Round the Sphere Again: Thinking About Worship

Two Things
D. A. Carson: “[T]here are two elements expressed in the praise of Psalm 66 that are almost never heard today, and that badly need to be reincorporated both into our praise and into our thinking.” Read what they are. (For the Love of God)

The Old Hymns
James Grant: “Learning hymns is a way to participate in the church universal and the communion of the saints.” so there’s good reason to introduce hymns to a congregation that does not sing them. (The Gospel Coalition Blog)

Ten Arguments
for the Regulative Principle of Worship. There are a few arguments here that are new to me. You? (Underdog Theology)

HT: The Thirsty Theologian.

Culpable Ignorance

Quoting from Greg Bahsen’s Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith, Chapter 18, Summary On Apologetics Method: Chapters 13-17:

The unbeliever’s way of thinking is characterized as follows:

• a. By nature the unbeliever is the image of God and, therefore, inescapably religious; his heart testifies continually, as does also the clear revelation of God around him, to God’s existence and character.
• b. But the unbeliever exchanges the truth for a lie. He is a fool who refuses to begin his thinking with reverence for the Lord; he will not build upon Christ’s self-evidencing words and suppresses the unavoidable revelation of God in nature.
• c. Because he delights not in understanding but chooses to serve the creature rather than the Creator, the unbeliever is self-confidently committed to his own ways of thought; being convinced that he could not be fundamentally wrong, he flaunts perverse thinking and challenges the self-attesting word of God.
• d. Consequently, the unbeliever’s thinking results in ignorance; in his darkened futile mind he actually hates knowledge and and can gain only a “knowledge” falsely so-called.
• e. To the extent that he actually knows anything, it is due to his unacknowledged dependence upon the suppressed truth about God within him. This renders the unbeliever intellectually schizophrenic: by his espoused way of thinking he actually “opposes himself’ and shows a need for a radical “change of mind” (repentance) unto a genuine knowledge of the truth.
• f. The unbeliever’s ignorance is culpable because he is without excuse for his rebellion against God’s revelation; hence he is “without an apologetic” for his thoughts.
• g. His unbelief does not stem from a lack of factual evidence, but from his refusal to submit to the authoritative word of God from the beginning of his thinking.

Sunday's Hymn

Today was the annual(?) languages Sunday at my church. On this Sunday, the choir learns hymns (one verse) in the various mother tongues (seven of them) represented in the congregation. Last year we did this on Pentecost Sunday, but we were unable to do it on that Sunday this year, so we did it today.

Here’s what we sang in Tagalog.

Ang Dakalang Biyaya Ni Jesus

And dakilang biyaya ni Jesus sa akin,
Umid ang aking dila’t di kayang sambitin
Pasanin ko’y inibis, Diwa ko’y lumaya
Dahil sa inabot ng Kanyang biyaya!

Ang dakilang biyaya, ni Jesus,
Ay malalim pa kaysa dagat
Ang dakilang biyaya at sapat,
Higit ang lapad sa aking sala,
Lampas sa aking kasalanan,
O! purihin natin ang kay Jesus na Pangalan!

—Haldos Lillenas

Can you guess the hymn? Here it is in English done by the Parsons Four Quartet.

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Before Thy Mercy Seat, O Lord at The Happy Wonderer
• Lord’s Day 20, 2010 at The Thirsty Theologian
• How Firm a Foundation at Whatever Is Good
• From Every Stormy Wind that Blows at Field Stone Cottage
• Come Let Us Sing Unto the Lord at Hiraeth
• A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing at Conjubilant with Song
• Sing, I Pray Thee, Gentle Jesus! at Whatever Things
• Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: Confident Believers vs. the Chameleons
• Heart Aflame - May 16, 2010 at The Upward Call
• Update: Sunday’s Psalm at On My Way to Heaven

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list.