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Bifurcation in Beauty: Dualism of Spiritual/Sacred and Natural/Secular
You have heard, “Life imitating art or art imitating life.” In that vein, art imitates worldview.” Even when someone says, this is his worldview, his art may contradict what he says is his worldview. The art or his aesthetic is a better or more accurate expression of his worldview than other means of expressing it.
You could see what was important to Jesus by His reaction to the corrupting of the temple, His Father’s house. When someone blows his top because you dinged his car, that says something about the priority of his car, more than if you asked him. A person’s music has that way of explaining the meaning of a person’s life.
Worship of and Love for God
One biblical and historical element of worship of God is music. The Bible is full of music. Worship is an offering to God. God regulates the offering. It must be what God wants for Him to accept it.
Someone said, “You are what (or who) you worship.” Whatever you give God, that’s what you think about Him. If you give that to Him, then that expresses who you are, as much as it does who God is.
You can say you love God, like you can say you know God. If you don’t do what He says, you neither love Him or know Him, which overlap. The love shines through what you offer. It is like giving God the present you wanted, not what He did. You love yourself.
The “life imitating art” part of the equation says that art affects life. Life changes by the art influencing it. A person especially changes by the thoughts expressed about God through the music offered God.
The Meaning
What I have written assumes that art means something. It also says that art itself is not subjective and personal. Scripture says this, when it says that God is worshiped in the beauty of His holiness.
Beauty, which relates to aesthetics or art, is not in the eye of the beholder. It is objective in its meaning. Holiness is beautiful. That would mean that the unholy is not beautiful. Everything is not beautiful in its own way. Some is beautiful and some is not.
God separates from what falls short of the perfections of His attributes. That is the holiness of God. God will not receive as worship what falls short of His attributes. He separates from that as characteristic of His nature.
Bifurcation of Beauty
How is it that today churches do offer God the profane, that is, what conflicts with His attributes? Churches bifurcate beauty, just like they do with truth. They separated the spiritual or sacred from the natural or secular. Like there is total truth, one truth like one God, there is total beauty.
Churches and their leaders (or perhaps the leaders just pander to the people) went along with the split. They regarded and treated spiritual things as sentimental and emotional, not on the same plain as the natural and the secular. Church is an escape from the real world.
The music offers that escape and that feeling, which lifts someone emotionally, and is seen as a sacred or spiritual experience with God. That’s what church does as its most essential. People leave with a skip in their step, ready to go in the real world, the secular one, even thinking it was God.
Some churches and their leaders would disagree they do what I described in the previous paragraph. They explain it as something different, so removed from what occurred, because now that is the norm for a church. It’s been done so long, it’s just church now. It follows the trajectory of a revision of true worship, not true worship.
A church with corrupt music and worship doesn’t see its art as negative or corrupted. That is instead something profane to the extreme like a Mapplethorpe exhibit of a crucifix in a jar of urine, pushed by the National Endowment of Arts in the late 1980s. Certain extreme or exotic modern or even postmodern forms, those are wrong. Not the profanity churches now perform and consider worship.
Tell-Tale
Without the church doing much to anything to help it, the world’s culture has decayed. Churches veered off objective beauty, or one beauty. Something is either beautiful or it is not. Beauty is not related to secular or spiritual or even sacred.
Music isn’t sacred because it is used in the church; it is sacred because it is sacred. That also means it is beautiful, because, again, beauty relates to the glory of the Lord. A corruption of beauty, used in worship in the church, does not become beautiful by a church using it, what some today call, “redeeming” it.
The music someone plays and enjoys, and especially for someone who says he is a Christian, by that you can tell who he is. I know some of you readers hate that. You deny it sharply and often angrily. The reasons for the heat also help explain what is happening.
It is easy today for professing Christians to stand up against decadent culture. They can point out what’s very horrible in bad books in schools and their curriculum. Meanwhile, their churches are decaying at perhaps a little slower pace but a continuous one that isn’t far behind the world.
What is light and easy, sentimental and emotional, and entertaining also sells. Salzburg and Vienna and the rest of Europe went for Mozart’s music because of the former, the light and easy, etc. His dad Leopold, however, liked the selling part of it. It wasn’t lost on the religious leaders that Mozart also boosted their prominence and position.
