Some years ago, I attended a church service in which the speaker spent about half an hour refuting the “L” or TULIP, “Limited Atonement.” (In case you are unfamiliar with them, TULIP is an acronym which makes it easier to remember the five points of Calvinism. If you don’t know what they are, I encourage you to look it up.) Without going into any detail, what the speaker did was give a rather distorted version of what “Limited Atonement” is and then went on to say what it wasn’t biblical. I agreed with him that his version of Limited Atonement wasn’t biblical because what he had said Limited Atonement was is not what it is. He would have had a much more difficult time refuting Limited Atonement had he actually defined it correctly.

A few decades ago, several well-respected theologians in the Christian Reformed Church engaged in a conversation with some Roman Catholic theologians to talk about Lord’s Day 80 of the Heidelberg Catechism, the one that calls the Roman Catholic mass a “condemnable idolatry.” In their conversations, the Roman Catholics stated quite clearly that the way the Heidelberg Catechism describes the Roman Catholic mass is incorrect. The Roman Catholic theologians said that if what the catechism said was what the Roman Catholic Church taught, they too could agree that the mass is a condemnable idolatry. “But that is not what we believe or teach,” they said. As a result, the Christian Reformed Church, while not removing the suspect statements in the Catechism, did bracket them and place a footnote under them saying what they are incorrect and we should make ourselves aware that they have misrepresented Roman Catholic teaching.

What I have just described are two examples of a “straw man argument.” A “straw man argument” is one in which we distort or weaken another’s position so that we can argue against it. By misrepresenting someone else’s beliefs or teachings, we can easily refute them and quickly condemn them. Arguing against someone after first distorting their belief is called “attacking a straw man.”

It’s a fairly apt description. If we take a bunch of straw and pack it into Samuel’s clothing and we put Samuel’s face on our creation, we are building a straw man. We might name that straw man “Samuel,” and we might then proceed to attack it with bayonets, saying that we are “killing Samuel.” Of course, we aren’t killing Samuel, for the straw man is not Samuel. We are making ourselves look foolish if we continue to say that we are attacking Samuel.

When we do this is a debate situation, the same thing happens. Instead of accurately representing Samuel’s position, we create one that looks a lot like Samuel’s position but is missing some significant components. It is easy to attack Samuel’s position because it is not what Samuel said. The problem is this: while it is easy to see the difference between a straw man and the real Samuel, it is often harder to see that the argument presented is not Samuel’s but, rather, a misrepresentation of Samuel’s argument. We might be inclined to join in the attack against Samuel’s argument and so attack Samuel himself. Unless someone points out that what we are attacking is not Samuel’s argument but a fictitious misrepresentation, Samuel’s credibility will be destroyed.

Sometimes within the Christian church, we cannot be bothered to spend the time to develop a misrepresentation of another’s argument so that we can more easily refute them, so we simply use a short cut and label them as “liberal.” In many circles, that label is enough to destroy someone’s credibility immediately. In calling someone a “liberal” without having taken the time to hear what they have to say, we have created a straw man, and we feel that we can attack that individual without hesitation because, after all, we don’t want liberals to ruin the church. Naming someone as a liberal without ever really engaging them in conversation is the most egregious form of a straw man argument, at least in our circles.

As Christians who seek truth, we should recoil in horror at the very idea of setting up and attacking a straw man. Not only will we eventually look foolish, but we may even destroy the reputation and integrity of one of God’s children. That goes against the very core of who we are.

It is true that there will be people we disagree with and sometimes we disagree on very important points. However, before we write them off a “liberal,” the most egregious straw man argument or misrepresent them by distorting their argument, we must first listen carefully so that we understand. In fact, we have not listened well enough if we cannot accurately reproduce their argument. It is only then that we can give answer to what they believe, carefully using Scripture to guide us in our refutation of their argument. This whole process can be rather frightening, for we might find that when we truly understand someone’s position, we might find that we have to change our own. None of us does that easily. But, if we are going to be people of integrity and honesty, we cannot set up straw men and attack them so that we are never challenged in our beliefs. There is also the real possibility that when we engage people in their beliefs, and if their beliefs do not align with Scripture, we can bring them around. But that will only work if we have honest discussions and are willing to listen first.

It was difficult for me to listen to the speaker who attacked Limited Atonement by first misrepresenting it. As someone who holds to the five points of Calvinism, I wanted him to represent what I believe fairly so that I could hear his argument against it. Because he built a straw man first, I found that I could not engage him in conversation. I found myself frustrated and even a little angry because what I believe was misrepresented, and if I had announced that I believed in the doctrine of Limited Atonement, I would have been condemned as believing a non-biblical teaching.

