Part of it, but only part…

As we extend these concepts beyond the scope of Israel, it is probably not unreasonable to maintain that God’s people have been given an identity with God and that it is our responsibility to honor God as we reflect him in our lives. Moral behavior would unquestionably be part of that, but only a part.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 206

'Tis Mystery All! (Tozer for Tuesday)

So many things in the spiritual realm remain a mystery. Where we get into trouble is trying to define and describe all of the mysteries. Many of us have a Sherlock Holmes complex when it comes to spiritual things. We want to know everything to the smallest detail. This is nothing more or less than religious minutia, and it only feeds Pharisaic pride.—A.W. Tozer, Experiencing the Presence of God, 11 (introduction)

We Lift Our Hearts to Thee

492 We Lift Our Hearts to Thee

1 We lift our hearts to thee,
   O Day-star from on high!
   The sun itself is but thy shade,
   Yet cheers both earth and sky.

2 O let thy orient beams
   The night of sin disperse!
   The mists of error, and of vice,
   Which shade the universe!

3 How beauteous nature now!
   How dark and sad before!
   With joy we view the pleasing change,
   And nature’s God adore.

4 May we this life improve,
   To mourn for errors past,
   And live this short revolving day,
   As if it were our last.

5 To God, the Father, Son,
   And Spirit, one and three,
   Be glory, as it was, is now,
   And shall for ever be.
                         John Wesley
                         The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

<idle musing>
John Wesley didn't write a lot of hymns. He preferred to translate them and to edit Charles's hymns. Besides, Charles was a much better hymnwriter! That being said, the ones John wrote tended to be pretty solid, like this one, which occurs in around 165 hymnals. Hymnary.org inserts a verse:

4 O may no gloomy crime
   Pollute the rising day;
   Or Jesu’s blood, like evening dew,
   Wash all our stains away.

</idle musing>

That slippery word QDŠ

The English word moral does not match the semantic range of Hebrew qdš; a closer English semantic equivalent to qdš is divine. We might note that the vast majority of holy things—such as objects (the temple articles), places (Mount Sinai, Jerusalem), geopolitical abstractions (the land, the nation), or time (the Sabbath)—have no moral agency. When a thing becomes holy, whether that thing is the abstract community of Israel (which is what is addressed in Lev 19, not each Israelite individually) or an object like the ark or the sanctuary, that thing is or does in some way identify something about what God is or does.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 204 (emphasis original)

O God, Before Whose Altar

486 O God, Before Whose Altar

1 O God, before whose altar
   The stars like tapers burn,
   At whose inscrutable decree
   The planets wheel and turn,
   Though earth and sea and heaven
   Unite thy praise to sing,
   Man in his weakness yet may give
   A worthier offering.

2 Those who gave up life's bounty
   To serve a race to be,
   Whose bones lie white along the trail
   Which leads the world to thee;
   Those who when fears beset them
   Stand fast and fight and die,
   Their unconsidered lives go up
   Like incense to the sky.

3 All those oppressed or lonely
   Or long at strife with pain,
   Who face the darkness undismayed
   And turn their loss to gain,
   Those who with love and meekness
   Outlast the years of wrong,
   Their silent courage pleads to heaven
   More eloquent than song.

4 O Lord, be ours the glory
   Beyond all earthly fame,
   Like those to conquer for thy sake
   Despair and doubt and shame;
   Till through a world made noble,
   Through lands from sin set free,
   The armies of the living God
   Shall march to victory.
                         P. H. B. Lyon
                         The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

<idle musing>
Well, this hymn, which I don't recall ever singing, is only in about eight hymnals. Seems the author spent most of his career as a headmaster at various boys' school in England.
</idle musing>

O God of Earth and Altar

484 O God of Earth and Altar

1 O God of earth and altar,
   bow down and hear our cry,
   our earthly rulers falter,
   our people drift and die;
   the walls of gold entomb us,
   the swords of scorn divide,
   take not thy thunder from us,
   but take away our pride.

2 From all that terror teaches,
   from lies of tongue and pen,
   from all the easy speeches
   that comfort cruel men,
   from sale and profanation
   of honour and the sword,
   from sleep and from damnation,
   deliver us, good Lord!

3 Tie in a living tether
   the prince and priest and thrall,
   bind all our lives together,
   smite us and save us all;
   in ire and exultation
   aflame with faith, and free,
   lift up a living nation,
   a single sword to thee.
                         Gilbert K. Chesterton
                         The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

<idle musing>
Yes, that G.K. Chesterton. I didn't realize he had also written hymns, but since he wrote poetry, I guess hymns are just a small step away. That being said, I don't recall ever singing it and it only occurs in about seventy-five hymnals.
</idle musing>

O Holy City, Seen of John

481 O Holy City, Seen of John

1 O holy city, seen of John,
   Where Christ, the Lamb, doth reign,
   Within whose foursquare walls shall come
   No night, nor need, nor pain,
   And where the tears are wiped from eyes
   That shall not weep again!

2 Hark, how from men whose lives are held
   More cheap than merchandise,
   From women struggling sore for bread,
   From little children's cries,
   There swells the sobbing human plaint
   That bids thy walls arise!

3 O shame to us who rest content
   while lust and greed for gain
   in street and shop and tenement
   wring gold from human pain,
   and bitter lips in blind despair
   cry 'Christ hath died in vain!'

4 Give us, O God, the strength to build
   the city that hath stood
   too long a dream, whose laws are love,
   whose ways are brotherhood,
   and where the sun that shineth is
   God’s grace for human good.

5 Already in the mind of God
   that city riseth fair:
   lo, how its splendour challenges
   the souls that greatly dare;
   yea, bids us seize the whole of life
   and build its glory there.
                         Walter Russell Bowie
                        The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

Ah yes, the proof-text…

Years ago Donald McCullough spoke about trivializing God and referred to this tendency as treating God as the “God of My Cause.” We decide what we want to believe and then dig around in the Bible to dredge up support so we can “take a stand on biblical authority.” Too often the authority of the Bible is not well represented by extracting prooftexts, yet this is one of the major ways that Christians attempt to make the Torah relevant and to resolve controversial issues.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 183

Thou, Whose Almighty Word

480 Thou, Whose Almighty Word

1 Thou, whose almighty word
   chaos and darkness heard,
   and took their flight;
   hear us, we humbly pray,
   and where the gospel day
   sheds not its glorious ray,
   let there be light.

2 Thou, who didst come to bring
   on thy redeeming wing,
   healing and sight,
   health to the sick in mind,
   sight to the inly blind,
   O now to humankind
   let there be light.

3 Spirit of truth and love,
   life-giving, holy Dove,
   speed forth thy flight;
   move on the water's face,
   bearing the lamp of grace,
   and in earth's darkest place
   let there be light.

4 Holy and blessed Three,
   glorious Trinity,
   Wisdom, Love, Might;
   boundless as ocean's tide
   rolling in fullest pride,
   through the earth far and wide
   let there be light.
                         John Marriott
                         The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

<idle musing
A good solid trinitarian hymn. It only occurs in about 500 hymnals and I don't ever recall singing it.
</idle musing>

Editing funny

In working through the bibliography of books you sometimes run into funny things. This one shows that people are quite ignorant of Latin:

Cross, Frank Moore, Werner E. Lemke, and Patrick D. Miller, eds. Magnolia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God; Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976.

See the problem? I don't think the book is about magnolias! The correct spelling is Magnalia. But, the incorrect spelling shows up all over the place; it's even on JSTOR and de Gruyter's site!

Selective scripture

If we apply the derived principles approach only selectively, then we are the ones deciding what does and does not have value as God’s Word. Inevitably we will choose only the passages that we can readily attach to principles that we already believe are true. In this scenario, we are using Torah not to establish a moral system but to undergird one that we have already decided is valuable and coherent. In this case Torah is used as little more than illustration.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 173

<idle musing>
And we are all only too familiar with that approach, aren't we? It's the recipe for division and strife as we argue about trivialities, siphoning the gnat and swallowing the camel...
</idle musing>

O Day of God, Draw Nigh

477 O Day of God, Draw Nigh

1. O day of God, draw nigh
   in beauty and in power;
   come with thy timeless judgment now
   to match our present hour.

2. Bring to our troubled minds,
   uncertain and afraid,
   the quiet of a steadfast faith,
   calm of a call obeyed.

3. Bring justice to our land,
   that all may dwell secure,
   and finely build for days to come
   foundations that endure.

4. Bring to our world of strife
   thy sovereign word of peace,
   that war may haunt the earth no more,
   and desolation cease.

5. O day of God, draw nigh
   as at creation's birth;
   let there be light again,
   and set thy judgments on the earth.
                         R. B. Y. Scott
                         The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

<idle musing>
Not a terribly popular hymn, occurring in under 50 hymnals, but quite an appropriate hymn for this year and this time of year.

To me the interesting thing is that it was written by the Old Testament scholar R.B.Y Scott. His book Relevance of the Prophets was used as a textbook (among other books) in my Old Testament Prophets class and his The Way of Wisdom was used (among other books) for my Wisdom Literature class.

Besides that, there is an award named after him, offered by the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies. While I was at Eisenbrauns, three of our books won the award.
</idle musing>

The problem of reducing Torah to a checklist

The key is to have clear sight of the goal and to be committed to doing whatever represents the current wisdom in order to achieve that goal. If we try to reduce the goal to a checklist of practices and behaviors, it is likely that we will lose sight of the larger goal. Extracting a list of principles has the potential to undermine the importance of some of the more abstract ideas.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 164

<idle musing>
Sounds similar to the accusation Jesus made to the Pharisees—and he would likely make to us. We jump through hoops sometimes, but are they right hoops? I suspect that more frequently than we would like to admit, they aren't.

By the way, merry Christmas!
<\idle musing>

Eternal Son, Eternal Love

471 Eternal Son, Eternal Love

1 Father of everlasting love,
   Take to thyself thy mighty power;
   Let all earth’s sons thy mercy prove,
   Let all thy wond'rous grace adore.

2 The triumphs of thy love display;
   In every heart reign thou alone;
   Till all thy foes confess thy sway,
   And glory ends what grace begun.

3 The God of grace, and health, and power,
   Fountain of light and love below,
   Abroad thine healing influence shower,
   O’er all the nations let it flow.

4 Inflame our hearts with perfect love,
   In us the work of faith fulfil;
   So not heaven’s host shall swifter move,
   Than we on earth, to do thy will.
                         Charles Wesley
                         The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

<idle musing>
OK, it's not technically a Christmas hymn! But the Methodist hymnal puts it under Kingdomtide and that's ultimately what Christmas is all about, right?

I don't recall ever singing this hymn, and according to Hymnary.org, it only occurs in about 6 or 7 hymnals, so I guess that's not surprising.
</idle musing>

About those Ten Commandments...

Others locate the moral law even more strictly in the Decalogue alone. The base assumption is fueled by the equation that morality is achieved by law and that law is intended to produce morality. Given this two-way equation, the Torah, which they identify as law, is seen as being the source of morality, and since the source of Torah is God, the Torah has moral authority. As we have been discussing, this breaks down at almost every level. If the Torah is not legislation and cannot be reduced to morality, the fact that it has divine authority does not establish a divine source for either legislation or morality since neither is the Torah’s intent.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 161

There is a first-aid kit! (Tozer for Tuesday)

I believe there is such a thing as being cleansed from sin, walking in the Spirit and not fulfilling the lust of the flesh. And I believe that it is entirely within the right of any Christian to go to God and demand that God make him holy and keep him from sin. Of course, he may stumble. If he stumbles, there is a first-aid kit. “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.” That is the will of God, number one. “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1). That is the first-aid kit. The Lord does not let His stumbling children die. He picks them up, dusts them off, binds up their wounds and starts them all anew.—A.W. Tozer, Reclaiming Christianity, 217

Father Eternal, Ruler of Creation

469 Father Eternal, Ruler of Creation

1 Father eternal, Ruler of creation,
   Spirit of life, which moved ere form was made;
   Through the thick darkness covering every nation,
   Light to man's blindness, O be Thou our aid:
   Thy Kingdom come, O Lord, Thy will be done.

2 Races and peoples, lo! we stand divided,
   And sharing not our griefs, no joy can share;
   By wars and tumults Love is mocked, derided,
   His conquering cross no kingdom wills to bear:
   Thy Kingdom come, O Lord, Thy will be done.

3 Envious of heart, blind-eyed, with tongues confounded,
   Nation by nation still goes unforgiven;
   In wrath and fear, by jealousies surrounded,
   Building proud towers which shall not reach to heaven:
   Thy Kingdom come, O Lord, Thy will be done.

4 How shall we love Thee, holy, hidden Being,
   If we love not the world which Thou hast made?
   O give us brother love for better seeing
   Thy Word made flesh, and in a manger laid:
   Thy Kingdom come, O Lord, Thy will be done.
                         Laurence Housman
                         The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

<idle musing>
A very appropriate hymn for this time of year, and this time in the life of the world/country. We could use more hymns/prayers like this one.

The biography of Housman is interesting: He's the younger brother of A. E. Housman. He also was a committed pacifist and a socialist, so he had issues with censorship...
</idle musing>

The presence of the kingdom—in the Hebrew Bible!

God’s plans and purposes did not do something to the Israelites (other than give them a status as his people); his plans and purposes worked through them. His plan was not to cleanse them of their sins, provide for their eternal life, reconcile them to God, impute righteousness to them, or take their sin on himself. Instead, what he did was establish his kingdom on earth and dwell among his people as king. In the process, as we can see in hindsight, he was establishing what kind of God he was, so that when Christ appeared claiming to be God, people would have a way to understand that what he meant was not the same thing that the Greeks and Romans would have believed was represented by the word “God.” The Israelites were not anticipating incarnation, but they were to understand that their concept of their God was supposed to be slightly different from the understanding of other gods that both they and their neighbors shared.—Walton and Walton, The Lost World of the Torah, 159 (emphasis original)

The Lord Will Come and Not Be Slow (John Milton)

468 The Lord Will Come and Not Be Slow

1 The Lord will come and not be slow,
   His footsteps cannot err;
   Before him righteousness shall go,
   His royal harbinger.
   Truth from the earth, like to a flower,
   Shall bud and blossom then;
   And justice, from her heavenly bower,
   Look down on mortal men.

2 Surely to such as do him fear
   Salvation is at hand!
   And soon his glory shall appear
   And dwell within our land.
   Rise, God, judge thou the earth in might,
   This wicked earth redress;
   For thou art he who shalt by right
   The nations all possess.

3 The nations all whom thou hast made
   Shall come, and all shall frame
   To bow them low before thee, Lord,
   And glorify thy name.
   For great thou art, and wonders great
   By thy strong hand are done:
   Thou in thy everlasting seat
   Remainest God alone.
                         John Milton
                         The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

<idle musing>
One of the fifteen hymns that John Milton wrote, and it only occurs in under a hundred hymnals. The versification varies widely, too. Some split this up into six verses instead of three.
</idle musing>

Father, in Whom We Live

465 Father, in Whom We Live

1 Father in whom we live,
   in whom we are and move,
   the glory, power, and praise receive
   of thy creating love.
   Let all the angel throng
   give thanks to God on high,
   while earth repeats the joyful song,
   and echoes to the sky.

2 Incarnate Deity,
   let all the ransomed race
   render in thanks their lives to thee
   for thy redeeming grace.
   The grace to sinners showed
   ye heavenly choirs proclaim,
   and cry: 'Salvation to our God,
   salvation to the Lamb!

3 Spirit of holiness,
   let all thy saints adore
   thy sacred energy, and bless
   thine heart-renewing power.
   Not angel tongues can tell
   thy love's ecstatic height,
   the glorious joy unspeakable,
   the beatific sight.

4 Eternal triune Lord!
   Let all the hosts above,
   let all the sons of men, record
   and dwell upon thy love.
   When heaven and earth are fled
   before thy glorious face,
   sing all the saints thy love hath made
   thine everlasting praise.
                         Charles Wesley
                         The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

<idle musing>
A good trinitarian hymn. Would that it were more common; heaven knows we need better theology in our songs today. But this one only occurs in about 100 hymnals. Mores the pity.
</idle musing>