Church Consumers
Entertainment, Not Worship
Church attenders become consumers, which is the opposite of worship. They also confuse that feeling from true spirituality. It doesn’t matter, because that feeling and spirituality are on the same plain. When the congregants leave their meeting, they take that experience as preparation for the real world. That’s also now constituted as God. The people think they’ve associated with God because it is indistinguishable from Him. It is actually more aligned with the world they enter after their assembling ends.
Even Baptist meetings have long encouraged the decadence of consumerism. They entertain a crowd. The feeling is an apparent sanctified one, which is a lie. The one who does this the best, a kind of circus-master, is a wanted commodity. It or he improves the spirit of the meeting, again this superficial, sentimental emotionalism. God is using his talent. Most cannot resist the popularity of it. It is its own pop music.
How could churches permit a philosophy in conflict with God? Some don’t judge music. Even though arts are full of meaning, they relegate it to meaninglessness. It is in this meaningless realm of spirituality, not like what occurs where there is meaning, eight to five, a real life. Many also judge against the extreme and deem themselves better by comparison.
Loss of Discernment
Young people in church often feel left out. If they get this music, it at least might connect them to the real world. This is the acquiescence to youth culture. Their hormones are raging and they chafe under parental authority. They look happier and parents think the church succeeds at keeping them. Its young people are happy. At least they can smile to the rhythm, the feeling, and the allurement.
Churches lose their discernment, described in a biblical way as unable to distinguish the holy from the profane. It occurs through incrementalism. Men won’t separate from it. They won’t say no to it. It gets worse and then doesn’t stop getting worse. To explain it requires something more than a thirty second sound byte. Even if you can, the Bible doesn’t have a play button to give the kind of proof necessary for such diminished discernment.
Country music or Country Western arose in church settings. It grew among church going young people in the Bible belt. They took the sentimentality and feelings that corresponded to the bifurcation of beauty in the church. Country western stars, who began in church, brought a more intense version of it to the world. It produced an even more extreme response.
Holy and Profane
Ryman Auditorium, the temple of country music, looks like a church building. It gives people, especially young ones, that feeling they had at church, making their experience in the world indistinguishable from church. The entertainers at church just do a lesser version of the same thing. This contrasts with Ezekiel 44:23:
And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.
The country stars were good at country music. What started in church succeeded in the world. The success in the world, more excessive in its effect, travelled back to the church. The church accepts it, because that’s the domain of the spiritual.
To Be Continued
“They Will Reverence My Son”
In a story told by the Lord Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry, He said in Mark 12:6:
Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son.
What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.
Free sacred and classical music
If you would like beautiful sacred and classical music for free, here are some resources. Consider bookmarking this post and come back to it when you want to listen to some good music.
Sacred:
In the ecclesiology section of my website, I have a number of resources for sacred, reverent, and free conservative psalm and hymn music. Lord willing, I will keep those resources updated as links change. So for free sacred music, please click here.
Classical:
Netherlands Bach Society: They are playing everything that Bach wrote, over time, and making it available for free. Their YouTube channel has no ads in their videos (as of the time I am writing this).
So you know, I have a real soft spot for the baroque and for early classical music.
May these resources be a blessing to you, as you offer God holy praise in psalms and hymns, and enjoy the beauty of His design seen in classical music.
–TDR
Are Christian Ministers “Reverend”?
Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox religious organizations call their priests “reverend,” or “reverend Fathers.” So do the large majority of Protestants, and a surprising number of Baptists, even fundamental, independent Baptists. Are Catholic priests “reverend”? How about Christian ministers–are they the “Reverend John Doe” and the like?
There is only one verse in the King James Bible where the word “reverend” appears:
Psa. 111:9 He sent redemption unto his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is his name.
In this passage Jehovah’s name is “holy and reverend,” because He is the Almighty Redeemer, who in faithfulness to His holy covenant promises, redeems His people by His power, chooses and sets them apart to Himself, and makes them like Himself, until He brings them to eternally be with Him in His holy presence. Truly, Jehovah’s name is holy and reverend!
