Biblical basis for Charismatic style worship?

I was studying Isaiah 35: 1-10 a while ago and was doing so for a sermon on Joy in Advent but titled the sermon, “Joy in Transformation.”  While studying this passage, I focused in on the occurances of gladness, joy, shout for joy in the passage and found out some really interesting stuff about how the Hebrew Bible uses at least three different words for joy, shout for joy or glad/gladness.    I’ll share some of my exegetical notes and then make some comments:

Exegetical Notes:

There are several Hebrew words in this passage for joy – they are synonyms yet they have slightly different nuances (though of course some overlap).

Joy is characteristic of the life of faith.  It marks both the life of the community of faith and the life of the individual believer.  Joy is a quality and not simply an emotion.  Above all God is both the object and giver of our joy!

The first word is gil (גיל), which refers especially to joy before God and is associated with rejoicing.  It has to do with a person’s expression of jubilation and joy because of what God has done on behalf of his people.

The next word is ranna (רנן).  It’s basic meaning is to yell.  On most occasions it describes an emotional and physical response to the presence and provision of God.  It often indicates a loud, enthusiastic, and joyful shout;  So how this word is used (because it can mean yell) is determined by the context – in this case it is the joyful, enthusiastic shout in praise to God for his redemptive provision.  Despite the root being related to yelling, there are over fifty occurrences, in the OT where it expresses happiness, joy, or relief, occurring in association with other verbs that express a similar joyful emotion.

While there may be many reasons for joyful expression, by far the predominant object of the shout of joy in all its OT occurrences is God!

God evokes shouts of joy from his people because of his acts of redemption. In our passage we see that God will rescue his people from their dispersion among the nations, and they will respond with shouts of joy especially as they see the tremendous bounty of grain, wine, and oil that God will provide for them.

In the Bible, a multitude of voices shout for joy to God. Most often the ones who shout are God’s people.  

Proverbs 29:6 tells is it is only the righteous who can shout for joy; the wicked are unable because of their sin.

In Isaiah 26:19, we see it described that the dead rise out of their dusty graves to “shout for joy” before the Lord.

Job 38:7 describes the angels as shouting for joy at the sight of God creating the world.

In our passage and throughout the Psalms and Prophets, different parts of God’s inanimate creation also take part in the symphony of praise.  In our passage it is the wilderness and dry land;

In Isaiah 44:23; 49:13, the heavens give praise to God; the mountains do the same in Psalms 98:8; as well as the trees in Ps 96:12; Tabor and Hermon [89:12 (13)]; and Lady Wisdom [Prov 1:20; 8:3]).

Finally, there is samach (also simcah). It signifies a spontaneous and vocal expression of joy rather than a restrained frame of mind.  In verse 10 we see the redeemed of the Lord are overtaken by joy in being able to return to Zion and worship God!  Sometimes we need to realize it is okay to shout to God in joyful exaltation to him for his miraculous provision in our lives! And that it is okay to be happy; to be joyful!!

When samach occurs we often see the expressive nature of the word: for example in 1 Chronicles 15:16 and Ezra 3:12 it means to lift up one’s voice and make a joyful sound with music.  In Genesis 31:27, 2 Chronicles 23:18, and Psalms 137:3 there is singing.  Psalm 9 and 68 tell us to sing praise.

In such texts as Genesis 31, Deut 12; 1 Chronicles 29; in Esther and the Psalms samach often serves as part of a festive celebration that entails eating and drinking and the playing of various instruments. Other expressive activities that occur along with samach are dancing which we see in 2 Samuel 6:14-16, clapping the hands as in Isaiah 55:12 and Ezekiel 25:6, and stamping the feet.

In fact, samach serves as the polar opposite for mourning (Psalm 30:11 [12]) and gloom (Isaiah 24:11).

These words for joy also indicate a sense of future rejoicing.  Both Jeremiah and Isaiah (as in our passage) affirm that the day when Yahweh restores Israel to her land inheritance will be a day of joyful shouting and gladness.  Zechariah 8:19 draws attention to the abundant blessings awaiting Israel by making a contrast between the present days of fasting and future feast days.  In this passage, the Lord will transform the fasts that commemorate dark days in Israel’s history into joyful days of feasting.  Instead of mourning (as was the case with Israel during and following the exile), these days will be characterizes by joyfulness and festive celebration because of the redemption Yahweh will accomplish on Israel’s behalf.  In fact, in Zephaniah 3:17 God himself will rejoice over his covenant people.

There is one other word I want us to look at in this passage.  In our passage, in verse 10 we see that the redeemed of Yahweh who will return to Zion with singing will be overtaken, or overwhelmed by joy and gladness and, with the departure of sorrow and sighing, will experience uninterrupted happiness (Isaiah 35:10).  In this case, the salvation of the Lord will be so great that the people of Israel will simply be overtaken by the joy of their newfound freedom and redemption.

At the same time, this idea of overtaking could equally well be translated “they overtake gladness and joy,” in which case the meaning would be that the joy that had been previously eluding their grasp will now at last be caught and possessed.  They have longed to walk in the joy of the Lord and in his redemption they have finally obtained it!