The CRC was right in listening to the Roman Catholic theologians. And it is good that a few lines are bracketed and noted that they do not inaccurately describe someone else’s supposed position. While the CRC might not agree with the Roman Catholic position on other things, at least on this one, we are being honest.

Being honest does not weaken our position; it strengthens it. If we have integrity, we will be able to have good discussions with others, and, most likely, we will all become more aligned with the teachings of Scripture. If we set up straw men and attack them, we will never help those who we perceive are straying, and we will look foolish in the process.

A couple of years ago a friend was building a house, and before he started framing, he ordered his windows and doors because he was told that it would take about four months for them to arrive. The lag between demand and supply has increased significantly over the past few years, and what we normally could buy off the shelf or wait a few days to obtain it now takes weeks or even months. Thankfully, things are beginning to become “normal” again and we find that supply is not lagging as long behind demand as it used to.

We might call this delay a gap between expectations and actions. We have certain expectations (how long it takes to obtain windows for our house, how long we have to wait in line to get the hamburger we ordered, etc.), and if the length of time exceeds our expectation, we can become irritated. When another’s actions fail to meet our expectations, our frustration level grows. We may even lose faith in them.

In the Bible there is sometimes a gap between our expectations and God’s actions. One story that has puzzled me is the story of the Saul and David. In 1 Samuel 15 the prophet Samuel, tells Saul that God has rejected him as king. In the next chapter, Samuel anoints David to be the next king of Israel. What is puzzling and even a little troubling is that it takes another 20 years for Saul’s reign to end (he was 72 years old) and David’s to begin. If God had told Saul that he had rejected him as king, why did he let him reign for another 20 years? Our expectation is that when God says he is going to do something, he should do it, and he shouldn’t procrastinate.

Another example of God’s seemingly delayed activity could be seen in Psalm 13, a psalm of David. There David laments: “How long will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? . . . How long will my enemy triumph over me?” We don’t know when David writes this psalm, but it could well have been in those years between his anointing and his coronation, for it was during those years that Saul tried to kill him. Clearly David is frustrated by God’s seemingly slow action, for he feels that the oppression will never end. If God doesn’t act, the psalm continues, David feels that he might be killed. We can understand his frustration at God’s seeming inactivity.

The most obvious example of God’s seemingly slow action can be seen in the delayed return of Jesus. There is strong indication that the early church was also a little confused about Jesus’ return, for when he ascended into heaven, it did seem that his return would be imminent. True, during those early years the church grew rapidly, but so did its suffering. During times of severe persecution, it is not hard to believe that our brothers and sisters felt very much in tune with David’s sentiments in Psalm 13: “How long, Lord, will you forget us forever?” If the early church had known that this world would still be carrying on 2000 years later, they might have been quite surprised. There truly is a very large gap between their expectations and God’s actions. The gap is so large that today we scarcely give thought to Jesus’ return. It’s almost as if it won’t happen. (We know Jesus will return, but we don’t think about it that much.)

We may feel that gap between our expectations and God’s actions in our own lives. We pray for the salvation of a loved one, but it doesn’t happen as quickly as we might expect. We ask God for healing, but instead of being healed overnight, it takes years. We pray for God to open doors, but no doors open, and we remain feeling trapped in our current lives.

These gaps between our expectations and God’s action can leave us feeling frustrated, and we might even lose some faith in God. Our cry may also be, “How long, Lord, before you do something?” but God doesn’t seem to answer or even give us a reason.

It would be helpful to know the reason for the delay. When we order windows and the lead time doesn’t meet our expectations, we can usually discover why. Perhaps the supply of raw product (plastic for the injection molding machines) has been delayed, and we discover that they reason for the delay is that a ship has turned sideways in the Suez Canal (as happened a couple of years ago). Or we might learn that the plant that makes the windows we ordered had a fire and production had been paused for a couple of months as repairs were made. When we discover the reasons behind the delay, we might retain our trust and not become quite so frustrated.

God, however, does not always reveal to us the reasons he does not act immediately. We are never told why Saul reigned another 20 years before he was removed from the throne. We don’t know why Jesus hasn’t returned. We don’t know why God doesn’t heal us or turn a loved one back to himself. We can speculate, but we have to remember that any guess we have might be wrong. We cannot know.

In Psalm 13 David doesn’t receive any answers. He frets about his situation, and he cries out to God, but it does not seem as if there is any answer forthcoming. Yet, in verse 5, David says this, “But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.” The word that is translated as “unfailing love” is often understood as “committed love” or “covenantal love.” What David trusts is that God’s love for him is not based on emotion or circumstance. God had made a commitment to David, and God would keep it. Of this David was absolutely sure. And that allows him to end the psalm with praise as he says that God has been good to him even though he hasn’t received what he asked for.

