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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
The Gospel Is the Power of God Unto Salvation, pt. 6
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
The Apostle Paul writes that “the gospel is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16). He uses those words to explain why in the first half of the same verse that he is “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” Maybe you might think that when Paul is saying that he is not ashamed of the gospel, that there was no way he would be. Paul ends Ephesians and Colossians asking for the churches to pray for boldness for him to preach the gospel.
Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Worship
Paul could be ashamed, but he wasn’t, because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation. If he was ashamed, that meant less gospel preaching and then less salvation. What occurs when shame for the gospel brings less gospel preaching?
Earlier in Romans 1, Paul writes, “For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son.” His word “serve” translates the Greek word latreuo, which is translated “worship” elsewhere (Philippians 3:3). As the word “serve” it is the priestly service, which enacts the offerings and the sacrifices. The priests presented these to God as prescribed by Him in His Word. This hearkens to the language of Paul in Romans 12:1, “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
To “present” is to “offer.” “Service” in Romans 12:1 is latreia, the noun form of the verb latreuo. It is reasonable worship. Worship is giving God what He wants. Priests in the Old Testament sacrificial system served, but it was the priestly service of offerings. They presented to God what He said in His ceremonial law.
Jesus made New Testament believers “priests” (Rev 1:6). As Peter wrote, New Testament believers are a holy priesthood, offering up spiritual sacrifices unto God (1 Peter 2:5). This equals or surpasses what Old Testament priests did. It isn’t lesser.
In Romans 1:9 the Apostle Paul says his gospel preaching is to worship with his spirit. Worship must be acceptable to God. His preaching of the gospel is acceptable unto God. Worship glorifies God.
The Missionary Psalm
The glory of God corresponds to the perfections of God’s attributes. His attributes are revealed before men. Glorifying God exalts those attributes by showing them. Preaching the gospel shows forth the attributes of God. With regard to this, I think of Psalm 67, what Spurgeon and others called and call “the missionary psalm.”
1 <To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm or Song.> God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah. 2 That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. 3 Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. 4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah. 5 Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. 6 Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. 7 God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.
Spurgeon writes in his Treasury:
How admirably balanced are the parts of this missionary song! The people of God long to see all the nations participating in their privileges, “visited with God’s salvation, and gladdened with the gladness of his nation” (Ps 106:5). They long to hear all the nationalities giving thanks to the Lord, and hallowing his name; to see the face of the whole earth, which sin has darkened so long, smiling with the brightness of a second Eden.
Exalting God Before the Heathen
Evangelism makes God’s way “known upon the earth,” His “saving health among all nations” (verse 2). The point of this in the end (verse 7) is that “all the ends of the earth shall fear him.” Worship starts with knowing Who God is, which brings reverence of Him, respect of Him, lifting Him up to His rightful place in the imagination of men. The gospel shows who God is in all His attributes. This is worth consideration.
Believers can talk about the gospel among themselves. It’s worth it. However, God wants exaltation among the heathen, among the nations, and in the world. He made those people in His image. He created them for His pleasure. Even if they don’t believe the gospel, they should hear it. When believers preach it, the true gospel, they exalt God.
To be ashamed of the gospel is to be ashamed of the power of God, which is an attribute of God. However, salvation itself as told by the gospel also manifests attributes of God: His holiness, His righteousness, His love, His goodness. His justice, and more. Even if someone doesn’t receive the gospel. believers worship God by preaching it.
More to Come
Sing the Psalms–A Free App for your Apple or Android Phone
Scripture commands: “[S]ing Psalms” (James 5:13). The Spirit-filled saint is singing “psalms” as well as hymns and spiritual songs (Ephesians 5:18-21). If you are a believer, you have the obligation to sing God’s inspired psalms. You have the blessed privilege to sing the inspired psalms. You have the glorious blessing to sing to the Father the same words that the Lord Jesus sang to His Father on earth. What a blessing this is!
I am very thankful that recently Bro David Cloud wrote a valuable article commending psalm singing. Our church has sung from the 1650 Scottish Psalter, a literal psalter, for many years. My wife and I have sung through the 1650 Psalter numbers of times in our family devotions–we sing the same psalm every day for a week, and then the next week go on to the next psalm. (We also sing hymns from the Trinity hymnal, Baptist edition–as does our church–and from the Metropolitan Tabernacle’s hymnbook.)
