What is a Psalm Paraphrase?

This Sunday’s worship at Christ Reformed DC is something of a case study on psalm paraphrases.

[Full disclosure, I’m not musically trained, and I’m not an historian of music. I’m just a pastor who loves congregational singing, and celebrates the psalm singing element of our Reformed tradition. These are my reflections as a worship leader and song selector in a Reformed church.]

Our sermon text this week is Psalm 79, and we’ll be singing two different settings of this psalm from the Trinity Psalter Hymnal (TPH). For our Psalm of Confession we’ll be singing “Remember Not, O God” (79B), which is a parphrase, and for our Psalm of Response we’ll be singing “God, the Nations Have Invaded” (79A), which is a literal rendering of the psalm in meter.

We’ll also be singing “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” which is found in the hymn section of our psalter hymnal, but which is in fact a paraphrase of Psalm 87, as the scripture index in the back of the book makes clear.

What is a Psalm Paraphrase?

So, what’s a psalm paraphrase? And why does it mattter?

To paraphrase, obviously, is to restate a text in a different form. Psalm paraphrases are loose translations of psalms that restate them in different terms. They can be close paraphrases, or extremely broad. Often, paraphrases are also partial, which means, they only paraphrase a certain part of a psalm.

Why do they exist?

Well, when you set a biblical psalm to music, you have a few choices.

You can chant it, which requires little or no alteration of a standard translation of the Hebrew text. Chants don’t have to rhyme, and they don’t have to conform to a particular rhythm or meter. These are, arguably, points in favor of chanting psalms.

Much psalm singing since the Protestant Reformation, however, has been metrical. “Meter” is a number that refers to the number of syllables in each line of a hymn. Psalm 79A is set to the meter 8.7.8.7.D, which means that each line of a stanza consists of 8, then 7, then 8, then 7, then D, which is short for “Doubled,” so do it again, i.e., 8.7.8.7.8.7.8.7.

Needless to say, English translations of the psalms don’t consist of a regularly alternating number of syllables in each line. Sometimes the Hebrew text itself has a particular meter, but, depending on who you talk to, this is rather inconsistent through the Psalter, and it doesn’t ranslate into English.

So when we marry a psalm to a hymn tune for the purposes of singing, we have to standardize or regularize the meter. I’ve attempted this once in my life, with mediocre results. I set Psalm 43 to the same meter as the tune Genevan 42, so they could be sung together. It’s not too difficult, but you have to substitute words and syllables to synchronize them with the lines of the tune.

All of which is a rather long way of saying, any psalm sung to a standard hymn tune has been altered somewhat. All English metrical psalms are, to some degree, paraphrases. However, since this process became widespread in the Protestant Reformation — notably, Calvin was an innovator in Geneva — different strategies have been pursued. Some have sought to set psalms to meter with the fewest possible departures from a literal translation, while others have been quite loose and free in this process.

A Case Study on Psalm Paraphrases: Psalm 79

Which brings us to this Sunday at Christ Reformed DC.

My personal bias is toward singing more literal settings of the psalms. A big argument in favor of singing psalms is that you are actually singing the inspired text of Scripture, and thereby familiarizing yourself with it. It is a very practical way of letting “the word of Christ dwell in you richly… singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16). The closer the text of the metrical psalm coheres with the biblical text, the more this benefit is enjoyed.

This brings me to one of the great advantages of the TPH. The TPH includes a literal setting of every single one of the 150 psalms in the psalter, and this isn’t necessarily true of all psalm collections available today. If there is a single setting of a psalm, such as Psalm 96, it is always a literal setting. If there are multiple settings of a psalm, such as Psalm 22, then the first setting is always a literal setting. So Psalm 22A, “My God, My God, O Why Have You Forsaken Me,” is a complete, literal setting of the psalm. Psalms 22B, 22C, and 22D are each “partial” settings, which may be more or less literal as well.

In the case of Psalm 79 this week, 79A is a new setting drafted by the OPC/URCNA committee in 2016, which is indicated clearly by the copyright in the lower left corner of the page. The production of the TPH triggered the resetting of a number of psalms, and a great deal of effort was invested in the production of texts that were both faithful to the Hebrew original and wedded to appropriate musical accompaniment. It is quite fitting, indeed, to sing Psalm 79A to the same tune as the hymn “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted” (O MEIN JESU, ICH MUSS STERBEN).

Normally, if we sing the literal setting of a psalm, we won’t also sing a paraphrase of the same psalm in the same service. That’s a bit much even for a psalm junkie such as myself, when there’s so much other great music to sing. But in the case of Psalm 79B, “Remember Not, O God,” this paraphrase zeroes in on the second half of the psalm, 79:8 and following: “

Do not remember against us our former iniquities;
    let your compassion come speedily to meet us,
    for we are brought very low.
Help us, O God of our salvation,
    for the glory of your name;
deliver us, and atone for our sins,
    for your name's sake!

These words are well suited to be sung during our confession of sin, which is a regular feature of our liturgy. Furthermore, this paraphrase is appropriately set to a beautiful and moving tune by Beethoven. According to hymnary.org, The Psalter of 1912 set these words to GORTON, a tune derived from the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 23, Opus 57, written in 1807.

According to my (mostly complete) records, in fifteen years of singing a psalm of confession in our service, we have only sung this setting of Psalm 79 once. This is a shame, and reflects the fact that I am a relative neophyte to psalm singing. Hopefully, it will now enter our regular rotation. This is one of the benefits of preaching through the psalter! Listen to these beautiful words that lead us in confession:

Remember not, O God,
the sins of long ago;
in tender mercy visit us,
distressed and humbled low.

O Lord, our Savior, help,
and glorify your name;
deliver us from all our sins
and take away our shame.

In your compassion hear
your pris'ner's plaintive sigh,
and in the greatness of your pow'r
save those about to die.

Then, safe within your fold,
we will exalt your name;
our thankful hearts with songs of joy
your goodness will proclaim. 

While I have a large personal bias toward singing literal settings of the psalms, this is an excellent application of the paraphrase approach, and it illustrates why the editors of the TPH wisely included both. Furthermore, many of these paraphrases are traditional and beloved in our churches. By including both literal and paraphrased psalms, the TPH helps unite multiple generations of our church around a common songbook.

Hymns and Psalm Paraphrases

This brief blog post has already expanded beyond its original scope, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention another song we are singing this Sunday, “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” TPH #403, a hymn credited to John Newton. This “hymn” is largely a paraphrase of Psalm 87, and illustrates how fluid these categories are, especially in the 18th century hymn writing of the likes of the Wesleys and Newton.

Normally, I would rather sing a literal setting of Psalm 87, rather than a paraphrastic hymn, in keeping with our church order that gives psalms “priority of place” to psalms in our congregational singing. I look to the psalms first, and to hymns later, in selecting appropriate songs to sing in our corporate worship. However, in this case, neither of the tunes of Psalm 87A nor 87B are familiar to our congregation. Nor are they particularly pleasing to my ear — de gustibus nils disputandem! This is a personal disappointment to me, as I love Psalm 87! However, Newton’s hymn is a wonderful alternative, and a classic hymn that we delight to sing.

Psalm 79 is in large part a lament for the destruction of Jerusalem. The temple is in ruins, the bodies of God’s servants are given to the birds for food, their blood runs in the streets, and there is no one left even to bury them. This is a tragic picture of a dark battle day in the spiritual warfare that God’s pilgrim people are called to engage in. The promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church of Jesus Christ is, after all, also a promise that they will continually try to do so.

As Jeremiah lamented for Jerusalem, fallen, often we are called to lament for the church, wounded. And at the heart of this is a lament for our sins, which so often lead the church astray. So we confess, with Psalm 79B. We lament, with Psalm 79A. And, as members of the church of Jesus Christ, we celebrate, with Psalm 84B “O Lord of Hosts How Lovely,” and “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken” (Psalm 87), and “The Church’s One Foundation.”

Paraphrase, Psalm, Hymn. What a privilege for the saints to sing within the gates of God’s temple, wherein one day excels a thousand hence.

25 Reasons to Buy the Trinity Psalter Hymnal App

I never buy apps for my iPhone. I’ve probably purchased fewer than five total over the last ten years. 

But it took me all of three seconds to open my virtual wallet and spend $9.99 on the app version of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal (TPH) app. Buy it now.

I didn’t have to run through reasons pro or con on whether to spend the ten bucks. But maybe you do. So here is a list of the reasons I’ve come up with since the app has resided on my phone. Hopefully one or more of them will nudge you to purchase the app if you haven’t already done so. 

And in addition to buying the TPH app, you should also share it on social media, and encourage others in your church to buy it. And for those of you who are not on an Apple device, the Android version should be out this summer. 

1. It fits in your pocket. A portable hymnal is awesome. Having a worship song handy when the mood or the need strikes you is a huge benefit. Ideally, you’d have some songs memorized, so you could sing at crucial moments without a crutch — like the Reformation martyrs who sang psalms as they were burned at the stake. Sadly, few today have more than one or two songs down by heart. Over my first two weeks owning the TPH app, I’ve probably sung a song from it every day or two at unplanned moments. 

2. The app helps you sing more at home. We should sing more worship songs in the home, throughout the week. Modern worship has been professionalized, it has become performance-driven with worship leaders who overwhelm the congregation’s voices in gathered worship. Sadly, this can make singing at home seem even more awkward and lame. The TPH app is a great tool to encourage more singing outside of public worship.

3. The app includes musical accompaniment. We encourage every member of our church to keep a hymnal in the home. But most of us aren’t musical enough to enjoy the sound of our own voices singing a cappella, nor are we musical enough to play an instrument and sing. As a result, I’m willing to guess that the vast majority of print hymnals in the home are under-utilized. The TPH app solves that problem by providing professional piano accompaniment for every single song in the book. 

   You can also set the music to repeat, so it will play for all the stanzas in a song.

4. …and full sheet music. There are two views for each song, either lyrics only, or full sheet music. If you are viewing the lyrics and turn your phone to landscape, the app switches automatically to the sheet music, but you can toggle back and forth. I haven’t yet had a chance to view the app on an iPad, but if it scales well I should think you could use the sheet music for playing a keyboard. 

5. Psalms. There, I said it. The Psalter is an inspired songbook that has been sung by believers for the last three thousand years. It is the definition of intergenerational worship. It is the most chronologically and geographically catholic songbook around. It is great to sing scripture as praise and prayer to the Lord. Yet the psalms are woefully neglected in worship today.

   You don’t have to be a hymn hater to be a psalm singer. The TPH is proof that you don’t have to sing songs exclusively to sing psalms well. By owning a virtual hymnal that incorporates both psalms and hymns, and by reaching a broader audience, the TPH app can contribute to a revival of psalm-singing.

6. Search. The TPH has a search feature that provides a keyword search of every lyric, title, tune name, or composer or author. If you’ve ever struggled to remember the name of that familiar hymn, this search feature is a great way to quickly find the song you’re looking for, even if you can only remember a snippet of a line. And it is a far more comprehensive tool than the subject index in the back of the print hymnal for finding songs that address particular themes. Searching the word “prayer,” for instance, turns up scores of hits. 

7. It helps worship leaders select songs. The TPH Hymn Tune page is the most trafficked page on our website, and I’m sure that much of that traffic is worship leaders trying to decide what songs to sing on any given Sunday. In recent weeks, I have found myself using my TPH app instead, and the combination of the search feature, the navigation, and the music has made it an indispensable tool for selecting songs for worship. Buy it for your pastor today, or share it with him. 

8. Bookmarks. Every church sings a subset of its songbook. At Christ Reformed, we have a psalm of the month, which we sing repeatedly to learn and familiarize ourselves. The bookmark feature in the app makes it easy to keep track of the top 10 or 50 songs in your repertoire and pull them up in a moment. 

9. The app is cheaper than a print hymnal. I love print hymnals, and print media in general (and I have about 80 boxes in storage to prove it). If your church uses a hymnal, you should own a home copy. But the print TPH costs $23.00 from Great Commission Publications (and it’s currently out of stock). 

   The app is much cheaper than six print hymnals. Because the TPH app supports “Family Sharing” on iOS, it can be used by up to six connected accounts with a single purchase. So even if you have a print hymnal in the home, the TPH app makes it easier and more cost-effective for your whole family to sing together. At $9.99, it is 93% cheaper than owning 6 hymnals. 

10. Better yet, it’s FREE for URCNA pastors. OK, so this is kind of inside baseball, but if you are a pastor in the URCNA, a kind donor has offered to reimburse the $10 purchase price. If you want the details, contact us. 

11. It’s also FREE to all members of OPC and URCNA churches. OK, technically, this isn’t true. But it can be if your deacons agree to subsidize the purchase price for anyone who wants to download it. If your people aren’t singing at home and don’t own hymnals, this might be a reasonable investment for a local church to make. 

12. The TPH is ecumenical. The TPH is a joint publication of the United Reformed Churches of North America (URCNA) and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). Working with a sister church requires compromises, and a few were made. But there is always wisdom in many counselors, and this worship tool was greatly enriched by bringing together the strong psalm-singing tradition of the URCNA and the English language hymnody of the OPC. The print version is perhaps the first hymnal ever printed to include the confessions of both traditions in one volume, the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards. The app makes the best music of these two traditions to a huge audience of folks who would never attend one of these churches.

13. The TPH is not just for the OPC and URCNA! I know of one local Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) congregation that uses the TPH in their worship (and since writing this post I’ve heard of a few more). It is the prayer of our songbook committee that this hymnal will be a resource to other churches as well, and by creating a lower-cost, virtual version, we increase the chances that the use of the TPH will spread. 

14. Buy it for your children. By creating and promoting the TPH in our churches, we are building a shared tradition of reformed worship. The more the URC and OPC adopt and promote a shared songbook  — and sing from it at home — the greater the odds are that our kids will find a familiar and faithful place of worship when they go off to college or move away to take their first job. The songs we sing in worship unify us and bind us together, and singing the songs of the TPH is a beneficial part of catechizing and raising our kids to be faithful church members in the future. 

