“Man of Sorrows” was the last hymn Ira Sankey ever heard Bliss sing. Bliss’s name is on the top left and right of this hymn. The words and the tune came from him. The focus, however, is entirely on Jesus.

A local ministry recently gifted me a book—Man of Sorrows, King of Glory: What the Humiliation and Exaltation of Jesus Mean for Us by Jonty Rhodes. Because I was unfamiliar with the book and its author, I initially read the table of contents and the acknowledgments. From the beginning, it was evident all the chapter headings came from the hymn “Man of Sorrows! What a Name” by Philip P. Bliss. That intrigued me.
Then the final paragraph of the acknowledgments astonished me. Rhodes writes,
One final note. The chapter headings come from Philip Bliss’s hymn popularly known as “Man of Sorrows.” Bliss spent his early years working as a music teacher but became an itinerant evangelist in his mid-thirties on the advice of D. L. Moody. He wrote “Man of Sorrows” in 1875, shortly after this career change. But Bliss would never see his fortieth birthday. On December 29, 1876, a trestle bridge collapsed as the train carrying him and his wife passed over it. Most of the carriages disappeared into the snow-covered Ashtabula River valley below. Bliss himself survived the fall but was last seen heading back into the wreckage to rescue his wife from the flames. Neither body was ever found. I know little else about him.
I’d never heard Bliss’s story before. Not only did I grow up singing his hymns, but this tragic accident took place about an hour away from where I live and pastor. Although the author knew little else about him, I wanted to know more.
Name on the Top Right
When you open a hymnbook, the name on the top left of a page typically indicates who wrote the words to the song. The name on the top right indicates who wrote the tune. Sometimes one person is responsible for both, but generally the song is the result of multiple artists.
As I read more about Bliss’s work, I learned he wrote the tune to one of the most beloved hymns of the English language—“It Is Well with My Soul.” Horatio Spafford wrote the words, so his name appears on the top left of the published hymn. And on several occasions, I’ve heard the song introduced in congregational worship by recounting Spafford’s story. First, the Great Chicago Fire. Shortly after, the tragic loss of his four daughters in a shipwreck. Then his journey across the same waters, which inspired him to pen the words “when sorrows like sea billows roll.” It’s a powerful story of resilient faith in a sovereign God.
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Written by A.W. Workman |
Thursday, January 12, 2023
Preachers and authors, let’s make sure we ground our definitions in the only inspired source of eternal meaning we have, God’s word. This could often be as simple as an extra sentence or two. “The definition we just read fits well with how the Bible uses this term, as we see illustrated in this passage in…” or, “I like the Latin roots of this word because they echo so well with how the biblical authors use it, for example…” A small step toward a deeper grounding will help us communicate meaning that is eternal, and not that which is a mere snapshot of an imperfect language tradition. It matters how the English and the Romans defined things. It matters infinitely more how God does.

Preachers and authors do it all the time. They quote the English definition of a word or refer to its linguistic roots as a way to ground their argument, to establish the meaning of a term or concept. Then they move on, seemingly convinced that they have offered up enough evidence for their audience to trust that they are indeed communicating the true sense of that term. What is not often realized is that, for the Christian, this kind of appeal to the dictionary or history is actually an inadequate grounding.
Perhaps a sermon is being delivered on Isaiah 40:1, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” The preacher focuses on the meaning of comfort in his introduction to his sermon idea. To do this, he quotes Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, which defines the verb comfort as:

to give strength or hope to: cheer
to ease the grief or trouble of: console

The preacher then takes this meaning of comfort, summarizes what comfort means according to the definitions he’s just read, and then gives his main point: Our God gives strength and hope to his people through his promises of salvation.
Or, perhaps a Christian counselor is writing a book on grief and to establish what comfort means, he appeals to the Latin roots of the word. In Latin, com meant with, and fortis meant strength. So, the author concludes, comfort means “with strength,” to be with someone in a way that gives them strength.
What’s the problem with these very common ways to establish the meaning of a term or concept? The problem is that this method of establishing meaning has only served to give us what one particular language and culture believed about that concept at a given time. But how do I know that Merriam-Webster English is giving me a true and universal meaning for comfort? Or how can I be sure that the meaning the Romans gave to their words is a faithful witness to what comfort actually is? Why should I trust these snapshots of a language at a particular time over my own personal definition for the term, cobbled together by the thousands of contexts where I have heard and seen that term used?
Unfortunately, any given language is an imperfect witness to eternal truth. A language is limited in its perspective on reality. It “thinks” in a certain way, and this affects how it describes things. This gives each language a unique perspective and voice, but that uniqueness also implies it’s missing a bunch of things that other languages notice. In English I am my age, in Spanish I have my age. If I only speak English, I only think about age in a certain way. But I am missing out on the reality that age is not just something I can be, it is also something I can possess.
Each language is also limited by the kind of vocabulary and grammar it has.
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As Christendom has collapsed in the West, Wilson has offered a vision that plays on the fears and emotions of those who are panicking. This is precisely why the mission of the church, all of the sudden, takes a drastic turn in its elevating of cultural transformation while “saving people from their sins” becomes only a means to this greater end. While we might look at the psalm-singing, the community, the safe space, the building of schools and churches in Moscow as good things (and I do indeed admire much of it) we can’t miss what has drawn such an attraction.

This entire article may be a fool’s errand. I mean, it’s easy to watch two men mud-wrestling from afar with the hopes that none of the mud lands me as a spectator. But there are some fights so nasty that the mud is unavoidable. And if you are one to pray for rain, you certainly have to deal with the mud. That’s somewhat how I feel reading the responses to Kevin DeYoung’s article that raised concerns over the “Moscow Mood.” As a whole, I thought DeYoung’s article addressed some very fair concerns about the trajectory of what is clearly a movement that should concern Christians in terms of mission and witness. Yet, the responses indicate, as I suspected, that the issues plaguing Christians over the end of Christendom are far beyond that of a mood.
I’m not convinced you can take on Doug Wilson over style alone. As one friend said, that’s like teeing up your head and Wilson likes to swing with bats. Jared Longshore likes the metaphor since he expressed that DeYoung certainly teed this up for Wilson, but he just didn’t mention the bat. Yet, to engage Wilson over style is a losing battle—every time. Many will silently read a piece like DeYoung’s and say, “just another critique of ‘Moscow man bad’ over tone.” There is much more to the issue, of course—things to which DeYoung alluded—but to make any progress in helping people see clearly through the issues, theological substance has to drive the critique.
But the present confusion of Christ and culture is complex, and we American Christians do not like complexity. There is a sense that something must be done to curb the flood of iniquity coming upon us. It’s a tough pill to swallow in accepting that what happens in the culture is the will of God, especially as he executes his righteous judgments. But exactly what our calling should be in a moment like ours dominates the minds of Christians in the West. Wilson has taken the reins and is offering a vision forward that few seem to have. Yes, it’s all about vision. And I agree, other current eschatologies are not resonating with people at the moment in terms of vision. No matter how many different reasons Wilson may present as to why people are flocking to Moscow, what undergirds it all is an eschatology that gives people a sense of doing something to stop the avalanche of our culture. And therein lies the heart of the issue.
Wilson’s vision stands somewhat alone in its robust, Billy Sunday, strong-man approach, while many quarters of the church are caught up in the pathetic woke ideals that have invited much of this reaction to begin with. Who can forget Mark Driscoll convincing us that he was a tough guy from the other side of the tracks in his constant take down of effeminate men? It worked, certainly–for a while. And let me say that unequivocally, I agree that wokeism is a neo-orthodoxy that also is crippling the church’s witness. I’m only going to assert here that the approach under consideration is not the solution.
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