Away from earth my spirit turns

Colossians 3:2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Ray Palmer (1808-1887) is best known for the hymn “My Faith Looks up to Thee.” In his hymn “Away from Earth My Spirit Turns,” the author turns “away from earth” to “feast on heaven’s diviner food.” The Poetical Works of Ray Palmer (New York, NY: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1876, p. 48) dates this hymn to 1833. It is titled “The Bread of Life” and associated with John 6:51.

John 6:51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

The Bread of Life. John 6:51

“If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever” – John vi. 51.

1. Away from earth my spirit turns—
Away from every transient good:
With strong desire my bosom burns
To feast on heaven’s diviner food.

2. Thou, Saviour, art the living bread;
Thou wilt my every want supply;
By thee sustained and cheered and led,
I’ll press through dangers to the sky.

3. What though temptations oft distress,
And sin assails, and breaks my peace;
Thou wilt uphold and save and bless,
And bid the storms of passion cease.

4. Then let me take thy gracious hand,
And walk beside thee onward still;
Till my glad feet shall safely stand,
Forever firm on Zion’s hill.

Ray Palmer born in Rhode Island November 12, 1808, the son of Thomas and Susanna Palmer. He grew up in Boston. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, and later graduated from Yale in 1830. Following graduation, he taught at a women’s college and later entered the ministry in 1834. Pamer married Ann Maria Waud in 1832, and then had a least ten children.

Ray Palmer pastored the Congregational Church at Bath, Maine from 1835 to 1850, followed by the First Congregational Church of Albany, New York from 1850 to 1865. He served as Corresponding Secretary of the American Congregational Union, from 1866 to 1878. Ray Palmer died March 29, 1887. He and his wife are buried in the Albany Rural Cemetery in Albany County, New York. Palmer wrote a number of original hymns, but also translated Latin texts into English hymns.

A tune often connected to Palmer’s text is Olive’s Brow by William B. Bradbury (1816-1868). Bradbury’s tune and its name are associated with the hymn “’Tis midnight, and on Olive’s brow.”

William Batchelder Bradbury was a musician, hymnwriter, editor, and businessman. Many of his songs are well-known, including He Leadeth Me, Jesus Loves Me, Just as I Am, Sweet Hour of Prayer, and The Solid Rock. He was only 51 years old when he died, and was buried at the Bloomfield Cemetery in Bloomfield, New Jersey.

A Kind Heretic, and other links

The posting of links does not constitute an endorsement of the sites linked, and not necessarily even agreement with the specific posts linked.

• A Kind Heretic Is Still A Heretic -- “A man who speaks about Jesus with warmth while denying the moral order that Christ himself affirmed is not a Christian statesman. He is a wolf in a very well-pressed suit.”
• Beaverdam Baptist | Wilkes County | Organized in 1836 -- “Regular church meetings were held the second Sunday of each month, but they also met in conference the day before to take care of business matters.”
• Charted Waters -- “Dozens of invisible trails lead kayakers and canoers through scenic waterways.”
• Christianity As A Costume: What James Talarico Reveals About Progressive Religion -- “Talarico’s Christianity is a Trojan horse with a progressive interior and a Christian exterior. There is no progressive policy that Talarico’s Christianity hasn’t made peace with. Talarico supports abortion access, transgender ideology...”
• E. J. Campbell, educator -- “E. J. Campbell came to Nacogdoches in 1910, appointed principal of Nacogdoches Colored School. For the next 27 years, Campbell oversaw a growing school and expanded opportunities in public education…”
• From Posts to Pillars -- “Fort Brown and four other U.S. Army forts, established along the Rio Grande in the years after Texas became a state in 1845, endured for decades as military installations.”
• Guided lessons for learning to read Greek manuscripts -- “Xeirographa currently offers several different features for learners to ease the transition from reading printed Greek texts to manuscripts of any period.”
• In All Their Glory -- “Politics and religion can divide people. But they’ll come together for something important like the Seaquist House and the courthouse. And that’s amazing.”
• Jehovah not Yahweh: Refuting Andrew Case’s arguments on the divine name -- “Neither Pietro Galatino nor Medieval Jews invented the ‘Jehovah’ pronunciation; it is from the Word of God.”
• “Let the Little Children Come”: A Brief Case for Welcoming Children into Corporate Worship -- “The Bible normalizes children in gathered worship.”
• The Scariest Word in Pastoral Ministry -- “It became more like a job to be done; it just happened to be a job where you had to talk about God.”
• Titles of the New Testament Database -- “With this search tool you can locate and organise information on the Greek titles of the New Testament found in the manuscripts.”
• Vital Sparks: The poetry of Judge Jackson -- “I think the lyrics fall into three main categories: texts from the Cooper book edition of The Sacred Harp, texts from other books, and lyrics he wrote himself.”
• What Love Looks Like -- “So Cicero sold the house and moved a one-room cabin onto their land.”
• What We Learned from Asking a Pastor to Step Down -- “Character is not a secondary, nice-to-have feature for an elder; it is essential to the role.”
• You’re Not a Healthy Church Unless You Care About Titus 2 -- “...if your church is committed to being both biblical and healthy, then your women must be discipling one another.”