15. It’s evangelistic. Lex orandi, lex credendi — The law of prayer is the law of faith. It is our prayer that by exposing believers to a rich worshiping tradition, new believers will seek out and join biblical, confessional, Reformed churches such as the OPC and URCNA (and others). When members of OPC and URCNA churches invest in the TPH app, promote it, and share it with their friends, they help grow the brand of these faithful, confessional churches. 

16. It’s green. Singing from an app reduces paper waste.

17. The app encourages singing in-home study groups. Every Wednesday night we close our weekly study by singing a psalm or a hymn, but to do so requires us to leave a bunch of hymnals at our elder’s house. This is far more convenient if members all have the apps on their phones. 

18. It’s great for the mission field. If you are a part of a church plant or other mission work where folks have access to phones or iPads, it is an easy way to introduce the songs of the church to your group before it is feasible to purchase or store hymnals — or ship them around the world.

19. It’s available offline. While the music doesn’t currently play when your device is offline — perhaps in a future upgrade or premium edition, it will? — the lyrics and the sheet music are available offline. 

20. The app bridges the gap to our virtual world. Let’s face it, hymn singing is passé. It’s even more passé if the only way you can do it is by holding a big fat print hardcover in your hands. The TPH app can introduce great church music to churches and individuals who are not inclined to use hymnals. 

21. Be prepared for the next pandemic. Sadly, many of us have been locked out of our houses of worship over the last year. It may happen again. Having a songbook in your pocket is a great encouragement during times of isolation, and aid in maintaining family worship or streaming services. 

22. TPH brings great worship music to a broader audience. Contemporary worship music is abysmal, with a few exceptions. And there are a lot of believers interested in being broadly reformed who will never pick up a hymnal. The TPH app is a way to expose this massive audience to 500 years of great worship music.

23. Paying for the app is better than getting it free. Ten bucks is a good investment in a lasting resource. The committee overseeing the hymnal invested significant resources in building a top-notch resource for both Apple and (in time) Android, and the proceeds from the sale will help maintain and improve the project over time. I have already submitted feedback to the creators of the app and received a reply indicating that work is underway on an update. Updates and maintenance that ensure the TPH remain a lasting resource are well worth the investment. 

24. Redeem the time. Ever pull out your phone and look at social media to fill a few minutes while you’re standing in line or waiting for a bus? Maybe you play a quick game. Why not pull up the TPH app and sing a psalm or a hymn instead? No, you don’t have to sing out loud — that could be weird. But you can still worship by singing a song silently in your head. 

25. You too can be shouted down for singing church music at your next party! We found out the TPH app was released during a recent church cigar night. We all quickly downloaded it and proceeded to sing a few boisterous songs. Perhaps it was a little too late for singing, and perhaps the singing was a little too boisterous. We were promptly shouted down by a neighbor in the apartment building, presumably the same neighbor who posted the note below the following day. 

    What could be more counter-cultural than singing hymns at your next gathering? 

With the TPH app, you too can upset your neighbors with a late-night hymn sing at your next party.

Thanks to Kyle Lee and Luke Gossett for their contributions to this list.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Trinity Psalter Hymnal Official Website

• Trinity Psalter Hymnal Tunes

Our Trouble With Submission: Grace Community Church

This article was originally published in Christian Renewal Magazine.

The Case of Grace Community Church

Much has already been said about the decision of Grace Community Church (GCC) and Pastor John MacArthur to defy the state’s COVID decrees by gathering indoors for public worship. I’d like to try to say something different about this issue, something that I hope constructively adds to this conversation. (In Part II of this article, I’ll follow up by addressing a few of the more practical issues related to COVID and worship)

First, quick background. After about twenty weeks of obeying California COVID ordinances against large indoor public gatherings, GCC announced that they would once again begin meeting in person, which they did in August. GCC is a large mega-church, with weekly worship numbering in the thousands. Legal action has ensued, including threats of fines and imprisonment from Los Angeles County health board. A judge has preliminarily ruled that the church may gather without threat, but a full hearing is still in the future. 

The question arising from this situation is whether and when a church should disobey the edicts of the state? Per Romans 13, obedience to the civil ruler is a good thing. Yet virtually every Christian agrees that we must obey God rather than man, and that there is a line which, when crossed, compels the believer to disobey. 

The difficulty comes in discerning where that that line lies. The vast majority of commentary on this issue in the COVID era has dived into the various details of how we much flexibility we should exhibit in our worship in an effort to remain compliant with the edicts of the state, while still fulfilling our mission as a worshiping body of Christ.

Here is where I want to depart from that well worn path and pursue the matter from a different perspective.

The Biblical Case for Submission

Submission is hard. 

The first sin in the Garden comes down to “Has God really said?” What did he really say, and what do you really have to do, especially when you’re really hungry and the fruit looks so delicious. Should you follow your heart, or God’s commands? 

When God sought to replant his people in the garden a second time — a land flowing with milk and honey — one of their biggest problems was their incessant tendency to grumble. I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. Are we there yet? Who does Moses think he is? Obedience to Joshua and the Judges wasn’t much easier, and it was these same people who of all things cried out for a King. And it went downhill from there. 

Paul’s teaching on submission to the civil authorities in Romans 13 is not in the context of relative peace and calm. Recall that five times he had received from the Jews the forty lashes less one. It was, in short, not an uncommon occurrence for him to be beaten within an inch of his life, and even if the Jews weren’t in a formal position of authority over him in the Roman empire, that empire had permitted such ruthless behavior and given Paul little protection. 

In Romans 12, Paul reminds us to “Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them.” Further, never be wise in your own sight. Do what is honorable in the eyes of all. So far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. 

Note for a moment what a radical departure this is from the mission statement of the nation of Israel, who was to take the land by force, utterly destroy their persecutors, and reflect God’s holy dominion in their rule of that land on the battlefield. Paul’s turn in Romans 13 is a radical reorientation for the people of God around the heavenly kingdom that has come in the death and resurrection of their Messiah. Now they were not to occupy a physical territory between the river and sea, but to go forth and bring the blessings of a spiritual kingdom wherever they might dwell.

And this kingdom was not to have a revolutionary impact on the societies in which it dwelt. Do you remember the line in Acts 17:6 “These men have who have upset the world have come here also?” That was a slander of the Jews spoken against Paul and Silas, blaming the Christians for the riot they had started. 

Against this backdrop, Paul writes one of the most difficult commands in the New Testament: Bless those who persecute you. And further, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities… for those that exist have been instituted by God.” God has established the Los Angeles City Council, Governor Newsome, the Health Board. Just as much as he has instituted Nero, the vicious persecutor of the church. Just as he instituted Pilate, and the soldiers who drove the nails into Christ’s hands and feet. 

Be subject to the governing authorities. Not just the good ones. Not just the fair ones, not only the ones who share your estimation of the danger of the novel coronavirus. 

The problem isn’t that most authorities are on balance quite good and every once and awhile we have to put up with a stinker. No. Every individual that has ever been in a position of authority over another human being has always been a sinner. And while some may on occasion be good, many are unjust. This is why our catechism tells us to “be patient with their failings” in its teaching on the fifth commandment (Heidelberg Catechism 104). This is in the spirit of Peter, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust” (1 Peter 2:18).

Submission is hard, especially submission to foolish and unjust rulers. But we’re not given a hall pass for the difficult situations. We are not commanded to submit when it’s easy, or when it makes sense, or when the rulers are doing the proper thing. We are commanded to submit. There is of course the exception of Acts 5:29 — “We must obey God rather than man.” In context, we must preach the gospel, rather than be silent. But notice that Paul doesn’t articulate an exception in Romans 13. 

Our Trouble With Submission

America’s original sin is rebellion. No matter how justified you might believe the American Revolution was, it ultimately comes down to the claim that the authority of the King was unjust, and therefore was no longer worthy of submitting to. But Peter commands Christians to be subject to unjust masters. 

The modern spirit of freedom is expressed politically in the American Revolution, and it now infests us all. It is the air we breath. Our freedoms are sacred to us — interesting expression, no? — and we don’t question the regular need to rebel. Compounded with radical individualism and deep suspicion of institutions of all shapes and sizes, and the result is that the modern believer has a chronic problem of rebellion. 

Spiritual rebellion may be an unfortunate byproduct of political freedom.

Consider the matter of submission to Christ’s lawful authority expressed in the local church. In every single new member’s class and membership interview I have ever sat in, every single believer has agreed with the principle that Christ exercises his authority in the local church through elders and ministers. They have all agreed in their membership vows to “submit to the admonition and discipline of the government of the church.” 

Yet, if you ask elders how regularly members submit cheerfully to their admonition and discipline when it is needed, I’m sure you would get a consistent reply. Rarely, if ever. The church’s authority is good and fine, until it tells me something I don’t want to hear. Has God really said? Well, maybe, but the fruit looks so tasty and I’m so hungry. Surely he didn’t want me to starve and eat the same thing every day. 

Submission is hard, and I believe it is even harder for us today. Culturally and politically we live in a moment where individual freedom is celebrated. And it hasn’t generally made us more faithful Christians. 

Submission: A Teaching Moment and Practical Reflections

I have argued above that this situation is an opportunity for us to revisit the difficult issue of submission. Since we in the modern west hold our personal freedoms as sacred, it is difficult for us to hear the clear teaching of Scripture about submitting to God’s authority, whether in the home, the church, or the civil sphere. While there are limits to the state’s authority, it is my view that GCC has significantly lowered that bar for the sake of convenience. Furthermore, with much future state interference and opposition on the horizon, now is the time for us to raise the bar, and think in fresh ways about the importance of our witness to a watching world, that we might do what is honorable in the eyes of all and live peaceably with all. All. (Romans 12:17 – 18).

What follows are a few more practical suggestions on how the church might proceed in these perilous times.

God calls us to submit to his will in the church, the home, and the civil sphere. How shall we expect Christians to submit to their God-given authority in the home or in their local church when the local church doesn’t submit to their God-given authority in the state? In Romans 13, Paul is adamant on this point:

For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (Romans 13:1 – 2)

So, what shall we then do? 

Should we expect our rulers in the state to appreciate the essential nature of Christian worship, and privilege it as highly as the procurement of food from the grocer or medicine from the doctor? Of course not. The civil ruler, though given by God, is ignorant of the things of God. They are not merely naïve, but oppositional by definition to the concerns of the spirit, as opposed to the body. They have expressly by God been given care of our bodies, and that is precisely why they seek to exercise such dominion over them.

So we should not expect favor from the state, but rather, persecution, implicit and explicit. We should expect them to place burdens, not benefits, upon our worship. And yet as Paul says, while being persecuted we should bless them, and seek to live peaceably among them, while endeavoring to worship faithfully as foreigners in this strange land. I doubt Daniel expected that the other Babylonian satraps, prefects, and governors would respect his sacred diet, daily prayers, or his abstinence from idolatry. Yet he remained steadfast when necessary to obey God rather than man, and stood ready to either receive the punishment the Babylon dished out, or be miraculously delivered from it.

How does this relate to GCC and John MacArthur? I believe our bar should be very high for defying an order of the state. Here are four practical reflections on how to set and navigate this high bar

How Shall We Worship?

It is not in fact clear to me that by prohibiting large indoor gatherings the state of California was prohibiting GCC from worshiping, per se. It is true that the church may have not been treated equitably in the eyes of the law, and they should pursue justice on that front. But many other churches have adapted to the circumstances by conducting worship in person outdoors, in smaller home groups, or other permitted methods . I understand that such accommodations place a huge burden on the business model of a mega church which regularly gathers thousands inside an indoor auditorium. Yet, Paul doesn’t say “submit to the authority when it is convenient.” He says submit. 

There is a different way forward. Due to prohibitions in the District of Columbia, Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC) has decided to worship outdoors at an alternate location and time. They are meeting on Sunday evenings at a sister church in Alexandria, Virginia. This is approximately a thirty minute drive away from their historic church building on Capitol Hill, and a tremendous burden on their membership and leadership. Doubtless it involves great sacrifices. Yet these sacrifices are a powerful witness to their desire to live peaceably — and healthfully — with their neighbors outside the church, and gives great respect and honor to the authorities God has placed over them, even when it may not seem warranted. This orderly submission has not kept them from petitioning government officials vigorously for the freedom to worship together on Sunday morning, and indeed has perhaps given those petitions a better chance of being heard in a positive light.

Perhaps we should be more willing to rethink our methods of gathering, and in particular, the challenges that large mega churches will face. Open air services, micro in-home services, breaking large churches into regional or neighborhood gatherings. Maybe we should pursue smaller congregations in principle to be more neighbor-friendly and live more peaceably with our communities. GCC’s action seems to condemn all of these alternatives as less than faithful. 

I do not believe that Christians must stand by idly while the freedoms we possess in the west are eroded. We should, like Paul, us the law of the land and the courts to defend the privileges we possess as citizens, while preserving honor and respect for the state as God’s servant. But we must also recognize that privileges will indeed likely be lost, and learn how to worship faithfully under a more restrictive regime, even as many of our sister churches around the globe worship faithfully today.

When Should the State Be Defied?

The GCC statement defending its actions argues that Romans 13 “does not include compliance when such officials attempt to subvert sound doctrine, corrupt biblical morality, exercise ecclesiastical authority, or supplant Christ as head of the church in any other way.” This, to me, seems to set the bar way too low for when the state may be defied. I expect most governments to behave this way most if not all the time, especially with regard to “corrupting biblical morality.” When Paul wrote these words, he clearly was mindful that the civil authorities God had placed over him were bound to corrupt biblical morality on a daily basis. Yet he does not qualify his command to submit. This is why the Heidelberg Catechism tells us to be “patient with their failings.” Patience means we submit, if possible, even when they fail..

The church should never cede doctrinal or ecclesiastical authority to the state. But the standard for open defiance of a state edict must be more than attempted interference or burdening of worship. The church must defy any edict that directly conflicts with God’s law. GCC hasn’t demonstrated that is the case in California.

