Weekly Roundup: Busyness and rest, church singing, stains of shame, and through the Bible to Christ
Busyness and rest, church singing, stains of shame, and through the Bible to Christ.
Resources
Busyness and Rest | Kevin DeYoung | TableTalk
Kevin DeYoung is a master of succinct writing. If you feel like you’re too busy to read this article, you need to read this article.
Jesus amazes me. His incarnation, His resurrection, His ascension, His exaltation—these defy description. But I’m also amazed by the more mundane things about Jesus’ life, like the fact that He never uttered a thoughtless word, never spent a wasted day, never strayed from His Father’s plan. I have often marveled to think that Jesus was so terrifically busy, but only with the things He was supposed to be doing.
Your Church Needs You to Sing | Nick Aufenkamp | Desiring God
I love me a good article on musical worship/praise in the church. What a glorious foretaste of heaven!
In your church, the most prominent leaders of congregational song may be up front on a platform. But the most prominent leaders aren’t always the most powerful leaders. In fact, in my years as a worship pastor, I have found that the most powerful leaders of congregational worship are almost always found in the pews:
– The expecting mother who suffered a devastating miscarriage the day before, but through the tears sings out, “In Christ alone my hope is found; he is my light, my strength, my song.”
– The young professional who, because of his Christian convictions on sexuality, was fired from his dream job on Friday, but who arrives on Sunday and belts out, “How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word.”
– The divorced woman, battling loneliness and depression, who declares, “Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him — how I’ve proved him over and over.”
– The 76-year-old husband and wife who recently buried their youngest daughter and two granddaughters, but still sit in the second row on Sunday morning — as they have for the past forty years — and cry out, “He will hold me fast. He will hold me fast. For my Savior loves me so. He will hold me fast.”
The Stains That No One Sees: How Jesus Removes Our Shame | Sam Allberry | Desiring God
This is a very important topic that is often misunderstood. Christ can make the unclean clean.
Mark’s Gospel introduces us to someone who knew all too well what it meant to feel unclean. In Mark 1:40–45, Jesus encounters a leper, someone whose skin condition left him ceremonially unclean according to Old Testament law. Leprosy was a particularly cruel condition. It was regarded as incurable and highly contagious. Those afflicted with it endured both physical discomfort and social isolation, and for something they did not do or bring on themselves. They were considered a spiritual, as well as a physical, contagion.
That might be how you feel: toxic, radioactive — a contagion.
“Through the Bible to Christ” | John Piper | The Journal of Biblical Counseling
I have a burden for my people right now, just like I do for myself, that we get beyond propositions and Bible verses to Christ. I do not mean “get around” Bible verses, but “through” Bible verses to Christ, to the person, the living person, to know Him, cherish Him, treasure Him, enjoy Him, trust Him, be at home with Him. I want to count Him more to be desired than all other things—wife, husband, children, success in career, leisure, vacations, health, food, sex, money. He’s more precious.
Piper, John. The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Winter 2002, 18–19.
I read, and save, more articles that I’m able to post in the Weekly Roundup. To see all of the articles I’ve saved over the years, see my Evernote collection.