David doesn’t receive reprieve from his enemies. He doesn’t receive an explanation from God as to why there was a delay. He doesn’t even get a timeline, telling him when things would change for the better. But what he does have is the assurance that God loved him and would give him what he needed. How that would happen and when it would happen, he did not know. But God still loved him.

When God’s actions don’t meet our expectations, it is frustrating. But David instructs us by his example that in spite of what we experience and know, God’s love remains steadfast, and he will take care of things in his way and in his own time. Our response is simple: trust God that he will do what he will and leave it in his hands.

Some time ago I read an article in which philanthropic activity was considered to be the opposite of running a business. Philanthropy (literally the love of humanity) is often viewed as “giving money to good causes.” Philanthropy is much more than that, of course, for any action we take which helps others is included in the definition of the word. Nevertheless, most philanthropy involves giving money to help fellow human beings.

Many philanthropists were at one time successful in business. Quite often a philanthropist has sold his/her business for a very large sum of money, and they commit themselves to philanthropy (giving to good causes) for the rest of their lives. The perspective seems to be that when they were in business, their goal was to make a profit but after they sold their business, their goal was to give that profit away. I think it is often fair to say that running a successful business to make a profit and philanthropy (loving fellow human beings) are seen as incompatible. True, many successful business owners give a substantial amount of money to “good causes,” and we can be thankful for that, but it would seem that the business can only be successful if it focuses on profit rather than philanthropy. It would seem that the common perception is that philanthropy (the love of humanity) is possible because of good business practices, but good business practices don’t work well if they have philanthropy built into them.

One example of this separation of business and philanthropy could be found in a seed company which developed a seed with what was called a terminator gene. The terminator gene in a plant resulted in crops (e.g. soybeans) being unable to reproduce themselves. Thus, a farmer who saved some seed from one year to plant the next would be unable to do so, for the seeds he saved would not germinate. This may not have been a big deal for farmers in Canada, but for many subsistence farmers in poorer regions of the world, this was devastating. They are in the habit of saving seed from this year to plant next year, and the added cost of having to buy new seed each year would result in a net loss every year. The company which had developed this terminator gene spoke about its increased profits and bragged about how they were using those profits to help feed poor people, but their boasts seemed hollow. Providing help for farmers who had been impoverished by company policy hardly seems philanthropic.

Another example may be planned obsolescence in many of the products we buy. If we buy a fridge, for example, we can expect that it will run for 5-7 years without defect. When it does break down, we discover that the replacement parts are expensive, and we may even discover that they are unavailable to the consumer and must be installed only by a certified technician. Or, as we may have experienced, parts are glued into place (rather than held in place by screws) so that they cannot be replaced and the consumer must buy a new machine. These are deliberate ploys used by companies to increase sales and thus also profitability. The companies advertise their products in such a way to imply that the consumer will be satisfied with their purchase, but are doing so only to gain a greater market share. Sadly, while the company may be more profitable, humanity does not feel loved.

As Christians, we are called to love our neighbours as ourselves. (Jesus could well have said that he expects us to be philanthropists, lovers of humanity.) It is a challenge to do so in our current climate, one that seems to be run by profit margins and return on investments. If the principles by which we make decisions are for our own profit and we assuage our guilt by giving to good causes, are we truly obeying Jesus’ weighty command? Are we being truly philanthropic? To be philanthropic is to obey the second of the two great commandments (loving our neighbours), and we must ask if we can do that in all areas of life.

I am not a businessperson, so I don’t know the challenges of making a business viable in today’s economy. Certainly, there must be a way for a business to run on the principle of philanthropy while still being profitable or else God would not call Christians to become businesspeople. Still, even while he issues that call, he does expect that those who heed that call do so against the background of the second great philanthropic command to love our neighbours as ourselves. (Loving our neighbour as ourselves means that we seek to ensure our neighbours have what we provide for ourselves.)

I am not a businessperson, but I am under the obligation to be philanthropic in all areas of my life. That means that my concern for others is at least as great as my concern for myself, and it means that I provide for others what I also provide for myself. That might not pencil out very well, but, of course, God’s accounting practices are not always ours. His don’t make sense on paper, or so we are told, because we have to look out for ourselves and our own viability and profitability first or else we cannot be philanthropic. Yet, we have to trust that when God says that he will look after us so that we can love others that somehow it will work out. To love our neighbours as ourselves means that everything we do is guided by philanthropy rather than profitability. We love our neighbours, and we leave the profit (that which benefits us) up to God. That must be true not only in business but in our personal lives as well for it seems to be one of the primary ways we respond to God’s grace to us.