GCC submitted to the ordinance for 20 weeks, and then insisted that in principle it could do so no longer. It then gave public notice that it was going to defy the order, without any clear evidence that they have petitioned the state in any way for relief from these burdens. Why not conduct a lawful and orderly appeal of the state to the fullest extent possible, before pursuing civil disobedience? Further, if the burden could be borne for 20 weeks, why not 21? Why was there a limit to the duration to which they were willing to submit? Does Scripture give us a statute of limitations on Romans 13?

Finally, GCC argues that the passage of time has demonstrated that fears about coronavirus were unfounded, and it is precisely here that I fear that GCC has overstepped its spiritual boundaries and transgressed in the domain of the state. It is the state which God gives authority over our physical well being, and I am not aware of the Scriptures — the sole basis for the church’s authority — giving any clear advice on the lethality of viral infections, or appropriate public policy responses to them. Yet GCC has reached such a determination, and stands in judgment over the state on that matter. 

To be clear on this final point, citizens are free to question the edicts of the state — perhaps especially emergency edicts for the supposed welfare of the citizens. We are free to question the supposed scientific and medical underpinnings of these edicts. But this is not the expertise — nor the authority — which the church possesses, and when she holds forth as a body on such determinations, she sets herself up for public embarrassment. This has the potential of damaging our gospel witness.

Conclusion

In the coming years, the church will increasingly find itself out of favor with the governing authorities in the western world. Historic privileges will be revoked. Courtesies will be withdrawn. We will revert to a state a lot closer to Rome under Nero than America under Reagan.

How shall we then live? How shall we demonstrate our care for neighbor, our desire to live peaceably? I have not explored in this article the many ways in which the church’s gospel witness may be harmed by wrongheaded civil disobedience. How may the gospel be set back when a church spreads infection, as occurred early on during COVID outbreak in South Korea? How may our love for neighbor be doubted with the unnecessary suffering or death of even a handful of visitors to our gatherings?

This is not about the true health danger of COVID. Individual opinions may and should be allowed to vary greatly, in the light of Christian liberty, and our individual behavior as believers may vary widely as well. My own opinions are far from accepted wisdom.

But the church as an organized expression of the body of Christ is not ultimately tasked with determining risks of transmitting infectious disease. We are tasked with preaching the gospel, and obeying our civil authorities as far as possible. This, it turns out, is a much more difficult task. 

Submission is hard. 

The Form for the Ordination of Ministers of Word and Sacrament

We are a liturgical church, in keeping with our Dutch Reformed tradition. In this post, we continue our series of blog entries providing commentary on the United Reformed Church’s liturgical forms contained in our Book of Forms and Prayers. All of these forms, including the form for the Ordination (or Installation) of Ministers of Word and Sacrament, can be found online at formsandprayers.com.

Ordination of Ministers is an essential work of the church, and this liturgical form, though infrequently used, contains a rich vein of instruction for Christ’s church. It is a valuable practice for the congregation to read through this form before an ordination service, that they might benefit all the more from the instruction they will receive during the ordination service.

Congregation of Jesus Christ, the Council has made known to you the name of our brother _________, who is now to be ordained to the ministry of the Word and sacraments (or: installed in the ministry to which he has been called).

The form begins by naming the “brother” to be ordained, because the United Reformed Churches of North America (URCNA), in keeping with the teaching of the word of God and the ancient practice of the Christian church, ordain only men to the office of Minister of Word and Sacrament. This is far from a universal practice today and definitely founded upon counter-cultural claims God’s work makes about the very nature of God’s creation and our humanity. God’s word clearly teaches that we are created “in the image of God,” “male and female.” Men and women thus equally reflect the image of God, and share in equality of nature (Genesis 1:26-27), but not without a diversity of callings and roles that is taught throughout scripture.

It is far outside the scope of this blog post to fully address the many issues related to gender, but it is important to reflect on how these issues are reflected in a church’s practice and teaching about ordination. It is important to note that the biblical teaching about the ordination of ministers throughout teaches that men are uniquely called to this office, and the bible furthermore teaches that this diversity of callings within the church is grounded in the creation order itself (1 Timothy 2:8-15). While many women played a crucial role ministering to the Lord during his earthly ministry (Mark 15:41) and served as the first witnesses to the resurrection (Mark 16:7), Christ called twelve men to serve as his Apostles (Mark 3:13-14). Paul’s teaching in 1 Timothy clarifies that this is not merely due to the cultural biases of his time, but is grounded in the creation order itself.

While many in our age may disagree strongly with our practice, we are convinced that we must submit to the clear teaching of the Word of God on this matter. Furthermore, we should not abandon lightly this teaching of Christ and the Apostles which has been the longstanding practice of the church.

Note that a minister is only “ordained” once. When he takes up the office of Minister in a new church, he is “installed” in that office. This form is used for both of those services.

The Holy Scriptures teach us that Christ Jesus gathers, protects, and preserves for Himself a church out of the corrupt race of men for life eternal and gives to His church such teaching and care that she may grow in faith, love, and service. For this work, Christ, by a particular grace, uses men, appointing them to the preaching of the gospel and for the building up of His body. The apostle Paul solemnly charged Timothy to “preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2), and our Lord Jesus charged His disciples to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20). The apostle Paul declares that the Lord Jesus Christ has given “the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-12). For this reason, the church has recognized the distinct office of the minister of the Word.

The work of ordination is the work of Christ himself. It is his work of growing and building the church, which is uniquely the place of his saving activity in this fallen world. So our understanding of ordination is first grounded upon our understanding of the church itself. For a fuller appreciation of what we confess about the church, see our Belgic Confession, Articles 27 – 35).

A man may not and cannot set himself apart from this work. Because ordination is Christ’s work, it is not merely the work or credential of the man being ordained. Rather, Christ is through the church making a “solemn approval of and attestation to a man’s inward call, his gifts, and his calling by the church” (Book of Order, XX.2, Orthodox Presbyterian Church).

The URCNA, along with most Reformed churches which had their roots in continental Europe, understand the Minister of the Word to be a distinct office from Elder, as opposed to a “Teaching Elder” that is a subset of this office. While this is not a major difference, it is reflected in our form.

The minister of the Word is called by the command of God to preach the gospel of His kingdom. This preaching has the twofold object of calling sinners to reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ and nurturing believers in the faith and life of the kingdom of God. Ministers are called “ambassadors for Christ,” as though He were pleading by them, “Be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). Therefore, this preaching must be addressed to all people. The preaching of the gospel must especially be addressed to the gathered congregation for the nurturing of Christian faith and life and for strengthening them against all error. Paul charged Timothy “in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus …: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:1-2). And he charged Titus that a minister “must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9). The minister of the Word is called to administer the sacraments which the Lord has instituted as signs and seals of His grace. Christ gave this charge to His apostles, and through them to all ministers of the Word, when He commanded them to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19), and when He said of the Lord’s Supper: “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24-25). The minister of the Word is called to the service of prayer. In speaking of their calling, the apostles say, “We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). So, too, it is the calling of all God’s ministers to lead the people of God in “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings … for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Tim. 2:1-2).

The first calling of the minister is to preach to the gospel of the Kingdom, which has a twofold object. The minister must address sinners outside the church, calling them to faith in Christ and reconciliation with God. Further, the minister must nurture believers In their faith and life in the Kingdom.

As suggested by the title of this office, “Minister of Word and Sacrament,” the minister is also called to administer the sacraments. The Apostles were commanded to baptize and to “do this in remembrance of me” with regard to the Lord’s Supper. John Calvin called the sacraments “a visible word,” and their administration is the special charge of the minister because the sacraments depend upon the preaching of the word. They cannot be celebrated apart from the ministry of the word, and the proper celebration of the sacraments entails the instruction of the Word. They are Christ’s sacraments, and therefore, to be administered by his ministers.

Finally, the minister is called to prayer. This includes both prayer for God’s people and the leading of prayer with God’s people. The pastoral prayer, though sadly a fading practice in the Christian church, is a crucial ministry of Christ among his people here at Christ Reformed Church.

The minister of the Word is called, together with the elders, to shepherd the people of God in their Christian life, giving guidance and counsel in all that they need, exhorting them to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), and keeping the church of God in good order and discipline. They are pastors, appointed to shepherd the church of Christ, which He purchased with His own blood, in keeping with the Lord’s command: “Feed my lambs.… Feed my sheep” (John 21:15,17). They, together with the elders, watch over the house of God for the right and fruitful ordering of the faith and life and worship of the people of God. In their exercise of the keys of the kingdom, what they “bind on earth shall be bound in heaven,” and what they “loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18).

While all believers have a duty and obligation to care for one another in the church, the body of Christ, ministers along with elders have a special obligation to do so. They must know their sheep, their needs, their burdens, their weaknesses, so they may care for them faithfully. They also exercise the keys of the kingdom, with discipline being one of the marks of the church (Belgic Confession, Article 29). When the minster spreads the Lord’s table for a member of Christ’s church, he is publicly affirming that this individual believer is, according to their known doctrine and life, a child of God and a member of the body of Christ.

At this point, the Ordination Form provides different paragraphs for different offices unto which ministers may be ordained:

1. As a pastor of an established congregation

2. A foreign missionary

3. A home missionary (or church planter)

4. A teacher of theology (in a theological school or seminary)

5. Someone called to another task, such as a chaplaincy

Here we will look at the portion of the form dealing with a man called to pastor an established congregation.

We now proceed to ordain [or: install] brother _______ as a minister of the Word and sacraments in this congregation. We rejoice that the Lord Jesus, in His faithful love, has provided a minister to serve as pastor and teacher to this people, and also as their leader in the missionary calling of this church. We receive this servant of our Lord from the hand and heart of the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls. We are grateful that our Savior has committed preaching, teaching, and pastoral care to the office of the minister of the Word, and that He will continue to use sinful men for such high and holy purposes until the day of His return.

No one is able to fulfill this holy ministry in his own strength; therefore, we set our hope on Jesus Christ our Lord, who said: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

I love how we are reminded yet again that the minister is received “from the hand and heart of the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.” Furthermore, ministers are sinful men. Their ordination does not reflect superhuman piety or gifting. They are members of the body of Christ, like every other believer, but they have been called and set apart for a special task. Ministers are like the Levites in the Old Testament, who didn’t receive an inheritance in the land — that is, a common calling of farming and laboring in the world — but rather were set apart to guard and keep the temple and worship of the Lord.

Now, in order that it may appear that you, ______, are willing to accept this office, you are requested to stand, and in the presence of God and His church give your answer to the following questions:

1. Do you believe that in the call of this congregation you are called by God Himself to this holy ministry?

2. Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice, and do you reject every doctrine in conflict with them?

3. Do you promise to discharge the duties of your office faithfully, to conduct yourself worthily of this calling, and to submit yourself to the government and discipline of the church?

Answer: I do so believe and promise, God helping me.

The ordinand here publicly testifies of their personal agreement with the call of God in and through the call of the congregation. In speaking of the call to ministry, we distinguish between the subjective call and the objective call. A minister’s call isn’t merely a feeling he has of a personal purpose and opinion of his own gifts. Indeed, a call isn’t real until it is received “in the call of the congregation.”

Furthermore, the ordinand indicates their agreement with God’s word and rejects all doctrines in conflict with them. URCNA Church Order Article 6 makes clear that at this point in the service, “before the laying on of hands,” the ordinand is to sign the Form of Subscription. Those who sign the Form of Subscription not only commit to teach and defend the doctrine of Scripture and the confessions, they also commit themselves to reject all errors that militate against it. This includes admitting to one’s elders any disagreements with the church’s doctrine which may arise at any time and submitting honestly to the review of the church.

The officiating minister shall then say (in the case of ordination: with the ceremony of the laying on of hands, other ministers present participating):

May God, our heavenly Father, who has called you to this holy office, enlighten you with His Spirit, strengthen you with His hand, and so govern you in your ministry that you may be engaged in it faithfully and fruitfully, to the glory of His name and the coming of the kingdom of His Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The laying on of hands is not a magical act that transfers power from one individual to another. It is an apostolic practice that symbolizes that the ordination comes not from Christ through his ministers (Acts 6:6,13:3, 1 Timothy 4:14,5:12). Christ’s servants, the ministers in the church, express their agreement and approval of this call, and the qualifications and gifts necessary to fulfill the call. This is why Paul instructs us to “not be hasty” in this act. Furthermore, it reflects the fact that Christ himself is calling this man to ministry through the entirety of the visible church, especially when visiting ministers and elders from other churches are able to participate in the act.

The officiating minister shall address the congregation:

Dear people of God and members of this church, since this solemn act involves obligations also on your part, I ask you before God:

1. Do you, in the name of the Lord, welcome this brother as your pastor?

2. Do you promise to receive the Word of God proclaimed by him and to encourage him in the discharge of his duty?

3. Will you pray that he may, in the power of the Spirit, equip you in the work of advancing God’s kingdom for the honor of Christ our Lord, the building up of His church, and the salvation of men?

To these questions, what is your answer?

Answer: We do, God helping us.

The local congregation has a role to play in the ordination of the minister as well and takes vows to fulfill this work. They will welcome him as their pastor, receive God’s word proclaimed by him, encourage him, and pray for him. Our Church Order stipulates that the Council of the local church can only call a man after having received the advice of the congregation, who therefore plays a crucial role in the selection of their pastor. Classis, the regional body, also plays a role, having examined those who become candidates for a call.

After the completion of the vows, an elder or minister issues a charge to the minister:

Beloved brother and fellow servant in Christ, take heed to yourself and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you a guardian, to feed the church of the Lord which He obtained with His own blood. Love Christ and feed His sheep, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, and not domineering over those in your charge, but humbly serving all. Set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Attend to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching, and to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have. Take heed to your teaching. Be patient in all trials. Be a good soldier of Jesus Christ, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will obtain the unfading crown of glory.

The ordination service is not only a milestone in the life of the church, it is a milestone in the life of the minister. It is his ministerial birthday. The charge impresses the significance of the call of Christ upon the new minister, echoing much of the language we see in Paul’s letters to Timothy.