But “Rev. Mr. Jones” does not do any of that. Mr. Jones does not have an infinitely holy name or character; Mr. Jones does not redeem God’s people by an almighty arm and by the blood of Jesus Christ. Simply looking at the English word, one would conclude that a minister calling himself “Rev.” is a form of blasphemy, taking the honor due to Jehovah’s name alone.
What about the Hebrew translated “reverend” in Psalm 111:9? The form is the Niphal (generally passive) participle of the verb “to fear,” nôrāʾ, hence, “to be feared.” Jehovah’s name is “to be feared” and it is holy.
The Niphal participle appears in 34 verses in the Old Testament. Significant examples include:
Ex. 15:11 Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?
Deut. 7:21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them: for the LORD thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible.
Deut. 28:58 If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;
Mal. 1:14 But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.
Psa. 47:2 For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth.
Psa. 66:3 Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee.
Psa. 66:5 Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men.
Psa. 68:35 O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places: the God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God.
Psa. 76:7 Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?
Psa. 76:12 He shall cut off the spirit of princes: he is terrible to the kings of the earth.
Psa. 89:7 God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.
Psa. 96:4 For the LORD is great, and greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods.
Psa. 99:3 Let them praise thy great and terrible name; for it is holy.
Job 37:22 Fair weather cometh out of the north: with God is terrible majesty.
Dan. 9:4 And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments;
Neh. 1:5 And said, I beseech thee, O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments:
Neh. 4:14 And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.
Neh. 9:32 Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day.
1Chr. 16:25 For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised: he also is to be feared above all gods.
The strong majority of uses refers to Jehovah as the One who is to be feared / reverenced. An examination of the complete list of texts (Gen. 28:17; Ex. 15:11; 34:10; Deut. 1:19; 7:21; 8:15; 10:17; 28:58; Judg. 13:6; Is. 18:2, 7; Ezek. 1:22; Joel 2:11; 3:4; Hab. 1:7; Zeph. 2:11; Mal. 1:14; 3:23; Psa. 47:3; 66:3, 5; 68:36; 76:8, 13; 89:8; 96:4; 99:3; 111:9; Job 37:22; Dan. 9:4; Neh. 1:5; 4:8; 9:32; 1 Chr. 16:25; note that the Hebrew versification is sometime slightly different than the English) reveals not a solitary text where a godly person, or a priest, or a minister, or anyone of the sort is called “reverend.”
Jehovah is reverend. If you are a Christian minister, you are not reverend.
What about a Catholic priest? There are a small number of texts where “to be feared” or “terrible” has the sense of desolate judgment. Thus, in Habakkuk 1:7 the evil, pagan Babylonians, who come to lay waste, kill, and destroy the Lord’s people, are called “terrible” (Hab 1:7). Likewise, a desolate, life-destroying desert is called a “terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water” (Deut 8:15). So Catholic priests, as representatives of their pagan and Satanic false religion, in the sense that they are pagan, evil, destroyers of God’s people, are “reverend” in the sense that they are actually terrible, are life-destroying like a desolate desert full of serpents and scorpions, and are soul-murderers the way that the pagan Babylonians were “terrible.” After all, the pagan Baylonians are their ancestors as they are part of that great harlot sitting on many waters, the future one-world religion centered in Rome, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth (Revelation 17).
So let Catholic priests call themselves “reverend” or “terrible” if they wish–it is true, albeit not in the way that they intend, but in the same sort of way as when the Pope calls himself “vicar of Christ” he employs a title equivalent in Greek to “anti-Christ” (Latin vicarius = Greek anti).
So if you are a Baptist or a Protestant who claims to fear the true God, don’t call yourself reverend. In the good sense, it is true for the one God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, alone–He alone is holy and reverend. In the bad sense, of something genuinely terrible and destructive, it is true of pagan murderers of God’s people, and so, in that sense, an appropriate title for a Roman Catholic priest or of other servants of religions that are drunk “with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Revelation 17:6). You are unworthy of “reverend” in the good sense, and I rather think you don’t want to be called “reverend” or “terrible” in the bad sense.
So Jehovah is “reverend”–Hallelujah–and Catholic priests are “terrible/reverend”–to their everlasting shame. If you preach the true gospel and are a servant of Christ, you are emphatically not “reverend.” So stop calling yourself or others “Rev.” The title is either blasphemy, if intended as a compliment, or a statement that they are pagan enemies of God, in the bad sense.
