Bible – Page 19

On Biblical Hymns, Part 7: If and Then

December 10, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

As of the previous post, we’ve considered all 5 of the possible hymns listed in the series introduction. But as I noted there, the list is anything but certain. I’d like to look at a couple of other candidates.

Since we were in 1Timothy for the last two hymns, let’s go to 2Timothy for this post:

¹¹Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him, we will also live with him;
¹²if we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we disown him, he will also disown us;
¹³if we are faithless, he will remain faithful,

for he cannot disown himself (2Ti 2.11-13).

Paul calls this “a trustworthy saying.” There are four of those in the Pastorals (1Ti 1.15; 4.9; 2Ti 2.11; Ti 3.8). Scholars debate whether this label indicates some kind of official proverbial status, or whether he’s just saying the equivalent of our “You can take that to the bank!” The four passages have different topics and characteristics, but this one, given the extended parallelism and rhythm, strikes some interpreters (e.g., Hayne Griffin in The New American Commentary) as hymnic.

Like the other hymns in this series, this one is about Christ, who is clearly the one in view in the clause “if we died with him.” Its focus is the importance of our relationship with him. This is a constant theme of Paul’s; he seems obsessed with the idea of believers being “in Christ,” a phrase he uses 67 times, but which occurs only 3 times in all the rest of the New Testament (and one of those, Ac 24.24, in a narrative about Paul’s preaching; the other 2 are in 1Peter).

In the Father’s mind, we were “in Christ” before the world was created (Ep 1.4), and whatever your view of precisely how we came to be in him through conversion, the Scripture is clear that all believers are now in him. He died on the cross in our place, and when we believed, we were placed into his body, the church, over which he is the Head (Ep 1.22). We are locked in an eternal embrace.

That being the case, we benefit from his victory in two ways, delineated in the first couplet:

If we died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him.

If we are counted as beneficiaries of his substitutionary death, then we benefit as well from his resurrection, since it guarantees ours, he being “the firstfruits of those who sleep” (1Co 15.20). And if we demonstrate the genuineness of our profession by enduring to the end, we will receive the kingdom that he has prepared for us (Lk 12.32). His faithfulness, his success, showers us with benefits.

But there’s an “other hand,” and there always has been. Adam’s family included Cain; Abraham’s family included Lot’s wife; the mass of Israelites who came out of Egypt were a “mixed multitude” (Ex 12.38); and the church (even during the ministry of the apostles) included false professors, even false teachers, who “were not really of us” (1Jn 2.19). What of those?

There’s a second stanza:

If we disown him, he will also disown us;
if we are faithless, he will remain faithful,

for he cannot disown himself.

The good Shepherd knows his sheep, and they hear his voice, and they follow him. If they don’t recognize his voice, then they belong to a different shepherd, and they will make that plain over time. The end of that way is death.

But the fact that some other shepherd’s sheep gets lost is no reflection on the good Shepherd. He is faithful, dutiful, attentive, absolutely trustworthy. He cares for his sheep, and he never loses a one of them. The faithlessness of someone else’s sheep is no reflection on him.

If you’re in Christ, you’re a part of his body. He’s not going to go off and leave you somewhere; the very image is absurd. He’s going to care for you and deliver you safely to the ultimate, eternal fold.

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works. 

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you. 

Sing.

Part 8: God and Us

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On Biblical Hymns, Part 6: Eternal Glory

December 7, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Christ As Firstborn | Part 3: Every Knee Will Bow | Part 4: Morning Light | Part 5: Manifested, Vindicated

There’s another probable early hymn in 1Timothy; it occurs near the end of the letter and functions as a closing benediction:

He who is the blessed and only Sovereign,
the King of kings and Lord of lords,
¹⁶who alone possesses immortality
and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.
To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen (1Ti 6.15b-16).

