Steven Wright quotes

Quotes from Steven Wright:

“Borrow money from pessimists - they don’t expect it back.”

“Half the people you know are below average.”

“99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.”

“A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.”

“The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

“Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.”

 

The meaning of the biblical text

“No matter how valid your point may be, you do not have a right to change the original meaning of a biblical text in order to make your point. In any biblical text, God’s point is the ONLY point that matters.

“The biblical text can never mean NOW what it never meant THEN.”

Tom Buck, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Lindale, Texas

Scoring songs

I was looking at the Protestia website and noticed that they have a series in which they analyze songs and recommend whether they are good songs to use in churches. I found their method interesting and even consider that it might be applicable to the new song choices for The Sacred Harp. When they analyze a song, they consider five areas.

1. Doctrinal fidelity – are the words/meaning biblically accurate? “Corporate worship should not require the pastor to add a footnote afterward explaining the congregation’s singing.”
2. Doctrinal specificity – is the song direct and specific in the doctrines it presents, or is it vague and elusive? (For example, Could a Mormon be comfortable with the words? An agnostic?)
3. Focus – is the song focused on God or man (is it directed Godward or manward)?
4. Associations – do the associations or connections of the authors bring along possible baggage that is a distraction? With whom is it associated (for example, if it is written by an heretic or immoral person, it can distract or lead in the wrong direction). 
5. Musical usefulness – is the song singable for a congregation, and what is its musical effectiveness? (Note: this category received the least weight, and the first category, doctrinal fidelity, received the most weight.)

The author made this interesting point:

“Every song chosen excludes another, so merely being catchy, popular, or technically orthodox in parts is not enough. The song should justify its place through doctrinal fidelity, specificity, focus, associations, and musical usefulness.”

In other words, when the use of a particular song is included, the use of some other song is excluded. Is the included song good enough to justify excluding the other?

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Note: The last paragraphs do not suggest that every song we use is of equal value, but rather that there are some songs that do not have enough value to be considered.

Jerome of Stridon’s Problem

Sometime after his conversion, probably about AD 374, Jerome of Stridon took to the desert of Chalcis (known as the “Syrian Thebaid”) to practice an ascetic lifestyle.[i] He removed far from the fleshly temptations associated with the city life of Rome. His experience teaches an important lesson. Writing to Eustochium (Letter 22, AD 384), Jerome related the following problem.

“7. How often, when I was living in the desert, in the vast solitude which gives to hermits a savage dwelling-place, parched by a burning sun, how often did I fancy myself among the pleasures of Rome. ... Now, although in my fear of hell I had consigned myself to this prison, where I had no companions but scorpions and wild beasts, I often found myself amid bevies of girls. My face was pale and my frame chilled with fasting; yet my mind was burning with desire, and the fires of lust kept bubbling up before me when my flesh was as good as dead.”

In this desert wasteland, fasting and praying, he conjured up the sins of the flesh in his mind – a vision of dancing girls which caused him to “burn with desire.” If you carry yourself along on the trip, you cannot find a place to escape temptation.[ii] One cannot completely flee from his greatest enemy, himself. We must instead flee to Jesus Christ and him alone for our rescue and our safety.

All that is in the world
Love not; from it comes strife—
Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh,
And, oh, the pride of life!

My greatest enemy
I carry in my breast;
The battle clash is sore and strong,
A constant wrestling test.

To Jesus Christ I flee
For rescue in his breast;
The only safety I could find—
The only secure rest.

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[i] Jerome of Stridon (Stridon being his place of birth) lived circa AD 342 to 420. Also known by his Latin name Hieronymus (and “St. Jerome” among Anglicans, Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, Roman Catholics, et al.), Jerome is perhaps best known for translating the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures into Latin (AD 382–405).
[ii] Consider 1 Corinthians 6:18 with 1 Corinthians 7:2-3.

The path that I feared

An excerpt from the song, “In The Valley.”