Some years ago, when taking a seminar on the biblical teaching about marriage, the teacher asked this question: Which couple in the Bible had the best marriage? He listed a couple of parameters: we read about them interacting as husband and wife as they planned together, and together they followed through on their plan. They were unified in what they believed and what they did. We thought for a while, and we posed a few answers: Abraham and Sarah were quickly ruled out because of Hagar. (Allowing a third party into the marriage doesn’t work that well.) Someone suggested Zachariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist. They seem to have had a good marriage, but we don’t really see them interacting as a couple. Others suggested Joseph and Mary, but, again, we don’t see them interacting as a couple.

When we had exhausted all possibilities, the teacher gave the answer: Ananias and Sapphira. We meet this couple in Acts 5 where we discover that they had agreed to sell a piece of property and donate the money to the work of the newly formed church. But, sadly, although they pretended to give all the money from that property to the work of the Lord, they had decided to keep a little back for themselves. For this sin of lying and cheating, both of them lost their lives. Yet, as marriages go, Annanias and Sapphira had a pretty good marriage in that they were united in both planning and carrying out the plan. They had a good marriage, but they did not have a good relationship with the Lord.

A few years later, after this teacher challenged me to reflect on this, in one of the churches I served we had a marriage enrichment weekend. The presenters spoke at the morning church service, basing their text on a passage from Song of Solomon in which they spoke of the beautiful relationship Solomon and his wife had. What was missing was mention that Solomon had over 700 wives and 300 concubines (women he slept with but to whom he was not married). On the way out of church, two people gave a one-line response to what they had heard that morning, “Which one?” They were rather cynical about the message that had been given, for Solomon does not seem to be the best example of someone who has a good marriage.

The point that the teacher of the marriage seminar who challenged us about biblical examples of good marriages (there are very few, if any), wanted us to think about the greatness of our God. Isn’t it amazing, he said, that throughout the 4000 years of post-flood biblical history, that the people were so sinful and yet God accomplished great things through them? It truly is amazing. I doubt that we would let Abraham or David, and certainly not Solomon become members of our church, but that didn’t stop God from advancing redemptive history anyway.

I am not advocating that we allow every kind of person, no matter how sinful, to be part of our church. There is no doubt that God has given us excellent and clear instruction about what marriage should look like: a lifelong commitment made before God and his people between a man and a woman. That is the biblical definition of marriage, and we are obligated to follow it, and if we don’t we are, in essence, ignoring God’s will. When people refuse to do as God commands, we must say something about their lifestyle, and, if they are unrepentant, we must they should not be members in good standing in any church. We must make it our goal to develop marriages that honour God, but we do so from biblical teaching, not biblical example, for there are few biblical examples of marriages that we would classify as being appropriate and proper.

The point of these paragraphs is not to criticize marriages of the Bible, and it is not to help us understand what good marriages are. Rather, the point is that we marvel at God’s ability to accomplish salvation history through sinful people.

Samson is another case in point. We can’t point to him as a good example for us all, for not only was his marriage rotten, but much of what he did was badly tainted by sin. Samson is the last of the judges (leaders of God’s people) in that book, and he the worst of them all. God didn’t have much to work with in Samson, but he still used him to bring relief from oppression through the defeat of the Philistines. God sometimes has to use pretty broken tools, but the amazing thing is that he can bring salvation through brokenness and in spite of brokenness.

Last week I wrote about competency, urging us to become competent, experienced Christians bur recognizing that when we are incompetent the Holy Spirit can still use us. This week the topic is somewhat the same but with a bit different perspective. Even if we are poor tools (pliers, duct tape, and WD40 are not the best tools with which we fix a car), God can still build his kingdom. And this should give us confidence in God.

We cannot doubt that there were good marriages in biblical times, marriages which we might want to emulate. We cannot doubt that there were good and faithful people who lived in joyful obedience to the Lord all the days of their lives. But the Bible does not put them forward as examples of how we should live so that God can build his kingdom through us. The Bible presents to us people who are sometimes grossly sinful but are still used by God.

Again, that does not give us the right to sin just so that we can see how powerful God is. But we can see how powerful God is when we consider what he has to work with. In Canada, at present, the church seems to be waning and there are many within the church who are unfaithful, but that should not make us think for a moment that God’s hands are tied. They aren’t, and he will continue to bring people to himself in spite of who we are and how we live rather than because of who we are and how we live. For that reason, we can continue with confidence, seeking to serve the Lord and live for him faithfully, all the while trusting that God’s will get done what needs doing. What he asks, of course, is that we be willing and not rebellious. Annanias and Sapphira wanted to appear willing but were rebellious. David appeared rebellious but was willing, and through him God accomplished great things, in spite of his sin.

