A Great Treasury of Praise & Prayer – J.W. Alexander on the Psalms

In “The Hymn of the Eucharist,” a sermon delivered before the observance of the Lord’s Supper, the renowned pastor and theologian J.W. Alexander (1804-1859) expounded on the significance of Jesus singing a hymn with his disciples after their celebration of the Passover, and before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion (Matt. 26:30). Alexander extols the powerful spirituality of the Psalms, and exhorts his hearers to follow the example of Jesus whole-heartedly, who sang in a moment of deep, personal pain and suffering:

“To this day the Psalter stands as the great treasury of praise and prayer, the authentic liturgy of the Church, which can never grow obsolete; which presents every varying mood of holy experience; and by its divine flexibility and expansion is equally suited to every revolving period of the body of Christ” (93).

“But the psalms are not all rapturous. The chords are sometimes touched to the softest notes of penitence and sorrow. And hence in their wonderful modulations from confession to praise, they suit themselves to all conditions of believers and the church” (94).

“There can be conceived no mode of singing God’s praise, more simple, grave, impressive and truly Protestant, than the chanting of the very words of Scripture by all the voices of a congregation” (94).

“There is a principle involved in psalmody which extends widely in religion; it is that our emotions are increased by due utterance” (103).

“Let it be placed high among maxims for the improvement of piety, that our religious affections must have utterance” (104).

“It is only when the death of Christ becomes a secondary matter, and his divinity is denied, that Socinian criticism begins to amend the hymn-book, (as in some European churches) and weaken or remove all expressions of love to a Divine and dying Saviour” (106).

“What a rebuke to those, who look on this part of worship as secondary, as a mere appendage, which they may observe or omit at pleasure, or as something which they are only to witness, without any attempt at participation! For a service which is named the Communion, nothing can be more appropriate than fellowship praise” (107-108).

“[W]e never shall know the joys of the sanctuary, until there be poured out upon us a new baptism in regard to fellowship of adoration, love and praise. We talk of our need of revival in many things–and justly–but what we greatly need is a revival of the spirit of worship” (110).

“Then shall the world without see and know that God is with us of a truth, and recognize that there is happiness in glorifying the name of God” (111).

“Amidst much that is obscure in the Apocalypse, one thing is as clear as day, that in the heavenly state there shall be lofty, joyous, and perpetual praise of Christ” (112).

– “The Hymn of the Eucharist” in J.W. Alexander, Sacramental Discourses (1860).

For more on J.W. Alexander, see the helpful biography at Banner of Truth.

Want to learn more about Psalms and Psalm-singing? Pastor Uri Brito has a bunch of great resources at Resurrectio et Vita!

Eucharistic Sanctification

Sometimes, in our struggles towards greater holiness, we chase counseling fads, best-selling books, and health and wellness gurus. But we forget the primary, basic, and most important ways that God has given us to help mold and shape us into the “image of Christ” (Rom. 8:29).

In his helpful book, You Can Change: God’s Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions, pastor Tim Chester reminds us that the Lord’s Supper is a powerful tool that God uses to help us break free from destructive habits, addictions, and desires:

“The bread and wine remind us that Christ gave his life to make us holy, to break the power of sin, to give us a new identity, and to make us family. They remind us that we belong to God because we were bought with the price of Christ’s blood. The Book of Common Prayer summons us to ‘feed on him in your heart by faith with thanksgiving.’ The Lord’s Supper is a fresh invitation to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8) We discover again the promise of Jesus: ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger; and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). We renew communion with Jesus by faith. We’re reminded of the truth that the bread and wine represent, and that truth feeds our hearts” (144).

Pigs, Gardens, & Church Announcements

At the church we attend the announcements at the end of the service are a continual source of amusement. Our pastor soldiers through as best he can, but there are regularly quite a few (since there are so many wonderful things going on), and the kids, and grown ups, are eager to get to the coffee and doughnuts waiting in the foyer. It was a historic occasion recently, when there were no announcements! There was great rejoicing throughout the land.

This is not a new problem. Churches in the Reformation also struggled with how to incorporate the mundane with the spiritual. Bruce Gordon, writing in Brill’s Companion to the Swiss Reformation, describes the merging of the secular and the mundane in the city of Bern:

“Ministers were required to make a series of announcements from the pulpit addressing the daily life of the community, such as a form of lost and found. Goods and belongings that had been lost were listed in case anyone should know where they were. Further, parishioners were told to control their dogs and pigs and not to bowl or ride horses in the graveyards. Apparently, these interventions became so lengthy that in 1548 the Bernese ministers were only required to announce that items over a certain value had been lost” (Gordon, “Polity and Worship,” 507).

It’s been a while since we last had anyone riding their horse through the church graveyard, so I guess we’re doing well!

Communion & Charity

Why do we celebrate weekly communion? There are many good reasons but one of the most important is one we might not think about often enough—communion with the risen Christ also entails communion with others who are united to him by faith. Union and communion with our Lord leads us into union and communion with our brothers and sisters in the church, and (to a lesser extent) all people. John Calvin highlights this when he writes about the importance of communion. Calvin calls communion the “bond of charity” and explains, “For as the bread, which is there sanctified for the common use of us all, is made of many grains so mixed together that one cannot be discerned from the other, so ought we to be united among ourselves in one indissoluble friendship. What is more, we all receive there the same body of Christ, in order that we be made members of it.”[1] For Calvin, communion with Christ is the foundation, and the motivation, for communion with others. This is one of our greatest motivations for mercy ministry—weekly communion reminds us of how much mercy God has poured out on us in His Son Jesus Christ. How can we hold anything back we see others in pain, in loneliness, in brokenness? Every week we participate in the sacrament of healing and wholeness, which equips us to be agents of the Kingdom in the lives of others.