If you’ve been with this series from the beginning, you may notice here one of the marks of potential early hymns: the passage begins with a relative pronoun referring to God—in this case, the Father, who is distinguished from the Son in 1Timothy 6.13 and who is said in 1Timothy 6.15a to be the one who will bring about the return of Christ (the “appearing,” or “epiphany” in Greek).

The word epiphany is used 6 times in the New Testament, always by Paul, and all but one in the Pastorals (Timothy and Titus). In 2Thessalonians 2.8 it’s associated with “brightness,” and in Titus 2.13 it’s called “glorious.” The word is used only of God’s appearing (never of an ordinary human’s, even a VIP’s), and in secular Greek it’s always used of divine appearances.

Who is the one who will bring this glorious appearing of the God-man to fruition? How shall we describe the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? The opening couplet tells us that he is “the blessed and only Sovereign”: he is in charge of all things, and only he is in charge of all things.

Well, what about earthly kings? How does their sovereignty compare to his? The second line of the couplet gives us the answer: all those kings have a King, and all those lords have a Lord, who is God. In practical terms, there is no other sovereign. He alone is in charge.

We should remember that as Paul writes this epistle, he has appealed to Caesar—specifically Nero—and, after waiting 2 or more years in Rome for a hearing, he has been acquitted and released. (That’s the way I see it, anyway.) Just before or just after the writing of this letter, a fire burns much of Rome, and Nero, apparently to divert popular anger against him, blames the Christians. Driven by his increasing madness, he begins to persecute Christians, throwing them to the lions in the Coliseum and notoriously using them as torches to light his garden parties.

It seems that he can do whatever he wants with Christians, or anyone else under his dominion.

It seems.

But in fact, Paul—who will lose his head to Caesar’s executioners in just a few years—reminds us that things are not as they seem. There is only one God, and he is sovereign over all—even over sovereigns. Over those elected, and those not elected. Over those placed in authority by popular acclaim, and over those who seize power by brute force and rule in cruelty and dishonor.

He is sovereign, appearances be what they may.

The evidences of his sovereignty are inescapable.

First, he lives forever. Nero is dead. Charlemagne is dead. England’s Bloody Mary is dead. Hitler is dead.

And everyone now in power, however great, whether good or evil, will soon, in the grand providence of God, be dead—as will you and I, if the Lord tarries. The mightiest kings of the earth lose their power and are mockingly welcomed to the world of the dead by those who have preceded them (Is 14.3-21).

Only God lives forever. Only he is truly sovereign.

There’s another evidence.

He dwells in unapproachable light—beyond what we humans are even capable of surviving. He is glorious.

I was once lying on a beach—I won’t say where—and along came a man in swim trunks, shirtless, clambering barefoot over some rocks in a jetty. I soon realized that he was a powerful US Senator—and I was struck by how ordinary he looked. No halo, no cloud of glory, no retinue. Just a man, and a fairly feeble one at that.

God is not like that. He has dominion, and he will have it forever, with our consent or without it.

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works.

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you.

Sing.

Part 7: If and Then | Part 8: God and Us

Photo by Michael Maasen on Unsplash

On Biblical Hymns, Part 5: Manifested, Vindicated

December 3, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Christ As Firstborn | Part 3: Every Knee Will Bow | Part 4: Morning Light

The next two hymns in our series appear in the Pastoral Epistles, which were written much later in Paul’s life. The first of those is in 1Timothy 3.16—

By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness:
He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.

Paul introduces this hymn by calling its subject matter “the mystery of godliness.” In the New Testament, a “mystery” is an old truth that is just now (finally!) being revealed. For example, Jesus begins his “kingdom parables” by remarking that he is telling “the mysteries of the kingdom” (Mt 13.11); Paul tells the Romans of the “mystery” that the Jews’ hard-heartedness was foreseen and intended to offer an opportunity for Gentiles to be brought into God’s family (Ro 11.25); he tells the Corinthians that all believers—those alive and those dead—will be transformed at Christ’s return (1Co 15.51). (You should look up the other NT references to “mystery” sometime. It’s a profitable study.)