Some time ago, I disputed the charges on a utility bill I had received. Because the issue was not resolved immediately, I had to make a number of phone calls, and each of those phone calls went to the same level of support staff. None of the support staff I talked to had the capability to address my claims. As I dealt with them, I came to realize that they were reading from a manual, and because what I was asking was not in the manual, they were not able to give the information that I needed nor could they make corrections to the charges. It became evident that as they referred the problem to another level of support staff, they did not communicate my concerns appropriately, and I continued to receive inadequate answers to my questions.

The longer I spoke to the support staff, the more I became convinced that their competency was based on their ability to read a manual. Sadly, they did not have the level of competency I needed to deal with my dispute of the charges. They had stock answers, but those stock answers were not based on real experience. I do not fault them for their lack of competency, but, rather, the fault lies with the ones who had trained them. To become truly competent, they would have had to have a deeper understanding of the billing process, and it was clear that they did not. In other words, experience would have helped their competency. Understanding a manual gets one only so far.

Competency is important in many areas of life, and that also includes our faith. A colleague, one who works with a Muslim community in a large Canadian citizen, is often asked to speak at a church. When asked to do so, he requests that he bring along a Muslim imam (equivalent of pastor in Islam). On the appointed day, the imam arrives and apologizes and says that the pastor is running late but that he would like to engage those in attendance in conversation because he has some questions about Christianity. With permission given, he begins to ask those in attendance what they believe and why. His questions do not require answers that demand a deep understanding of theology, but they do require a basic understanding of Christianity. It becomes quickly apparent that many Christian believers do not really know how to give answers to his questions. They prove to be somewhat incompetent. My colleague is concerned that many Christians are not fully aware of what the manual (the Bible) teaches.

About half an hour into the presentation, the imam begins to remove his Muslim garb, and it becomes evident that it is not an imam who is speaking to them but the pastor himself. In taking the role of a Muslim cleric, he is able to reveal to those gathered that they do need to know what they believe if they are going to talk about their faith with unbelievers, especially those who have questions. He emphasizes how we not only need to be ready to give an answer to those who question us on the hope that we have, but we also need to know what the answers are. In other words, we do need to exhibit more than a competency we gain from a child’s Bible story book. This pastor is convinced that most people have heard the answers at one time or another but that was during the catechism class they took as a teenager or heard in a second service in which the Heidelberg Catechism was being preached. What concerns him is that many have not used those answers in everyday life. In other words, the book learning that we once had has faded into obscurity because we have not made it part of our experience, at least not intentionally so.

In a way, those learning situations, while important, are rather like learning the vocabulary of a second language. We can learn the vocabulary and even the grammar of another language but until we put it into practice, we won’t ever be fluent. In the same way, unless we speak of the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, we might have learned the words, the facts, but we won’t have the answers. Competency comes with experience, real life experience. It comes from more than just learning how to read and quote a manual. If we are going to be competent Christians, then, we need to be living and speaking our faith. We must apply the gospel in every situation, thus making what we learned from a manual a part of our experience. We will then become competent.

But, thankfully, we are not alone. When I was a student at Reformed Bible College (now Kuyper College), one of the required courses was an evangelism course. We had to learn a method of presenting the gospel, and then we were required to partner with an evangelism committee from a church which was involved in door-to-door calling. It wasn’t a great experience for me, and I dreaded those Tuesday evenings. But one day, my partner and I were invited into the house, and my partner asked that I give the presentation of the gospel. I fumbled around, looking for the words and trying to remember the Bible verses. When I came to the part where I asked him if he wanted to accept Jesus as his Lord and Saviour, he said, “Yes, I do.” I was quite astounded, sure that he didn’t really understand what I was asking, so miserable had been my presentation of the gospel. But he was adamant: he understood, and he wanted to put his trust in Jesus, and he wanted to follow his Lord. After trying to convince him otherwise (I actually tried to dissuade him!), we prayed together, and he gave his life to Jesus.

Clearly the Holy Spirit was present that day. Thankfully he was, for I certainly did not do a competent job in talking about Jesus had done. But the Spirit was competent where I was not.

The present of the Holy Spirit ensures that even when we are weak (or maybe especially when we are weak) he is strong, and he can accomplish what we cannot do. This story I just told reminds me of how weak I am. This does not excuse us, of course, of learning and growing in our competency. To give answer to the hope that we have, we need to speak the language, and to speak the language, we have to actually live it. But we can be confident that even if we do not speak the language of the gospel clearly or proficiently, the Spirit can take what we say and make it good. For that we can be thankful. I’m guessing, however, that the Holy Spirit, though fully able to use incompetent people, would prefer that we make ourselves competent. It works a little better that way.

