A Note on Music

"The music we listen to often carries the message of the world, and the world uses the medium of music to squeeze us into its mold. And a Christian cannot help being gradually influenced if he continually listens to the world's music"

~Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness

I don't like this quote. I don't think many Christians my age would be prone to defend its reasoning. I do wonder, though, how Christians who don't actually listen to worldly music would respond. They have less at stake, and so perhaps slightly less bias.

I am challenged, and I challenge you: what are you allowing to shape you? Scripture? Then how? Is your decision to engage secular culture by buying its music and memorizing its lyrics a part of your pursuit of godliness? Have you filtered your CD collection through the grid of God's revelation?

The attitudes expressed in much music--about love, about revenge, about the meaning(lessness) of life--are we really immune to subtle persuasion?

1 John 2:1 says "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin." Will not sin. Do we live like that's what we want? Jerry Bridges, at one point in his life, realized that all he wanted was "not to sin very much." Do we settle for this unbiblical standard?

James 1:26 says, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

In both of these passages, we are addressed as children as we are exhorted to pursue, or desire, holiness. I do not recommend that we publish a list of acceptable bands, or promote an all out ban on any music not labeled CCM. But I do think we should ask ourselves...would we obey if that's what God wanted? Do we even want to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world? Is that desire on our emotional radar screen? Is our father's standard of holiness important to us?

I have to say that often, for me, it is not.

One final thought--the other day the parable of the talents from Matthew 25 came to my mind. In the parable, the master returns and finds that the servant to whom he entrusted one talent has done nothing with it...he has merely buried it. The master's reaction is harsh: "you wicked, lazy servant!" That servant was wicked. He didn't lose what he'd been given. He didn't waste it, or squander it. He merely saved it. And he was wicked.

Many of those privileged to grow up in "sheltered" Christian homes have been blessed with innocence and instruction. And I'm scared--I'm scared that, worse even than the wicked servant, we aren't even protecting those gifts. I'm scared that we're throwing them away.

"Jesus loves us regardless"

Tonight, a lesbian couple walked by while I was passing out tracts…routinely, with my trademarked awkwardness, I handed them a “Ten Reasons Jesus Came to Die” pamphlet.

“What, you gave us it just ‘cause we’re lesbian?” one of them laughed back.

“I’m giving them to everyone,” I said.

“Jesus loves us regardless,” she said dismissively, and they walked on.

In a way, she was right, but I wish she was more aware of what that really means. Christ loved his children regardless. He died for sinners. But he desires, requires, and affects a process of dying to sin in his children, and this does not appeal to the lover of sin. To his enemies, to those who reject him, the real Jesus poses a terrible threat. I wonder what the significance is of people feeling more intimidated by Jesus’ followers than by Jesus himself. The push-over Jesus is easy to dismiss. But he wasn’t a push-over, and that’s part of what makes his sacrifice so incredible. He laid his life down willingly. But his wrath-bearing sacrifice implies the existence of wrath-incurring sin. And that bothers people.

“Jesus loves us regardless.”

She was right, in the sense that he offers his love regardless, but I wish she was more aware of what that really means. Because then maybe she would love him back.

Bits of Folly and Fear

"Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?" ~Psalm 85:6

Maybe he will. I'm sure he will. God will be faithful, even when we are faithless. But do you notice this psalmist's intended goal? "That your people may rejoice in you." Restoration of peace, of joy, of faith--to what end do we desire these things?

"I will listen to what God the Lord will say, he promises peace to his people, his saints--but let them not return to folly" (vs 8). How often i return to folly. Today I am sinful, today I am selfish, today I am deaf to the promises of God. I will resolve to listen to what the Lord says:

"Salvation is near those who fear him" (vs 9).

Fear of God...an elusive concept. I think of the "good" thief, crucified with Christ, and aware that he was no good at all:

"Don't you fear God? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong" (Luke 23:41)

The gospel is crucial to remember, as the most intense demonstration of the glory of God--the rupturing of his very unity in the display of his indescribable nature: love. This is the love that should make us tremble.

So fear. Let us not return to folly. May love and faithfulness meet together in our hearts. May righteousness and peace kiss each other in our daily conduct. Let us not return to folly, that his glory may dwell in our land.