Bob Kauflin

JESUS! In Word and Song

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This week starts posts from a song book. The front pages will be posted in this blog today and Wednesday and the song posts will start Friday. (See BOOK in the main menu bar for more information.)

PREFACE

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Col 3:16 ESV).  

As with culture, present day Christian music continues to fluctuate. “In the lyrics of the songs we can detect a shift from an emphasis upon teaching doctrine.”1

[T]hough much of our truly wonderful contemporary music celebrates the greatness of God and His power to deliver us from brokenness, to ease our sorrows, and to drive away our fears there is little focus on the cause of our brokenness, sorrows, and fears—our sin.2

For more than a hundred years we’ve favored emotional, responsive-type songs over songs that magnify the nature, attributes, and works of God. We tend to favor devotion over doctrine. That order needs to be reversed, without losing either. We need more songs that help us think deeply about God and help us respond with wholehearted emotion.3  

“[W]hen we don’t major on objective truth, our songs can quickly drift into emotionalism and self-absorption.”4 “[B]eing moved emotionally is different from being changed spiritually.”5 “[T]here is no authentic worship of God without a right knowledge of God.”6

Singing God’s Word can include more than reciting specific verses in song. If the Word of Christ is going to ‘dwell in [us] richly’ we need songs that explain, clarify, and expound on what God’s Word says. We need songs that have substantive, theologically rich, biblically faithful lyrics.7

This 2-volume book is a recounting of the historical facts spanning the time period GOD revealed His final word to mankind through His Son. With less scriptural emphasis in our churches now days, JESUS! In Word and Song is a resource to present Christian doctrine and highlight those facts in song.

“Corporate worship [should have] a teaching function through the lyrics of its songs.”8 “God wants our worship to be intelligent and informed. He wants to stretch our minds to the limits as we consider the greatness of his being and the wonder of his works.”9 “True worship is always a response to God’s Word.10

GOD’s Word is never changing. The truth in these songs is never changing. In this changing and more and more changing world GOD has to stay the hearts of His people. It’s all up to GOD, but these songs and written pages are one method He has opportunity to use to keep His never changing Word in our hearts.

“Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD” (Psalm 102:18 ESV).

ENDNOTES

Preface

            1. Peter Dilley, “Pete Ward – Selling Worship,” 13 February 2008, Cross Rhythms, 26 January 2021 https://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/products/Pete_Ward/Selling_Worship/20168/.

            2. Doug Newton, Just Ask, Vol 2 (Greenville, IL: Mary’s Place Publishing, 2015) 127.

            3. Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008) 168.

            4. Kauflin, 101.

            5. Kauflin, 30.

            6. Kauflin, 28.

            7. Kauflin, 92.

            8. ESV Study Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001, ESV Text Edition: 2011) 2299.

9. Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008) 166.

            10. Kauflin, 91.

JESUS! In Word and Song

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I have written a book.

Today’s popular Christian songs favor lyrics that are “me” centered and music that stirs the emotions instead of magnifying the Triune GOD. This book changes that.

Vol. 1 addresses the history of JESUS’ time on earth. The subjects of the songs follow the Church Calendar spanning the anticipation of His birth (Advent) until Pentecost.

Vol. 2 contains songs that emerged with the study of JESUS’ heavenly life described by the Apostles’ writings in the Epistles. It spans the time of His Ascension up to the start of Advent. The song lyrics accentuate the Biblical facts found in the page of prose before each song and also follow the Church Calendar.

With less scriptural emphasis in our churches now days, JESUS! In Word and Song is a resource to teach essential Christian doctrine and highlight those facts in song. The book contains 53 songs and 53 pages of information. Target audience is church and worship leaders, Sunday school and Bible study leaders, and anyone who desires a devotional containing music.

See “BOOK” in the main menu bar above for more facts, downloads, and ordering information.

JESUS! In Word and Song

Posted by

0

I have written a book.

Today’s popular Christian songs favor lyrics that are “me” centered and music that stirs the emotions instead of magnifying the Triune GOD. This book changes that.

Vol. 1 addresses the history of JESUS’ time on earth. The subjects of the songs follow the Church Calendar spanning the anticipation of His birth (Advent) until Pentecost.

Vol. 2 contains songs that emerged with the study of JESUS’ heavenly life described by the Apostles’ writings in the Epistles. It spans the time of His Ascension up to the start of Advent. The song lyrics accentuate the Biblical facts found in the page of prose before each song and also follow the Church Calendar.

With less scriptural emphasis in our churches now days, JESUS! In Word and Song is a resource to teach essential Christian doctrine and highlight those facts in song. The book contains 53 songs and 53 pages of information. Target audience is church and worship leaders, Sunday school and Bible study leaders, and anyone who desires a devotional containing music.