Unfortunately, the edition of the 1650 Psalter that our church and our family worships with–a version which includes conservative tunes, rather than being words-only, called the Comprehensive Psalter–is not in print. The people who have the copyright are planning to reprint it, I have heard, so feel free to reach out to them if you would like physical copies for your church and home. However, if you are not able to get a physical copy, I am delighted to let you know that a quality app has been designed which includes the text and tunes of the 1650 Scottish Psalter. The app also plays the tunes so people who do not know how to read music can easily learn to sing the entire psalter. I would definitely recommend that you download the app, add it to your electronic devices, and joyfully obeying God’s command to sing the songs Christ sung in worship, the inspired, infallible, inerrant Psalms.
There are other metrical psalters (versions of the psalms that can be sung), but, in my view, the 1650 Psalter is the best, because it is one of the most literal of the singable psalters. Probably, in my experience, The Book of Psalms for Singing is my second choice.
I added links to both the Apple and Android version of the 1650 Psalter app on my website here in the ecclesiology section, where you can also find other useful helps for psalm-singing. Here are direct links to the apps:
1650 Psalter App for Apple devices
1650 Psalter App for Android devices
The price is right for the apps–100% free. That also makes it a great price for people who wish to obey God’s command to sing the psalms in foreign lands. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can download the app and sing the psalms using his electronic device. Churches who want to get physical copies of the 1650 Psalter can have everyone sing from his phone until physical copies are in print again.
God commands you to sing the psalms. Why not start today?
If you do sing the psalms, how has it been a blessing in your life, in addition to glorifying the Lord? Feel free to explain in the comment section.
–TDR
John 20:28 and the Watchtower Society
John 20:28 is a very difficult passage for the Watchtower Society or so-called “Jehovah’s Witnesses” to explain away. The Watchtower, in its New World “Translation” that was made by seven “translators” who did not know Hebrew or Aramaic, and only one of which had ever taken a single course in New Testament Greek in his life, egregiously mistranslates John 1:1 to affirm that the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, was “a god,” supporting a form of polytheism in the Watchtower, where their god Jehovah, who is different than the true Jehovah God of the Bible, is allegedly the Almighty God while Christ is a secondary true god, a “mighty god.” The Watchtower Society claims that their deity is “the God,” and only the true God is called “the God,” while Christ is merely “a god,” a secondary true god. Their mistranslation of John 1:1 is awful, but, in my opinion, is not the first place to go to in order to show members of the cult their error. While the facts are not at all on their side in John 1:1, it is too complicated in Greek for them to believe you; they will believe their cult over what you say.
However, their misinterpretation of John 1:1 leaves them with a huge problem in John 20:28. In John 20:28–the climax of John’s Gospel–we read the following. Notice John 20:28:
John 20:26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. 28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. 29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. 30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: 31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
In Greek, the Apostle Thomas calls Christ “the Lord of me and the God of me”–so Christ is called “the God” in the climactic section of the gospel of John! Christ then says that Thomas is “blessed” for having confessed the Lord Jesus as “the God” (v. 29), and then the Apostle John explains that this confession is involved in believing on Christ to receive life in His name (vv. 30-31).
Here are pictures of John 20:28 from an interlinear Greek New Testament. I recommend that you download or take a picture of these pics and keep them on your phone or other electronic device. Then, when you run into a member of the Watchtower Society, you can tell him that you noticed this in the Bible and would like to get his explanation.
The interlinear here is J. P. Green’s Interlinear Hebrew-Greek-English Bible, 4 vol. ed., the volume on the New Testament. I believe Green’s interlinear, based on the Textus Receptus, is the best interlinear that is out there. I personally do not need to use an interlinear because my Greek has passed that stage, but on whatever occasions I would need to use one, I use Green’s (I have a leather-bound version of the NT portion of his interlinear and a big one-volume work that has the OT and NT. I am not sure if the leather-bound version is still in print.) If you want an interlinear, here are (affiliate) links to where you can get it on Amazon:
New Testament:
One volume edition Old and New Testament (bigger book and smaller print):
Four volume set:
Usually people in the Watchtower will refuse to talk to you if they are aware that you know what you are talking about–they seek to prey on the Biblically ignorant, not show their (alleged) truth to those who know God’s Word, because once you know the Bible well you are not going to get sucked into their cult. So it is wise to ask questions of members of the Watchtower when you seek to evangelize them, because as soon as they know you understand Scripture, they probably will not want to talk to you any more.
