Monday Morning Music Ministry

2-23-26

There. I got the pun (Rhodes Scholar, ha) off my mind. I thought today of roads real and metaphorical, partly because I am charting the itinerary of the postponed honeymoon of Mickey and me, a celebration delayed by an important book deadline, other weddings, and such. We will be taking perhaps a month to visit Ireland, Germany, Austria, France, and Italy.

We will not walk the Appian Way – an ancient road in Rome taken by St Paul to evangelize citizens in the belly of (to Christians of the day) the beast. He first proselytized at the Temple of Agrippa. We will not traverse that long road, except to visit Catacombs, but we will stand where Paul stood. This will not be a real pilgrimage – I have friends who have traced believers’ pilgrimages in Europe and the Holy Land – yet we are choosing significant roads to walk on.

We are all familiar with Robert Frost’s iconic poem The Road Not Taken (often mis-titled The Road Less Traveled). Whether literal or metaphorical, it opens: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood / And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth… We identify.

I also noted, today as I write this, that Neil Sedaka, the soft-rock star of recent decades, has died. Again: Roads. I once attended a publishing conference in Las Vegas and left so early it was morning but more like a Red Eye. In the small waiting lounge at the airport gate was Neil Sedaka, a fave from my teen years. He played Vegas a lot, and also had to fly east early that day. I introduced myself and we got to talking.

By a bizarre coincidence, he lived in my town, Westport CT, so we had things to chat about. When I told him that I recently had interviewed Jimmy Swaggart, Neil lit up. He was a Jew but said he had been watching Swaggart’s TV services and was taken with the Gospel piano of the evangelist (who was also a cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis). The door opened, so to speak, and I shared Christ with him. I never learned what impact my conversation had on him, but I often think of roads that “cross” in such ways in life.

Nicole Shanahan, who was on RFK Jr’s ticket when he ran for president, recently confessed her conversion to Christ. The liberal former convert to Judaism spoke of a miscarriage, a near-death experience, and “opened eyes” about forces of spiritual warfare in America. The day before Trump’s inauguration she was water baptised and declared, “I had to live a lot of life to understand the true significance of trusting in this covenant of Jesus…. In order to fulfill a true relationship with God, it’s this recognition of Jesus as the Messiah.” A road with detours? Yes, but she found her destination.

The best-selling book in the English language after the Bible, we are told, is John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, written 350 years ago, and that never has been out of print, now translated to 200 languages. The entire book traces the journey of Mr Christian (all of its characters are named by their personal traits) from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. Another road… with many tempting detours to places like the Slough of Despond or Vanity Fair. It is a compelling book, with undertones by which all humans can identify. Especially about roads.

The Bible itself is the source of life’s roadmaps, warning signs, and directions. Scripture overflows with references to roads, paths, and ways to proceed through life. We all know how to ask strangers for directions; and many of us have GPS. That’s OK to attend your cousin’s retirement party, but not for God’s will for our lives. He charts our paths.

Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. But the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.”

My people have forgotten me; they make offerings to false gods; they made them stumble in their ways, in the ancient roads, and to walk into side roads, not the highway.

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way.

There is a road that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

I mentioned detours. Sometimes we can take alternate routes, or scenic drives, or choose to wander in some way, eventually to find our way home. That’s fine, as I said, except when it comes to God’s strongly stated destination. He does not allow us to stray an inch. Why would we? Yet… many do. Mr Christian was a Pilgrim, but he knew it was his duty to make progress. Not right in life, nor left; not backtracking but forward; not your own destination, but God’s.

On His travel plans for each of us, GPS means to stay on God’s Perfect Street.

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Click: Gospel Legends – Highway To Heaven

2-23-26

“Christian-Speak.” Followers of Jesus do not have a code-language, or mysterious signs and passwords. In fact we try to be easily understood, not secretive.

Yet there are terms that are common to our conversations that have slightly different meanings from the World’s everyday vocabulary. Saved. Convicted. Confession. Revival. Testimony. Witness.

Some of these terms overlap into apparent courtroom jargon or legal lingo, but all of them express very different spiritual meanings too. Witness, for instance. In “Christianese,” we mean bearing witness to the truth – that is, not so much recounting something one has seen, like an accident report, but describing the truth and consequential meaning behind an experience. And the effect on one’s life.

A Christian’s witness shares a truth one has learned. It is an attempt to convey a profound lesson, something personal that deserves to be shared and adopted by others. You can be a witness in various natural and supernatural ways, but Believers also have a “witness” (or a testimony). We witness to what God has done. In a sanctified context, it is tattling on God, which can only be a positive thing.

The Bible can be appreciated as a collection of stories about average people and how God intervened in their lives, interacted, and how those people were changed by coming to know Him. In that regard, we have inherited testimonies of folks in the Bible getting saved (and all those other words) to receive blessings; to their benefits, and our profit, generations later. We hear their stories, and we pass them on. Beyond the Bible stories, we share stories of others who have been transformed.

Profound spiritual truths are most powerfully communicated by stories. Postmoderns think they have discovered the power of story, but throughout humankind’s history, writers and poets have been storytellers. Tales are spun not to entertain but often to make important points or to present a moral. A story about someone’s experience can be used to convey an impactful lesson.

But.

The greatest impact you can make is not sharing the experiences of others – no offense to Confucius, Aesop, or even Jesus with His parables. Stories about others can make clever points or have intense effects. But they cannot approach stories about yourself. Witnessing about your very own experience. Sharing your own “testimony,” not someone else’s.

People will be moved – and sometimes be changed – when they see into your eyes, when they hear the sincerity in your voice, when they can feel what you feel.

When you share your own witness of how and when your life was changed… when you yourself experienced a miracle like healing… when you were saved from a lifestyle of self-destruction… when you can share exactly how you encountered the Master… how you overcame your reluctance to read the Word of God to earnestly pray or choose a life of faith… about how you accepted Jesus, and not a story about someone else you heard about – that is being an effective witness.

But.

You cannot be such a witness or have such a testimony unless you actually have experienced these things yourself. A personal testimony is more powerful than an anecdote about somebody else. God blesses us in so many ways, the first priority I believe is to individually address our lives, our salvation, our souls. But close behind is to empower us – to equip us, really – to effectively share the Good News with others. And sharing our own testimonies is more powerful than passing along stories and gossip (no matter how holy) about other people.

I don’t want to be wonky about words here (well… actually I do; I love the art of communication) but witnessing and sharing impactful testimonies in spiritual contexts is more important than going through the plot of a courtroom drama. Except that a “life sentence” is involved, for real.

Live in such a way that you can experience God for yourself… but more powerfully share that experience with others. It might be why He let you have these experiences.

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This week the legendary actor Robert Duvall died. I believe his greatest performance, among many, was in the self-written, self-financed, starring role in the movie about an itinerant preacher, The Apostle. Here he sings a Gospel classic from that movie, with Emmylou Harris.

Click: I Love To Tell the Story

2-16-26

The Virgin Birth confirmed that God is sovereign. Jesus’s ministry and miracles prove that He was anointed. His death on the cross fulfilled age-old prophesies. His resurrection affirmed His power over sin and death. ~~ The Ascension of Jesus was the Truth that He is Divine.

Over an average week, you will hear God’s name taken in vain far more times than it being invoked in prayers.

In some churches, more people seem to be more in love with the band than the Message.

Some worship leaders encourage people to smile, and berate them when they don’t look happy enough. But some people go to church in order to cry before the Lord – in contrition, in repentance, in conviction.

Many Christians today effectively are followers of a “Diune” God – ignoring or rejecting the Holy Spirit’s working and equal position in the Trinity.

Some believers hold to the idea that parts of the Bible are allegories or metaphors or poetry and not literal Truth. But Jesus believed in Adam and Eve, and Noah’s flood, and in fact He is identified as the One through whom the heavens and the earth were created. Was He stupid? Forgetful? Presumptuous? A liar?

Where in the Bible does it say that no one who has heard the Gospel and does not acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior can get to Heaven… except for Jews? They are free to reject Jesus and nobody else is? (A hint: the Bible does not say that.)

Numbers: If people accept the Ten Commandments as God’s law, and that God has revealed Himself in Three persons, and that there will be a Second Coming – and other Scriptural numbers – why do many Christians regard certain of the Nine Gifts of the Spirit, as enumerated in the Bible, as invalid today? Irrelevant? Is there an expiration date on the promises of God?