See “BOOK” in the main menu bar above for more facts, downloads, and ordering information.

JESUS! In Word and Song

Posted by

0

I have written a book.

Today’s popular Christian songs favor lyrics that are “me” centered and music that stirs the emotions instead of magnifying the Triune GOD. This book changes that.

Vol. 1 addresses the history of JESUS’ time on earth. The subjects of the songs follow the Church Calendar spanning the anticipation of His birth (Advent) until Pentecost.

Vol. 2 contains songs that emerged with the study of JESUS’ heavenly life described by the Apostles’ writings of the New Testament Epistles. It spans the time of His Ascension up to the start of Advent. The song lyrics accentuate the Biblical facts found in the page of prose before each song.

With less scriptural emphasis in our churches now days, JESUS! In Word and Song is a resource to teach essential Christian doctrine and highlight those facts in song. The book contains 53 songs and 53 pages of information. Target audience is church and worship leaders, Sunday school and Bible study leaders, and anyone who reads music.

See “BOOK” in the main menu bar above for more facts, downloads, and ordering information.

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HOW GOD BRINGS ABOUT HIS PURPOSE IN AFFLICTION

[T]he whole soul, ensnared by the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on the earth. To meet this disease, the Lord makes his people sensible of the vanity of the present life, by a constant proof of its miseries” John Calvin (ref#113, p465)

“He delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity” (Job 36:15 ESV).

“[O]ur suffering is never purposeless, blind, unfair, or random. [I]n the midst of adversity he is working out his gracious plans for us (2 Cor 4:17-18). [T]he Savior is the only innocent one to ever suffer” Bob Kauflin (ref#199, p132).

“When difficulty exposes the weakness of your resolve and the limits of your strength, you do not have to panic, because he will endure even in those moments when you don’t feel able to do so yourself” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Jan 12th).

“[God’s children] were kept walking humbly with [Him], and this was the secret of their safety. God can bring His servant from the loftiest height to the lowest depth of adversity, yet love him still with an unchanged and deathless affection” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Nov 14th).

“In your distress you called and [God] rescued you, [He] answered you” (Ps 81:7 NIV).

If I don’t buffet my body GOD will do it for me through His discipline.

“Bright is the oasis that blooms in the wilderness of sand. When the Israelites provoked the Most High by their continued idolatry, He punished them by withholding both dew and rain, so that their land was visited by a sore famine. But while He did this, He took care that His own chosen ones would be secure. If all other brooks are dry, yet will there be one reserved for Elijah; and when that fails, God will still preserve for him a place of sustenance; No, not only for one, because the Lord did not have simply one ‘Elijah,’ but He had a remnant according to the election of grace, who were hidden by fifties in a cave; and though the whole land was subject to famine, yet these fifties in the cave were fed, and fed from Ahab’s table, too, by His faithful, God-fearing steward, Obadiah. Let us from this draw the inference: come what may, God’s people are safe” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, July 6th AM).

“Great tempest, great calm; God proportions the comfort to the affliction” Pasquier Quesnel (ref#333, p225).

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GOD’S PURPOSE IN AFFLICTION

“God loves to show off his greatness by being an inexhaustible source of strength to build weak people up. His exuberance in delighting in the welfare of his servant is the measure of the immensity of his resources” John Piper (ref#220, p186).

“[A]ll afflictions are God’s rod, and therefore there is no remedy for them other than God’s grace” John Calvin (ref#164, March 17th).

“If God intended for all the days of your life to be easy, they would be. No, in grace, he intends for your days to be his tools of refinement” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, April 22nd).

“Our sins have been forgiven. We’ve been bought by the blood of the Savior. We’ve become part of God’s family, destined to become like Christ. God is now using our trials to accomplish his good and redemptive purposes in us (Romans 8:28-29)” Bob Kauflin (ref#199, p131).

“In the upbuilding of His work the Lord does not always make everything plain before His servants. He sometimes tries the confidence of His people by bringing about circumstances which compel them to move forward in faith. Often He brings them into strait and trying places, and bids them advance. It is at such times, when the prayers of His servants ascend to Him in earnest faith, that God opens the way before them and brings them out into a large place” Ellen G. White (ref#331, p357).

“Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do” (Jer 9:7 ESV).

“[H]e will purge them of their sin” ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p1391).

“He that suffers for righteousness’ sake suffers by the order and design of God. It is not what enemies will, but what God wills, and what God appoints, that shall be done” John Bunyan (ref#225, Oct 17th).

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GOD’S GRACE

“God’s grace forgives! God’s grace redeems! God’s grace restores” Bob Kauflin (ref#199, p134).

“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isa 57:15 ESV).

“Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry, I struck him; I hid my face and was angry, but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,’ says the LORD, and I will heal him” (Isa 57:17-19 ESV).

“He hates your sins, and He will follow your wanderings with His chastising rod; but He loves you, beholding you in the Beloved, fully and freely accepted in the glorious righteousness of Jesus” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Aug 19th).

“Whenever God punishes the sins of true believers, he does so with wholesome moderation. God has nothing else in view than to correct the vices of his children so that, having thoroughly purged them of sin, he may restore them anew to his favor and friendship” John Calvin (ref#164, Mar 5th).

“Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift” (2 Cor 9:15 ESV)!

“He who can go to Gethsemane and Calvary and come away with slight views of the evil nature of sin must be blind indeed” William S. Plumer (ref#358, p4).

REDEMPTION

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REDEMPTION

“…the Bible is the story of a hero Redeemer who transforms weak and ordinary people by his powerful grace” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Aug 29th).

“God’s ultimate purpose in redemptive history is to create a people to dwell in his presence, glorifying him through numerous varied activities, and enjoying him forever.  The story begins with God in eternal glory and it ends with God and his people in eternal glory.  At the center stands the cross, where God revealed his glory through his Son.

The biblical story of redemption must be understood within the large story of creation.  First Adam, and later Israel, was placed in God’s sanctuary (the garden and the Promised Land, respectively), but both Adam and Israel failed to be a faithful, obedient steward, and both were expelled from the sanctuary God had created for them.  But Jesus Christ—the second Adam, the son of Abraham, the son of David—was faithful and obedient to God.  Though the world killed him, God raised him to life, which meant that death was defeated.  Through his Spirit, God pours into sinners the resurrection life of his Son, creating a new humanity “in Christ.”  Those who are “in Christ” move through death into new life and exaltation in God’s sanctuary, there to enjoy his presence forever.

The ‘bookends’ concept of biblical theology illustrates that in the third-to-last chapter of the Bible (Revelation 20) God removes his enemies—Satan, death, and evil—that entered the story line in the third chapter of the Bible (Genesis 3), thus completing the story of redemption.  The last two chapters (Revelation 21-22) don’t simply restore the first two chapters (Genesis 1-2); they go beyond them to a world that is fully ordered and holy, in which God is fully present with his people, completing the story of creation….” The ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p2495, “The Bookends of Biblical Theology”).

“…the person who fears the Lord and attends to his commandments has God’s own moral traits reflected in his character.  This is the goal of redemption, to renew the image of God in human beings” The ESV Study Bible (ref#125, p1085, “Psalm 111”).

“…I’m no longer under God’s wrath.  I don’t have to live with the burden of low-grade guilt.  I’m completely and finally forgiven.  I have been declared righteous in the sight of God—not on the basis of my own works, but on the basis of Christ’s righteousness that has been imputed to me.  This is what it means to be justified.  There’s nothing more we can do to earn God’s forgiveness” Bob Kauflin (ref#199, p130-131).

FATHER, I bow in inexpressible admiration.

JESUS

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THE SHEPHERD OF OUR SOULS

“God was so sure of the depth and expansiveness of your sin, of your inability to grasp how desperate your condition is (and, even if you were able, your complete inability to free yourself from it), that he was willing to harness the forces of nature and to carefully control the events of human history so that at a certain point Jesus would come to live the life you could not live, die the death that you should have died, and rise again, conquering death.  Why did God go to this elaborate and sacrificial extent?  There is only one answer to the question.  God the Father planned it, God the Son was willing to do it, and God the Holy Spirit applied this work to your heart and mine because there just was no other way” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Feb 29th).

“…He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing. You were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going. Now you’re named and kept for good by the Shepherd of your souls”(1 Pet 2:21-25 MSG).

“…the guilty, trembling sinner may confidently and safely rest in the work of the Savior….Acts 2:32;…Rom 5:10;…Rom 4:25;…Rom 8:34;…John 14:19;…Heb 1:3;…1 Pet 3:22;…Jesus is at the right hand of God, and the principalities and powers of all worlds are subject to His authority….Your Head and Redeemer is alive to frustrate every purpose, resist every plot, and silence every tongue that would condemn you” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Dec 15th).

“…our enemies…are…under the hand of God and can do no more than what he permits them to do. Furthermore, God can, whenever he pleases, render all their endeavors vain and ineffectual” John Calvin (ref#164, Jan 31st).

“…it’s the gospel that changes us….not only have our sins been forgiven, but our bondage to sin has been broken….in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21)” Bob Kauflin (ref#199, p132-133).

“Since your standing with God is based not on your righteousness but on Christ’s, in moments of failure, you can run to him and not from him” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, March 6th).