So what can you ask a member of the Watchtower? Something like the following (which also includes their very feeble attempts to explain the text away):
In John 20:28, at the climax of John’s Gospel, the point to which the whole Gospel has been building after the prologue of 1:1-18 and before the epilogue of chapter 21, Thomas answers and says to Jesus, “The Lord of me and the God of me” O Kyrios mou kai ho Theos mou (John 20:28), addressing Jesus Christ as “the” God. Christ commends Thomas for this statement, saying he was blessed, and that those who similarly confess and believe that Jesus is “the God of me” are blessed (20:29). Why do you think Thomas calls Christ “the God of me”?
The only explanations from members of the Watchtower that I have heard are the following:
1.) Thomas was taking God’s name in vain, like people who say “Oh my G**,” because the Apostle was surprised at Christ’s resurrection appearance. However, Christ would not have commended the Apostle for taking God’s name in vain. One of the Apostles taking God’s name in vain is the climactic confession of the whole Gospel of John? That “explanation” is ridiculous.
2.) Thomas was not really speaking to Christ when the Bible says Thomas “answered and said unto him.” But that also is to read into the Bible what it does not say, rather than drawing from the text what it does say. The “him” in 20:28 refers to Christ in 20:27. That is simply what the grammar requires. Thomas “answered” and “said unto” Christ, “him” of 20:28 who had appeared to Thomas. It cannot possibly be speaking about God the Father.
One Watchtower elder told me that only the “the Lord of me” was addressed to Christ while “the God of me” was addressed to the Father. However, looking at all the NT verses where the construction of John 20:28 appears, in all 61 instances, the same person gets the whole address (Matthew 11:4; 12:39, 48; 15:3, 23, 28; 16:17; 17:11; 19:4, 27; 21:21, 24, 27; 25:26, 37, 44; 26:33; Mark 6:37; 7:28; 9:12, 38; 11:14, 29; 12:17, 34; 14:48; Luke 1:19, 35; 3:11; 4:8; 7:22; 8:50; 10:41; 11:45; 13:8, 15; 17:20; 20:34; 24:18; John 2:19; 3:10; 4:10; 5:11, 19; 6:26; 7:16, 21, 52; 8:14, 33, 48; 9:20, 27, 30, 34; 10:25, 33; 12:34; 14:23; 18:5; 20:28). So this attempt to evade what sure looks like the plain sense of John 20:28 also fails badly. Thomas called Christ both “the Lord of me” and “the God of me.” Thomas answered and said to Jesus, “the Lord of me and the God of me.”
Because this text is so difficult for the Watchtower to explain away, they attempt to conceal from their members that Christ is called “the God” in John 20:28 (as He is in Hebrews 1:8). The Watchtower hopes that their “Jesus is a god, but not the God” explanation for John 1:1 works and that nobody notices that Christ is called “the God of me” in John 20:28. That is why this fact is very helpful and something worth pressing a Watchtower witness on.
The original audience who got the Gospel of John would have concluded that Thomas was “the Lord” and “the God” of Thomas, and that those who similarly believed were blessed (20:29). The Apostle Thomas was blessed when he confessed Jesus to be “the Lord of me and the God of me,” and I am blessed to make the same confession, 20:29. If members of the Watchtower repent, they also can make the same confession and receive eternal life through repentant faith alone in the one God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and who is in all three Persons possessed of the glorious Name “Jehovah.” (Matthew 28:19).
You can learn more about the blessed truth of the Trinity by clicking here.
–TDR
“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
Is the Trinity Practical? by Ryan McGraw
Some time ago I reviewed on this blog Ryan McGraw’s fine book Knowing the Trinity: Practical Thoughts for Daily Life.
I recommend the book highly; too many Christians think that the Trinity is just a doctrine that one holds that has no impact on his life, when, in fact, the Trinity is at the heart of all of the believer’s relationship with God and is thus at the core of the Christian’s new birth, sanctification, glorification, and eternal heavenly fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
If Dr. McGraw’s book (easy to read and not especially long) book is more than one wants to read, however, he has also written a short and helpful pamphlet called “Is the Trinity Practical?” which one can read quickly in just a few minutes, and which distills the truth in his longer book (which itself was a distillation of John Owen’s Christian classic Communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, a great treasure which I discuss in my Trinitarianism class here for several lectures.)
I purchased a number of copies of “Is the Trinity Practical?” to share with others. While the links in this post are to Amazon as Amazon affiliate links (if you get things on Amazon, please consider using Amazon Smile as discussed here), where you can also see what other people have thought of the book in the relevant book review section at Amazon, the cheapest place that I found to get copies of McGraw’s pamphlet, at least as of writing this post, was with Reformation Heritage Books, which, at the time of my writing this, had a nice sale on McGraw’s pamphlet.