Recently, I believe it was in the evening service, we sang the song, Crown Him with Many Crowns. In the fourth verse of that hymn, we find these words:

A few years ago in another church, after we sang these words as a doxology, a member of the congregation approached me and said, “I sang those words, but I had no idea what I was singing.” I understood why, for there are words in that verse that we rarely, if ever, use day to day.

I didn’t know exactly what they meant, but our daughter looked them up and explained them. A “potentate” is someone who is very powerful. We get our word, “potent,” from the same Latin root word. “Sublime” is a word that we might have heard. I recall hearing it in a commercial once, perhaps to describe some sort of dessert. It tasted sublime, which means that it was absolutely wonderful. They used the word “sublime,” but they did not say “ineffably sublime.” That’s the word that gives me the most trouble, for I have never heard “ineffably” used except for in this song. Maybe back in 1851, when the song was written, Matthew Bridge, the author of the words, made a trip to the local library to find words in the thesaurus that would help him write the song. Or, more likely, they used the word, “ineffably,” more often then than we do now.

“Ineffably” means something like “in a way that causes so much emotion that we cannot put into words what we are feeling.” That phrase doesn’t fit very well into the metre of the song, so the author had to say “ineffably.” Maybe there have been times when we were so full of emotion that we could barely speak. I could say, “My feelings were ineffable when my daughter was born, and I first held her in my arms.” I didn’t have the words to express how I felt. Or, as a friend told me when he met the woman who was to become his wife, he found her so beautiful that he was beyond tongue tied. Sometimes we find ourselves unable to express our emotions because what we are experiencing is beyond description. When Matthew Bridge contemplated who Jesus is and what he has done, his emotions ran so deep that they were beyond description.

As I worked through the definition of these words, I began to see that the words, “ineffably sublime,” connect two very different ideas. The verse I quoted above speaks of Jesus being the Lord of years, meaning that there never was and never will be a time when he is not sovereign over all. He is the “potentate of time,” meaning that he has always and always will be more powerful than any other power or authority who has existed or will exist. He is the creator of the rolling spheres, not only earth but also of the planets and the stars. The incredible number of spheres located in what we call outer space is beyond our comprehension, and they were created through the one we know as Jesus. When we contemplate who Jesus is, we certainly should be in awe, for he rules over all that he has made.

But what follows the words, “ineffably sublime,” is what is truly amazing. The verse continues: All hail Redeemer hail, for you have died for me. If we had never heard the teachings of the Bible before and if we were told that the one through whom all things were created and who rules over the entirety of all that is came to this earth and died on the cross so that we could be saved, we would wonder at that. Can it really be true that God the Son, who has always existed, became the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and he did it through his death? This is what is ineffably sublime, according to the author of this song.

If we do not find this outstandingly amazing, and if this does not make us tongue-tied and if we do not feel any emotion because of what happened 2000 years ago, then we have either become so accustomed to the gospel that it has become almost humdrum, or we don’t really understand who Jesus is and what he has done. But if we do understand, and if we have taken time to contemplate what Jesus has done for us, then we can say with Matthew Bridge that our praise shall never, never fail through all eternity. When we realize for the first time or when we contemplate again the import of what God the Son did by taking on human nature and become Jesus, the Saviour, we cannot help but turn to praise, and that praise will never, never fail for we will live for all eternity.

When I was a young adult, I attended a Bible study there, and most of us there had grown up in the church. I forget what it was that we were talking about, but I do remember that the discussion had deteriorated into a rather heated theological debate about some important aspect of biblical truth. Almost all of us had grown up in the church, but one guy had recently become a Christian. After the debate had continued for some time, he, with tears in his eyes and a broken voice said to us in words something like this, “You’ve grown up knowing these truths, and they have become commonplace to you, and you argue and talk about them as if they are just points to be debated. You don’t know how wonderful the gift of God’s grace that you have experience all your life is. And you have forgotten how wonderfully amazing it is that God sent his Son to this world to die for our sins.” He couldn’t express his emotions as he contemplated what Jesus had done, but they were truly ineffable, for what Jesus did is absolutely sublime. We who had grown up knowing and trusting in Jesus were rebuked that evening, and rightly so. Sadly, when he was overcome by emotion, he left the room, and someone commented that he was over-reacting. Reflecting on this years later, I don’t think he was. He was trying to express how indescribable God’s grace is, and he wanted us to have the same emotions as well.

Jesus, the Potentate of time, Creator of the rolling spheres died for me. He is truly ineffably sublime. Our praise may never, ever fail for all eternity.