When the path that I feared
Is the way God has set
And I long to give in, and retreat;
Still to Jesus I hold
As I face every step
For the Lord, he will give me his peace.

(Credits: Tim Challies, Jonny Robinson, Rich Thompson)

Complete

John 19:30 When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

Hebrews 10:10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

The sacrificial work of Jesus Christ is a finished work. In The Sacred Harp (p. 365, 1991 & 2012) we sing the words below (by Robert Seagrave in 1742) to the tune Southwell, written by Elihu Carpenter in 1786-87. The link below records Priscilla Wiggins leading the song at the Texas State Sacred Harp Convention in 2011.

The words below are the six stanzas found in the 1860 edition of Hymns and Spiritual Songs for Christian Worship by Robert Seagrave (reprinted in London by Daniel Sedgwick). It was popularized in the United States through hymn books such as A Selection of Psalms and Hymns: done under the appointment of the Philadelphian Association (Samuel Jones, Burgiss Allison, 1790) and The Christians Duty, Exhibited, in a Series of Hymns, published by Peter Leibert in 1791 (and in songbooks pairing the words with a tune). My presentation uses somewhat modernized spelling and capitalization, as well as the word “sinful” in the last line of the first stanza as found in The Sacred Harp, rather than “helpless” as found in what is the original and in most of the older hymn books (this matches what you will hear when listening to the recording of the song).

Hymn V
It is finish’d.

1. “’Tis finish’d,” the Redeemer said,
And meekly bow’d his dying head;
Whilst we this sentence scan,
Come sinners, and observe the word.
Behold the conquests of our Lord,
Complete for sinful man.

2. Finish’d the righteousness of grace,
Finish’d for sinners pard’ning peace;
Their mighty debt is paid:
Accusing law, cancell’d by blood,
And wrath of an offended God,
In sweet oblivion laid.

3. Who now shall urge a second claim?
The law no longer can condemn,
Faith a release can shew;
Justice itself a friend appears,
The prison-house a whisper hears,
“Loose him, and let him go.”

4. O unbelief! injurious bar!
Source of tormenting fruitless fear,
Why dost thou yet reply?
Where’er thy loud objections fall,
“’Tis finish’d,” still may answer all,
And silence ev’ry cry.

5. Behold, my soul, the Saviour’s task
Is finish’d just as thou would’st ask;
His merit now embrace.
’Tis justice due to Jesu’s name,
To ground on him a fearless claim
And triumph thro’ his grace.

6. His toil, divinely finish’d stands,
But, ah! the praise his work demands;
Careful let me attend!
Conclusion to my soul be this,
Because salvation finish’d is,
My thanks shall never end.

Recording of Southwell, by Elihu Carpenter and Robert Seagraves

Elihu Carpenter was born in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, December 18, 1752, the son of Eleazer Carpenter and Elizabeth Warfield. He served in the Revolutionary War, and then married Martha Hutchins in 1783. He was a deacon in the Congregational Church, a schoolmaster, and a songwriter. A copy of Simeon Jocelin’s and Amos Doolittle’s The Chorister’s Companion (New Haven, 1782) in Yale University’s Beinecke Library is inscribed “Elihu Carpenter of Rehoboth his Book given him by the authors. May 13, 1783” (Carpenter has tunes in this book). Southwell first appeared in The American Musical Magazine (Daniel Read and Amos Doolittle, New Haven, 1786–1787, Volume 1). Elihu Carpenter died July 5, 1827. His tombstone at the Newman Cemetery in East Providence, Rhode Island reads thusly:

Sacred to the Memory

of

Deacon

ELIHU CARPENTER

who departed this life

July 5, 1827,

in the 75th year

of his age.

Now the grave’s a downy bed

Embroidered round with blood;

Say not that believer’s dead,

He only rests with God.

