Sunday's Hymn: Great Is Thy Faithfulness

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my father,
There is no shadow of turning with thee:
Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
As thou hast been thou for ever wilt be.

“Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!”
Morning by morning new mercies I see:
All I have needed thy hand hath provided—
“Great is thy faithfulness,” Lord unto me!

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside.

—Thomas O. Chisholm

Copyright 1923, renewal 1951, Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188. 

Other hymns, worship songs, or quotes for this Sunday:

• O God of Truth at The Happy Wonderer
• The Love and Mercy Near the Cross at The Outspoken Tulip
• Have Your Cake After All at Stand Firm

Selected Reading, September 26, 2020

 

Three suggestions for your weekend reading.

Good News

Rightly Regarding Our Sin
It seems nobody wants to use any of the “s” words anymore. In this short post, Burk Parsons explains why we should.

Christian History

Was the Divinity of Jesus a Late Invention of the Council of Nicea?
The answer, of course, is no. In this piece, Michael Kruger looks at two examples from Paul’s writings that show that the highest of Christologies was present in our earliest Christian sources. Paul viewed Jesus as “the one God of Israel, the pre-existent creator of the universe.” And “what is particularly noteworthy about both of these passages is that scholars have argued that each of them reflect even earlier Christian tradition that significantly predates Paul’s own letters.”

Bible Study

Why We Should Be More Familiar with OT Sacrifices
As we work through the New Testament book of Hebrews in the Bible study I’m attending, I’ve realized how important it is to understand the Old Testament sacrificial system. It all makes me want to study Leviticus.

Theological Term of the Week: Tetragrammaton

tetragrammaton
The technical term for the four-lettered Hebrew name of God (יהוה). In English the letters are equivalent to YHWH, which is frequently rendered as Yahweh or Jehovah. In many English translations of the Bible, the all-capped LORD is used to represent the tetragrammaton.

• In scripture:

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD [this translates the tetragrammaton], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. (Exodus 3:13-15 ESV)

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof:

  It is especially in the name Yahweh, which gradually supplanted earlier names, that God reveals Himself as the God of grace. It has always been regarded as the most sacred and the most distinctive name of God, the incommunicable name. The Jews had a superstitious dread of using it, since they read Lev. 24:16 as follows: “He that nameth the name of Yahweh shall surely be put to death.” And therefore in reading the Scriptures they substituted for it either ’Adonai or ’Elohim; and the Massoretes, while leaving the consonants intact, attached to them the vowels of one of these names, usually those of ’Adonai. The real derivation of the name and its original pronunciation and meaning are more or less lost in obscurity. The Pentateuch connects the name with the Hebrew verb hayah, to be, Ex. 3:13,14. On the strength of that passage we may assume that the name is in all probability derived from an archaic form of that verb, namely, hawah. As far as the form is concerned, it may be regarded as a third person imperfect qal or hiphil. Most likely, however, it is the former. The meaning is explained in Ex. 3:14, which is rendered “I am that I am,” or “I shall be what I shall be.” Thus interpreted, the name points to the unchangeableness of God. Yet it is not so much the unchangeableness of His essential Being that is in view, as the unchangeableness of His relation to His people. The name contains the assurance that God will be for the people of Moses’ day what He was for their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It stresses the covenant faithfulness of God, is His proper name par excellence, Ex. 15:3; Ps. 83:19; Hos. 12:6; Isa. 42:8, and is therefore used of no one but Israel’s God.

Learn more:

1. Compelling Truth: What is the tetragrammaton? What does YHWH mean?
2. Blue Letter Bible: Yahweh (Lord, Jehovah) 
3. Theopedia: Yahweh 
4. John Piper: “I Am Who I Am” 
5. Michael Marlowe: The Translation of the Tetragrammaton

Related terms: 

• Adonai
• Elohim
• names of God

Filed under God’s Nature and His Work

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