This is a story of the Power of the Spirit, and the work of the Son of God. It is a story of wind and of water, of fruit and of seed. It is the story of a father and his son, of a man and his bride. This is a story of the blessing of divided tongues, and the reverse of the curse of the confusion of Babel. Pentecost’s story, however, begins in a garden on a hill, long ago. And this is how that story goes:
On a hill there stood a tree, Read the rest of this entry »
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Sermons | Tagged: Pentecost, Sermon | 
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Posted by Luke Welch
filed in Culture
I have many complaints about Top-40 Pop Christian music stations and about the whole industry in general. I am not at all opposed to self-consciously Christian music. I am not opposed to Christian music with children singing it it. Or to music that sounds mainly fit for a concert whose audience is made of church people who never listen to other music. I am opposed to the basic degeneration of industrial standards as seen over my many years of detailed listening to Christian music radio stations.
I would like to put down some thoughts over time about what is wrong with the current world of pop-top-40 Christian music.
I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, listening to KLTY, then the largest Christian radio station in the world. Then the world was much simpler… I was beginning to be very conscious of Christian music in about 1985 or ’86. I was already hearing it all the time, but I was getting old enough to analyze that very present part of my world.
Around then, Michael W. Smith was giving us “Hosanna,” and a rendering of Psalm 8 that was very succesful. Amy Grant had put out the masterful album “Unguarded” and the reverent but entertaining album Age to Age with songs like “El Shaddai” and “Sing Your Praise to the Lord.” Rich Mullins had wowed and entertained us with “Screen Door on a Submarine” (an analogy of faith without works with some colorful pictures).
Keith Green’s death was not too distant in the past, and Phil Keaggy’s work was a high bar standard for musicianship.
WHAT HAPPENED!?
The first complaint I wish to air here is about the sorry excuse for Phil Spector’s“wall of sound” that shows up with regularity on my radio after many degenerating generations. Wall of sound, which never should have become a tool to use in EVERY song, was developed in the the 1960′s using real musicians and a recording technique for multiplying the background in order to cover up emptiness, and to make a song feel big. NOW, every single song in Christian top-pop sounds like it is full of fake strings. There is a constant ear abusing synthesized orchestra in the background. WHAT HAPPENED? People don’t actually like this. People may not even know that they don’t like it, especially because they are stuck hearing it so frequently. But cheap production values shouldn’t become the standard for music that is paid for by large production companies. However, since it is all driven by the corporate machines that churn out pulp-christian music, that is what it has become – pulp.
In the past, musicians set the stage, and rich companies could afford to throw in their overly company-driven offerings made cheap. Now that’s all we have. The weed has taken over the garden.
3 Comments | Culture | Tagged: Amy Grant, Christian Music, Keith Green, KLTY, Michael W. Smith, Phil Keaggy, Phil Spector, Pop, Radio, Rich Mullins | Permalink
Posted by Luke Welch
filed in Children and Worship
On July 4th, we will break out the Federal fireworks again. But only for the vision of adults. The children should be at home with the babysitter. If they saw the fireworks, they might think themselves to be free. Freedom is only for Americans. Americans are people who understand the Constitution. They also might be led to thinking that fireworks were celebratory. This is a common misunderstanding – revolution is sober and somber. This is another major reason to make sure that none of our young ones show up to see the display: children are very likely to get ideas. Ideas that are not conducive to the state of mind needed to properly engage in our celebr….I mean, in our cerebral activity. In order to cerebrate properly, one must conjure up the image of the Revolutionary war, and imagine that you are being challenged at the mouth of a musket by a Red Coat….then we must determine whether we are capable of handling such a martyrdom. If we flinch, we must start the imagination over again, until we have successfully determined that we are patriotically perfect enough to behold the fireworks.
I have seen people letting their kids see the fireworks… it is reckless and it threatens the very vitals of American identity. They are just standing there, in the same parking lot that I am trying to be in alone, and they are letting their little future Americans hear the sacred anthems as if they were fit to take pleasure in the Star Spangled Banner. My children will not own the songs of our people until they can recognize that the “We” in “We the people” doesn’t mean them! I tell you the truth, any child who thinks he is enjoying patriotic music is only setting himself up for a lifetime of political rebellion. Or, on the other hand, for false belief that his patriotism is real. He’s going to someday be 35 and want to take his own kids to fireworks… and he himself won’t even have filled out an immigration form proving that he is a natural……..ized…citizen.
Children cannot think enough to be Patriotic!
Children cannot learn patriotism from the inside!
Children aren’t citizens by birth, this is our National INHERITANCE we have at stake people! The LAND and the PROMISE must be bought by each new generation or it can never belong to our people for real.
Children must be shown they are not Americans before we can allow them in. And then only if they can explain the Constitution!
I mean, people DIED for this freedom… it’s precious and we need to protect it from ALL enemies…including the “domestic” ones.
And we especially don’t want to mistake gravity for festival. We must never grant freedom to those who haven’t earned it!
3 Comments | Children and Worship | Tagged: federal vision, paedocommunion, satire | Permalink
Posted by Luke Welch
filed in How to read the Bible
Along with Paul’s greeting to “greet one another with a holy kiss,” come the following repeated themes. What do you think this means? Anything?