I believe McGraw’s pamphlet could be very helpful for practically all church members. Perhaps you should consider getting some copies and sharing them with others in your congregation? The only warning I would make is that as an orthodox Presbyterian with Puritan leanings McGraw uses the word “sacrament” a few times instead of the better Biblical term “ordinance.” for baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But his Trinitarianism is completely orthodox, and other than the word “sacrament” there is nothing that points to Presbyterian ecclesiology in his pamphlet. Dr. McGraw is to be commended for summarizing in short compass what far too many who have even graduated from Bible colleges do not know in our theologically loose day–that the Trinity is central to everything in the Christian life, and is therefore most eminently practical.
–TDR
Binding and Loosing–What Are They? Matthew 16:19; 18:18; Catholic, Pentecostal, Keswick, and Bible Views
Do you know what it means that the church can bind and loose? The Bible reads:
Matt. 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Matt. 18:18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
The Roman Catholic Church claims that binding and loosing are associated with an infallible power their religious organization, led by the Pope when he speaks ex cathedra, from the chair of the (alleged) first Pope, Peter, to supposedly infallibly determine doctrine. Pentecostal, charismatic, Word of Faith and Keswick proponents claim to have the authority to bind Satan. What does Scripture teach?
I discussed this question in a Greek class I taught going through William Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek, from 5:56-19:23 into the class video. Click here to watch the video on YouTube (and please feel free to subscribe to the KJB1611 YouTube channel, post a comment or “like” the video)
or watch the video embedded below:
Learn what Scripture teaches about binding and loosing!
–TDR
Sermons on the Sabbath & Lord’s Day: Old and New Testament Evidence, and Seventh-Day Adventism Examined
I have had the privilege of preaching a series on the Sabbath and its relationship to the Lord’s Day. Topics covered include the Sabbath as Israel’s sign of creation and redemption; the way the Sabbath points forward to redemptive rest in the Lord Jesus Christ; Seventh-Day Adventist, Lutheran, Puritan, and dispensational Baptist views of the Sabbath; the question of whether churches in the New Testament era need to meet for worship on the Sabbath or on the Lord’s Day; and a careful study of the heresies, not just on the Sabbath, but on the doctrines of Scripture, God, Trinitarianism, Christ, salvation, last things, and many other areas of Seventh-Day Adventism, as explained in “Bible Truths for Seventh-Day Adventist Friends.”
To listen to the sermons and/or watch the preaching, please:
Click here to watch the series on the Sabbath
and feel free to add a comment, “like” the videos, and/or subscribe to the KJB1611 YouTube channel if you have not already do so.
There is probably one more message on the Sabbath coming, so feel free to check back. You can’t end a series with six messages instead of seven anyway, can you?
–TDR
The Psalter Headings–Infallibly Accurate Scripture, Correctly Ascribing Authorship to David, etc.
Many today question whether the headings of the Psalms are inspired Scripture, and whether they accurately ascribe authorship to David, Asaph, and so on. The headings to the psalms are inspired, just like the rest of the Bible, and when they say that a psalm was composed by David, Asaph, Heman, or Moses, they record God’s inspired truth. A “Psalm of David” was actually written by David. A “Psalm of Asaph” was actually written by Asaph.
Here are some reasons why the psalm headings should be trusted:
[Theological liberal] Brevard Childs says, “A wide consensus has been reached among critical scholars for over a hundred years that the titles are secondary additions, which can afford no reliable information toward establishing the genuine historical setting of the Psalms.”5 As a result, psalm studies for more than a century have been adrift in conflicting opinions about their dates and meaning[.] … Fortunately, the tide of academic opinion concerning the antiquity and reliability of the superscriptions is slowly changing under the gravity of evidence. … Sumerian and Akkadian ritual texts dating from the third millennium contain rubrics corresponding to elements in the superscription,8 and so do Egyptian hymns from the Eighteenth Dynasty and later.9 Some psalms ascribed to David contain words, images, and parallelism now attested in the Ugaritic texts (ca. 1400 BC).10 Though many technical terms in the superscriptions were obscure to the Greek and Aramaic translators (which suggests a loss of a living tradition and an extended gap of time between their composition and the Tannaitic period, 70–200 AD), they neither alter nor omit them. No ancient version or Hebrew manuscript omits them. With regard to the antiquity of some psalms, there can scarcely be a question. … Linguistic, stylistic, structural, thematic, and theological differences are so great between the Psalter and its imitative thanksgiving psalm at Qumran as to leave no doubt of the far greater antiquity of the Psalter. … Authorship of the Psalms and of their historical backgrounds depends in part on the meaning of the Hebrew preposition le with a proper name, usually David.11 Though le can mean “belonging to a series,”12 it commonly denotes authorship in the Semitic languages.13 Within other literary genres le in superscriptions signifies “by” (cf. Isa. 38:9; Hab. 3:1). In the Old Testament as in other ancient Near Eastern literature, poets, unlike narrators, are not anonymous (cf. Exod. 15:1; Judg. 5:1). The meaning “by” is certain in the synoptic superscriptions of 2 Samuel 22:1 and Psalm 18:[1].
