THE PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG

For several years, I served as the song leader in my church. During that time, it was my responsibility to select the music and lead the congregation in the singing every week.

I took that responsibility seriously. The hymns and songs that I selected had to be doctrinally sound, and appropriate for worship with a God-centered worldview. Within those parameters, I tried to select music that would reinforce and support the text and the subject of my pastor’s messages.

Some of us have been singing the hymns for years; the words roll off our lips but the messages often don't engage our minds or penetrate our hearts. With the apostle Paul, I want the congregation to "sing with understanding."

So it has been my practice to select one hymn each week, research it, and then highlight it with a short introductory commentary so that the congregation will be more informed regarding the origin, the author's testimony, or the doctrinal significance of the hymns we sing.

It is my intention here, with this blog, to archive these hymn commentaries for my reference and to make them freely available to other church song leaders. For ease of reference, all the hymn commentaries in this blog will be titled IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Other posts (which will be music ministry related opinion pieces) will be printed in lower case letters.

I know that some of these commentaries contain traces of my unique style, but please feel free to adapt them and use the content any way you can for the edification of your congregation and to the glory of God.

All I ask is that you leave a little comment should you find something helpful.

Ralph M. Petersen

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Thursday, July 20, 2023

****HOLY, HOLY, HOLY

If the Bible is hard for you to understand, you are not alone. But don’t be confused; there are many who might try to convince you of all kinds of philosophies and beliefs that are NOT validated in Scripture. And there are many others who will twist Scripture to their own likings. Be not deceived by them. When the plain sense of God’s Word makes sense, seek no other sense.  

In a sermon, a few years ago, my pastor summarized all biblical theology in these two statements: 

1. GOD IS. That fact is declared in the first four words of the Bible (Genesis 1:1) “In the beginning GOD.” 

2. HE HAS REVEALED HIMSELF. And that is the rest of the Bible in its entirety. It is all about Him. It is His revelation of and about Himself to His creation. Everything we need to know for faith and practice, God has revealed in His written Word.  

If we could get these two statements firmly embedded in our minds, everything else falls into place. 

And frankly, I think it is enough. Most of us have a hard enough time understanding, believing, and obeying what He has revealed. We don’t need new or more revelation; we just need to believe what He has already revealed to us. 

And He has given us all we need to know about Him. So, when it comes to hard truths that are beyond our human ability to understand, like the tri-unity of God, we don’t have the prerogative to decide, redefine, or create new explanations for it. According to God’s revelation, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit-- these three are co-equal and coexistent. 

Churches and denominations divide over this doctrine because they try to explain it in terms that make sense in our own human dimension and with our finite understanding. It is possible that many (or all) of them can be WRONG, but one thing is certain; THEY CAN'T ALL BE RIGHT.  

And any attempts to deny God’s triune nature or to explain it with foolish analogies (like water or eggs or…) are ludicrous; in fact, analogies are probably heretical, idolatrous, or blasphemous. 

God’s ways are not our ways; His thoughts are higher than our thoughts; He is the creator, and we are the creatures; He is eternal, and we are finite; He is spirit, and we are flesh, and He exists in dimensions that we cannot conceive. And He has not seen fit to reveal to us how that can be, nor has He ordained that we should understand it. He has just declared it and our responsibility is to believe it. Apparently, that's all we need to know, or He would have revealed more. 

It may seem over-simplified to just state that the One True, Eternal, Living God coexists in three distinct persons. But it is true; The Father is God. The Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is God. And the Holy Spirit, (the Spirit of the Father and the Son) is God. And yet these three are co-equal in glory, and power. But that is about as reverently and scripturally accurate as we can get when describing the Trinity.  

Remember - God is and He has revealed Himself. As for me, I will just accept, as truth, what He has declared. To disbelieve His Word is to deny Him. 

The greatest and most accurate hymn about the Trinity is HOLY, HOLY, HOLY. It clearly declares that our God is ONE God who manifests Himself in Three Persons. The hymn was written in 1783 by Reginald Heber, a young man who had translated a Latin classic into English verse by the time he was seven. He entered Oxford at the age of 17 and won two awards for his poetry during his time there. After his graduation, he became rector of his father's church where he remained for 16 years. He was appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1823. He died of a stroke three years later.