About 15 years ago I attended a wedding which was held in a large cathedral-like sanctuary. It was a new building, only a few years old, but it had been modelled after a Roman Catholic Church building in Croatia, with some modern features added. All the surfaces in the building were hard – drywalled walls and ceiling, marble floor, wooden pews. The ceilings were high, and the pews did not nearly cover the entire floor, leaving lots of exposed hard surfaces.

During the wedding, the couple had chosen to sing a couple of praise songs, led, rather surprisingly, by a nun playing an electronic piano. She was a good accompanist, and even though more than half of the people in attendance were familiar with the praise songs, the singing was abysmal. The problem was that praise songs have a rather upbeat tempo, but you can’t sing fast songs in an echoey building. It doesn’t work. The words and notes got all mixed up together.

In our sanctuary, there is little or no reverberation time. If someone claps their hands in the empty sanctuary of Nobleford CRC, the reverberation time is less than one second. (I tried it.) When the sanctuary is full of people, I suspect that there will be very little reverberation time at all. In that Croatian church, however, the reverberation time was 4-5 seconds. That means that if you clap, you will still hear it echoing after 4 seconds, even when the sanctuary was full of people. A praise song, which can have many as two or three syllables in one second, will fill the sanctuary with as many as 7 or 8 different notes. Singing quickly in a cathedral results in a terrible cacophony of noise that doesn’t sound beautiful in any way.

As we well know, in Europe they started building big stone churches well over a millennium ago. We don’t know must about the church music before then, for we have no recordings, but we can be sure that it didn’t take long for musicians and composers to develop music that sounded beautiful in the cathedral. The notes would have had to be long, and the singing slow. A few years ago, Helen and I joined a group of people singing in a stone church in Jerusalem which had a reverberation of time of almost 10 seconds. We sang slowly, and it was beautiful. When the song ended, we could hear the last notes dying away, and because of the nature of the song, those notes blended together into beautiful harmony. Doing the same thing in our sanctuary would not have the same effect.

As these huge churches were being built across Europe, they were also looking for instruments that could fill the space. Twelve hundred years ago, the Muslims of Asia and North Africa were the most educated people in the world (while the majority of Europeans were unable to read or write), and they were preserving machines and ideas from the past. Although it is unlikely they had invented the organ, they had preserved it, and Christians in Europe found it to be the perfect instrument for their every increasingly large sanctuaries. The organ was the most complex machine in the world at that time, and it was very expensive, and it became a competition among churches to see who could afford not only the biggest building but the most beautiful organ. The church with the nicest and most expensive organ was the winner of the prestige competition. True, they passed off their big buildings and expensive instruments as a sign of dedication to the Lord, but we can be sure that that was not their only or even first motivation.

It is not hard to understand how many today will say that truly reverent music must be sung slowly and accompanied by the organ. But slow organ music is not so much a function of reverence as it is a function of necessity and prestige.

And, thus, we have what have been called the “worship wars.” People who mistakenly believe that reverent church music must be sung slowly to the organ criticize those who long for more upbeat music led by guitar and piano, while those who prefer the faster songs complain about how boring the old music is. So, people get to arguing and bickering and complaining and sometimes churches even are divided over music preference.

Because that is all it is. It’s just preference, our preference. The question we have to ask is this: does it really matter what we prefer? I would prefer not to go to an opera because I prefer other kinds of music, and why waste money on a ticket to listen to music I don’t understand and have never grown to like? I know that many people in this area prefer country music, and they will pay big money to go to Calgary to listen to the latest and greatest country music artist. They want to be in that audience.

But let’s remember that in church, we aren’t the audience. God is. And he is the only person in the audience. So, what kind of music does God prefer? I don’t know, but I suspect that he was a little disappointed when people bragged about how big their buildings were and how expensive their organs were as they talked with the people from the neighbouring village who didn’t have quite as much to brag about. I also suspect that God is not entirely happy when he sees a group of people with all the latest instruments doing a “gig” at the front of the sanctuary while most of those gathered simply look on as they are entertained. I imagine that neither of those are high on God’s “preferred worship music” list.

What does God prefer? I suspect he prefers lyrics that are honest, biblical, true, and meaningful. I suspect that God doesn’t have a strong preference about how the music sounds, but I do suspect that he does like to hear voices raised, no matter what the style of music, as people honour him and praise him for all that he has done for us. In other words, I suspect that God prefers music that is true and that is truly sung from the heart. And he doesn’t much like it when we turn up our noses at a song and refuse to participate because we don’t “prefer” it.