[1] John Calvin, “Short Treatise on the Holy Supper of our Lord and only Saviour Jesus Christ,” in J.K.S. Reid, ed., Calvin: Theological Treatises (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954), 151.

Is “all of life worship”?

Nicholas Wolterstorff, the renowned Reformed philosopher and theologian, has now tackled the subject of liturgy and worship.  In The God We Worship:  An Exploration of Liturgical Philosophy, Wolterstorff carefully analyzes and probes a subject which confuses many people.  Consider the popular and prevalent phrase, “praise and worship.”  Many people (and churches) use this to describe a time of enthusiastic singing, which is followed by a sermon, or a teaching time.  Is listening to the sermon an act of worship?  Is the pastor delivering the sermon engaging in worship?  Wait, haven’t we been told that “all of life is worship”?  Can’t I worship God by washing my car on a Sunday (or any day)?  When we toss the word “worship” around so carelessly, no wonder the world at large (and too many self-professed Christians) don’t take “worship” seriously anymore.

For those with the intellectual stamina to carefully follow Wolterstorff’s train of thought, The God We Worship will help to clarify the fuzziness which pervades the contemporary church.  Here’s the end of Ch. 2:9

A Reformed Case for ‘Evangelical Feast Days’

Just in time for Christmas comes an article from Rev. Danny Hyde, pastor of Oceanside URC.  He also serves as an Adjunct Instructor at both Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary and Mid-America Reformed Seminary.

Daniel R. Hyde, “Not Holy But Helpful .” Mid-America Journal of Theology 26 (2015): 131–149.

This is used by permission: Web: www.midamerica.edu. E-mail: info@midamerica.edu. Phone:219.864.2400.

Millennial Thoughts on Liturgy & the Failure of the Church

From Jonathan, at “Ponder Anew” – “Dear Church: An open letter from one of those millennials you can’t figure out”.

Worship as the “Pulsating of a Common Life”

Ralph Martin writes:  “The worship of the church means the pulsating of a ‘common life’ (koinonia) that flows through the body of Christ and in which the individuals participate through their baptism by one Spirit into one body (see 1 Cor. 12:13).  To conceptualize the church at worship as made up of isolated units, however personal, each worshiping in a self-contained compartment, however closely associated, is really to mistake what the New Testament means by the church.  As E. Schweizer well illustrates, the ideal set forth in the pages of the apostolic church is that of fellowship-in-worship.  He deals critically with the latter-day notion of the Christian community as split between one speaker and a silent body of listeners; and equally his study rebukes the excessive individualism of what passes for worship in many modern churches.  Recovery of the wholeness of the church’s life as ‘life together’ in Christ, in Bonhoeffer’s phrase, would go a long way to set our worship as a corporate exercise on a stable basis, and deliver modern congregations from ‘ministerial monopoly’ with one person conducting a virtuoso performance on the one side, and overemphasis on the narrowly individualistic–such as a disfigured Corinthian assembly where koinonia had tragically broken down–on the other” (The Worship of God:  Some Theological, Pastoral, and Practical Reflections,12-13).

In the coming weeks, and months, I’ll be writing more about this topic, because it really goes to the heart of a shift I’ve experienced in my life and my theology.  I’ll be posting more about the intersections of liturgy and practical ministry.  God has given me many opportunities to get into the nitty-gritty, painful, work of walking alongside people in really messed-up situations.  In a sense, I’ve been forced out of my “ivory-tower” of academic scholarship.  In another sense, I’ve been encouraged that I’m in good company with many other faithful scholars who have gone before me.  So, no new revelations will be forth-coming, but I will be sharing some of the wisdom that I’ve found, wisdom that’s been neglected.

More Relevant “Worship” or More Relevant Mission?

Here’s a great piece by Jonathan, at Ponder Anew.  Jonathan exposes some assumptions and problems with “contemporary worship,” but I especially love his conclusion.  The way to grow churches is not through flashy concert-performances, but by living out missional lives in our communities.  The whole article is worth reading, but here’s Jonathan’s conclusion:

“So what happens, then, if we don’t craft our worship services to attract unbelievers?

We’ll have to get serious again about Sunday. All of us. And then as the clock strikes noon, we’ll have to go.

Go out and feed the hungry.

Go out and clothe the naked.

Go out and associate with people who don’t look like us, don’t think like us, don’t act like us, don’t vote like us, and don’t usually like us.

Go out and fight for justice.

Go out and end oppression.

Go out and proclaim anew the old, old story.

Go out and reach out to those who are running from God and God’s church.

Go out and stop deflecting tough questions with our usual, tired cliches.

And do all of this in the name of the one who sent us.

And then open the doors wide again on Sunday morning.”

Charles Baird’s “A Chapter on Liturgies”–Free!

I recently discovered that one of the classic texts on Presbyterian & Reformed liturgies is now available for free on Google Books!  Charles Baird’s A Chapter on Liturgies:  Historical Sketches was a ground-breaking work published in the late 1800s, when many people were ignorant of the rich liturgical history of the Reformed churches.  Baird’s project was so novel (given the anti-liturgical prejudices in the Reformed world at the time) that he published the first edition of the work anonymously.  It bore the unwieldy title of Eutaxia; Or the Presbyterian Liturgies: Historical Sketches, by A Minister of the Presbyterian Church (now republished by Forgotten Books in a facsimile format). Although the research is dated and must be compared with more recent scholarship, it is well worth perusing.  Unfortunately, much ignorance and prejudice about liturgy still prevails in Reformed churches.  Baird’s even-handed and honest history will help many churches grow and appreciate the liturgical resources in their own traditions.