Spurgeon well commented on Psalm 111:9:
“He sent redemption unto his people.” When they were in Egypt he sent not only a deliverer, but an actual deliverance; not only a redeemer, but complete redemption. He has done the like spiritually for all his people, having first by blood purchased them out of the hand of the enemy, and then by power rescued them from the bondage of their sins. Redemption we can sing of as an accomplished act: it has been wrought for us, sent to us, and enjoyed by us, and we are in very deed the Lord’s redeemed. “He hath commanded his covenant for ever.” His divine decree has made the covenant of his grace a settled and eternal institution: redemption by blood proves that the covenant cannot be altered, for it ratifies and establishes it beyond all recall. This, too, is reason for the loudest praise. Redemption is a fit theme for the heartiest music, and when it is seen to be connected with gracious engagements from which the Lord’s truth cannot swerve, it becomes a subject fitted to arouse the soul to an ecstacy of gratitude. Redemption and the covenant are enough to make the tongue of the dumb sing. “Holy and reverend is his name.” Well may he say this. The whole name or character of God is worthy of profoundest awe, for it is perfect and complete, whole or holy. It ought not to be spoken without solemn thought, and never heard without profound homage. His name is to be trembled at, it is something terrible; even those who know him best rejoice with trembling before him. How good men can endure to be called “reverend” we know not. Being unable to discover any reason why our fellow-men should reverence us, we half suspect that in other men there is not very much which can entitle them to be called reverend, very reverend, right reverend, and so on … we would urge that the foolish custom should be allowed to fall into disuse.
C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 111-119, vol. 5 (London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 4.
–TDR
The Place of Fear in a True Church and With True Worship
I’ve read recently, “Fear is not a virtue.” A company called, American Virtue Clothing prints “Fear Is Not a Virtue” on its clothing. Heather Delapi argues that “fear” isn’t found in the lists of virtues of scripture, hence is not a virtue. The English word “fear” is found 385 times in the King James Version of the Bible. I have read all of those verses, but I haven’t sorted through everyone of them to find how many times fear is rebuked or admonished and how many times it is extolled or commended. There are both.Fear is a virtue. No godly person lives without fear. It is a necessity for pleasing God. Just because it isn’t listed as fruit of the Spirit doesn’t mean that it isn’t a virtue. It is dangerous and wrong to say it isn’t a virtue. Why would I even write this? I’ve taught through Acts all the way through once, and in great detail about halfway through the whole book about five times. I’m teaching and preaching through it again right now as we evangelize and plant a church in Southern Oregon. When Luke writes under the inspiration of God to describe the basics of the church of Jerusalem in that classic passage in Acts 2:41-47, he writes in Acts 2:43 an attitude of that first church:
And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
“Fear came upon every soul.” This verse got my attention again on this subject, so I’m writing on it. This same morning as I was preaching the end of the book of Acts, in Sunday School I started a short series on “The Detection and Correction of Doctrinal and Practical Error.” In my introduction I quoted what Jesus said in Matthew 10:28 and elaborated about its part in that subject.
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Four Thousand Praised the LORD with the Instruments Which I Made
In the midst of a variated list, 1 Chronicles 23:5 reads:
Moreover four thousand were porters; and four thousand praised the LORD with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith.
1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. 2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. 3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. 4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. 5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. 6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
Psalm 33:2, Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.Psalm 92:3, Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.Psalm 98:6, With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King.Psalm 144:9, I will sing a new song unto thee, O God: upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee.
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.
Sanctification Summary: Christian Holiness or Sanctification—A Summary from Eternity Past to the Eternal State
During the recent Word of Truth Conference at Bethel Baptist Church, I had the privilege of preaching a summary of what Scripture teaches on sanctification. It was suggested that this summary be made into a pamphlet. You can now download the pamphlet on the FaithSaves website by clicking here; it is entitled “Christian Sanctification: A Summary from Eternity Past to the Eternal State.” The video is also live at FaithSaves; it can also be watched on YouTube by clicking here; if it is a blessing, I would encourage you to “like” it on YouTube and leave a comment. I have also embedded the video below for your viewing edification.
May it be a blessing to you, and with those with whom you can share it who want to understand what Scripture teaches about sanctification.
–TDR
Christian Piano Teacher Offering Internet Lessons
My wife, Heather Ross, has availability to take some new piano students. She has taught piano for many years with many students successfully using their skills for the glory of God. When we were in Wisconsin, she was already teaching students over the Internet for students from Bethel Baptist Church in El Sobrante, CA, and Carson River Baptist Church, in Carson City, Nevada. Please note her description (very slightly edited) of her music ministry below:
earned my Masters in Education in 2014 and partnering with a local
music academy between 2015 and 2018, I continue to add new skills,
implement tested methodology, and discover students’ individual
strengths as I work to help them become the best musicians and
individuals they can be. Throughout my years of teaching, I have
experimented with various methods and have discarded those which have
not proven to be a positive focus of energy in the lesson time.
believe children learn by doing and, when given clearly laid out plans
and directed down a productive path, every child will be successful no
matter what his / her natural ability. I invite parents to sit in on any
lesson. You will find that instruction time is used efficiently;
specific objectives are used to maximize instruction; students are
encouraged multiple times during each lesson and individuals leave
feeling encouraged to do their best as they create beautiful music with
their hands and hearts.
I have been taking lessons with Heather
for almost 3 years and it has significantly improved my piano playing. I
started as an adult learner and was stuck “in a groove” when I started
lessons with Heather. She has helped me to learn more technical skills
to play piano more efficiently and with more ease. She is extremely
experienced and knowledgeable, so if you’re looking for the best, look
no further. I have recommended her to my niece, sister-in-law, and
mother-in-law. If you are looking for classical and/or hymns piano
teacher, Heather is an excellent choice.
Heather is a very patient and
encouraging teacher who seeks to bring out the best in your child. She
is always finding ways to better herself as a teacher and to help your
child reach their full potential. My child was challenged through her
teaching and made great progress. Highly recommend her.
Heather teaches my daughter via Google
Hangouts. It always amazes me the technicality she can see over the
internet. She knows if my daughter is tense, bending her knuckle wrong
or doesn’t have her fingers on the right part of the keys. Heather is a
patient and talented teacher and we are grateful to have her at our
disposal.
Her solid musical training and education, coupled with her years
of experience have proven to be a great help for numerous piano
students. Heather Is well capable of helping students of all different
levels in their musical skills.
I have received help from Heather for
specific pieces that are “beyond me” and she has always been able to
communicate the best way to learn the piece. I have also observed her
teaching young piano students and have been impressed with her ability
to help each student improve and strive for their very best!
I really enjoyed taking lessons from
Heather. She provided many fun incentives to reward practicing and help
me reach goals. I appreciated that before she pointed out something I
needed to correct that week, she first gave positive words about what I
had accomplished that week in my practicing. I also appreciated her
emphasis on theory–(learning chords, cadences, scales, arpeggios),
playing by ear, and improvising. She provided me with a great classical
foundation and helped me develop into an advanced pianist before
entering college and furthering my pianistic development.
If you are looking for a teacher who
cares about her students and wants there best, Heather is a wonderful
option! She is very experienced, knowledge, and a phenomenal piano
player! I had several piano teachers as a little girl, but I had the
privilege of taking piano lessons from Heather during my high school
years. None of my prior teachers developed me in piano at the rate that
Heather did. She knows how to motivate students to not just “get by” but
encourages them to achieve their best. Definitely recommend her!
My son has been taking piano lessons
from Heather for several years now. I am so pleased with how much I have
seen him progress in his skill as a result of her teaching. She
challenges and encourages him to do his best and master each new piece. I
also like how she takes the time to plan recitals at local senior
living facilities so that her students can learn to use their talents to
be a blessing an encouragement to others. I would recommend her to
anyone looking for a quality piano teacher who will really invest the
time into your child to see him or her become a the best piano player
that they can be!
Micah
Heather is a very dedicated, loving, and experienced teacher. I
know I learned so much through her piano teaching. She doesn’t simply
teach for a pay check, but to see each of her students fully developed
in piano And all other areas of life!!
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