“Godliness” is perfectly believing in, and following, God. So Paul is saying that in this hymn we’re going to learn—finally—what perfectly trusting and obeying God looks like.

And we shouldn’t be surprised that he then presents Christ to us as that perfect example.

One little technical point. The NASB, which I’ve quoted above, translates the first Greek word of the hymn as “he who.” The KJV translates it as “God.” The difference results from a textual variant, a copying error easily made (ΟΣ vs ΘΣ). If you compare several translations—a very good way to study the Bible—you’ll see that in general the modern ones go with “he who” or something similar.

I don’t think the difference matters much, if at all. Since “he who” has just been described as “the unfolding of perfect godliness,” then Paul is essentially calling Jesus “God” here anyway. Like the vast majority of textual variants, this one need not concern us.

So then. How does Jesus reveal perfect godliness?

Several organizational structures of this hymn have been suggested, but it seems to me to have 3 couplets, or pairs of lines:

He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,

Seen by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,

Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.

The first stanza contrasts “flesh” and ”spirit”; the second, “angels” and “peoples”; and the third, “the world” and the “up in glory.”

What does it all mean?

This one who appeared to us in the flesh—as a human—was perfectly godly in the parts we couldn’t see as well, on the inside. (Yes, I’m taking “spirit” here as a lower-case word, not a reference to the Holy Spirit. Feel free to disagree with me.) He was the real deal, one whose godliness would never disappoint us.

He has been testified to by the heavenly hosts (on the one hand) and proclaimed as Savior to the human hosts, the teeming masses of the nations of the world (on the other hand). Not quite sure what the first clause is referring to—before the incarnation (Is 6.2-3 [Jn 12.41])? At his birth, to the shepherds (Lk 2.13-14)? After his victory over temptation (Mt 4.11)? Whatever Paul intends, it’s clear that the heavenly hosts endorse the Son (Php 2.10; He 1.6).

He has been recognized here on earth by those who “received” him (Jn 1.12), and the worthiness of their trust has been verified by his ascension to the Father (Ac 1.9-11) and reception at his right hand (Ac 7.56; He 1.3-4).

“He who has seen me,” Jesus said, “has seen the Father” (Jn 14.9). We have all the example we need in order to follow God perfectly. We need only look to Jesus (He 12.1-2).

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works.

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you.

Sing.

Part 6: Eternal Glory | Part 7: If and Then | Part 8: God and Us

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On Biblical Hymns, Part 4: Morning Light

November 30, 2020 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Christ As Firstborn | Part 3: Every Knee Will Bow

Our first two New Testament hymns were from Colossians and Philippians respectively, and they meditate on the person and work of Christ—the first on his exalted status as the perfect revelation of the glorious Father, and the second on his humility in becoming a servant, humility that results in the Father’s extravagant exaltation of him.

There’s another NT letter written about the same time as these two—perhaps even on the same day as Colossians—where a third hymn appears. It’s much briefer than the first two, and it can serve well as a simple response to them—an application of their teaching, if you will.

If Paul focuses in Colossians on Christ’s role as head of the church, in Ephesians he focuses on the church’s role as the body of Christ. In its first half he lays down the doctrine that Christ’s work has brought together disparate peoples into a unified body, something that only God could do (Ep 3.10). At the letter’s midpoint (Ep 4.1) he pivots to application—how should members of such a body behave in the world? Well, they ought to live differently in specific, practical ways (Ep 4.17-32). And these differences spring from the fact that whereas we used to walk in darkness, we now live in the light of Christ (Ep 5.7-13).

At this point Paul draws on what is apparently another hymn of that day:

Awake, sleeper,
And arise from the dead,
And Christ will shine on you! (Ep 5.14).

Why do we usually end our church services with a song?

There are several reasons:

Singing focuses our thoughts on the song’s message, encouraging us to meditate on it—and, if the song has been deftly chosen, on the key thought of the service.