Some Christians rebelled against the church in their youth because of perceived “legalism” and strictures like virtual dress codes. Many of these people now belong to churches where clapping, hugging, and applauding a band’s performance are required behavior, and where worshipers are uncomfortable unless they wear torn jeans, baseball caps, hoodies with logos = a new dress code. If “people should feel to dress as they want”… why do so many worshipers, even pastors, dress like slobs? Is that what they want, that’s how they want to approach Almighty God?

The New Gospel seems more devoted to making sinners comfortable “where they are,” more than to leading sinners to be uncomfortable in their sinful ways.

The Disciples shushed the blind man Bartiramus not because He called out for Jesus to heal him, or that he slowed down their procession, or that he was too lowly and insignificant to bother the Master… but because he was disruptive in the moment. Are you dissuaded from crying, calling, shouting the Name of Jesus as He passes by? Even in church? (Especially in church?)

Jesus died for you. Do you live for Him?

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Click: He’s God

2-9-26

The Bible is theology: words from God, and a means of understanding Him. It is also history: researchers and archaeologists increasingly discover artifacts and even buried cities that confirm Biblical accounts once considered mere legends or fictional tales. The Bible is also doctrine: it tells us how to live; what is Truth; and the ways to experience joy and salvation… and the ways to be saved from misery and punishment.

Despite these factors, there are people who reject the Bible, starting their critique with the Book’s foundational reliability. I am not referring to non-Christians. It is humanity’s most populous faith, yet only about one-third of the world identifies as Christian. Christians are severely persecuted in some lands, and given a measure of credence in others; even Islam regards Jesus as a major prophet, while Jews still reject Him outright.

But Christianity’s major challenges are not with skeptics nor rival faiths nor persecutors so much, today, as with many who actually call themselves Christians.

Christianity – “Mere Christianity” as C S Lewis termed its basic tenets; and its simple Biblical elements, so clear in Gospel accounts of Jesus’s ministry, and exegesis of His teachings – finds its bitterest enemies in those who corrupt the faith, not only those who ignore it. A false church, after all, cannot hope to be an effective advocate… or even a plausible welcomer.

The very last words of the Bible’s very last book (Revelation 22:18-19, specifically cited by John as a literal transcription of words he received from Jesus) has a frightening warning – If any man shall add unto these things [words of Jesus] God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.

In other words, God’s Word is sufficient (a Truth stated many times in many ways through Scripture) and must be the basis of our faith. Nothing more, nothing less. Sects and new denominations and cults – I will say, for instance, Mormons with “new” Bibles and even Catholics with inventions of way-stations between earth and Heaven like Purgatory and Limbo – are daring the Lord to fulfill this threat.

Such warnings, and controversies, are not new in the Church. But I believe no less a threat to the Church today are movements that subtract, not only add, to God’s Word.

Indeed, there is a tendency in the post-Christian West to change the Gospel not so much by adding to God’s Word, but subtracting – modifying, reinterpreting, pick-and-choosing, corrupting. Adding and subtracting from Scripture are both heresies, but (not to excuse) adding to God’s Word at least might represent efforts to be more holy or helpful or relevant. The opposite, however – subtracting from Scripture – weakens the Message, compromises with lazier theologies, aims to be more “comfortable” with the world’s standards instead of God’s.

What am I talking about? What “subtractions”? Avoiding preaching against sin. Compromising with “uncomfortable” Biblical teachings. Accepting Politically Correct standards. Not believing the Virgin Birth and other signs of Christ’s Divinity. Calling Good evil and Evil good. Vitiating the Gifts of the Holy Spirit for today. Excusing personal behaviors that the Bible condemns.

Are these elements of modern Christianity? Yes… in many places, many churches, many sermons. Subscribing to these beliefs – we can say, rather, this collection of non-beliefs – might be sending more people to hell than aggressive, rebellious sinning. Being half-Christian is like being half-pregnant.

This life-threatening evil was warned against elsewhere in God’s Holy Word:

Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you (Deuteronomy 4:2).

Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it (Deuteronomy 12:32).

Do not add to His words Or He will rebuke you, and you will be proved a liar (Proverbs 30:6).

I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws’ (Matt 7:23).

If your beliefs are pick-and-choose…
You lose, you lose, you lose.

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Click: The Love of God