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I recently moderated a panel on the millennium:
The title of the panel is “The Millennial Maze,” which misled many people at the conference to assume the panel would be about millennials!
The panel was part of the Bethlehem College & Seminary Conference for Pastors + Church Leaders and took place on February 4, 2020.
Here’s how I introduce the three panelists:
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The modern church has lost the Psalms. We certainly don’t sing them. Sure, we’ll sing phrases from them. We’ll copy and paste a verse that makes us happy or hopeful into a greeting card or its twenty-first-century equivalent. But we don’t make use of the Psalms—entire Psalms, beginning to end, including dark shades as well […]
The post Sing the Psalms. Like This. appeared first on Church Works Media.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Word nerds everywhere are grateful to Inigo Montoya for this profound statement. People use words they don’t understand all the time. Simple words, even. Joy is one of those, I think. Christians speak, sing, and pray about joy. Good! But what […]
The post Fighting for Joy in Times of Trouble appeared first on Church Works Media.
In these difficult times, we wanted to share an article that we thought would be particularly encouraging (and challenging). This is Day 1 from our devotional Gospel Meditations for the Hurting by Chris Anderson and Joe Tyrpak. We pray that it will minister God’s grace to you today! Read Psalm 100. “For the Lord is […]
The post God Is Always Good appeared first on Church Works Media.
I had a meeting over the weekend with a potential new member at the church I pastor, Killian Hill Baptist Church in Lilburn, GA. It wasn’t an ominous meeting. I had reason to hope that this family would lean in and become part of our church family. But I wasn’t sure, and I was nervous. […]
The post Invalid Validation appeared first on Church Works Media.
Matt Merker’s “He Will Hold Me Fast” has quickly become a beloved hymn of Christ’s church. It’s so encouraging, so soothing, so hope-building. And because of Matt’s exceptional writing, it’s so Christ-filled. The first two stanzas of the song were written by Ada Habershon, a friend of Charles Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, Ira Sankey, and […]
The post Succinct, Stirring, Christ-Saturated Theology: “He Will Hold Me Fast” appeared first on Church Works Media.
I’m an organizer. My administrative skill set is a big part of who I am. So, spontaneity is not my strong suit. My husband has joked that I need to plan to be spontaneous. When you’re married and have kids, doing things “on the fly” elbows its way into your life, whether you want it or not. So, when our single daughter came to us with the news that she was expecting a child, I had a decision to make. With my mind reeling in that moment, would I trust the grounding truth that God could work it out for good?
Well, the “could He” question is a bit ridiculous. In my head I know the doctrine of God’s omnipotence. He can do anything. But my heart often feels conflicted. My feelings tend to lean upon their own understanding. So in situations like these, that act as a match and light the bonfire of my emotions ablaze, I have to step back and gain perspective. I needed to...
I have now completed a video series working through Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible—one video per chapter.
I recently read a promoter of exclusive use of the King James Version who argued that if anyone has trouble understanding KJV English, they can just go to Matthew Henry’s commentary for all the explanations they need.
I was skeptical. I still am. It’s just not the job or the concern of a turn-of-the-18th-century commentator to help turn-of-the-twenty-first-century readers understand turn-of-the-17th-century English words that have either died or changed in the last 400 years.
So I checked one of my false friends passages, Romans 5:8—and sure enough… If you know what you’re looking for, Henry nails it. 1) If you realize you don’t understand the word “commend,” and 2) if you realize that Henry’s use of the word commend is putting on display his knowledge of 17th century English, you’ll hear Henry explain the word to you.
So stop: what does commend mean in Roman 5:8 in the KJV?
But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Ask ten redheaded Christians what that word means in that context, and I think eight of them will tell you it means “demonstrates...
I come to the Trinitarian Bible Society’s two–part, 38,000-word “Examination of the New King James Version,” written by Albert Hembd, with a question. The question is precise and direct: Will the author ever mention a specific passage in which the NKJV translators made a better choice than did the KJV translators? I am writing this paragraph before reading anything Albert Hembd has ever written; I’ve never even heard of him before writing these words—and he’s got a lot of space in which to say something positive about the NKJV. But, based on what I know of the Trinitarian Bible Society for whom he writes, I’m guessing—with sadness—that the answer to my question will be no....
I’m a fan of the music of Philip Glass. It’s the Western classical tradition stripped down to its essentials: triad after exciting triad (until it gets old, which it sometimes does, but listen to the composer play Mad Rush and tell me if the repetition gets old!). My introduction to Glass was through my brilliant cinephilic friend Elijah W. and the profound, wordless documentary (?) Koyaanisqatsi. Good stuff.
I was excited recently when Spotify notified me that a recording of new Glass music—Glass has been an active composer since the 1960s—had just been released. In this case, it was music he wrote for a Broadway production of King Lear. A few of the pieces contain some lyrics, delivered in a rough Cockney by an actress/singer. The words are straight from Shakespeare, and they include this rhyming couplet:
Fortune, that arrant whore, / Ne’er turns the key to th’ poor....
I originally posted this article on the Logos Talk Blog, and I obtained permission to repost it on my personal blog because I’m trying to have a reasonably complete record of my thoughts on the KJV under my “KJV” category for anyone out there in Internet Land who is interested.
In my recent book, Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible, I argued that there were two major kinds of archaic words in the KJV, not one.
And in the most flagrant example I’ve ever seen of plagiarism by time machine, I just discovered a commentator from 150 years ago saying precisely the same thing.
In his Lectures Exegetical and Practical on the Epistle of James, published in 1871, Robert Johnstone quotes a verse from the...