A thought sung typically stays with us longer than one spoken—that’s why you can remember childhood songs decades later—and so will bring the key thought to us long after we’re “home from church” (now there’s an unbiblical expression!) and in need of applying it.

Music moves our emotions as well as our intellect, serving to motivate us to put into action what we have been convinced of as true. This is persuasion at its best and most legitimate.

Now that Paul has laid the intellectual foundation for our changed behavior, and has given us the imperative to live in a new way, he moves us to action with a simple statement in hymnic form, one that is dense with theological implication:

We have been sleeping. Worse than that, we have been “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ep 2.1), by nature destined for God’s wrathful judgment (Ep 2.3).

But Christ has awakened us. We have risen with him (Ep 2.6) and are now alive (Ep 2.5) to the same degree to which we were previously dead. We can see, and hear, and smell, and taste, and touch. A world that was previously dark is now bright and colorful and filled with potential.

Christ is the light. Christ, the Bible tells us (Jn 1.3; Co 1.16; He 1.2), is the Elohim of Genesis 1, the one who on the first day cried out, “Let there be light!” (Ge 1.3). He is the one who revealed himself briefly to three of his disciples as shining with the radiance of God’s glory (Mt 17.2). He is the one who will be the light of the heavenly city, which will have no more need for the sun itself (Re 21.23). And, to Paul’s point here in Ephesians, he is the one who lights our path through a dark world, enabling us as we walk to be lights to those around us (Mt 5.14).

Darkened soul, behold his glory!
Blinded eyes, receive your sight!
Sinner, leave your seat of darkness!
Rise, and come to the light!
(Eileen Berry)

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works.

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you.

Sing.

Part 5: Manifested, Vindicated | Part 6: Eternal Glory | Part 7: If and Then | Part 8: God and Us

Photo by Michael Maasen on Unsplash

On Biblical Hymns, Part 3: Every Knee Will Bow

November 23, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Christ As Firstborn

Our hymns typically have stanzas. The hymn in Philippians 2 does as well. The stanzas are easy to spot,* because the phrasing is parallel, and the content progresses from “down” to “up”:

⁶who, although He existed in the form of God,
- did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷but emptied Himself,
  - taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
⁸Being found in appearance as a man,
- He humbled Himself
  - by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

⁹For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
- ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
- ¹¹and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Php 2).

The first hymn in our series celebrated Christ’s sufficiency to rule. This second hymn celebrates his humility as demonstrating his qualification to rule. The first stanza notes his humiliation; the second, his exaltation.

Note that it all begins with a relative pronoun, which is one of the suggested identifying characteristics of hymnic material in the NT text. Then comes a note of surprise, indicated by the “although”: “Even though he was exactly the same shape as God, he didn’t cling to what he had, but he emptied himself!”

This is surprising for a couple of reasons:

What it means to be “in the form of God”
What one would expect from such an exalted person

In English, “he was in the form of God” implies uncertainty, even fraud: “he looked like so-and-so, but he actually wasn’t.”

There’s none of that in the Greek. The word is morphe, or “shape.” Paul says Jesus is exactly the same “shape” as God. Since God has no body, we’re clearly not talking about physical shape or appearances. Jesus is like God in all of his non-physical qualities—his personhood, his characteristics or attributes, his perfections.

If some of God’s attributes are unique to him (we call those “incommunicable” attributes), and Jesus is exactly like him in those respects, then what is the only logical conclusion?

Jesus is God.

And what would one expect from such a person?

If the kings of the earth exalt themselves—ancient monarchs, and even the much more recent Hirohito, were viewed as gods—then why would the genuine God humble himself?!

Surprising, indeed.

And how, specifically, did he humble himself?

He became a mere human.

And not a very distinguished one, at that. A subject of Rome, in a backwater village in a backwater province, son of a manual laborer, with people asking questions about the circumstances of his conception (Jn 8.41).

And then, he intentionally took a path to execution as a common criminal, by the most torturous means ever devised.