Testing Error:
1 Thess 5.20-22
2 Cor 13.5-8
1 Cor 16.13
Rom 16.17-19
Respecting Ecclesiastical Authority (“Workers in the Lord”):
1 Thess 5.12-13
2 Cor 13.10
1 Cor 16.10-11, 15-18
Rom 16.1-16
Peace/Reconciliation:
1 Thess 5.13
2 Cor 13.11
1 Cor 16.14
Rom 16.16-17
I would note that all three of those themes are endemic to the integrity of the church.
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Posted by Luke Welch
filed in How to read the Bible
The Gospel of John uses the word “world” a lot. It also has a special meaning that is important to recognize for interpretation. “World” in John does not mean “earth” or “universe.” It means “the world of humanity.” And it usually has a negative connotation for being the fallen world of humanity.
This is in much the same way that we might say “man” or “human” and mean “fallen humanity,” for example:
“We don’t follow the philosophies of man, we follow the teachings of God.” (That’s a made up sentence, not a Bible verse). You see that it means “man when opposed to God.” Even though we could at the same time say, “Man was the crown of creation.” That uses man positively, and we just see and know what it means.
“I try to use the Spirit’s direction, instead of my human understanding.” That “human” is in reference to the fallenness of our minds… as in “To err is human, but to forgive is divine.”
But “man” is not always negative; neither is “human.” “World” is not always negative, but in John, it almost always is; still, you must use that sense of feeling the word out with the background knowledge that he probably means, “people – post fall.”
Check out “world” in John on Biblegateway, and see if you see what I mean. I will write more later about payoffs to this clue.
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Posted by Luke Welch
Jamie Soles should be a staple in your house… his ability to produce beautiful music that teaches the Bible blesses and blesses time and again. I believe this is the 10th album of his we have in our house… many of them have 15-20 songs on them. Often his music is directed in an adult way toward children (pleasing parents and children alike), but this album is his third album fully made of biblical Psalms. His quality also has developed from good to great over the years, and each album strikes the experienced listener as a treat.
It is no surprise that this album is surprisingly good.
1 Comment | Recommendations | Permalink
Posted by Luke Welch
filed in How to read the Bible
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I started posting on overlapping bible stories and bible structure. Finally I am working on completing that thought.
A friend of mine, Travis, mentioned the word “Acetate” as a reference to this idea – and I think acetate is what they called overhead projector sheets in days of yore… or maybe currently in Merry Olde England. But that is not my point. Overhead sheets can be layed over each other so that you can see what is printed on each sheet and how they line up. Much theological insight is to be gained through this kind of reasoning, and much can be found in this kind of writing from the likes of men such as Doug Wilson, Mark Horne, Peter Leithart, Jeff Meyers, Mike Bull and James B. Jordan.
In the previous post, I mentioned the overlapping of the stories of Noah and Lot. Here’s another example:
Jericho’s destruction and Egypt’s Passover Judgment:
“18 Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down,and you shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household. 19Then if anyone goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be guiltless. But if a hand is laid on anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head. 20But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be guiltless with respect to your oath that you have made us swear.” 21And she said, “According to your words, so be it.” Then she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.” (Josh 2)
“22Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23For the LORD will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you.” (Ex 12)
Here are overlapping images:
Here are some payoffs:
Jericho is a passover judgment. The whole house is saved according the faithfulness of the household’s head. The blood brings salvation. The salvation is corporate and covenantal. This is the same, incidentally as Noah’s house saved together in his boat, and Lot’s house, saved together in his house. Sweeping judgment on the outside, and corporate salvation on the inside. This leads us to another post, as we approach the idea of “holy spaces.”
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Posted by Luke Welch
Finally Biblegateway has finished its conversion. They have been operating under a dual URL lately with old and new sites separated, but now the New has Swallowed up the Old and the Old URL matches the New Site.
I use Biblegateway a billion times a week, so I am happy to go back to the simple way of getting to the site. They have made changes to the structure – good changes.
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Posted by Luke Welch
This is a really nice album that the kids and I like to listen to during breakfast.
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Posted by Luke Welch
filed in: Priest
Below is an “indestructible” proof that the Bible does speak of “forever” as a normative category. I am writing this to supplement the review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins that Uri Brito and I published a few weeks ago. Attach this to the material in pages 5-6 of:
He Has Fixed a Day: A Reformed Response to Rob Bell’s Hell
In summary, the argument for Jesus’ priesthood given in Hebrews 7.14-17 relies on the word (olam) from Ps 110, meaning “Forever.” If (olam) doesn’t mean “forever,” then Hebrews’ argument falls apart.
Here are the two pericopes in question:
The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” (Ps 110.4)
AND
14For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. 15This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, 16who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. 17For it is witnessed of him,
“You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.“ (Heb 7.14-17)
What has to be noted is that it is the “foreverness” of the priesthood that links Jesus to the Psalm. It is clearly not his lineage from Levi, since he is not a Levite; he is from Judah.
The phrase that matters in Hebrews 7 is “by the power of an indestructible life.” This means: since he is resurrected and ascended, he has a life that is “foreverish.” He becomes the only candidate for this non-Levitical priesthood.
But if Rob Bell is right, then the conclusion we would be led to is that there would be no proof of the priesthood.
Bell, of course, doesn’t say this — thankfully. But the error of his assertion takes us to this conclusion inescapably.
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Posted by Luke Welch
