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Praise for CCM
A recent article on some 90’s CCM tracks got me thinking. I suppose you could say I came of age in the mid-90’s, discovering for the first time the great alternative music scene of Smashing Pumpkins, Bush, Oasis, and No Doubt. (Little did I know until much later that they stood on the shoulders of some serious alternative giants.) I rarely bought their music because I was concerned about the lyrics. So when I began searching for Christian musicians, I found myself embracing dc Talk, Jars of Clay, Newsboys, and Audio Adrenaline, among many, many others. In no time I was a CCM fanboy. I couldn’t get enough! And as…
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Thoughts on Jesus Calling
Note: Originally wrote this in an email and decided after all that effort it might as well become a blog post too. 😉 As such it’s not the most accessible post I’ve ever written, but hopefully it will be of some use to someone. Maybe I’ll come back and pretty it up later. Argument assumes a commitment to the truth of Christianity and the inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of Scripture. A friend of mine asked about the hit book Jesus Calling. I had not heard of it, but decided to read the introduction since it was so popular. What I read tells me all I need to know; I would…
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In Case You Missed It…
…”How Great Thou Art” is not just indicating sequence but causation. When this one thing happens, THEN SINGS MY SOUL. I always liked this song, but it took me far too long to pick up on this. O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder Consider all the works Thy hand hath made. I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee; How great Thou art, how great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee: How great Thou art, how great Thou art! When through the woods and forest glades I…
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How the World Works
Reading Proverbs this morning and it struck me how familiar all of it sounded. Be honest. Be generous. Be humble. Be of good character. But the funny thing to me is that each of these instructions is couched in the language of how the world works. Not perfectly, of course—sometimes the wicked do get ahead. But that’s the exception. These are the rules. Christianity is about redemption. Part of this means subverting the way the world works because it’s broken. But quite often it also means embracing the part of the world that is still good. I’m very good at seeing how the world doesn’t measure up, and that’s helpful.…
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Rhymes with Justification
Growing up Baptist, justification was a really big deal. Because like good Protestants (even though we weren’t always sure we were Protestants… long story) our teaching emphasized salvation by grace through faith alone. But I have to confess that ever since I started seminary (5 years ago) I’ve had another kind of justification on the brain. This kind of justification is where you have to defend yourself to other people. I’m not just talking apologetics, although this definitely has application there. I’m talking about defending whole fields of inquiry and their use in biblical studies. See, as a Baptist, I was taught to just focus on the Bible. Church history…