Robert Seagrave was an English preacher, author, and hymn writer. He was born at Twyford, Leicestershire November 22, 1693, the son of a Robert Seagrave who was an Anglican vicar. The son graduated from Clare College, Cambridge in 1714 (B.A.) and 1718 (M.A.) – and participated in the Methodist movement with John Wesley and George Whitefield. Seagrave published his collection titled Hymns for Christian Worship in 1742. According to Daniel Sedgwick’s reprint of Seagrave’s hymns in 1860, there were “four editions [of Hymns for Christian Worship, rlv] published and corrected by the author.”  “Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings” (Hymn VII, The Pilgrim’s Song) is Seagrave’s best-known hymn, included in hundreds of different hymn books. Though Sedgwick includes a six-page biographical sketch of the author, he did not know when Robert Seagrave died. Sedgwick relates a story of John Griffith hearing Robert Seagrave preach in 1759, and some in modern times have estimated his death to be not long afterward.

As might be expected of an author of hymns, Robert Seagrave did not espouse “Exclusive Psalmody” in the churches, stating the Gospel does not direct the use “of them and no other.”

“…every religious Assembly, with Reverence and Sobriety, may lawfully use even their own Compositions, provided they speak the language agreeable to Scripture. This I conceive a Part of Christian Liberty as much as to preach or pray in our own Words: Why not as lawful to sing in our own Words, as to preach and pray in them?

“In this Publication the Author has endeavour’d to avoid not only Corruptness of Doctrine, but likewise such strokes, as might gender to Bondage of Mind; being of Opinion, that no unbelieving Worship is properly Christian Worship, and that the Frame suitable to the Gospel is a Frame of Liberty and Joy.”

“An unworthy Servant of God, R. Seagrave.”

Many people care, and other quotes

The posting of quotes of human authors does not constitute agreement with either the quotes or their sources. (I try to confirm the sources that I give, but may miss on occasion; please verify if possible.)

“Many people care more about looking good than doing good.” -- Jeffrey Mead (in context Jeffrey meant “looking like they’re doing good” rather than physical appearance, but the quote makes sense that way too) 

“The church is preparing for a picnic, but God is preparing us for a war.” -- Leonard Ravenhill

“No one is a gift to the body of Christ who is not a gift to a local church.” -- H. B. Charles Jr.

“If we are strangers to God’s Spirit, we must continue strangers to his word.” -- George Whitefield

“Truth doesn’t have a color.” -- Charles E. Hamilton Jr.

“The fact that a minister is conscious of title may suggest that he lacks the mind of Christ who by his example made himself of no reputation.” -- Ayoola Oke

“A person warning you about your sin loves you way more than a person joining you in your sin.” -- Traci Coston

“If your absence doesn’t bother them then your presence never mattered to them.” -- Kenny Baldwin

“Do you take the Bible literally? … I take the Bible literarily.” -- Keith Foskey

“Keep clear fences, but keep them low, and shake hands over them often.” -- Mark Dever

“There is no university for a Christian like that of sorrow and trial.” -- Charles Spurgeon

“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.” -- George Eliot

“You can dress to be chaste or dress to be chased; but only one honors God.” -- Attributed to Jimmy Chapman

“…the translation conversation has turned from an objective text that can be compared to a subjective test of readability that differs for each reader.” -- Joe Shakour

Suspect Christianity?

A Christian is subject to falling into any and all sins available. Nevertheless, it seems suspect when a person claims to be in Christ but:

• You always prefer the company of unbelievers rather than the fellowship of Christians.
• 1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren…
• You routinely follow amusements at parties and pubs rather than assemble for church.
• Hebrews 10:25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is…
• You consistently choose to watch the television rather than read the Bible.
• Psalm 119:140 Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it.

These actions seem to portray a say I have faith rather than a faith with works (James 2:18).

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Note: I use “watch the television” (which is a bit dated) as a sort of synecdoche or catch-all for all the media we consume in place of reading the Bible.