It is followed by a corresponding charge to the congregation:

And you, beloved Christians, receive your minister in the Lord with all joy, and hold him in honor. Remember that through him God Himself speaks to you. Receive the Word that he, according to the Scripture, shall preach to you, not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the Word of God. Let the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, and bring the good news, be beautiful and pleasant to you. “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you” (Heb. 13:17). If you do these things, the God of peace shall enter your homes. You who receive this man in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet’s reward, and through faith in Jesus Christ, the inheritance of eternal life.

Moderns Christians, and particularly Modern American Christians, are rugged individualists. We don’t take well to authority. The charge reminds us that, while Christ’s yoke is easy, and his burden is light — it is still a yoke. The Heidelberg Catechism’s teaching on the fifth commandment reminds us that we are to bear patiently with the failings of those God puts in authority over us (Heidelberg Catechism, 104).

Finally, the form closes by calling on God in prayer, which includes a congregational recitation of the Lord’s prayer.

No man is of himself sufficient for these things. Let us call upon the name of God:

Merciful Father, we are thankful that it pleases You by the ministry of men to gather Your church out of the lost human race to life eternal. We acknowledge the gift of this, Your servant, sent to this people as a messenger of Your peace. Send now the Holy Spirit upon him. Enlighten his mind to know the truth of Your Word. Give him the ability to make known the mystery of the gospel with boldness. Grant him the wisdom to care for and guide the people over whom he is placed. Through his ministry, build up Your holy church, and grant her increase in number and in virtue. Give Your servant courage through Your Spirit to fulfill his calling against every difficulty and to be steadfast to the end. We pray that this people will receive him as having been sent by You. May they receive his teaching and exhortation with all reverence, and believing in Christ through his word become partakers of eternal life. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for the sake of Your dear Son, in whose name we pray:

The congregation shall say:

Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.

Almost all of our liturgical forms close in prayer. Many believers today don’t appreciate the value of form prayers, but they are an important part of our Reformed tradition, and our book of forms and prayers is full of them. There are prayers for use in corporate worship and for personal use in the home. I commend these prayers to you, as they are a rich vein of instruction, and using them with regularity can deepen and strengthen our own prayer life, not to mention serve as excellent training for when we are called upon to pray in public.

Conclusion

Congratulations if you are still reading! The Form for the Ordination of a Minister is not a brief or an insignificant affair. I like to think of our liturgical forms as topical sermons, and it is wise to preach a shorter sermon on this occasion that merely complements the material contained in the form.

The form’s length and the instruction contained in it reflect the centrality of the church and the ministry of word and sacrament in the Reformed tradition. The ordination of a man to this ministry is a great celebration in the life of the church, and a momentous occasion in the life of the minister. It is not to be taken lightly.

Themes in Psalm 119

IntroDUCTION

At Christ Reformed in DC we have been studying Psalm 119 together on Wednesday nights via Skype. It’s been beneficial to take a deep dive together on an often neglected song cycle. We’ve been listening to a series of chapel messages from Hywell Jones at Westminster Seminary California (my Alma Mater). As our church’s resident Hebraist I have also been reading the Psalm in Hebrew as we have gone through it. I also spent some time reflecting on the vocabulary of these 22 stanzas to produce a small reference for our members for the synonyms for legal words, as well as some others in Psalm 119. This extended time with the Psalm has caused me to see it in a new and better light after some reflection. This has inspired this post, which is a broader summary of the themes which are prevalent in the Psalm. 

One of the ways we can grow in our understanding of the Psalm is to look at semantic domains. A semantic domain is a way to group words which relate to one another. For example, a recliner, stool, and a barstool all belong in a broader domain of “single person seats.” That “single person seats” category is a domain with other words underneath it. They all share the commonality that they are words for single person seats, but they also have distinct attributes that make them differ for one another. One of the ways Hebrew poetry works is to use these domains to expand on the meaning of the poem and cause the reader or listener to meditate.

When we see the Psalm through these prevalent word domains we see that God’s word to us in Psalm 119 is bigger than we probably realize. The themes of Psalm 119 can be explored by looking at the words which occur and how they occur in the Psalm.

Word and Law

This is the first and perhaps most dominant set of words that define the poems of Psalm 119. This domain can negatively influence our perception of this poetic cycle. Our thoughts of Psalm 119 are often of an idealized life; or of someone who loves something that we find burdensome. I think our impression of these poems are often entirely law based. We think the message is only “do this and live.” And this conception has kept us from seeing the gospel in the Psalm. We find instead when we read the Psalm that the Word of God is not only law, but also gospel:

On two occasions, (vv. 18 & 27) we find the word niplāɂôt translated as “wondrous works” or “wondrous things.” In the first instance the wondrous things are in the Torah, the law as we often translate it. And in the latter it is parallel to the “precepts.” Now these wondrous works are things like the miraculous plagues on Egypt (Ex. 3:20) or to the exodus itself, (Judges 6:13, Micah 7:15, & Neh. 9:17). 

Now why would I mention these wondrous works? Well the first thing to note is that the Word of the Lord in Psalm 119 is not just a list of rules. But also recounting the miraculous deliverance that God makes for his people. The declaration and praise God’s word is not only praise of requirements. 

Another way we see this is the word ɂimrāh translated as “promise” or “word.” Half of the occurrences of this word are in Psalm 119. It is not the usual way to say “word.” It mostly refers to God’s word in the bible with only a handful of exceptions. In Psalm 119 it is always God’s word. 

We see it in three ways, in some verses it isn’t clear from context if requirement or promise is in view, and perhaps one can view these as just invoking revelation in general (vv. 11, 38, 123, 140, 148, & 162). In other places it is very clear that this word is “kept” by behaving correctly, (vv. 67, 133, 158, & 172). In these verses it is often translated “word” instead of “promise.” Lastly, there are the verses where one see that God’s word is the object of trust, or petition, (vv. 41, 50, 58, 76, 82, 116, 154, & 170). In these uses God’s word is a comfort, it gives life, it is something to which the Psalmist can cling; to which we can cling. 

These words about God’s revelation fit together in covenant. On the first level, a covenant with God, imposed by God and his messengers, is revelation of God. In the Mosaic covenant we see God’s standard revealed. We see the standard to which he holds all men in the Ten commandments.

But also, in this covenant the beginning and the end is God’s saving action. This parallels the history of Israel, God saves his people in the Exodus, and this is the people whom he brings to Sinai. He first reveals himself as their saving God, then he gives them another covenant, with requirements and sanctions (as a type of the covenant of works). And the works aspect of the covenant is not something his people can keep, so in that covenant he promises a second Exodus (cf. Deut. 30:1-10), 

If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the LORD your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

DEUT. 30:4-6

This is only an excerpt, but we see that the Exodus and the conquest form the pattern for future action of God to deliver his people again. 

Recently when teaching on the covenant of works, I used the metaphor of Adam and Israel’s story rhyming. Israel is given the land, not salvation itself but types of it, conditionally. A condition they can’t keep. This is why there is need for a second Exodus, because the covenant is breakable. You can think about Jeremiah 31, the difference in that passage between the New Covenant and the Old (Mosaic) covenant is conditionality. The Mosaic gift of the Land is conditioned on Israel’s obedience, the gift of Salvation in Christ is a free gift (Rom. 5) based on Christ keeping the conditions of the law (Gal. 4:4).   

Covenant put in proper perspective that God’s revelation comes to us as both Law and Gospel. Covenant theology also shows us how Law and Gospel relate. The law drives us to Christ, to God’s action to save us. We cannot save ourselves. The Psalmist recognizes this and finishes his cycle, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments” v. 176. It is the action of the God who seeks that he hopes in, that God will seek out his servants according to his promise. 

At the same time the “good life” is firmly for the Psalmist the life of following God’s law. This aspect is what we will discuss in the next section. 

Path and Way

The idea of law and rules have an associated metaphor; the idea of being on a road. That our behavior is a road on which we travel. Or even broader, that our lives have a direction and a path that we set them on by our choices. Another way to say this is that we are pilgrims, travelers. Jesus himself uses this imagery in Matthew 7,

Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

MATT. 7:13-14

Psalm 119 reminds us that we are on a way. One way or the other. Every morning we wake up and out feet take us somewhere. Jesus reminds us that the path is difficult and small that leads in the direction of life. Psalm 119 reminds us that our path is illuminated by God’s word (v.105). The way of life, the way of following Jesus, is hard but we can see it clearly in God’s word. It points us to Jesus. 

There are three roads in Psalm 119, God’s (v. 3), the psalmist’s (v. 5), and false roads (v. 29). The psalmist reminds us that he is torn between the false way and the way of God (vv.37 & 101). Surely here is an image with which we can sympathize. We certainly feel the pull between mortification and vivification, between the way of the flesh and that of the Spirit. We may be uncomfortable with the language of the law being “the way.” After all isn’t Jesus the way? My old Seminary professor J. V. Fesko might be able to square this circle for us, 

The law in its normative use is not the actual road upon which we travel, but the guardrails on either side of the road. The road on which we travel is Christ. Like guardrails, the law shows us where the path of righteousness lies and keeps us traveling on it.

J. V. FESKO, GALATIANS, LECTIO CONTINUA COMMENTARY SERIES, ON GAL. 3:19-22.  

Christians know that ultimately the “word” which is a lamp is Christ. Christ who is the way in which we walk. Christ is the one who gives us his righteousness as a new creation, a new man (Col. 3; 2 Cor. 5:16-21). One of the ways we see Christ in the Psalm is that he is the Word, he is the sinless savior who perfectly loved and kept God’s law for us. The law shows us what it looks like to conform to Christ. The “guardrails” of the law show us the edges of the way which is Christ, who perfectly kept the law. 

When we see the way of God in Psalm 119 we know that we are seeing Christ concealed in the Old Testament. He kept the law, he did not stray like the Psalmist. In another manner when the Psalmist struggles or desires to follow one path and not the other we are seeing the fight between the dying old man and the life of the new man in Christ. 

Lament and Persecution

Perhaps most surprising to those of us who have an idealized picture of Psalm 119 is to see the language of lament and persecution in Psalm 119. We can remove the humanity from the Psalmist if we think that the Psalm is solely, only, a praise of God’s Law. We disconnect it from our human experience. We will be surprised to find that often the Psalmist praises and petitions God from the standpoint of affliction and persecution. Often for the Psalmist’s love for God’s word, he is persecuted.

The Psalmist loves God’s word in the midst of affliction. In fact it is the promises and word of God that is a comfort to the Psalmist. Think about vv. 114-116,

You are my hiding place and my shield;

I hope in your word.

Depart from me, you evildoers,

that I may keep the commandments of my God.

Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live,

and let me not be put to shame in my hope!

PS. 119:114-116

Evildoers are around the Psalmist and he hopes in God’s word, God’s words of promise and comfort. The Psalmist finds God’s word a hiding place, and fortress protecting him from evildoers. He finds the promise of God as a shield that protects him from assaults of the world. That is why he loves God’s word, it comforts him in the midst of the turbulence of life. In a world that seems to not work as it should, in a broken world the Psalmist understands that a promise from God is firm. That he can bank his whole well being on the foundation of God’s word. 

Or consider these verses from Psalm 119,

The wicked ones set a snare for me

And from your precepts I have not strayed.

I inherited your testimonies forever

for they are joy for my heart

PS. 119:110-111—(translation mine)

We see that the Psalmist is being hunted, they’ve set a snare. They are luring him into danger. But he sees clearly the path he should take, he doesn’t stray. The way is hard, persecution is making it harder, but he knows the way to go. 

These verses remind me of the story of Daniel. Daniel was trapped by other officials. They exploited his convictions against idolatry. They set a snare by making Daniel choose between faithfulness to his God and to the country he served. Ultimately Daniel is sentenced to the lions den for not committing idolatry. God preserves Daniel in this story. Ultimately, we know that even if God does not shut the mouth of the lions in this world, the fangs of death have been removed by Christ (Isa. 25, 1 Cor. 15). 

Returning to the Psalmist, his love for God’s word isn’t conditioned by blessing but refined by trials and persecutions. He isn’t living in some unreal world where he gets everything he wants because of his love for God’s word. Instead, he lives in a dangerous world, with the world, the flesh, and the devil trying to lead him down the path that ends in destruction. This is the real world, our world, and in this world we too have the joy of the testimonies, the word of God’s salvation. 

These testimonies, refer to the stipulations of a covenant. The psalmist inherits an eternal relationship with his creator. This document, these provisions, though they may seem distant, are a joy to the Psalmist. These testimonies are written down and they are the Psalmist joy in the midst of trials. We too can point to God’s work in Christ, to the new covenant and our place in it in Christ as our source of comfort and joy, and this new covenant has testimonies written for us in a New Testament (or another translation, a new covenant). 

Priesthood and Ritual

One of the things we discussed a bit in our study of Psalm 119, was the lack of any priestly language. Instead of seeing the psalmist write about keeping the temple, in his Psalm the laws and word of God are kept. Instead of bringing offerings of rams and sheep, there are freewill offerings of words:

Please accept the freewill offerings of my mouth, O Yahweh

and your judgements, teach me.

PS. 119:108—(translation mine)

The offerings that the Psalmist offers God are words. In response to the sure words of God the Psalmist offers his words. A freewill offering is something you offer as thankful praise, after freely fulfilling an obligation like a vow. It is gratefulness to the Lord for his care and provision. Out of the thankfulness of the Psalmist’s heart words overflow in praise. 

Another time we see such praises is in the final stanza, 

My lips will gush Psalms 

for you teach me your statutes

My tongue will sing your word

for all your commandments are right.

PS. 119:171-172—(translation mine)

Ultimately the Psalmist’s thankfulness overflows with singing and declaring God’s word. Because the Lord taught him, for the Lord taught him commandment which are right.

Some translations obscure the force of these verses, in v. 171 the word is the same as the title for the “Psalms.” And in 172, the tongue sings God’s word. There is no indication that the Psalmist is singing “about” God’s word, or “of” God’s word. These Psalms where made to be used in the Old Covenant people of God and they continue to have their home in the worship of God’s new covenant people. These Psalms are our words of prayer, praise, lament, confession words that we, like the Psalmist, can sing back to God. 