You can’t get any lower than that.

And now for the big surprise.

God reaches down to the depths, to the bottom of the barrel, and raises him up, not merely to exoneration, or even to elevated human status, after the fashion of Joseph in Egypt. Not even to revelation of the Father’s approval, or of his heavenly origins.

No. All the way. All the way to the top. To the name that is above every name.

To the point where his Roman executioners, and the corrupt Jewish leadership, will bow to him.

And not just the corrupt ones. Everyone. Those despised, and those deeply admired. All humans will bow.

And not just humans. Demonic powers. And angelic ones, too. All of heaven. All of hell.

They—no, we—all will bow, and we all will agree that this one is Lord. Lord of us, Lord of all.

Those who now deny God. Those who hate him. Those who question him, because they have suffered greatly in this life. Those who have simply ignored him as inconsequential.

We all will bow to the one who, though he is God, humbled himself.

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works.

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you.

Sing.

* For a slightly different look at the structure, see here.

Part 4: Morning Light | Part 5: Manifested, Vindicated | Part 6: Eternal Glory | Part 7: If and Then | Part 8: God and Us

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On Biblical Hymns, Part 2: Christ As Firstborn

November 19, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Introduction

All the New Testament passages most commonly identified as taken from hymns in the early church are about Christ. No surprise there. They celebrate his uniqueness, his glory, his powerful work in accomplishing our salvation. I’d like to begin with the classic—and controversial—passage from Colossians 1:

¹⁵He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. ¹⁶For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. ¹⁷He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. ¹⁸He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, ²⁰and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

This is an inductive passage—that is, it draws us along to its main point at the end, rather than stating it up front. The main point is that God the Father has planned a cosmic reconciliation by placing all that God is into a human form; “all the fulness” of God is “to dwell in” Christ (Co 1.19), “His beloved Son” (Col 1.14). This is the means God has chosen to accomplish his primary goal, “to reconcile all things to himself” (Col 1.20).

Why should God become human? Why this shredding of the fabric of the universe?

Because, as an old churchman named Anselm noted, only God can make an infinite payment, and only man can die, death being the payment required. So God designs the perfect and eternal payment for sin “through the blood of his cross” (Col 1.20).

Can the Son accomplish such a work? Can he reconcile God, the perfect Creator, with his broken and devastated creation? Is he capable? Is he worthy?

Paul presents the answer to the question, the evidence for the conclusion, at the beginning of the passage. The second person of the Godhead, God the Son, is

The image of the invisible God. By becoming man, he makes the invisible visible. He can be seen, and touched, and heard (1Jn 1.1-3). Those who have seen him have seen the Father (Jn 14.9).
The ruler over all the universe. The Jehovah’s Witnesses use the phrase “the firstborn of all creation” to support their heretical claim that Jesus was God’s first created being. I’ve written at some length about why their reading of this text is certainly wrong. As that series demonstrates, the phrase means that he is the ruler over everything that has been created. Why is that?
- Because he is the Creator of all things (Col 1.16). This fact is stated repeatedly elsewhere by other writers (Jn 1.1-3; Heb 1.1-2). If you make something, you are sovereign over it; you can do what you want with it.
- Because all things were made for him (Col 1.16b).
- Because he maintains all things (Col 1.17). They exist because he continues to want them to, and he directs how their existence proceeds.
- He is the ruler of all those to be delivered by his cross, called here “the church” (Col 1.18a). The Father has appointed him to this position (Eph 1.19b-23).
- He is the one whose resurrection makes possible the resurrection of all those who follow in his train (Col 1.18b).

I’ve mentioned that some of the biblical benedictions are thought be early church hymns as well. It seems appropriate to include one here:

³³Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! ³⁴For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? ³⁵Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? ³⁶For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen (Ro 11).

Sing of him. Sing of his marvelous works.

Sing it in private and in public. Sing it to those you love, and to those you don’t. Make it what everyone who knows you thinks of when they think of you.