Other Scriptures abundantly testify that David was a musician and writer of sacred poetry. Saul discovered him in a talent hunt for a harpist (1 Sam. 16:14–23). Amos (6:5) associates his name with temple music. The Chronicler says that David and his officers assigned the inspired musical service to various guilds and that musicians were led under his hands (i.e., he led them by cheironomy—hand gestures indicating the rise and fall of the melody—as pictured in Egyptian iconography already in the Old Kingdom; 1 Chron. 23:5; 2 Chron. 29:26; Neh. 12:36).14 The Chronicler also represents King Hezekiah as renewing the Davidic appointments of psalmody. Hezekiah directed the sacrifices and accompanying praises in which the compositions of David and his assistant Asaph were prominent (2 Chron. 29:25–30). J. F. A. Sawyer says, “In the Chronicler’s day … it can scarcely be doubted that the meaning was ‘by David.’ ”15 This was the interpretation of Ben Sirach (47:8–10), the Qumran scrolls (11QPsa), Josephus,16 and the rabbis.17 The interpretation is foundational for the New Testament’s interpretation of the Psalter as testimony to Jesus as the Messiah (Matt. 22:43–45; Mark 12:36–37; Luke 20:42–44; Acts 1:16; 2:25, 34–35; 4:25–26; Rom. 4:6; 11:9–10; Heb. 4:7). …
This royal interpretation of the Psalter affects biblical theology in several ways. (1) It allows the reader to hear the most intimate thoughts of Israel’s greatest king. (2) It validates the New Testament attribution of select psalms to David as their author. And (3) it provides the firm basis of the grammatico-historical method of interpretation for the New Testament’s messianic interpretation of the Psalter. …
According to their superscriptions, Psalms 34, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, 142 date from the time of David’s exile (1 Sam. 16–31); 18 and 60, from the time he is under blessing (2 Sam. 1–10); and 3, 51, 63, from when he is under wrath (2 Sam. 11–20). Psalms 7 and 30 are unclassified as to their precise dates (cf. 2 Sam. 21–24; for this threefold division of David’s career, see chaps. 22–23). In addition to the arguments given above for the credibility of the superscriptions, we ask, Why, if they are secondary additions, are the remaining fifty-nine Davidic psalms left without historical notices, especially when many of them easily could have been ascribed to some event in David’s life?22 Also, why would later editors introduce materials in the superscriptions of Psalms 7, 30, and 60 that are not found in historical books and not readily inferred from the Psalms themselves? Finally, why should it be allowed that psalms in the historical books contain superscriptions with historical notices (see Exod. 15:1; Deut. 31:30 [cf. 32:44]; Judg. 5:1; 2 Sam. 22:1; Jonah 2; Isa. 38:9) but those in the Psalter do not, even though the syntax is sometimes similar? (Bruce K. Waltke and Charles Yu, An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007] 871–874).
So don’t doubt the psalm inscriptions. Receive them as infallible truth, just like you do the rest of the Bible.
–TDR
5 Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 520.
8 Gerald H. Wilson, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985), 13–24.
9 ANET, 365–81.
10 Mitchell Dahood, Psalms 1:1–50, AB (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995), xxix–xxx.
11 Moses (Ps. 90), David (73 times), Solomon (Pss. 72, 127), Korah, 42–49, 84–87), Asaph (50, 73–83), Heman (88), and Ethan (89).
12 BDB, 513, entry 5b.
13 GKC, 129c.
14 J. Wheeler, “Music of the Temple,” Archaeology and Biblical Research 2 (1989).
15 J. F. A. Sawyer, “An Analysis of the Context and Meaning of the Psalm,” Transactions 22 (1970): 6.
16 Josephus, Antiquities, 9.13.3.
17 Charles A. Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms (New York: Scribner, 1906–7), liv.
22 Gleason L. Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (Chicago: Moody, 1964), 28.
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