In this season of Advent there are plenty of reasons for allowing ourselves to be overtaken by joy and gladness.

So, while I understand that in this passage in Isaiah it is in reference to the people of Israel returning to the Land after exile, and that it also hints at future rejoicing, my thought is, why would the energetic and often joyful charismatic worhsip style be inappropriate in a corporate worship setting?  

Charismatics often get accused of emotionalism and over-focusing on the experience and such.  My question is, well why not?  Is that not part of the joy of worshipping God?  Experiencing joy and the emotions that go with it seems to be not only okay in Isaiah, but even encouraged.   What is wrong with times of joyful worship in the congregation before the One who has brought us out of our own spiritual exile and slavery sin and death??!! (and that most notably through the Cross of Christ!). 

Obviously it is there is a time for this and that but I think there is a pretty solid biblical case for the appropriateness of occasions of joyous, festive, and dare I suggest “emotional” worship “experiences” (oops, there goes that dreaded “e” word again…).    

Please know I am not putting down the more quite reverent forms of worship – I like those times too and think they can equally evoke in one deep emotions of joy and greatfulness to God for his redemptive work in and through Jesus Christ.   I think there can and should be times for both joyous celebrative worship and the quiter moments – and believe it or not, in most healthy charismatic or pentecostal churches (and there are healthy ones out there, believe it or not), such as the Assemblies of God, Foursquare, even the Vineyard churches, in one worship service one can expereince a variety of styles of congregational worship – and it should be that way – I don’t think it should be all one or all the other all the time.  Healthy congregational worship will go back and forth as led by the Spirit of God. 

What say you?

shameless self promotion:

some time in the last week I hit 50,000 hits/views….   others have had multiple millions of hits but I guess I am making it along so far.     I hope to get back on track with regular posting soon enough.

consider being a “country parson”

so says Tim Keller over on his blog.  At least, that is the advice he gives young pastors and or seminarians.  He argues that being a country parson will allow the young or new pastor to learn the pastoral ministry in the general sense.  He rightly argues learning general pastoral ministry is more effectively learned in small churches rural or elsewhere than when filling a more specialized position in a large church either in suburbia or the city (which is his emphasis).   He writes:

Many young leaders perceive that the ideal first ministry position would be a position on the staff of a large church with an older, mature pastor to mentor them.  The limits of this model are several. You can’t teach a younger pastor much about things they aren’t actually doing. And in a large church they aren’t a) bearing the burden of being the main leader, b) leading a board of elders, c) fund-raising and bearing the final responsibility of having enough money to do ministry, d) and doing the gamut of counseling, shepherding, teaching, preaching.

In a smaller church as a solo pastor you and only you visit the elderly, do all the weddings and funerals, sit by the bedside of every dying parishioner, do all the marriage counseling, suspend and excommunicate, work with musicians, craft and lead worship, speak at every men’s retreat, women’s retreat, and youth retreat, write all the Bible studies and often Sunday School curriculum, train all the small group leaders, speak at the nursing home, work with your diaconate as they try to help families out of poverty, evangelize and welcome new visitors to the church, train volunteers to do some (but not all) of all of the above tasks, and deal with the once-a-month relational or financial crisis in the church.  No amount of mentoring can teach you what you learn from doing all those things.

He’s right.  I know because my wife and I pastor a small rural church and there, we cannot be specialists.  We are generalists. We do a bit of everything – and I think this is the task of the true pastor, to be a generalist and not necessarily a specialist, not that there is not a place for specialization, but I happen to think the true pastor is able to minister in just about any given situation, and if they don’t know how, they learn.

Remember, pastoral ministry is a holy vocation, a calling, not a career or another job.   If the Lord is calling you to pastor, fulfill that calling and seriously consider the smaller church.  Yeah, it doesn’t pay much if at all and yeah, you’ll have to get real job, but that is how it is.  Being a pastor is as much a spiritual gift as it is a vocation.  Last I checked, people weren’t paid in the Bible for expressing a spiritual gift to the body of Christ.  The simple fact of the matter is, the vast significant majority of churches in the US, if not the world, are on the smaller side of the small church scale (50-100 people out of the supposed 0-200/300 range).

Think about it.

Thanksgiving

Have a blessed Thanksgiving day!

faithful preaching

is the responsible, passionate, and authentic declaration of the Christ-exalting Scriptures, by the power of the Spirit, for the glory of the triune God.  

-Tony Merida, author of Faithful Preaching.  (which I am not sure why it is not sold here yet- when it should be!).

wts books of interest

I think I get a pay out finally from WTS books.  When the certificate comes I think I’ll be choosing between the following:

Seyoon Kim.  Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke (Eerdmans, 2008).

Tim Keller.  The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (Penguin Group). 

Francis Chan.  Forgotten God: Reversing our tragic neglect of the Holy Spirit (David C. Cook 2009).

Richard Bauckham.  Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World (Baker, 2004).