Sing.

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On Biblical Hymns, Part 1: Introduction

November 16, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

God’s people sing.

They always have.

On the day of Israel’s great deliverance from Egypt at the Red Sea, Moses led God’s people in a song of delight and rejoicing before the God who had delivered them (Ex 15.1ff): “The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea!”
At the end of his life, Moses composed a song by which Israel could remember God’s words (Dt 32.1ff): “Ascribe greatness to our God!”
Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, who introduced the monarchy to Israel, wrote a song of thanksgiving for the end of her long period of infertility (1S 2.1ff): “He raises the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap!”
David, the “sweet psalmist of Israel,” and his son Solomon set up elaborate musical infrastructure for the Temple, including (apparently) hundreds of professional singers to lead the congregation of Israel (1Ch 15.16; 2Ch 5.13).
Like Moses, David too left behind a song for his people (2S 23.1ff): “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and his word was on my tongue!”
And like Hannah—with her words deeply embedded in her heart—the Jewish girl Mary composed her “Magnificat” (Lk 1.46-55) in response to the news that she would bear the Messiah: “My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior!”

In the church age, the New Testament speaks of God’s people singing, placing great importance on congregational singing as part of regular worship (Ep 5.19; Co 3.16). Paul—who sang with Silas when they were in a Philippian jail (Ac 16.25)—speaks of the importance of our understanding what we’re singing (1Co 14.15). James urges suffering believers to sing (Jam 5.13). And in the ages to come, God’s people will continue to sing in their praise to him (Re 14.3)—including, apparently, that song of Moses from Deuteronomy 32 (Re 15.3).

We all know that Old Testament believers had a hymnbook, called today the Book of Psalms, containing 150 songs written by several authors over many generations, from Moses (Ps 90) to Asaph (Pss 50, 73-83) to the sons of Korah (Pss 42-49, 84, 85, 87, 88) and especially including David, who wrote, among many others, the universally known and loved Psalm 23.

What did the early New Testament churches sing?

There’s no New Testament equivalent to the Book of Psalms. But there are three passages in Luke’s Gospel that are poetic and lyrical—

Mary’s “Magnificat” (Lk 1.46-55)
Zechariah’s “Benedictus,” his prophecy at the birth of John the Baptist (Lk 1.68-79)
Simeon’s “Nunc Dimittis” upon seeing the infant Jesus in the temple (Lk 2.29-32)

We can’t know whether the early church sang these as songs in corporate worship, but there are other passages in the New Testament that scholars suspect are taken from hymns sung by the early church.

How do they know that?

Well, they don’t; there’s no reliable record from those days as to what those believers were singing. But students of the Scripture suggest that certain passages sound lyrically like hymns—they evidence certain patterns that are typical of hymns, such as

A beginning—an “introductory formula”—that sets the passage off from what precedes
- Reference to a “faithful saying”
- A relative pronoun, particularly in reference to God
Rhythmic structure / patterns
- Repetition, in the fashion of a refrain
- Parallelism
Distinct vocabulary
- Doxologies
- Hapaxlegomena (words that occur only once in the New Testament)
Interruption of the flow of the passage
Exalted or liturgical language

Since prose can have these elements as well, most of this is subjective, and much of it is just guessing; for a scholarly discussion of its weaknesses, see this article. (And if you want a second rigorous look at the topic, try this.)

That said, there are a few passages in the New Testament that are routinely viewed as reflecting early hymns:

Ephesians 5.14
Colossians 1.15-20
Philippians 2.5-11
1 Timothy 3.16
1 Timothy 6.15b-16

There are also several benedictions (e.g. Ro 11.33-36), which might have served a similar purpose.

We’ll take a look at these, and perhaps some others, in the posts to come.