Instead of the sacrificial system, the psalm is focused on the word. Surely God’s word contains instructions for the temple and sacrificial system; the sacrifices are a crucial part of the teaching of that word. But, it is not the focus here, the Psalmist is appealing directly to God to keep him from straying, the Psalmist understands that the temple, and the sacrifices pointed him to his relationship with the God of Israel. 

This song cycle of Psalm 119 is placed between two collections that are focused on sacrifice and temple. Before Psalm 119 there are the Hallel Psalms (113-118), associated with Passover. After Psalm 119 begin the Psalms of Ascent (120-134). Passover features the sacrifice of a Lamb, and a meal remembering God’s salvation in the Exodus. The Psalms of ascent are pilgrimage Psalms for approaching the temple. 

Yet, Psalm 119 at very best has allusions to these realities. One possibility is that this Psalm was written when the types were taken away, the temple destroyed, and Judah was exiled. There is great comfort in a record, a contract, with the true God. How much more would someone exiled cling to the word, when the types were taken away. In fact from history we know that synagogues developed as places for study of the Hebrew Scriptures. The word was a great comfort and source of identity for the Psalmist. As it should be to us, we have the much fuller word in Christ. We should cling to the pages in which Christ speaks to us, and speaks “Do not be afraid.” 

Zacharias Ursinus, one of the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism once commented on Q&A 1,

The design is, that we may be led to the attainment of sure and solid comfort, both in life and death. On this account, all divine truth has been revealed by God, and is especially to be studied by us.

URSINUS, ZACHARIUS, COMMENTARY ON THE HEIDELBERG CATECHISM. LORD’S DAY 1, QUESTION 1.

Conclusion

This word of comfort is plentifully contained in Psalm 119, we see it revealed to us in the Word. We see the path our savior walked, the narrow way, in the words of the law. We see that in the midst of persecution, we can lament this persecution but also trust in the promise of God to deliver us in Christ. This promise is a great comfort in the midst of our own broken lives, full of lament. God is always near to us in his word, even as we live as “elect exiles” in this world (1 Peter 1:1). On our pilgrim journeys to a better country we can trust that Christ is near to us in his word, and that it testifies to us no one loves us more than he (Belgic Confession 26). Nothing else could motivate us towards clinging to this word and following Christ but gratefulness for such a great savior. 

Intermittent Fasting in the COVID Era?

Originally featured on Modern Reformation on May 12, 2020.

In A Shepherd’s Life, real-world shepherd James Rebanks tells of the real-world value of the shepherd’s crook, a vital tool in caring for real-world sheep. The crook remains the best tool to catch a sheep and enables the Shepherd to draw skittish sheep near so he can care for them.

How shall spiritual shepherds guide their flocks when God’s common grace shepherds — doctors and presidents — enforce isolation and distance, real absence, upon God’s people? How can we shepherd when our crook is broken?

There are a few ingredients necessary to begin to make an answer at this question: honesty, context, and the means of grace.

Honesty

First, I think it is essential that we acknowledge that anyone writing pastoral guidance in the seventh week of a radically new circumstance doesn’t really yet know what they are talking about. The world is flying blind with minimal data in the face of the coronavirus, and spiritual leaders are equally ignorant in grappling with its fallout.

Including myself. Full stop.

However, like a true fool, allow me expand on my ignorance.

We must acknowledge that many of our guiding lights from Christian history faced plague and pestilence with less knowledge than we have today. Calvin and countless others often showed great compassion and courage in desiring to visit the plague-stricken. They knew there was personal danger, yet they were willing to entrust their lives into God’s hands for the sake of caring for others. In Calvin’s case, he was prohibited from visiting the sick by the Geneva city council, mindful of this risk to his life and his immense value as a teacher to the church.

But we know a lot more about infectious disease today. We know, for instance, that visiting a sick person during a plague endangers not only the visitor and those she lives with, but also the community. We also know that even visiting a well person poses widespread risk during a pandemic. They too may spread disease. Selfless risks taken by heroes of earlier ages may rightly be judged selfish today. Thus, the Christian minister faces a more widespread distancing and isolation today than ever before, with fewer options. No visitors at deathbeds, no graveside prayers at burials.

So any advice today is a best guess. We must return to first principles, humble ourselves, and be able and willing to learn quickly and adapt.

Context

Before the coronavirus struck we were already living in an age of extraordinary isolation and individualism. That is perhaps the key context we must grapple with.

Before “Alone Together” was the Orwellian motto of government medical experts, it was the title of an important book by Sherry Turkle.

Turkle chronicles the pandemic of isolation that a generation born into a digital world is facing. This book is worth re-visiting today. We are surrounded by ubiquitous communications devices that are designed by the marketplace to give us the stimulating patina of “connection” while further isolating us — and isolating our dollars from our wallets. Sadly, most of those born as “digital natives” prefer electronic communication to face to face conversations.

During this pandemic it has been a commonplace for commentators to worry about the impacts of isolation, but who are we fooling? Our response to this pandemic is merely accelerating what we have been proactively trying to accomplish with technology for the past century.

It is true, isolation flies in the face of fundamental human nature and our longing for physical presence, communication, and contact. But it is not true that it flies in the face of the denatured humanity that increasingly populates our sin-stained world. Digital media gives a whole new meaning to Augustine’s descriptive phrase for sin, “curved in on oneself.” The real danger of enforced isolation is not that it is contrary to our wills, but that it gives us just what we want by nudging us further within.

Case in point: One of the great pastoral challenges of my ministry before the pandemic was scheduling a coffee. Or actually trying to talk with someone on the phone. I know that I often would prefer sending a text or email to picking up the phone, or sitting down with someone, when confronting a touchy issue. Or even when just catching up. It’s so easy. I can check that box, now they know I care. No need to send a thank you note — I gave their text a thumb’s up!

One of my greatest worries about pandemic isolation is that it plays to my sloth, it runs concurrent with the ethos and ease of electronic communication. “Look, I finished all my pastoral visits and I’m still in my pajamas!”

So here’s a practical tip, that also serves as a warning.

One of the first things we did in our small church was assign a deacon or elder to every member of our church. We set a goal of contacting everyone at least once a week and built a shared spreadsheet online for tracking our contacts. But I worry, is it enough? Would a personal visit, perhaps from the front porch, though less frequent, be better?

How would we manage this crisis without technology? How would we manage if it were permanent? Perhaps it would be healthy for us to ask those questions, and seriously consider the old paths before celebrating the victories of the new.

This context makes me worry that even as much as we miss and complain about the loss of public worship, an extended isolation will not in fact make the heart grow fonder for it. It will in fact chisel away bit by bit, mortar from the crumbling façade. It will weaken the tenuous bonds we share with the church, the visible body of Christ on earth.

Means of Grace

Word, Sacrament, and Discipline. These are the old paths, the marks of Christ’s church on earth.

All three of these marks require physical presence. The sacrament anchors this truth, but the preached word as well requires that an assembly of sinners sit still and corporately receive the saving message of God’s envoy, together acknowledging that apart from this grace we are in the same sinking ship. Discipline, in its extreme exercise, is fundamentally exclusion from the sacrament and its shared presence.

I have probably thought more about the means of grace in the last two months than anything else. The two big questions are the flip sides of a coin: “How shall we keep people from them?” and “How shall we bring people to them?”

Reflecting upon our real absence from the means of grace, I was reminded that whatever workaround we can come up with in our human wisdom can’t compare, can’t replace the divine wisdom of the means of grace. They are unique, and irreplaceable.

Like many church leaders, our church initially scrambled to come up with solutions to canceled gatherings on the Lord’s Day. We wrestled with whether to stream the entire liturgy, or just send our members a pre-recorded sermon. We wondered, are people really participating in corporate worship from home, is there true communion of the saints at a distance? I think not. Then why stream a service? Don’t we risk leading the flock astray by encouraging them to emulate the divine service in their living room?

Perhaps the most counter-cultural claim here is that the preached word cannot be fully received remotely. It would require its own article to defend, but I think the claim is this: so long as the viewer at home is in control, he is not sitting under the word. He is in charge so long as he can pause and fast-forward and schedule his consumption, can dress and position and wander his body in whatever fashion pleases him, and need endure no limits on distractions. The sinner that remains in the drivers seat has not truly been summoned before the judgment seat of a holy God.

At the end of the day, I don’t think absence will make the heart grow fonder. I don’t believe the lack of the means of grace will strengthen our confidence in the means of grace. If these are God’s chosen methods of blessing his people, starving us of them can only lead to less blessing.

Yet there is an opportunity in this loss, an opportunity to teach via negativa. In streaming our services, it has therefore been a priority to convey to those at home what they are not receiving. Viewing a remote feed of a Christian worship service is not worship. You are not a participant in the divine dialogue, you cannot stand and renew your covenant oath, you cannot taste, smell, and feel your participation in Christ.

Why, then, provide a simulacrum of a service online? Ultimately, we believe even this image of a service can serve as a crutch, an extreme measure to be used only until one heals. A crutch is a temporary help that no healthy person ever wishes to adopt as a permanent means of conveyance.

The next phase of our response resulted from this experience and reflection upon real absence, and from the limitations being extended. We began to ask ourselves how we could provide the genuine means of grace even under severe constraints?

In our context, this has meant restoring the Lord’s Supper and holding two small communion services, feeding 17 saints each Lord’s Day (due to the order not to gather in groups of ten or more). We have been mindful to make attendance voluntary, preserving each member’s liberty to measure the risks of small gatherings and their potential risks to others. Theoretically, a church with multiple meeting spaces could easily multiply this number by two or four or six. In a month of Sundays our small church can spread a table in the wilderness for 68, though one can imagine other churches communing and gathering many more in small worshiping groups.

We may not be able to commune our entire congregation in a single gathering. But we can commune them once or twice a month, and in the intervening times reaffirm how important those irregular meals are. This is like intermittent fasting for the soul: real hunger satisfied with real food.

In the face of future restrictions, we are likely to move immediately to maximally preserving word and sacrament under limited offerings, rather than suspending the sacrament in total.

Yes, being a pastor is more than administering the means of grace: visiting, praying, counseling are all integral parts of wielding the crook. But the means of grace are the building blocks, the foundation, the medicine we feed our sheep when the crook draws them close. Without a regular flow of their life-giving power all our other efforts are in vain. The best counsel, the best prayer, ultimately relies upon the means of grace, it points sinners to Christ in them, and brings them closer to him in his word, his table, his holiness.

A pastor’s official title is Minister of Word and Sacrament. My provisional advice is simple: Pastors, do not abandon your post. Stand firm. Do your job.

The Socially Distanced Church

This article originally appeared in Christian Renewal Magazine.

It is odd to write for print these days, especially on the topic of coronavirus. This is an evolving situation, and things are changing fast.

If I had to guess, as you’re reading this little two-week-time-capsule message to the future, the White House restrictions of March 16 are, at a minimum, still in force. Even today, 8 days into a 15 day program, things have already gotten tighter in statewide shelter in place requirements in New York and California.

We are still adapting to social distancing. When we began this strategy, we may have thought it would last 15 days, or a month. But what if it endures much longer? Two months, six months, or until a coronavirus vaccine is developed, perhaps eighteen months for now? What does church look like during a season of social distancing, and what impact might that have on what the church looks like going forward?

I am not a prophet, but the following are some first thoughts on these questions I hope to develop, both in dialogue with our local church leadership and with other ministers in the church.

Shall We Hold Public Worship?

The single largest impact of social distancing is on our public worship. When the government is advising against or prohibiting gatherings larger than ten for the sake of public health, how are we to respond?

This is a new, rapidly developing situation, so it makes sense that reactions to this problem will vary. I have urged a healthy dose of Christian liberty in the early phases of this disease, as there are so many unknowns and so much difference of opinion, it is reasonable for faithful Christians to come to a wide range of different conclusions.

I understand those churches that initially felt it was essentially that they continue worshiping until absolutely forbidden to do so. Worship is an essential activity if there ever was one. If God commands us to worship, and man forbids, we must obey God rather than man. 

But of course, this is not merely a question of God’s law vs. Man’s law. God commands many things. God commands love of neighbor, as well as worship. He also commands submission to the governing authorities. If the governing authorities advise that public gatherings will harm public health, harm our neighbor, then we should listen to them. They are after all charged with maintaining public health — by God himself — and have gathered vastly more expertise to that end. 

We should halt our public services. This is not a time for civil disobedience. The disease was largely spread in South Korea because one of the first infected individuals attended a large gathering of a Christian cult, where failure to attend was strongly discouraged. Hundreds and ultimately thousands were thus infected. Though well contained in South Korea, COVID-19 to date has killed 126 there. In the face of growing knowledge about how this disease spreads, it is unloving and an exceedingly poor witness to a watching world.

One note of caution: We have many models of Church Fathers or Reformers selflessly ministering to the plague stricken. These heroes of the faith showed great courage in ministering gospel comfort to others at great risk of personal harm. We may be tempted to emulate them, both personally, and as church bodies, gathering for worship in the face of great personal risk. However, we know much more today about epidemiology and the spread of communicable disease. We know that violating a quarantine not only puts the individual at risk, but it puts the community at risk, it potentially harms our neighbor. I urge Christians to think carefully about how our actions will impact others. It may be that the most loving thing we can do is model submission to civil authorities on matters of self-quarantine, to love our neighbors by helping them to live.

How Shall We Worship?

Suspending worship for a week or two for the sake of public welfare is not unheard of. We have all done so for the sake of a blizzard or a storm. But what if this lasts for months? What if, after government restrictions are lifted, it remains extremely hazardous to attend large groups, creating good reason for people to stay home?

Obviously, under these circumstances, the church should encourage a greater reliance on private, home worship. There have been long seasons where the church was restricted to very small home gatherings, due to persecution, for instance, and the Christian faith has survived and thrived during these times.

Technology provides a wealth of options for us to feed our flocks during this time. Our first response in Washington, DC was to provide a live stream of our full Sunday liturgy for our members to view online, excluding the Lord’s Supper. Our hope is not to build a “virtual worship” experience, but to supplement home worship during this time. We plan to do this as long as necessary. Other churches have provided video messages of sermons or devotionals or song. 

While these resources may be useful, we need to carefully distinguish that they are not the same as gathering together, and that the church is by definition a worshiping assembly. As more and more areas of our work and school life transition to remote, online participations, Christians should stand firm that the breaking of bread and pouring of wine can’t take place over a Wi-Fi connection, and true Christian fellowship entails incarnate, bodily communion.

The individualistic, Gnosticizing impulse in modern religion is strong. Many for years have been pushing Christianity toward a personalized, virtual expression of the faith, and we need to be particularly wary of these tendencies during this time. Satan will seek to use this season of isolation to peel week sheep away from the flock, and watchful shepherds need to be on their guard. 

With these thoughts in mind, I urge pastors and elders to think deeply how they can maintain a virtual diet for their people — as well as for a watching world — that leads to thriving and faithfulness. I urge leaders to teach your flocks to long for gathered worship, put them on guard against the foe of virtual life. And perhaps, due to a flood of zoom conferences and Skype calls, God will use this season for our good, to instill a greater love, a greater longing for public worship and human fellowship that only the church of Christ can provide.

Song

God’s people need to sing. This is harder to do in private than in public, and we live in an age of waning musical talents. Singing alone at home is tough, yet we should encourage the saints to do so. 

During this season of increased isolation the church should identify this challenge and make an extra effort to exhort and enable the saints to maintain sung worship in the home. Pick a monthly psalm to memorize, provide musical accompaniment. At Christ Reformed, we have encouraged ownership of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal, and during this season have loaned hymnals to those who don’t own it. We have a list of publicly available musical accompaniment at our church website (www.christreformeddc.org) and Facebook page. There are a lot of other resources available, and churches should be taking the lead in marshaling them to address this challenge.

Pastoral Care

My dad was a mediocre golfer, and in this respect the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But we used to enjoy watching the pros play golf on television, and I’d be a wealthy man if I had a nickel for every time he said “Drive for show, putt for dough” after a professional golfer missed an easy putt. It looks impressive to hit a golf ball a long way — drive for show — but mastering the short game is where the money is made — putt for dough.

Sunday morning worship is the pastor’s equivalent of a 300 yard “drive for show.” Public worship is the big show. But the short game is where great churches separate themselves from the pack. This is where the real harvest of pastoral ministry is reaped. This has always been the case, but in the age of the socially distanced church, our short game is going to be put to the test.

How does a church be a church without gathering for worship? How can we be the “called out ones” when we’re not responding to the call to worship publicly? One answer I would normally give to this challenge is Christian hospitality in the home. But for obvious reasons, the socially distanced church faces restrictions on that front as well. 

One initial thought is that we take advantage of technology to stay in contact as much as possible. At Christ Reformed, one of the first steps we took was dividing our membership list up among all our elders and deacons in an effort to ensure robust personal connection with each and every member. Technology helps us have lots of small points of contact, such as texts and emails. It also lets us have slightly more robust interactions such as phone and videoconference calls. In an age of cheap electronic communication — firing off a text takes seconds — we shouldn’t underestimate the value of the human voice and human face. In a phone call you can hear anxiety in a voice, ask follow up questions, trade stories and jokes, laugh together. 

Here’s one basic tool we developed at Christ Reformed. We have a Google document all our leadership can easily access that tells us when each member was last contacted, and keeps a running status report on their work, home, and other needs. I check this daily and make a few calls to those who haven’t heard from us in a while, just to ensure that no one falls through the cracks.

We must not forsake prayer during this time. Praying together, one on one or in small groups, will be very important. Continuing in prayer, as leadership, for the flock will be more essential than ever. 

Evangelism and Mission

It is challenging enough to think of shepherding a socially distanced church. But growing a socially distanced church through evangelism and outreach can seem impossible in times of limited personal contact.

Yet the world needs the gospel now more than ever. Times of loss reveal the fading power of worldly comfort. Death and disease will strike many and bring the final enemy near. The missionary call of the church to be salt and light is never more relevant than during times of plague. 

Public worship is a key tool in evangelism. It provides a place for a an interested party to meet with the church, hear the gospel, and observe Christian fellowship. With the loss of public worship, how do we reach and welcome the world into our midst? 

I must admit that I’m still wrestling with this challenge. Increased live streaming of public worship and gospel preaching means more may hear our message of hope and comfort. And yet, what action shall they take?  How and where will we meet them, come alongside them, bear their burdens, and catechize them to living faith?

Here are three initial thoughts on socially distanced evangelism:

First, works of love and mercy always bear witness to the power of Christ’s saving work in our hearts and in the world. There will be many opportunities for such service in the days ahead. We must all look to our closest neighbors and see how we can love and serve them. We love because he first loved us, and works of selfless love will be used by God to lead our neighbors to Christ. 

Second, many, many of our family members need Christ. The internet was full of humorous and yet tragic memes about how challenging and difficult it will be for many of us to live in close quarters with our wives, our parents, and other immediate and extended family members. Such is the world’s view of family. Ours is different. Yes, we are sinners living in close quarters. But we should embrace opportunities of Christian love and service, confession and forgiveness, within our own homes. More than ever, our households should be models of Christian love and reconciliation for the world to see. Let’s double down on family worship, catechesis, and reconciliation. 

Third, I am reminding our members during this time that we all have many callings in life. As our work and school lives are upended by self-quarantine, we must remember that being a Christian is a vocation, being a husband or wife, a child or a parent is a vocation. Being a neighbor is our vocation. As some vocations fall away, there are abundant opportunities in faithfulness in others. All of the members of our churches need to be activated to love and care for one another during this time of remote, distance church. Not only our leadership, but our membership, must learn to love one another in new ways. 

Conclusion

One of our central callings as Christians is prayer. It is a mark of gratitude, and a work of mission. We should be focused and diligent in our prayers both for the church, and for the world. 

Finally, we should note that this is a partial list. Many things about our church life — including finances, property, etc. — will have to change. We won’t be able to anticipate them all. We should pray that God would give us wisdom, and the strength and flexibility to adapt to a rapidly changing world. And, as always, that we would have boldness and courage in the work of Christ. Boldness to change our habits and traditions to suit the present circumstances.

Observing the Lord's Day

We kicked off 2020 with a seven-part series of catechism sermons on “Observing the Lord’s Day,” structured around the “Rules for Observing the Lord’s Day” issued by the Synod of Dort.

The Protestant Reformation was a reformation of worship as much as it was a reformation of doctrine, or rather, it was a reformation of worship because it was a reformation of doctrine. The key marks of a Reformed church were the pure preaching of the word, the pure administration of the sacraments, and the proper exercise of discipline. All three of these marks were most notably in evidence when the church assembled for public worship on the Lord’s Day.

While all Reformed Christians emphasized the importance of public worship on the Lord’s Day, there soon developed a diversity of opinions about the relationship of the Lord’s Day to the Old Testament Sabbath. Continental Reformed churches often emphasized the importance of the eternal Sabbath, taught in Hebrews 4. This is reflected in Heidelberg Catechism (1563), Question 103, “What is God’s will for you in the Fourth Commandment?”

First, that the gospel ministry and schools for it be maintained, and that, especially on the festive day of rest, I diligently attend the assembly of God’s people to learn what God’s Word teaches, to participate in the sacraments, to pray to the Lord publicly, and to bring Christian offerings for the poor. 

Second, that every day of my life I rest from my evil ways, let the Lord work in me through his Spirit, and so begin in this life the eternal Sabbath.

—HEIDELBERG CATECHISM, QUESTION & ANSWER 103

Fifty-six years later, the Synod of Dort took up the issue of the Lord’s Day after the dismissal of the international delegates, when it addressed a number of national matters. Recognizing that there were a diversity of views regarding the relation of the Lord’s day to the Sabbath, they quickly issued a brief series of six “Rules for Observing the Sabbath or Lord’s Day” — the “or” suggesting the two terms were interchangeable. Below is the new translation of the rules which appears in the book, Saving the Reformation, by W. Robert Godfrey, with a minor revision to the third rule in brackets. 

1. In the fourth Commandment of the divine law, part is ceremonial and part is moral. (audio)

2. The ceremonial was the rest of the seventh day after creation, and the rigid observance of that day prescribed particularly for the Jewish people. (audio)

3. The moral truly is that a certain and appointed day [should be]* fixed for the worship of God and so much rest as is necessary for the worship of God and for holy meditation on him. (audio)

4. Since the abrogation of the Sabbath of the Jews, the day of the Lord must be solemnly sanctified by Christians. (audio)

5. This day has always been observed since the time of the Apostles by the ancient catholic church. (audio)

6. This day must be so consecrated to divine worship that on it one ceases from all servile works, except those of love and present necessity; and also from all such refreshing activities as impede the worship of God. (audio)

—“REGULAE DE OBSERVATIONE SABBATHI, SEU DEI DOMINICI,” POST-ACTA OF THE SYNOD OF DORT, 1619

* “Should be fixed” replaces W. Robert Godfrey’s translation, “is fixed.” The Latin reads “destinatus sit,” which is in the subjunctive. Rules four and five proceed to explain how the Lord’s Day has been fixed — by human tradition, not by divine command — as the day of worship, subsequent to the abrogation of the Sabbath of the Jews. 

Together, the Heidelberg Catechism and the instruction from the Synod of Dort provide healthy guidance for Christians today wrestling with how we should observe the Lord’s Day in our own context. Each week, we will also take the time to address practical issues in Lord’s Day observance that challenge us today. We hope you will join us at Christ Reformed for this important series of lessons. 

Refreshment for the Soul

J. Gresham Machen concluded his classic work, Christianity and Liberalism (1923), with a moving account of Christian worship as a source of “refreshment for the soul.” In Machen’s vision, worship is a place where we gain refuge from the trials of this world by gathering with sinners “around the table of the crucified Lord” and uniting “in overflowing gratitude at the foot of the cross.” The following quote aptly describes the Lord’s Day worship as we seek to celebrate it at Christ Reformed:

There must be somewhere groups of redeemed men and women who can gather together humbly in the name of Christ, to give thanks to Him for His unspeakable gift and to worship the Father through Him. Such groups alone can satisfy the needs of the soul. At the present time, there is one longing of the human heart which is often forgotten – it is the deep, pathetic longing of the Christian for fellowship with his brethren… There are congregations, even in the present age of conflict, that are really gathered around the table of the crucified Lord; there are pastors that are pastors indeed. But such congregations, in many cities, are difficult to find. Weary with the conflicts of the world, one goes to Church to seek refreshment for the soul. And what does one find? Alas, too often, one find only the turmoil of the world. The preacher comes forward, not out of a secret place of mediation and power, not with the authority of God’s Word permeating his message, not with human wisdom pushed far into the background by the glory of the Cross, but with human opinions about the social problems of the hour or easy solutions of the vast problems of sin. Such is the sermon. And then perhaps the service is closed by one of those hymns breathing out the angry passions of 1861… Thus the warfare of the world has entered even into the house of God. And sad indeed is the heart of the man who has come seeking peace.

Is there no refuge from strife? Is there no place of refreshing where a man can prepare for the battle of life? Is there no place where two or three can gather in Jesus’ name, to forget for the moment all those things that divide nation from nation and race from race, to forget human pride, to forget the passions of war, to forget the puzzling problems of industrial strife, and to unite in overflowing gratitude at the foot of the Cross? If there be such a place, then that is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive the weary world.

J. GRESHAM MACHEN, CHRISTIANITY AND LIBERALISM, P. 179

Introducing Our URCNA Liturgical Forms

All worship is liturgical, that is, it follows a set rhythm and pattern. A church’s liturgy can be described in various ways: informal or formal, high or low, explicit or implicit. But all churches have a liturgy. 

Christ Reformed is a member of the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA), a federation of churches in the Dutch Reformed tradition. While there is great freedom and much diversity in how our congregations worship, all churches in the URCNA voluntarily commit to using a common body of liturgical forms for the celebration of key moments in the life of the church, such as sacraments, profession of faith, and ordination ceremonies. These liturgical forms have been approved by our churches at our Synod (bi-annual gathering), and published in a book along with a collection of prayer, Forms and Prayers (2018). The entire collection is also available online at www.formsandprayers.com. 

What is a “liturgical form”? It is merely a standard script directing the minister on how to perform a particular rite in the worship of the church. It may include many elements, such as an introduction, prayers, vows, or other teaching.

In the coming months we plan to present a series of blog posts exploring our liturgical forms, beginning here with the preface to our collection.

The “Preface” to our Liturgical Forms

The “Preface” to Forms and Prayers begins with a simple claim:

Liturgical forms are an important part of the Reformed faith.

The Protestant Reformation was a renewal of the church’s worship, as much as it was a renewal of doctrine and life. Just as catechisms and confessions were used to teach the rediscovered principles of Scripture alone and faith alone, so too liturgical forms were prepared to teach the proper understanding of the church’s sacraments and guide faithful practice.

Note that liturgical forms are a resource for teaching the doctrine of our worship. They are filled with biblical instruction that explains what we understand to be taking place in our worship.

Next, the preface walks through the organic development of these forms as they arose from debates about the nature of the church’s worship, and most importantly, about the meaning and significance of the sacraments.

Liturgical Forms were prepared initially for the celebration of the two biblical sacraments confessed by Reformed Churches: baptism and the Lord’s supper. In time, additional forms were provided for other ceremonial moments in the life of the church, including profession of faith, marriage, ordination of ministers and elders, and excommunication and readmission. These forms were prepared to enact and teach the sacramental doctrine found in our confessions and catechisms.

Because the Reformed drew upon scripture alone as the foundation for this doctrine, they contain rich biblical teaching. The forms at this site are therefore a timeless resource of sacramental and practical theology for all believers today.

The Reformed Churches on the continent of Europe drew from a common pool of liturgical forms, and there is much overlap in the German, French, and Dutch speaking churches. The preface sketches this development in broad outline:

The book of Forms and Prayers recently published for use in the United Reformed Churches of North America (URCNA) is reflective of the Dutch Reformed tradition. This tradition was heavily shaped by an early Psalter published for Dutch speaking refugees in Heidelberg by Petrus Dathenus in 1566. Dathenus drew heavily upon the liturgy of the Church Order of the Palatinate (1563), where Heidelberg was located, which had largely been prepared by Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus. This liturgy drew upon the forms prepared by John Calvin for Geneva in 1542. The work of all these Reformed liturgists can be traced back to the earlier work of Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli. 

As a rule, the Reformers did not seek to reinvent the wheel, but rather recovered and restored the most faithful practices of the medieval and ancient church. Their work reflects the writings of church fathers such as Augustine, Tertullian, and Chrysostom. Though notably Reformed in character, these forms exhibit ancient practice and thought.

Finally, it is worth noting that the Reformed tradition on the continent developed a different sensibility about liturgical forms than the Presbyterian churches that arose from English-speaking lands. The Dutch Reformed and their continental brethren were comfortable with committing to a common body of liturgical forms, that would be approved for use by a general gathering of the churches, or a Synod. We agree to uphold our Church Order in which we commit to use “the appropriate liturgical form” for sacraments and other key rites in the life of the church. By using approved forms, we recognize the fact that these liturgical practices are a formative part of the life of the church; they teach our faith in a similar fashion to the creeds and confessions that summarize it doctrinally. 

So, for instance, in the sacramental life of the church, we not only commit to a common doctrine of the sacraments in our confessions (Heidelberg Catechism 66 – 85); Belgic Confession Articles 33 – 35 ), but we also commit to a common liturgy and practice of the sacraments, for the liturgy and practice are the means of manifesting the doctrine in the life of the church. Good theology (orthodoxy) can be undermined by bad practice.

This is why the preface also identifies, in broad historical overview, how and when our forms have been approved:

The Synod of Dort (1618 – 1619) approved liturgical forms for the use of the Dutch churches, and this liturgical tradition remained fairly stable in Dutch speaking churches for hundreds of years. Reformed church synods in North America approved English translations of these liturgical forms, notably in 1912 and 1934, with minor alterations and revisions.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, there was a great deal of liturgical innovation, not all of it taking the sacramental theology of the Reformation as its starting point. The URCNA Liturgical Forms committee sought to preserve the best of our tradition, and provide a collection of liturgical forms reflecting what was in use by our churches in the early part of the twenty-first century. Revisions were undertaken to ensure the language and sentence structure was clear and understandable to modern readers. After many years of work and much deliberative input from all our churches, these forms were approved by the Synod of the URCNA in 2016.

You can view all of our liturgical forms at www.formsandprayers.com.

Preaching the Psalms Sequentially: 8 Practical Benefits

This article was originally published at Christian Renewal Magazine.

The Psalms series referenced in this article is available in our sermon archive.

I became a Calvinist in the Religious Studies Department at Stanford University. That’s my favorite proof for the sovereignty of God… and also one of my excuses for why at age 46 I’m still learning anew many of the remarkable contours of my adopted theological tradition. Most notably, the power and beauty of the Psalms in Christian worship.

Baptized and educated as a Roman Catholic, I migrated with my family out of the Roman church when I was about twelve years old, into the wild west of evangelical Christianity. By the time I reached college my interest in the philosophy and theology of Søren Kierkegaard and Karl Barth left me wondering what the boundaries of evangelical faith were, or if there even were any. A related interest in questions about free will and predestination led my undergraduate thesis adviser to direct me to Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will and John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. I never looked back.

At the time this remarkable transformation in my faith was taking place, I knew very little about the Psalms. To my mind, Reformed theology was roughly identical to the doctrines of grace and the sovereignty of God. Gradually I discovered the means of grace, ecclesiology, and catechesis. I suppose I had read the psalms as much as any part of the Bible, probably more because of their bite-sized beauty. But they held no special place in either my old evangelical faith and worship or my newly adopted Reformed faith. 

I learned in seminary as a matter of church history that psalms had a special place in the worship of the Reformed churches, and I learned to love the close study of Hebrew poetry. But it was only as a minister and worship leader over the last eleven years that I have finally begun to appreciate the power of the Psalms to shape Christian prayer and worship; the prominence of the Psalms in the Reformed tradition; and as a result, the extent to which the Psalms have shaped the Reformed tradition in particular. 

Early in my ministry, I preached a series of 20 sermons through the Psalms. The idea was to introduce my congregation to the Psalter, preaching on psalms from each of the five books and illustrating the various forms of praise, confession, lament. Naturally, I preached on many of the best-known psalms, 1, 22, 23, 32, 110, 119, 150. 

A few years later, I was struck by the idea of preaching through all 150 Psalms sequentially, and in January of 2013, I began doing so. Obviously, one downside of preaching all 150 Psalms in order is that the series can run to three years in length — or more if you take your time with Psalm 119. While there’s nothing wrong with a long sermon series, lack of variety in the sermon diet can be challenging for some congregants. 

Thus, I decided to preach an annual set of about 10 – 15 sermons. This year I preached Psalms 42–51 over the summer months, the opening of Book II. Lord willing, I’ll finish preaching through the psalter in about another decade or so. It’s one of my small personal goals in ministry. 

I have no data to back this up, but I suspect that preaching through the psalms in order is fairly rare. The longer I do it, however, the more I’m convinced that this should be a more common practice. Here are a few advantages I have found:

1. Preaching the whole Psalter teaches us how to Praise God. The Hebrew title for the Psalter is “The Book of Praises,” despite the fact that we find more songs of lament and confession than songs of praise in the Psalter. In fact, as you read through the Psalter, you see a progression from more lament to more praise, with a climax of Praise in Psalms 146 – 150. In a sense, the Psalter teaches us how we can move from lament to praise in our own lives, how we can Praise God in the midst of life’s struggles. 

2. Understanding the argument of the whole Psalter deepens our knowledge of God’s word. Recent decades have seen a flowering of both academic and lay literature that views the psalter as a unified collection with an argument that progresses from Introduction (Psalm1-2) to Conclusion (Psalm145-150) through each of its five books. Understanding this unity and flow add greatly to the understanding of individual psalms, and can bring great pleasure to even the most experienced psalm readers. This summer, we accompanied our series with a mid-week study through W. Robert Godfrey’s Learning to Love the Psalms, which our congregation thoroughly enjoyed. 

3. Reading Psalms in their individual context enlarges our appreciation for each psalm. Most Christians read each psalm as an isolated unit. However, when you begin to read the Psalter as a carefully structured collection, you see that there are often interesting relationships between neighboring psalms. This summer, I noted that Psalm 42-43 (I agree with those who believe they are originally a single composition) and Psalm 44 deal with dark seasons in Israel’s history, first individually then corporately. Then Psalm 45 was a royal marriage song, shifting our attention to the beauty and glory of the Lord’s anointed — quite an answer to Israel’s darkness. Likewise, Psalm 49 is a wisdom psalm warning the rich and powerful of their pride, and Psalm 50 was a song of God’s coming judgment. This pair is followed of course by Psalm 51, David’s great song of confession following his sin with Bathsheba, made all the more poignant when you see that the King had as it were been warned by the preceding psalms.

4. Preaching rare, unfamiliar, or difficult Psalms broadens our perspective on the Psalter. It’s natural for preachers to gravitate to more familiar, more beautiful, or more “important” Psalms when selecting texts to preach. But in preaching the psalms selectively we tend not to preach the whole counsel of God, and we overlook many psalms we’re just not very familiar with. Often in wrestling with these unfamiliar psalms you can see beautiful facets of God’s revelation.

5. Preaching the entire psalter connects us with the people of God through history. Reading through the entire Psalter in a regular cycle (weekly for many monastics, or monthly) has been a regular practice in Synagogue and church. It is a discipline that, if practiced regularly, deeply enriches our vocabulary for prayer and song in church and home. Modeling this through a consecutive sermon series is a great way to introduce the practice to God’s people. 

6. Preaching the whole Psalter helps us sing the Psalter with understanding. When I preach a psalm, we always try to sing that psalm. Some are more difficult to sing, with unfamiliar music than others. But gradually we are exposed to more psalm tunes and broaden our selection of familiar psalms to sing. And when we return to them in subsequent services, we can sing them with a deeper anchor to their main points, which ultimately makes the sung worship of God’s people more significant for them. 

7. Preaching the Psalter sequentially improves our prayer life. The psalms are inspired prayers, and the more of them we are familiar with, the better. As a pastor and a student of God’s word, I often don’t “get” a psalm until I take the time to study it deeply and preach it to God’s people. Likewise, God’s people may not get the thrust or logic of many of these prayers without hearing a well-constructed sermon. Our prayer language is weak, and we can always use more biblical instruction in how to pray. 

8. Preaching the whole Psalter lends balance to our view of the Christian life.  The preponderance of laments in the Psalter reminds us that the life of the faithful in this world is a life of pilgrims and sojourners, often filled with difficulty and struggle. Modern Christians are often drawn to the cheerful and upbeat; we desire optimistic sermons, even if we’re not listening to Joel Osteen teach us how to have “Our Best Life Now.” If we preach the Psalter selectively, we may naturally gravitate to preaching more positive, upbeat Psalms. The discipline of preaching the entire Psalter selectively, however, ensures that we cover the whole inspired range of emotions in the psalms, and serves as a corrective to the view that the church is full of “shiny, happy people.” 

I’m sure there are more benefits to be found in preaching through the entire psalter, and I’m sure that after another 99 sermons (including Psalm 119) I’ll have unearthed a few more of them. The Psalter is a rich resource, too often neglected in the Christian church. Thankfully, its place has been well preserved in our Reformed tradition, and I believe we should do a better job of proclaiming this part of God’s word to those who have largely forgotten it.

Celebrating the Hymns in the Trinity Psalter Hymnal

In two recent columns, I celebrated the joint URCNA / OPC publication of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal (TPH). First, I looked at how significant this cooperative effort is from missional, ecumenical, and confessional standpoints. Then in the subsequent column, I dug deeper into the Psalm collection in particular, seeing how the new psalter reflected a broader swath of the Reformed psalm-singing tradition.

In this column, I want to look a little more closely at the hymn collection, and then offer some practical suggestions about we might harvest the fruit of this project. The caveat from my last column remains in force: I’m no musicologist, and my analysis is based on a very cursory exam, mostly based on the tables of contents of the two collections. Caveat lector. 

Hymn Collection By the Numbers

The first thing to grasp about the hymn section of the TPH is that it is much larger than what many URC members may be accustomed to in the Blue Psalter Hymnal (BPH). The BPH contained 183 hymn settings in addition to 310 psalm settings, for a total of 493 songs. The TPH, in contrast, has 428 hymn settings to go along with 279 psalm settings, for a grand total — and I mean grand — of 707 songs. Put differently, the TPH has over twice as many hymns as the BPH, and 43 percent more songs total.

Parenthetically, this expanded song section — and the great space it occupied — was one reason why it was necessary to publish a separate book for the URC-specific liturgical forms that comprise the back section of the BPH. While all of our confessional documents are included in the TPH (Ecumenical Creeds, Westminster Standards, and Three Forms of Unity), a separate volume of liturgical forms and prayers is being published for URCNA churches. This volume will also contain the Ecumenical Creeds and Reformed Confessions. 

The good news for those who may be apprehensive about adopting a new songbook is that a healthy majority of the BPH hymn collection has found its way into the TPH. My very cursory examination suggests that of the 183 BPH hymn settings, at least 132 (or 72%) are in the TPH. The actual number may be a bit higher, as some songs come over with slightly different titles.

What are we to say of the 51 or so hymns from the BPH we are leaving behind when we adopt the new hymnal? No doubt, some of my readers might have a favorite song or two on that list. And that is precisely why I am so grateful for the labors of the Psalter-Hymnal committee, wrestling for years with the worship practices of our church, providing for an open selection process, and welcoming feedback. They are to be commended for this decades-long effort.

However, in any collection of 183 songs, there are songs that don’t rise to the top. We wouldn’t expect every single song to be retained in a new collection — whether their musical beauty doesn’t prove to be timeless, or their lyrics speak to the concerns of an earlier age. Furthermore, it seems as though the songs that were cut were not frequently sung in our churches; many of their names are relatively unfamiliar. 

Do We Need This Many Hymns?

On a typical Sunday at Christ Reformed in Washington, we sing one or two hymns. Most of those hymns we sing at least a couple of times a year. So on average, we sing maybe fifty different hymns a year. Even if we committed to singing our way through the hymn collection in the TPH — we probably won’t — it would take us six to eight years to do so. If we only sang hymns, it would still take us over two years to sing them all even if we only sang each one once. 

Do we need this many hymns?

Probably not. There is a school of thought that it is better for a congregation to really master the singing of about one hundred songs — more if you include psalms — rather than singing 200 – 300 less-familiar songs infrequently. I think there is a lot of truth to that. 

Arguably, we have gotten by with only 183 hymn settings in the URCNA in part because of our prioritization of singing Psalms. We frankly don’t need 428 hymns, given the role of Psalms in our worship. A collection this large is probably more reflective of a tradition where singing a majority of psalms is not the norm.

The advantage, however, of the size of this collection is that it serves to bridge and unify diverse worship traditions. I am more than willing to embrace a larger song collection for the sake of drawing Presbyterian and Reformed churches into closer relation. Members move between Presbyterian and Reformed churches more frequently in our day, and there is a real benefit to making us feel more at home in a new sister church.

One benefit of a larger collection is that there is a greater likelihood of finding songs our whole church is familiar with. Take, for example, Christmas songs related to Advent and Birth of Christ. A Christmas “Lessons and Carols” service has become a favorite tradition in our young church. While the BPH had approximately 15 songs in this category — many of which were less common — the TPH has 33. A partial list of those found in our new hymnal and missing from our old includes: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence; Angels We Have Heard on High; As With Gladness Men of Old; God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; Good Christian Men, Rejoice; Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming; O Little Town of Bethlehem; Once in Royal David’s City; Savior of the Nations, Come; and What Child is This?

There are some profound and beautiful Christmas songs on this list. While we couldn’t have sung our Lessons and Carols from the BPH, we can easily do it from this new collection The expansion of this section alone will enrich our congregational singing at this season of the year. 

How Should We Celebrate the TPH?

God has given the OPC and URCNA a great gift in the TPH. However, like all of God’s good gifts, it is necessary for us to make the proper use of them. Here are a few practical suggestions to help ensure that we take advantage of this gift that we have been given.

First, let’s sing together. I would encourage URC and OPC churches who adopt the TPH to seek out neighboring congregations for ecumenical hymn sings. This is a very simple suggestion, but it could take some real effort and sacrifice to execute well. Let’s find a way to make it work, if not in our churches, then on a smaller scale in our homes.

Second, our churches should strive to adopt the book. This is of course not a mandate, but it may well be a matter of gospel wisdom. Granted, investing in new hymnals may not make sense for every congregation, financially or otherwise. Perhaps our Presbyteries and Classes could remove financial obstacles to adoption by offering subsidies for congregations that want to adopt it but can’t afford to do so. 

Third, I believe we should work hard to produce a state-of-the-art electronic version of the TPH. Here I’m openly advocating for a position that is pending before our 2018 Synod. However, I think it is undeniable that we can drastically extend the reach of this publishing effort by making them available in a format that is readily accessible both in our homes and on mission fields. We should have these hymns — along with musical accompaniment — in the pockets of as many members of our churches as possible. Also, many churches no longer interested in print hymnals would be able to benefit and use electronic resources, so it broadens the potential impact of the TPH outside the URC and OPC. Electronic publishing or mobile app development may require us to get out of our comfort zone and invest in web technology and development in a way that we haven’t done before, perhaps even creating subscription or sale sites. However, this is well worth the investment. 

Finally, let’s give thanks to God for this gift he has given the church, for the many hours of faithful labor that have been invested in this day. I can’t wait to get to Synod in Wheaton and sing with our OPC brothers and sisters, especially songs of thanksgiving for this great gift he has given us to sing of his many glorious works. Praise God. 

Chronological Snobbery: Celebrating the Trinity Psalter Hymnal

This article originally appeared in Christian Renewal magazine.

In my last column, “Celebrating the Trinity Psalter Hymnal,” I argued that we should celebrate and embrace the new Trinity Psalter Hymnal (TPH) on missional, ecumenical, and confessional grounds. In short, this songbook gives us the opportunity to sing songs that are more familiar and more widely sung, to make our worship more accessible to guests and visitors, and to sing songs that are more frequently sung in sister Reformed churches. 

It gives us the opportunity, in short, to think about the preferences of those who aren’t yet sitting in our pews, but those whom we pray will be through our evangelistic and missionary efforts. It gives us an opportunity to be outward facing, not inward facing, in our worship choice. And, just to be clear, this “outward facing” stance isn’t about bending to cultural whims. The TPH is about embracing the best of five hundred years of Reformed hymnody. 

But still, that’s a hard decision for a church to make. Music is a communal experience. When we sing a familiar tune, it makes us feel as though we are a part of something bigger than ourselves, the body of Christ not only today but also down through the ages. To adopt a new songbook invariably means abandoning some familiar songs and learning some new ones. This is where conservatism in Christian worship is so important, it connects us to the past.

In my last column, I claimed that “much of the music we love to sing… can be found in the new book.” Since I’m a bit of an amateur numbers guy — and a very amateur student of music — I figured I’d attempt to quantify how many songs from the Blue Psalter Hymnal (BPH) carry over into the TPH, and look at a few other statistical elements. 

First, a caveat. I’m not an expert in music; the following statistics are by my own count, and I certainly could have made a mistake here or there. I haven’t served on the Psalter Hymnal Committee, and I don’t have any access to solid data. Also, I’m going to focus on the psalter portion of the TPH and set the hymn collection to the side, because I think introducing the psalms to a new generation in the church should be one of the most important goals of the TPH. 

How Much Has Changed?

The new songbook has 279 psalm settings in it, with every psalm having at least one full-text setting, with the exception of Psalm 119, which has a full-text setting for each of the 22 stanzas. In addition, there are 40 partial settings and 32 paraphrases. While I’m focusing on the music in this article, the texts in the TPH are generally far more faithful to scripture than the BPH.

The BPH had 310 psalm settings, 31 more than the TPH. Of these 310, 81 psalm settings are carried over into the TPH, or about 25% of the whole collection. While 1 in 4 might not seem like a great deal of overlap, it is worth noting that these are distributed over 74 psalms. In other words, half of the psalms in the psalter will be represented by a tune that is familiar from the older collection. 

Of course, most congregations don’t sing all 150 psalms with any regularity. Given that the committee sought to preserve the best and most frequently sung psalms in the old collection, the odds are good that this 49% of the psalms represents far more than half of the psalms that were actually sung out of the old book. 

Chronological Snobbery? 

In Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns, T. David Gordon noted that one of the flaws of “contemporary Christians music” is that it elevates “contemporaneity” itself to a musical virtue. Newer music is de facto better music. 

Of course, we don’t believe that. But it has always struck me that the BPH had a heavy bias toward a single period in church history, namely, the 19th century. While the dates of tunes can be a bit misleading — sometimes traditional folks tunes are first publish at a much later date — a count of dates of tunes and/or composers bears out this fact. Fully 76% of the tunes in the BPH are from the 19th  or early 20th century (61% and 15% respectively). The nearby chart shows the relative percentages of tunes in the collection from each century.

While many fine tunes were written in the 19th century, I confess to harboring a bias against much 19th century American church music, much of which was infected by the revivalistic spirit of that age. The pre-1800 songs in the BPH (23% of the collection) have stood the test of time. They are the cream of the crop. The same can’t be said for the tunes from the 19th century, a whopping 186 of them, or 61% of the collection. Reflecting on the fact that the BPH contained such a thick slice of a narrow band of the church’s music, I once overheard someone say that the BPH is contemporary Christian music from a hundred years ago.  

Though it is a newer collection, including a number of tunes from the 21st century and later 20th century, the TPH manages to slide the average date of its collection back about ten years. The average date in the TPH is 1806, versus 1814 for the BPH (if you throw out the 21st century songs, the average drops back to 1799). Both collections draw about the same share of their tunes (13%) from the 16th century, mostly Genevan settings. But the TPH has three times as many tunes from the 17th century (6% vs. 2%) and almost twice as many tunes from the 18th century (14% vs. 8%).  

As the accompanying chart makes clear, the TPH represents a much broader swath of Protestant sacred music, with 33% of its tunes coming from pre-1800, 50% from the 19th century, and 17% coming from after 1900. Many of these new tunes are drawn from English and Welsh sources, and will sound familiar to God’s people from popular hymns. The collection of psalm tunes is therefore more mainstream, more relatable, and less eccentric, while also being more historic. That’s quite an accomplishment, and those who assembled this work are to be commended.

All of these numbers exclude the hymn collection, but by incorporating much of the hymn music from the widely used red Trinity Hymnal, there will most likely be a similar broadening effect. 

Conclusion 

Of course, none of this should be read as a condemnation of the BPH. It has served the churches well, and many of its tunes are beloved by our people. There will invariably be some loss in moving to a new songbook. Furthermore, this frustration will disproportionately fall upon those who have sung from this book for the longest, and we should always be slow to cause our senior church members any unnecessary sorrow. I speak as a convert to the tradition with barely 20 years experience, and the last thing I’d want to suggest is that newcomers should cast off the tried and true ways.

And yet, we must not forget the “benefit” side of the ledger. A new collection that preserves the best and most beloved of the old, while incorporating a broader sweep of church history can make the singing in our churches more attractive to a new generation of Psalm singers. Lord willing, the TPH can help re-introduce some of our Presbyterian brethren to the benefits of psalmody. And unity in song across the OPC and URC — as well as any other Reformed churches that adopt the TPH — is for the good of an increasingly mobile membership of our churches.

Celebrating the Trinity Psalter Hymnal

This article originally appeared in Christian Renewal magazine.

I am excited for the impending release of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal in the summer of 2018, or TPH, as it’s coming to be known.

Contrary to the spirit of the age, our churches believe that conservatism in worship is a good thing. We don’t go rushing about for the latest fad, and we don’t believe that novelty or contemporaneity is itself a virtue. There is good reason why many of our churches may be less than energized about adopting new hymnals when the old hymnals are serving our purposes just fine, thank you very much.  

So perhaps it runs against type a little bit for confessionally Reformed folks to get excited about a new songbook. But I am, and I think we should. I understand that not everyone will adopt this new songbook immediately, but I think we should all pray for its success, and pray that the great cost and labor that has gone into its production will be used for the greater glory of God. 

So, why should constitutionally conservative worshipers be excited about a new psalter hymnal?

We should be excited for its use on the mission field, both at home and abroad. As a church planter, the vast majority of those who have worshiped in our church in Washington, DC over the years have had little or no previous experience with the United Reformed Churches. Our prioritization of psalm singing has been a new experience, and many of the tunes that our churches have treasured for generations are foreign to them. 

In short, our special mix of worship has numerous obstacles baked in for newcomers. Without changing any of our historic commitments, the TPH removes or mitigates many of those obstacles. I am not a musicologist by any stretch of the imagination, but in my experience over the last number of years, the music of the TPH represents a much broader historic swath of Christian hymnody, both geographically and chronologically While many of the most beloved tunes of our tradition remain in the book, there are a whole host of tunes that are more accessible to a broader audience. 

Buying the TPH was a no brainer for our church in DC, as we’ve never owned any hymnals before, singing from photocopied bulletins each week. We are thrilled to be able to put an attractive new psalter hymnal in our pews that immediately sends the message to guests and visitors that we are not only committed to the best of historic Christian hymnody but also committed to the continued maintenance of that tradition for the coming generations. That’s the implicit message this songbook will send. 

I am just a single data point, but I represent a believer who didn’t grow up in the URC and never stepped into a Reformed church until I was out of college. The psalm tunes in the TPH are hands down more inviting, more accessible, and easier for me to sing than the psalm tunes in the blue psalter hymnal. By making that claim, I am in no way judging the blue songbook as musically inferior, nor am I demanding that longstanding URC members give up the music that they love to sing. Indeed, I believe much of it can be found in the new book. But I am speaking as an outsider to the Reformed tradition, and I see a great opportunity for our churches to introduce a new generation of believers to the riches of singing the psalms. 

For the sake of mission, all of our churches should think seriously about adopting this book. 

I’m also excited for the partnership between the United Reformed Churches of North America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Obviously, it is this very partnership that has given the book a musical appeal beyond any one reformed tradition, drawing upon the best of Presbyterian and Reformed worship. But it is also an excellent example of sister churches working together in a practical fashion. This is the best of ecumenism in action, pooling resources to address a need in our churches. A joint OPC-URCNA hymnal doesn’t mean that our churches will merge any time soon, or that they should. But it certainly increases the likelihood that we will grow closer together. 

While OPC and URC folks are often justifiably proud of our rich theological heritage, I think we sometimes to forget just how small we are. Membership in our two bodies is around 60,000, combined. We could have a joint worship service for all of us in a decent sized college football stadium (conveniently, they are free on Sundays). For the sake of comparison, two of the biggest churches in America — Lakewood and Second Baptist, both in Houston — boast more members than all our congregations combined. 

In many ways, we are a cultural and statistical blip. 

Given our small size, and how much we share in common, as well as the shared independent seminaries that many of our ministers have in common, it would be malpractice for us not to work together on a project of this nature. And I praise God that in his providence the men in charge of these projects in their respective churches were led to that same conclusion and joined forces to make the cooperative effort work. 

We live in an increasingly liquid, mobile society. Members of our churches change jobs and change cities with some regularity. Our children are educated in distant cities. We often visit each other churches when moving about, and we often consider joining a church in this small fraternity, before looking at others. It may seem a small thing, but it is a good thing if you can pull a familiar book out and sing from it in an unfamiliar church. It is another bit of glue that can help us all stick a little closer together — and help us keep from losing our wandering flocks — in a time of great fragmentation. 

The sooner we adopt these songbooks, and adopt them widely, the sooner we can enjoy this fruit of growing together. 

Finally, I am excited to have a hymnal in our church pews which contains both the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards. There are few novelties in the publishing world, so I am sure such a book exists, but to my knowledge this is the first hymnal to contain the confessional standards of continental and English speaking reformed churches in a single volume. While I am decidedly partial to the Three Forms — what URC minister isn’t — the Westminster standards complement them beautifully and form a delightful counterpoint. Stretching over eighty years and four languages, the combined confessional collection speaks from a wide diversity of social and political circumstances, and reflects a breadth of our tradition that each one on its own lacks. The warmth of Heidelberg is supplanted by the precision of Westminster. The Belgic was written by a persecuted martyr, Westminster by an assembly commissioned by parliament. 

It is a delight for the members of both our churches to be more frequently exposed to the other church’s confessional documents. For ministers and teachers to refer to them. To grow in our understanding and appreciation of global Calvinism, as these standards have spread across the world and embrace believers on every continent. I’m not usually a proponent of formally adopting additional confessions for one’s church — I think this ecumenical effort often results in overload, such that no single confession is truly used or appreciated. But having them present in our hymnals is a great opportunity for our churches to learn, and grow, and grow together. 

Our conservatism in worship is a good thing. It has kept us faithful through many years, and it is unique in our age of faddish worship. But I hope that conservatism doesn’t stand in the way of every church giving serious consideration to adopting the new TPH. By gathering the very best of the Presbyterian and Reformed worshipping tradition in a single volume, I believe this songbook has the potential to pass down to a new generation our commitment to biblical worship, while at the same time making it more inviting to newcomers. May the Lord establish this work of our hands, and use it to adorn his bride with song.