is based on examples of worship in the Bible.

Our focus

    What is it about modern worship styles that mature Christians object to? One big issue is the focus on self, which naturally leads to less emphasis on God—who He is and the deeper reasons for worshiping Him. If I worship Him solely for what He does for me, as much Contemporary Christian Music seems to imply, what happens when He doesn’t live up to my expectations? I have nothing solid to stand on during the tough times. In contrast, many hymns of the past praised God’s unchanging character and nature, His working throughout the world and throughout history, His thoughts and ways that reach far higher than satisfying the needs in my little life.

    It’s been ten years or more since I heard a derogatory comment on National Public Radio about those “narcissistic evangelicals.” First I was startled and offended, then I was embarrassed and humbled by what I knew to be a somewhat accurate assessment. Roughly ten years before that, Christianity Today ran an article in which they stated that there were more songs starting with the letter “I” in the contemporary files used in evangelical worship services than with all the other letters of the alphabet put together. What happened to Jesus’ teaching that “if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24)?

    Many seniors struggle with this stress on self and lack of emphasis on God. At a time when they’re suffering multiple losses—family members and friends, mobility and independence, physical health—they have an increased need for a transcendent God who rules the universe and whose love and justice extend far beyond simply pleasing individual human beings.

    I don’t expect our churches to turn back the clock as far as worship styles are concerned. Every era, every generation, has its flaws and shortcomings, including those found in the ways Americans worshiped in the past. While I pray that we’ll find a better balance in communicating both the intimacy and the transcendence of God, this is primarily a plea for mercy and compassion and healing after the pain inflicted on our seniors for the last two or three decades. A plea for a greater understanding of that pain and its origins, and for attempts to be made to treat our seniors with greater love and respect.