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After the Storm

November 12, 2020 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

In the American West, where I grew up, the sky is big. The land in Eastern Washington is flat, and the horizons are long and low. As a result, you can see a thunderstorm a-comin’ for a long ways. You can see the sheets of rain falling from the thunderhead long before it reaches you, and in the summer I used to enjoy sitting out in the pasture and just waiting for it. Then it would arrive, the warm rain, and you could get completely soaked and not care—indeed, you could relish it as a delightful experience.

The aftermath was enjoyable too. There was the decrescendo of the storm, the petering out of the patter of the rain; the petrichor; and the calm silence, all the quieter in contrast with the recent rage.

If we learn anything from the life of Jesus, we learn that he is sovereign and active in the storm as well as in the peaceful, pastoral scene we think of when we hear him called “the Good Shepherd.” We learn that he accomplishes his will as certainly and easily in the storm; we might even say, if I can do so reverently, that he does some of his best work precisely at those times.

We’ve been through a storm, haven’t we? We’ve been surrounded by chaos, much of it intentionally designed; we’ve been told by people we trust that we need to be angry, agitated, active, desperate; that Those People are evil incarnate, and irremediably dangerous, and if we don’t stop them, It’s All Over.

God has graciously designed us humans so that when the situation turns desperate, we’re able to cope with it in surprising ways. There’s adrenaline, which can empower a man of average build to lift a car off someone. There’s the flight response, which enables us to get outta here faster than we ever thought possible.

But adrenaline’s a dangerous drug (so to speak), and we don’t do well as drug addicts; we don’t thrive under constant chaos and ongoing pumped-up responses to perceived threats—real or exaggerated.

We’re made for peace—peace with ourselves, peace with one another, peace with God.

The storm can be exciting—the adrenaline rush can be stimulating and energizing—but we’re not designed to live there.

In the face of the greatest storm in cosmic history—that day when the heavens were darkened, the Godhead was rent, the sins of the world crushed the Creator himself—Jesus had a surprising message for his friends.

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful (Jn 14.27).

Peace in the storm, with a view to long-lasting peace after the storm.

So how shall we, as disciples of Christ, live after the storm? Paul writes to Jesus’ disciples in Thessalonica,

⁹Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; ¹⁰for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, ¹¹and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, ¹²so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need (1Th 4).

After the storm, peace. Excel at loving one another. Get all stirred up about leading a quiet life. Mind your own business. Make something. Be a wholesome, productive, contributing part of the community.

Especially given that much of the recent storm was of our own making, how about if we just live quietly, peaceably, faithfully for a while?

You know what Paul talks about right after this? Jesus’ return (1Th 4.13-18). It’s coming. What say we focus on how the Good Shepherd will deliver us, rather than on fighting transient earthly opponents with carnal weapons?

Photo by Paul Carmona on Unsplash

How Not to Have a Civil War, Part 12: Gratitude

November 5, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father (Col 3.17).

It’s no accident that we come to the end of this relatively lengthy series two days after the US presidential election. Now, regardless of the election’s eventual outcome, it falls to us to decide how to respond to its results—to decide whether we’re going to live in peace with our so-recent political opponents, whether we’re the “winners” or the “losers.”

Paul concludes the passage we’ve been studying with a call to thankfulness, or gratitude. Everything we do, he says, should be done for Christ and in gratitude through him to the Father.

I’ve written on this idea before. And so has Paul. Have you noticed that three of his four admonitions in this paragraph include thanksgiving?

We live out peace in connection with thankfulness (Col 3.15).
We encourage one another with thankfulness (Col 3.16).
We do all things with thankfulness (Col 3.17).

This is a pervasive concept in biblical thinking. God has been unimaginably good to us—so good, in fact, that literally everything evil about the world pales in comparison.

What do you have to be thankful for?