I have a brother who is quite tone deaf. It’s a very unpleasant experience to sit beside him in church and even more to sit in front of him. He knows that he is tone deaf, but years ago he made the decision that he would sing anyway, and he does in full voice. It sounds horrible to us, but I suspect that to God it is some of the sweetest music he hears on a Sunday because my brother sings truthfully from the heart. I suspect God is happier with that than some of the on-key mumbling we might offer. God is happy with what he hears from my brother, I am sure, but I have wished in the past that my brother could at least get one note right. But that is my preference, not God’s. Reverent music is not slow organ-led music but, rather, reverent must be true and sung truthfully, if it is sung slowly in a large cathedral, quickly with electric guitars or off-key by someone who loves the Lord.

This past week a few words by author Georges Bernanos caught my attention. A Christian himself, Bernanos, who was writing from the perspective of an unbeliever, wrote this: “Unbelievers are extremely interested in you [Christians]. There are few of us who at some point in our lives have not made a tentative approach in your direction, were it only to insult you. After all, put yourselves in our place. Were there but one chance, even the smallest chance, the faintest chance, of you being right, death would come as a devastating surprise to us. So we’re bound to watch you closely and try to fathom you.” This is a rather surprising and somewhat refreshing perspective.

Usually we are encourage to gauge our feelings and attitudes toward those who don’t believe, and it is right that we do so. We are called to love them and express that love by bringing them word of God’s grace. We are encouraged to show interest in those who don’t believe, but we struggle with that, often times, feeling guilty that we have not done enough to bring the gospel to those who are around us. We castigate ourselves for not having done enough “to win souls for Christ,” to use a Baptist expression.

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges to our work of evangelism is that we have come to believe that unbelievers don’t care to hear the gospel. Who would be interested in what we have to say anyway? We are told repeatedly that the gospel is no longer relevant for today’s world, and we might wonder if it is true. Who wants to listen to something that doesn’t matter? Further, as Reformed Christians, we are firmly convinced that the Holy Spirit must first work in the hearts of unbelievers before they would believe, and we make the excuse, perhaps, that we don’t always know where the Spirit is at work, if he is indeed at work in this part of the world. Perhaps we convince ourselves that no one really wants to hear the message we have for them because the Holy Spirit doesn’t seem to be preparing receptive hearts.

Bernanos wants us to look at things from a different perspective. How do unbelievers see us? Again, we often chastise ourselves by saying that unbelievers see our problems, our divisions, our sins, and they draw the conclusion that they we are all hypocrites. That sentiment is out there, without a doubt, but unbelievers must really wonder why we do what we do? What motivates the faithful, each and every Sunday, some of them twice, to attend a worship service? Why do they do that? And they must wonder when we face illness and death and struggle with confidence and peace how it can be that we can be so assured in the face of difficulty. Many of them do not have much reason to hope. As Bernanos says, many unbelievers must have moments when they wonder about what happens after death, and they must have that twinge of fear that perhaps they are wrong in their belief, and if they are wrong, what awaits them is an eternity of despair.

It may well be a fact that there is more interest in what gives us hope and peace than what we might believe. Unbelievers may not be as hardened as we imagine. In fact, they may be more receptive to the gospel than we might have led ourselves to believe. We won’t know, of course, until we engage in conversations with those around us who do not believe. It is only then that we can discover if unbelievers are interested in what compels us to do what we do.

Over the years I have had opportunity to engage unbelievers in conversations, and, surprisingly, those conversations are usually started by them. Perhaps it’s because they discovered I am a pastor or because I mentioned church on Sunday, or perhaps it is something else that I said or did. I don’t recall how the conversations started, but, usually, there is a genuine interest in what we believe. True, sometimes people want to point out the faults of the church and have questions about the fact that we see so divided. I’ve only had one person ridicule Christianity, but I got to know him fairly well, and he tends to the kind of person to repeat what he has heard others say. Except in rare cases, I have discovered that there is a genuine interest in what being a Christian is all about, even if that interest is coloured with skepticism or disdain. But interest is interest, and we should make the most of every opportunity to talk about what God has done in Christ.

I must confess that talking about my faith with unbelievers is not always the easiest thing for me. I must also admit that the more I do it, the more natural it becomes. In other words, practice helps, something that I am discovering far too late in life.

I find the view of Bernanos fascinating, for I had never thought of things in that way. Perhaps we might find talking about our faith with others to be a lot easier if we understand that they are interested, even if it is only out of curiosity. As Reformed Christians, we don’t know where the Holy Spirit is working, but instead of assuming that he is not (an excuse to remain silent), we should assume that he is working in the hearts of unbelievers, and they might be genuinely searching instead of being merely curious. As Peter says, we should always be prepared to answer those who wonder why we have so much hope. I don’t doubt that unbelievers are interested in what makes a Christian tick. Sometimes that interest is rooted in disdain, but interest is interest, and we may have more opportunities to talk about what Jesus has done than we have traditionally believed.