Always with you

Jesus did not convey to his churches, “I’ll leave you to it. I’m sure you’ll do just fine!” No, he gave command and then promised, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Matthew 28:18-20).

Shades of Love

1. We are often bowed with a load of sorrow,
When our loved ones fall asleep,
But we’ll meet again on the glad tomorrow,
Where the shades of love lie deep.

2. With the cares of life we are always bended,
And the hills are rough and steep;
Praise the Lord, we know it will all be ended,
Where the shades of love lie deep.

3. We will have more faith on the pilgrim journey,
And our vows to Jesus keep,
He will welcome us to the land of Eden
Where the shades of love lie deep.

Chorus:
It will be a grand tomorrow (tomorrow)
In that land of rapture sweet (of rapture sweet).
Hallelujah I’ll be present be present,
Where the shades of love lie deep.

As best I can tell, this song was first printed in the 1931 Tennessee Music Publishing book Radiant Gems. (I have not located a copy of the book in order to check.) The words were written by Oren Adolphus Parris (1897-1966). He was a native of Jefferson County, Alabama, born December 26, 1897 in Warrior, Alabama, the son of Oscar Hayden Parris and Ada Ovelia Morris. He served as a bugler in World War I. O. A. Parris and Mae L. Lewis married in 1919. Parris was a skilled songwriter, writing well in several different styles. He wrote many 7-shape note songs, both gospel and Christian Harmony, as well as 4-shape songs in The Sacred Harp. He was an important figure in gospel song publishing. With John Deason, Parris produced a revision of Walker’s Christian Harmony in 1958. It was often called the “Alabama Book.”. In 1997 O. A. Parris was inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Parris died April 13, 1966. He and his wife buried at New Prospect Baptist Church Cemetery, Jasper, Walker County, Alabama.

One especially meaningful experience for me was at a Christian Harmony singing we had at the old Redland Church in Rusk County, Texas. During the introduction of the singing, I announced that a son of O. A. Parris was present, Heflin T. Parris. I said some things about Mr. Parris and his songs, after which Heflin Parris added, “And he was a good father, too.” You can’t say it much better than that!

The tune/music of the song was written by Eugene Hilton Wright (1907-1943), a somewhat younger co-laborer with Parris. For example, Wright and Parris were elected President and Vice-President, respectively, for the 1942 Walker County Fourth Sunday Singing. Eugene Wright was born September 16, 1907 in Walker County, Alabama, the son of James Louis Wright and Ida Estes. He married Nora Elizabeth Crump and they had two children. Wright was a singer, songwriter, and singing school teacher. He died of heart trouble July 2, 1943 at the young age of 35. He was buried at New Prospect Baptist Church Cemetery, Jasper, Walker County, Alabama.

You can listen to Where the Shades of Love Lie Deep on YouTube HERE and HERE. To me a later Christian Harmony song – I Won’t Turn Back by S. Whitt Denson – bears some stylistic similarities.

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.”