Another Catholic Sola Scriptura View?

 Matt Walsh is sounding sort of sola-scriptura-ish in this post as well:

A Catholic Sola Scriptura View?

In “Debunking Sola Scriptura,” Roman Catholic Alex Jurado apologist (aka Voice of Reason) said:

“The conscience of the Christian can only be bound to whatever was revealed by Jesus Christ to his apostles. Not even the church can bind us to anything that isn’t part of revelation.”

Which sounds very much like Sola Scriptura!

Three reasons for a gospel summary

Timothy Raymond, a pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Muncie, Indiana, gives the following three reasons to include a concise summary of the Gospel in every sermon.

“1. By regularly including a gospel summary, you’ll evangelize non-Christians in your congregation.

“2. By regularly including a gospel summary, you’re training Christians how to explain the gospel to their non-Christian friends.

“3. By regularly including a gospel summary, you communicate, by way of emphasis, what’s of ultimate importance.”

Epileptic or Lunatic

Did the NKJV translators believe epilepsy is caused by demon possession?[i] Or do they possibly believe the possession described here is not real, but rather figurative? Or something else?[ii]

• Matthew 17:15 AKJV: Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.
• Matthew 17:15 NKJV: “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.

• Epileptic, noun. A person affected by epilepsy (a disorder of the nervous system, characterized either by mild, episodic loss of attention or sleepiness petit mal or by severe convulsions with loss of consciousness grand mal.)
• Lunatic (lunatick), noun. A person affected with a severely disordered state of mind.

Lunatick or Epileptic? The Greek word is σεληνιάζεται, which means “lunatic” or “moonstruck.”[iii] Epileptic is a modern interpretation or application.

Whether reading in the King James Bible or a modern translation, the context is clear that this is a case of devil- or demon possession. Jesus rebuked the devil, and the devil was cast out of the man’s son. Again, I ask, do the NKJV translators believe epilepsy is caused by demon possession, or do they possibly believe the possession described here is not real? Or something else? Many modernists reject that Jesus was literally casting out devils. They ascribe this to ignorance of medical conditions. For example, William Barclay writes from his high modern horse, “As was inevitable in that age [emphasis mine], the father attributed the boy’s condition to the malign influence of evil spirits.” In other words, such medical problems as epilepsy were merely associated with demon possession because the people were ignorant and did not know any better! Such an accusation, however, means the inspired writers—and the one who inspired them to write—must have also been ignorant of the cause! God forbid! Do the NKJV translators side with the modernists against God?

Notice also that there are parallel accounts of this incident recorded in Mark 9:14-27 and Luke 9:37-42. These accounts also clearly point to an evil spirit that Jesus cast out. Textual scholars can be like politicians. Politicians create political problems so they can remain relevant by solving them. Scholars create Bible text problems to they can remain relevant by solving them. I think the simple solution is to leave “epilepsy” out of the equation. Doing so stops short of seeming to make a modern medical diagnosis. Most folks today think epilepsy is a neurological disorder caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain, and has nothing to do with demon possession. Whatever the “medical diagnosis” of the boy in Matthew 17, it is clear from the Bible that it was caused by the activity of an evil spirit.[iv] Let God be true, but every man a liar.

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[i] And other modern translations, including: ASV, AMP, CEB, CEV, CJB, ESVUK, EXB, GNT, ICB, ISV, MEV, NCB, NCV, NRSV, OJB, RSV, WEB. Interestingly, the LSB and NASB do not use epileptic.
[ii] Some commentators try to either explain or compromise the situation by allowing that some but not all cases of epilepsy are caused by evil spirits. It is notable that in the Believers Bible Commentary edited by Art Farstad and based on the NKJV, William MacDonald attributes this to be an epileptic seizure caused by Satan, pp. 1270-1271. Harold Fowler approaches it similarly, stating, “The child is an epileptic, but not just an epileptic, because this physical malady is merely the background upon which his demon possession is superimposed. Rather, the cause of the epilepsy and its accompanying symptoms was a demon…Although the NT does not teach that all, or even most, cases of epilepsy were produced by demonic power, this one was.” (The Gospel of Matthew, Volume Three. Joplin, MO: College Press, 1978, p. 620). The liberal Lutheran Ulrich Luz does not like the demonic explanation of the text and seeks to spiritualize it positively for modern readers: “Illnesses such as epilepsy do not conform to the human image willed by God, and the struggle against it takes place with the will of Christ and by his power” (Matthew 8-20, English translation by James E. Crouch. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001, p. 408).
[iii] The modern NET Bible gives this note on Matthew 17:15: “tn Grk ‘he is moonstruck,’ possibly meaning ‘lunatic’ (so NAB, NASB), although now the term is generally regarded as referring to some sort of seizure disorder such as epilepsy (L&N 23.169; BDAG 919 s.v. σεληνιάζομαι).” From the root σεληνιάζομαι (lunatic), see also Matthew 4:24.
[iv] To be clear, I am not offering any diagnoses of any modern seizures. I am interpreting this case in the Bible in its context. The physical problem was caused by devils.

The first three heroes of faith

“Instructively, the first three heroes of faith listed in Hebrews are from Genesis 4-6: Abel, Enoch, and Noah. All believed God, but their destinies were significantly different. Abel believed God and died. Enoch believed God and did not die. Noah believed God, and everyone else died in the Flood; eventually he died a natural death at the good old age of 950 years. We cannot dictate where faith will lead. The human tendency is to see only Enoch as the example of faith, but Abel is also given as our example. What all three have in common is that they walked by faith and pleased God. That faith is an example to us.” 

“Yet Noah was not perfect. The striking parallel and contrast between the saintly Noah before and during the Flood (6:8-9) and the drunken sinner, who exposes his nakedness after the Flood (9:21), directs the audience to look to God, not humans, for salvation.”

Bruce K. Waltke, Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: a Commentary, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001, p. 155

My song is love unknown

The hymn beginning “My song is love unknown” was written by Samuel Crossman in 1664. It was first published in The Young Man’s Meditation. These stanzas were connected to the Bible verse, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians vi. 14). It speaks of the incarnation, the triumphal entry, and the crucifixion.

Not much is known of Samuel Crossman’s early life, but he was born in Suffolk, England in 1623. Crossman studied at Pembroke College, then at Cambridge. After his graduation from the University of Cambridge, he ministered simultaneously at both an Anglican congregation and a Puritan congregation. He participated in the 1661 Savoy Conference. This conference attempted to reconcile dissenting elements in the Church of England, and update the Book of Common Prayer in a reconciliatory way for both Puritans and High Church Anglicans. After this attempt failed, the 1662 Act of Uniformity was passed. Crossman and other Puritan-leaning ministers who opposed the act were expelled from the Church of England. Later, around 1665, he returned to the Anglican Church and served in Bristol. Crossman died on February 4, 1683 (1684, new style), at Bristol. He was buried in the south aisle of the cathedral there.

Some sources state that the last stanza of this hymn “was written as an imitation of George Herbert’s ‘The Temple’ poem as a tribute by Crossman to Herbert.” The hymn text is in Hallelujah Meter (6.6.6.6.8.8.) with an unique internal rhyme pattern in the 5th and 6th lines.

1. My song is love unknown;
My Saviour’s love to me.
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
Oh who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take frail flesh and die.
 
2. He came from his blessed throne,
Salvation to bestow:
But men made strange, and none
The longed-for Christ would know.
But oh! my friend; My friend indeed,
Who at my need His life did spend.
 
3. Sometimes they strow his way,
And his sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day,
Hosannas to their King.
Then crucify Is all their breath,
And for his death They thirst, and cry.
 
4. Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage, and spite?
He made the lame to run,
He gave the blind their sight.
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
Themselves displease,
And ’gainst him rise.
 
5. They rise, and needs will have
My dear Lord made away,
A murderer they save:
The Prince of life they slay.
Yet cheerful he to suff’ring goes,
That he his foes From thence might free.
 
6. In life no house, no home,
My Lord on earth might have:
In death no friendly tomb,
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heav’n was his home;
But mine the tomb Wherein he lay.
 
7. Here might I stay, and sing;
No story so divine.
Never was love, dear King!
Never was grief like thine.
This is my friend, In whose sweet praise
I all my days Could gladly spend.

The tune most often connected with this hymn is called Love Unknown. It was written in 1925 by English composer John Ireland. He supposedly composed the melody in 15 minutes while having lunch one day with a fellow-composer.

John Nicholson Ireland was born at Bowden, England on August 13, 1879. He studied piano and organ at the Royal College of Music in London. He later taught at the Royal College of Music. Additionally, he served as organist and choirmaster at St Luke’s Church in Chelsea, London. Ireland died May 12, 1962 in West Sussex and was buried at St. Mary the Virgin Churchyard in Shipley, Horsham District, West Sussex, England.

The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, Wednesday, April 5, 1950, p. 12

Whitefield on spiritual progress

Some thoughts on spiritual progress derived from George Whitefield’s practices to encourage spiritual progress: 

* Engaging in regular Scripture reading

• recognize Scripture as God’s revelation of Jesus Christ
• approach with faith and humility
• apply the Scripture to your heart and life
• pray over the words and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit

* Consistent private personal prayer

* Frequent meditation on Scripture

* Observation of God’s providence (externally) and recognition of the Spirit’s guidance (internally)

* Making full use of God’s ordinances (and other practices, such as singing, fasting, etc.)

* Fellowshipping with other Christians who are walking with God, both congregationally and personally