Dawn and Peterson.  The Unnecessary Pastor: Redisovering the Call (Eerdmans, 1999).

Os Guinness.  The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of your Life (Thomas Nelson, 2003).

Craig Keener.  The Historical Jesus of the Gospels: Jesus in Historical Context (Eerdmans, 2009).

Mark Futato.  Interpreting the Psalms: An Exgetical Handbook (Kregel, 2007).

among others…  

on heaven and hell

at one of my part-time jobs (I have three with the pastorate), someone said “the stuff here is expensive as hell.”  I immediately thought, well, I don’t think hell is that expensive.  But then I began think about it – could it be that hell is in fact expensive?  I mean think about it.  Grace is free and so few people want it or respond properly to it, in fact, many are suspicious of it, and not a few openly despise it and or reject it.  Yet, how much does it cost a person if they deny the free grace of God and opt instead for hell?  It costs them their whole lives, everything, even their very existence. 

So, while this person didn’t mean it that way, perhaps they were spot on?  What say you?

on the develoment of Paul’s theology

in the same thread I noted that was going on over at TC Robinson’s blog was a  discussion of the development of Paul’s theology, that by reading his letters chronologically we can see such a development.   It’s the question as to the origin of Paul’s gospel (where did it come from and how did it come to be?).  What is meant by this?  This means that some see a progression or a development of Paul and his theology from Galatians to Romans with Romans being the fuller more fully developed theology. 

Well, I don’t see it that way.  I personally do not think that Paul’s theology developed much if at all.  I think there is very little evidence, if any, of a development of his theology in his letters. 

To me, it’s almost a non-sequitor, in that it doesn’t necessarily follow that because Romans is the longer  more developed work as compared to Galatians (often called the “little or short Romans” (or something like that) that Paul’s theology “developed” over time.   While I can’t exaplain why Romans is longer, I don’t think it’s development or detailed nature necessarily show a more fully developed or matured Paul.   My guess is that because Romans is very much a kind of introductory letter to the church at Rome, whom Paul had not yet met or known, it makes sense he took a little more time to explain things than he did in his letter to the Galatians because he had spend time with the Galatians (even if it was early in his missionary/church planting venture). 

As I see it, Paul was a quite well educated Pharisee and was quite well developed theologically.  It was just that he was a Jew and really seemed to have a serious problem with the notion of Jesus being the Messiah, as did many other Jews at the time.  However, it seemed he was thinking about it, processing it, wondering how could it be, especially after seeing how Stephen responded to his martyrdom.  So as he was raging and tromping his way to Damascus to arrest and kill more Christians, he has a supernatural encoutner with the risen Jesus…

I am of the opinion that, at that very moment, the moment he realized Jesus of Nazaeth was/is the Messiah, everything clicked together, all the questions, all the concerns, all the wondering if it could possibly be true, everything, all at once, made sense, and at that moment, Paul had his theology, his gospel.  Perhapas over the next three days while he was blind, fasting and praying, he processed it all, he put it all together, then repented and was batpized!

So I also don’t think he went off to Arabia to “study the Bible” and develop his theology.  Instead, he was off preaching the gospel, he knew almost immediately he was to be an apostle to the Gentiles and he started in Arabia, until he was forced to leave due to some changes in Roman leaderhsip there.  He fled to Jerusalem, met with the pillars of the church, confirmed his call as Apostle to the Gentiles and went from there. 

That’s my take.

on preaching through Paul’s letters

Over on TC’s blog – they are discussing Viola’s book Pagan Christianity and the recent post discuses the order of Paul’s letters and the chronological order of the NT Church.  The author suggests that many of the supposed theological distortions in the present day church are based on a misarrangement of Paul’s letters as they are presently in the NT Canon.  They argue that reading Paul and the NT church chronologically will aid in promoting healthier theology in the church.

I do not necessarily agree with this but it does make me wonder how it would work to preach through Paul’s letters chronologically rather than canononically? would this just be another way of growing and developing a congregation theologically and historically?  or no?

What say you?  You can see TC’s blog post for the ordering of Paul’s letters according to Viola and Barna.

Thessalonian Correspondance

I think I might preach through the Thessalonian Correspondence after I am done going through Philippians.  (Don’t worry I preach through the OT too.  We have two services (am and pm) and so I often preach a through a psalm in the night service and there are 150 of them so it will take a while!).  So when I do get ready to start Thessalonians I will probably use these resources:

Gordon Fee.  First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (NICNT).  Eerdmans, 2009. (Even though there is one particularly strong critique of this commentary on amazon).

or

Gene L. Green.  The Letters to the Tessalonians (PNTC), Eerdmans, 2002).

Ben Witherington. 1 and 2 Thessalonians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary.  Eerdmans, 2006).

John Stott.  The Message of 1&2 Thessalonians.  IVP, 1994.  Stott is one of my favorites and would help with gleening pastoral insights.

G.K. Beale.  1&2 Thessalonians.  IVP, 2003.

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any others you’d suggest?