The Apostles desired that we would apprehend the truths of our faith together. They intended that the process of sanctification would be corporate. Through singing, we begin to enact this responsibility. Every verse is an articulation of truth, mediated through our fellowship with one another. Our choruses unite, and this is why we sing.  

However the history books record our age, there is one theme upon which every volume will agree. Without need for qualification or debate, each analyst will affirm: the present era signals the advent of individualism. Aided by a mirky river of other trends—consumerism, utilitarianism, moral relativism—the priority of the individual is a fact of our time, one which only the most myopic millennial would dare to deny. The injurious effects of such thinking are also a point of common agreement. Social commentators of every ideological persuasion readily note the need for corporate cohesion. We humans do better together. We must fight to reestablish an identity, around which we can congregate, so as to flourish.   
Notwithstanding a plethora of noble institutions, each playing their part to combat the juggernaut of individualism, the Christian’s primary point of community must be the church. For every believer, the present age of social dysfunction should serve as an emphatic exhortation toward membership, fellowship, accountability, and service in the local congregation. 
Beyond this initial observation, there are questions that might be asked. For the pastor, how should his philosophy of ministry adapt to account for the problems of the time? How could he orient the ministry rhythms of the church, to forge a defense against the tide of individualism? Moreover, how might he lead in offense, so as to render mute the plague of this era, and champion the cause of koinonia? My suggestion is simple—indeed, so basic that its inherent worth is often overlooked. Pertaining to the Lord’s Day, and the liturgical practices of each church, Christians must sing. With unprecedent vigor, every congregation should be led in song, lifting their voices in unison, so as to rehearse the doctrines of our faith.  
That singing would manifest a powerful assault to the enthronement of the individual is perhaps not self-evident. Every Sunday we sing hymns, because…that’s what we do. Christians have always sung. It’s right to worship God through music. Therefore, this Lord’s Day, let’s make music again. If we have never probed the conceptual premise of pairing voice and melody, its inherent worth may not be clear.
Aesthetics
First, regarding aesthetics, consider the relationship between truth, and beauty. As the history of philosophical thought has consistently affirmed, these transcendental qualities do not stray far from one another. Indeed, Keats contended for a conceptual unity when he wrote: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”1 In all spheres of life, these two qualities go hand-in-hand.  
No meaningless abstraction, this relationship has practical implications, informing our behavior on a daily basis. As a general rule: when we perceive verity, we ascribe glory. And when we behold beauty, we apprehend truth. This is why, for example, we know better than to enter a court of law, wearing pajamas. Because the environment is one wherein truth is pursued, decorum and dignity are commended. Intuitively, we leave our flip-flops at home. Similarly, as we take in the majesty of the Alps, flippant comments are prohibited. The apprehension of great things commends the articulation of truth, and if not, then silence. Without being instructed, we understand what nature of speech is required.   
Consider now the act of singing on a Sunday morning. Certainly, it is possible to congregate and rehearse truths without melody. Indeed, corporate confessions have been part of the church’s liturgy for centuries. But they have never supplanted the singing of hymns. There is something intuitive about worship through music. The proclamation of truth in accordance with a melody is as natural to the Christian, as eating, sleeping, and breathing are to a new-born child. The reason for these issues is from the transcendental dynamic between truth and beauty. As the regenerate heart articulates divine indicatives, the irrepressible reflex is to ascribe to them value. The church seeks a tune. By appending a melody, Christians ordain the truth with beauty.  
For this reason, it would seem strange for the pastor to suggest, “let us stand, and speak these words together…Amazing grace, how can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?” He knows better than to quash the impulse of our souls. The appropriate response is to ordain such truth with beauty. These words must be sung.  
Read More
Related Posts:

The truth is, we were created to worship. We were born to worship. We are all religious beings because we all seek to worship. Writes Tripp: “In this way every human being is religious, because we all are made in God’s image and wired with Godward capacities, and we will either give ourselves in worship to God or we will worship something that God has made. Every human being is searching for God, though most don’t know it.”

One of the core doctrines of biblical faith is that of our creation in the image and likeness of God. This is such a vital core belief and one that distinguishes our faith from most other religions. It has ramifications for why we are here, how we live, how we treat others, and how we relate to our Creator.
Paul Tripp’s very helpful recent book Do You Believe? (Crossway, 2021) examines 12 key biblical doctrines. I have already written articles looking at some of them, and this is now my fourth in this informal series. As with the other doctrines, Tripp offers two chapters on each: one doctrinal and one application.
Early on in the first of his two chapters on this key biblical doctrine, he says this:
“Like God” is an amazing thing to declare. “Made in his image” is a profound announcement. But these are the things God immediately declares upon creating Adam and Eve. In those words he is defining their identity and the utter uniqueness of their relationship to him. Adam and Eve are not just part of the catalog of creatures that God made. They are above, they are special, and they are christened with a dignity that separates them from everything else. We must not ever forget this foundational definition of who human beings are. With these words God names the intrinsic worth of people. This worth is never earned and cannot be taken away. To be human is to have dignity and worth because you carry the image of God himself. 230-231
He reminds us that none of this has to do with our choices, accomplishments, successes, or actions. We have overwhelming value simply because of the fact that we are made in God’s image. He spends time looking at the usual list of things this entails, such as being relational creatures and moral creatures.
But we are also worshipping creatures, and what he says about this is worth spending a bit of time on. The truth is, we were created to worship. We were born to worship. We are all religious beings because we all seek to worship. Writes Tripp:
In this way every human being is religious, because we all are made in God’s image and wired with Godward capacities, and we will either give ourselves in worship to God or we will worship something that God has made. Every human being is searching for God, though most don’t know it. Much of human disappointment, despondency, anger and hopelessness exist because we ask something to do for us what only God can do. Because we are spiritual beings, we name things as ‘god’ that are not God. Because we are worshippers, we will always hook our hopes and dreams to something. Wired with imaginations, we envision what life will be like, calculating if this “god” will come through for us….
Detached from God, our spirituality drives us into various forms of functional insanity. Careening from god to god and from disappointment to disappointment, we attach ourselves to yet another created thing and hope once again it will do for us what it can never do. We put godlike expectations on one another, and we break under the burden. We keep hoping creation will do what it simply has no capacity to do for us, and that it will offer what God alone can. 237-238
All of the abilities we have as humans – the ability to think, feel, communicate, etc – are orientated toward the worship of God. But sin destroys and distorts all this. Tripp continues:
Divorced from God, these capacities can go dark and become dangerous. Sadly, in our sin, we often use these abilities to manipulate, seduce, and oppress others.  238
Read More
Related Posts:

We live in a perilous age and false teachers will come into our midst. They will seek to steal your souls (after emptying your wallets). Do you know how to spot them? Can you contend against them? If not, its time to get started. In the words of Jude, brother of James and Jesus, “Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”

When, Not If, the False Teachers Come
One of the greatest threats to the Christian church occurs when its own pastors and teachers deny the very gospel which they’ve been entrusted to proclaim. In the Epistle of Jude, we witness a church which has been secretly infiltrated by self-appointed spokesmen for God, who were advocating the false teaching that because we are saved by God’s grace, we are no longer bound to follow the commandments of God. This is classic antinomianism.
These false teachers claimed to be followers of Jesus, while at the same time were themselves engaging in all kinds of sexual immorality closely tied to the paganism of the age. By indulging in sins of the flesh under the guise of God’s grace, Jude says these teachers were denying the gospel of Jesus Christ. Having become aware that this was going on in the churches, Jude writes a short but very powerful exhortation to Christian faithful in these churches to oppose these false teachers with everything in them, and to earnestly “contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.”
About the Author—Jude
The Epistle of Jude is such an interesting and important book because of the fact that Jude is the brother of James and Jesus. Based upon the list of Jesus’ brothers in Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55, Jude is probably James’ younger brother. It falls to Jude to give us one of the most often-quoted but least practiced exhortations of the New Testament: “Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” In a perilous age such as ours, when far too many Christians are ignorant of the most basic of Christian doctrines, and all too prone to compromising with the paganism around us, we need to let Jude’s exhortation to contend for the faith to ring in our ears.
Although the author of this book is the brother of James–who wrote his epistle in the mid-forties of the first century, and prior to the Jerusalem Council–many argue that Jude was written as much as twenty years after the Epistle of James. This would give us a date of composition somewhere in the mid-sixties, although I think a good case can be made for a much earlier date (the early 50’s). Although the date of this epistle is somewhat up in the air, it is very clear that Jude is writing under a completely different set of circumstances than those facing his brother James. For Jude, the issue which prompts the writing of this epistle is that Christians are under the assault of deceptive false teachers. Believers in Jude’s audience need to wake up and resist this group of false teachers who had secretly infiltrated their churches. At the same time they are doing that, Jude’s readers need to make every effort to build themselves up in the most holy faith–one of the surest and best ways to prevent false teachers from destroying the churches.
The Importance of This Short Epistle
Jude is writing in opposition to a group of schwarmerai (charismatics), men, who under the pretense of receiving new revelations from God, were defiling their flesh (a reference to sexual immorality) and speaking blasphemously about matters they claimed to understand but knew nothing about. It is clear from Jude’s comments that his concern is with teachers already in the churches, men whose conduct in many ways mirrors the false teaching plaguing the church in Corinth (2 Corinthians 10-12), as well as two of the churches mentioned in Revelation (Thyatira and Pergamum) who, according to the Apostle John, were facing a similar kind of false teaching associated with a certain “Jezebel.”[1] Based upon some of specific comments made by Jude, a good case can be made that the congregation(s) to which Jude is writing were steeped in Jewish mysticism, and end-times speculation (Jewish apocalypticism). It may be the case that the false teachers were able to appeal to the congregation’s interest in mysticism and end-times as a cover so as to make rapid progress in infiltrating the churches.
Jude opens his brief letter (vv.1-4) with a greeting, and a strong word of warning about the deceptive methods used by these false teachers. Jude also includes a word of explanation about the nature of their error–using the grace of God as a pretext for immoral behavior–as well as reminding his readers of the certainty of God’s judgment upon those who distort the truth for their sinful purposes. In verses 5-16, Jude sets out what amounts to a sermon of sorts on the course of redemptive history, in which Jude makes his case that God has his own ways of dealing with false teachers, and that they will inevitably bring themselves under God’s judgment. Jude appeals to past events in which God’s judgment falls upon the disobedient, before appealing to these events as examples of what will befall the false teachers currently plaguing the churches. Jude calls upon his reader/hearer to learn from God’s dealing with his people in the past as a way to resist the false teachers then present in the churches. In verses 17-23, we come to the heart of the epistle where Jude exhorts his reader to remember that the apostles had predicted the very situation that the churches were now facing. In light of this, it was their duty to build themselves up in the “most holy faith” until Christ returns. And then in the final verses of the epistle (vv. 24-25), Jude closes with one of the most moving doxologies in all the New Testament.
The Connection Between Jude and 2 Peter
Anyone who knows the New Testament knows that the Epistle of Jude is very similar to 2 Peter chapter 2. In fact, the parallels between Jude and 2 Peter are quite remarkable. This has led a number of critical scholars to conclude that an anonymous author copied 2 Peter chapter 2, edited it, and then circulated it as a letter from Jude, the brother of James and Jesus. Others contend the opposite–someone writing in the name of Peter took the material now found in 2 Peter chapter 2 from the epistle of Jude, and then passed it off as the work of the Apostle Peter. But there is nothing in the orthodox view of inspiration which would prevent Peter from incorporating a portion of the Epistle of Jude in his own letter (our 2 Peter). It is likely the case that Peter simply borrowed this material from Jude. Either that is the case, or whoever wrote 2 Peter was lying when he claimed to an eyewitness to many of the events in the life of Jesus (i.e., the transfiguration). The author identifies himself as “Jude” the brother of James and of Jesus–something which, if not true, would have brought howls of protest from anyone reading this letter who knew that not to be the case.[2] If someone were going to forge a letter like this, why do so in the name of Jude, who, apart from this letter, few in the early church even mention?
It is also important to point out that there was never any challenge to the authenticity of this letter in the early church. Some of the earliest letters of the church fathers allude to it–Clement of Rome, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Didache. Jude is cited directly by Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. So, there is evidence of wide-spread acceptance of Jude (from all parts of the Roman world) and no one seems to have objected to this letter. From the earliest days, the church accepted it as coming from Jude, brother of James and Jesus.[3] Most of the arguments raised by critical scholars against the authenticity of this epistle fall into the category of pure speculation arising from an anti-supernatural bias.
The Date
There is no question that the author is a Jew. Although he uses fourteen words unique to the New Testament (found nowhere else), in his discussion of redemptive history Jude follows the Hebrew Old Testament (not the LXX). Furthermore, he cites from two apocryphal Jewish writings (the Assumption of Moses and the Book of Enoch), which indicates that those to whom he is writing were probably influenced by Jewish apocalyptic (end-times speculation). Jude appeals to their interest in end-times, but reminds them that they must understand these things in light of the coming of Jesus.
As for the date of this epistle, one important key is found in verses 17-18, when Jude says, “But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, `In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.’” If Jude’s audience includes people who personally heard the teaching of the various apostles, then this letter must have been written when such people were still alive. This pushes us toward an earlier date, especially if Peter (or his secretary) did indeed consult this epistle when crafting his second letter. Furthermore, there is also some evidence within the letter that Jude was personally familiar with his readers. In verse 3, Jude uses an intimate personal address–“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” That Jude calls his readers “beloved” (i.e. “dear friends”) and then addresses them in a personal way (“you”), seems to support the notion that although the epistle does not identify its intended audience, Jude knew many of those to whom he is writing.
The Opening Verses of Jude
With the historical background in mind, we turn to the first four verses of the Epistle of Jude. In the opening two verses of the epistle we learn the name of the author, but not much about his intended destination. “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.” Jude identifies himself as the brother of James, and as a servant of Christ–a very common title in the New Testament which is used by Paul, Peter, James, and now Jude. It is important for us to notice that like his brother James, Jude does not appeal to the fact that Jesus is his brother.
Read More
Related Posts: