The teaching takes place not only by hearing the message that people around us sing, but by singing the message ourselves. This benefit is confirmed by modern observations about how people learn. People learn more effectively and more deeply if they not only hear, but try to re-express what they learn. Getting one’s voice involved deepens one’s participation. Singing engages our emotions, and may help to make the message more memorable. People remember songs that they have sung repeatedly, and embrace them more deeply. Their active participation reinforces their memory.

For decades now, Christian congregations have had to deal with differences in musical styles in Christian worship. Some prefer “contemporary music.” Others prefer “traditional music.” The differences become a source of contention. Sadly, we now have the term “worship wars,” as a label to describe the extent to which music in worship has become a battleground.
We should not want more wars, especially within the bounds of the church. Therefore, a discussion of music and singing in the church must begin by recalling Christ’s command: Christians should love one another as Christ has loved us (John 15:12 ESV; see 13:34; 1 John 4:19). Loving one another is a central principle in the life of the people of God. We need not only to teach the principle, but to practice it. Any disagreement or tension in the body of Christ should be seen as an occasion to practice Christian love.
My purpose here is not to talk about Christian love, important as that is. My focus is rather on one specific element: congregational singing. I wish not to create tension, but to ask both pastors and musicians, both leaders and followers in the Christian faith, to approach the issue of congregational singing with wisdom and with balance. For the sake of the health of the church, we want congregational singing to contribute to that health.
How do we best do that? In this four-part series, I briefly set forth my own thoughts. Even if other brothers and sisters may not agree, I hope this may help lead the conversation in a positive direction.
As we have observed, one prime factor is love, and with love, patience. We should bear with other people in the congregation, and bear with decisions about singing with which we disagree. But now what else should go into the decision-making and practice of a Christian congregation?
Mind the Goal
What should be the long-range goal in congregational singing? Everything that we do in Christian worship and in all of life, we should do for sake of honoring God, that is, for sake of promoting the glory of God: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). The glory of God is primary and essential.
In addition, the Bible indicates that church meetings should have the aim of building up the church: “Let all things [that take place when the people assemble] be done for building up” (1 Cor. 14:26). The goal is that the people should grow in spiritual maturity, not only individually but as a body, as a community. Nearly the whole of 1 Cor. 14 is about the importance of building up the church, and how this goal regulates and guides the details of what happens during a congregational assembly. Likewise Eph. 4:1-16 has a focus on building up the church. According to Eph. 4, the goal is “the stature of the fullness of Christ” (verse 13). We are “to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (verse 15).
We have two goals before us: the glory of God and the building up of the church. These two goals are not two diverse goals that pull in opposite directions. Rather, each implies the other. Building up the church takes place properly only when we are serving God and seeking to please him. So we need to seek the glory of God in Christian worship.
We can also reason the other way, starting with the glory of God. Seeking God’s glory includes seeking to honor his commandment to love one another. This means we cannot seek God’s glory properly without attending to the goal of building up the church. Seeking the glory of God and seeking to build up the church are two sides of the same coin. The two aspects, oriented toward God and toward fellow Christians, are intended by God to work together harmoniously.
How do we build up the church? Much is involved. We need the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in us and among us.
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The good news of the gospel is that the Lord Jesus was both fully human and fully God. In this way, he was able to fully represent humanity’s interests before God, and perfectly fulfill holy justice before God. In being both fully human and fully divine, the Lord Jesus was the only and perfect mediator to open up the way of peace between God and humanity.  

Easter is around the corner and for many of us, it is a time of the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. This is the time of year that we are reminded of Christ’s humanity, but also his divinity. Jesus Christ is not only a man, but he is also God. We can see proof of Jesus being Man and God throughout scripture. Today we are going to look at Jesus Christ as God, from the writings of Paul the Apostle in Galatians.
Writings of Paul in Galatians
From the writer of Galatian’s understanding (Paul the Apostle) Jesus Christ is not only a man, but is someone and something more than just a man. It doesn’t take long, just a few verses in Galatians to see how Paul understood and believed that Christ Jesus was divinely God.
In Galatians 1:1, at the very beginning of the letter Paul writes “Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father“.
In this very opening phrase, the church in Galatia was shown who was sending them this letter. This letter was from Paul, but who sent Paul? The authority of the letter was not just the authority of Paul. Paul writes that he has been sent. Who sent him? According to Paul, Jesus Christ, and God the Father. We might mistakenly think this is a division between the man Jesus and the God of Paul. But Paul lumps both Jesus Christ and God the Father together.
Why is This Compelling in Understanding Who Jesus Christ is?
Paul underscores that he has not been sent “from men nor by a man”. If Jesus Christ was only human, then this statement makes no sense and the sentence Paul writes is gravely confusing. But rather than being confusing, this introductory statement is clarifying. Paul leaves ZERO doubt for the Galatians he was writing to. Paul was on an errand of God. Who is that God according to Paul in verse 1? God is the Father and Jesus Christ. Paul has made a claim from the very get-go of the book of Galatians about the divinity of Jesus Christ.
At this point, some might say “Well….that’s just your understanding of one verse Jacob”
Alright, let’s keep reading Galatians past the introductory sentence. Let’s pick up again only a few words after verse 1, in verse 3:
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Galatians 1:3-5)
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The beauty of Psalm 23 is that it is so simple and clear that it almost needs no interpretation or exposition. It is short, easily memorized, and it has poetic images and a lyrical tilt which has lodged this song in the collective consciousness of every believer through the ages. But when you unload the metaphor of the Lord as our shepherd within the psalm, then the riches of all its verses shine all the brighter.

This article is part of the What Does It Mean? series.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.—Psalm 23:1
God as Shepherd
If you had a blank canvas to sketch a single picture of Israel’s exodus from slavery, what would you draw? The picture in your mind’s eye is possibly not the one the Bible depicts.
Psalm 77 portrays God’s redemption of his people from Egypt in this way:
Your way was through the sea,your path through the great waters;yet your footprints were unseen.You led your people like a flockby the hand of Moses and Aaron. —Ps. 77:19–2
Observe the imagery in Psalm 78 as well:
He struck down every firstborn in Egypt,The firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.Then he led out his people like sheepand guided them in the wilderness like a flock.He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid,but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.—Ps 78:51–53
So when the Bible puts the exodus, the great event of Israel’s redemption, on Instagram what do we see? A divine shepherd leading his flock of under-shepherds and sheep through terrible danger to complete safety. God is a shepherd.
What kind of shepherd is he?
All-Powerful God
God’s rescue of his people in the book of Exodus is preceded by his revelation of his name to Moses at the burning bush. “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’ And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you’” (Ex. 3:14). This unusual rendering of the Hebrew verb “to be” points to “One who remains constant because he is independent.”1 God is who he is without us. He is who is from before we were until after we have been. God’s existence is from himself and for himself, and there is nothing about him derived from anyone or anything else. He is absolutely self-sufficient self-existence.
This is illustrated by the burning bush where Moses encounters God. As Sinclair Ferguson says, “The fire that was in the bush was not dependent on the bush for its energy to burn. It was a most pure fire, a fire that was nothing but fire, a fire that was not a compound of other energy sources but had its energy source in itself.”2There is such wonderful beauty here that it is worth just lingering over this. Consider these words of Alexander Maclaren:
The fire that burns and does not burn out, which has no tendency to destruction in its very energy, and is not consumed by its own activity, is surely a symbol of the One Being, whose being derives its law and its source from itself, who can only say—“I am that I am” —the law of his nature, the foundation of his being, the only conditions of his existence being, as it were, enclosed within the limits of his own nature. You and I have to say, “I am that which I have become,” or “I am that which I was born,” or “I am that which circumstances have made me.” He said, “I am that I am.” All other creatures are links; this is the staple from which they all hang. All other being is derived, and therefore limited and changeful; this being is underived, absolute, self-dependent, and therefore unalterable forevermore. Because we live, we die. In living, the process is going on of which death is the end. But God lives forevermore. A flame that does not burn out; therefore his resources are inexhaustible, his power unwearied. He needs no rest for the recuperation of wasted energy. His gifts diminish not the store which he has to bestow. He gives and is none the poorer. He works and is never weary. He operates unspent; he loves and he loves forever. And through the ages, the fire burns on, unconsumed and undecayed.3
Doesn’t this help us see how incredible it is that the Lord should be our shepherd? I believe the point of this revelation of who God is to Moses was precisely to assure him that the impossible was about to happen for God’s people in Egypt, because the infinite, eternal God had come to lead them home. It is because of who God is that the exodus happens at all and why it succeeds. He is the all-powerful One.
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