No matter who is president of the US, or which party controls the Senate or the House of Representatives or the Governor’s Mansion or the County Council or the Mayor’s Office,

You’re living far better, in measurable ways, than 90% of the people in the history of the world.
There’s plenty of air to breathe—even if you have difficulty breathing.
Purified, drinkable water still falls from the sky—even if it falls at inopportune times.
Food still grows right out of the dirt.
The sun gives us light and warmth every day, without fail.
There is beauty to be seen and heard and appreciated all around us—in birds, in flowers, in rocks, in waterfalls. Even in morning glories, the bane of my childhood weed-pulling experience.
God is alive, and great, and good, and engaged in our world, and directing all things to a certain conclusion that is, he assures us, good (Ro 8.28).
If you’re a believer, you are regenerate (doubly alive), and forgiven, and befriended, and cared for, and loved, and escorted to that good end.
And you are endowed with a mission, a purpose to live, one that you are well equipped to carry out, one that will certainly succeed, and one that will eventuate in perfect relationships and perfect glory.

There’s not a government or official in all the history of all the universe who can negate or even endanger any of that, or who can compete with that for any of my confidence or my fear.

God is great. God is good.

Let us thank him.

And let us live out that gratitude with a confidence and joy and grace that makes even our “enemies”—who are, when all is said and done, our fellow images of God and the ordered objects of our grace—to be at peace with us (Pr 16.7).

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

How Not to Have a Civil War, Part 11: Encouragement

November 2, 2020 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God (Col 3.16).

We live in the light by living out love (Col 3.14) and peace (Col 3.15).

But we need to go a step further.

I suspect that a lot of people would prefer to keep to themselves and mind their own business. Especially these days, we see a lot of confrontation and shouting and volleys of snarkitude—what we used to call “flame wars” back in the early days of the internet—and some people say, “You know what? I am so done with that.”

Someone I know often says, “People are the worst.” And theologically, that’s true (Rom 3.10-18).

But that’s only half the story.

People are also in the image of God (Gn 1.26-27; 9.6; James 3.9). And like God, they are not solitary persons; as God is in eternal fellowship among the persons of the Godhead, so we are designed as fundamentally social creatures; one of the first things God said about the first human is that it was not good that he should be alone (Gn 2.18). And following his eternal plan, God is in the process of gathering, from every ethnicity and nation, a people for his name—a large assembly that no one can number, united in corporate praise to God.

Sure, there are introverts, and they’re not inherently less godly than extroverts.

But a solitary life is not in our genes, or in our cards. We’re designed for relationships.

And the “friends” or “followers” we see on social media are not often healthy patterns for those relationships.

Paul says in our passage that as we grow individually in our relationship with God—which we do initially through the “Word of Christ”—we necessarily move outward, interpersonally, with what we’re learning. It’s not enough to hold our relationship with God close to the vest, as “a very private matter”; part of our growth is interacting with other believers about what we’re learning.

There are at least two reasons for that.

First, as a long-time teacher, I know that the best way to learn something is to teach it. As a simple example, I minored in Greek in college, and I’ve used it repeatedly in the years since: in my work in publishing back in the last century, and in my private study, and in my teaching at BJU since 2000. This year I volunteered to teach a section of Greek 101 to meet a scheduling need—the first time I’ve ever taught Greek.

Boy, am I learning a lot.

I’ve been capable in Greek for many years. But now I’m realizing how many details I’ve lost over the years because I just didn’t have any reason to recall them.

Leaps and bounds. Just by teaching 101.

You’ll understand your relationship with God significantly better if you’ll describe it to others. I promise.

There’s a second reason to share your faith with other believers: they’ll reciprocate. That may involve telling you what they’ve learned, thereby adding to your storehouse of understanding. It may involve encouraging you in the difficult times, cheering you through the rough spots. It may be as simple as listening to you and really hearing you. There’s a benefit in that.

And so Paul says we should be “teaching and admonishing one another”—and he specifically names our worship together as one of the ways we do that. We’re not just “friends” on some social media platform, trying to impress others with how delightful our lives are, or to shame them into thinking—and voting—the way we do. We’re partners, colleagues, in the great work of God in gathering and developing a people for his name.

We seek to achieve that goal before any other.

Part 12: Gratitude

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash