Year: 2021
THE BOTTOM LINE
Should we choose a path other than the one the Lord has for us the result will be “an unsatisfied life” — a life that lacks the confidence that we are safely abiding in the will of God; that we are in the center of His will, directed and protected by His very Presence.
HOW TO LIVE
Hebrews 7:25 says of Jesus, “…He lives forever.” Commenting on this verse Scottish pastor Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910) made this poignant observation: “Men come and go. Leaders, teachers, thinkers, speak and work for a season, and then fall silent and impotent. He abides. They die, but He lives. They are lights kindled, and therefore, sooner or later quenched, but He is the true Light from which they draw all their brightness, and He shines forevermore.”
Foundational Discipleship: Four Biblical Habits All Disciples Practice
It is important for those who are discipling worship leaders to realize that those being discipled should evidence the character of Christ in their daily walk. It is seen in how the artist interacts with others, develops relationships, and partners with other musicians in genuine ministry. In fact, demonstrating the character of Christ is the ultimate goal of discipleship; and the ultimate indicator of whether or not discipleship has truly happened.
Discipleship Defined
Discipling is the process of intentionally investing your life in the lives of others on God’s behalf. This definition specifically comes out of two key NT passages related to the term disciple, one spoken by Jesus and the other written by the apostle Paul. In Matthew 28:18–20, . . . Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
The Biblical Definition of Art and Artistic Expression
Artistic expression, as observed in the biblical record, is essential to life and Christian ministry—especially the worship ministries of the Church. This is because Artistic expression is the essential context wherein humans touch the transcendent realities of life in general, and most importantly, with God. Artistic and “imaginative” expressions—the metaphors, symbols, expressions, rituals, memorials, ceremonies, liturgies—form the amniotic fluid in which life and community grow and mature.
Rejection of The Modern Idea of Artists and the Arts
A striking feature of how the arts occur in our society is that there is among us a cultural elite, and that from the totality of works of art to be found in our society a vast number are used (in the way intended by artist or distributor) almost exclusively by the members of that elite. I shall call those works our society’s works of high art. The works of Beethoven, or Matisse, or Piero della Francesca, are examples. Correspondingly , our society’s institution of high art consists of the characteristic arrangements and patterns of action pertaining to the production, distribution , and use in our society of those works of art.
The Biblical Role of Imagination and Imaginal Intelligence
Hebrew concept of imagination includes two dynamic applications: 1) with regard to the human capacity to invent or make something, imagination is ‘the capacity to see what could be but is not yet.’ An example of this human capacity is Jer. 18:4, “But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.” And, 2) with regard to the human capacity to interact with transcendence, imagination is ’the capacity to see through what is known into the realities beyond what is known.
A Biblical Definition of Artist
The first area of expertise for the “artist” involves craftsmanship. The term craftsman seems the best biblical expression for what people today think of as an artist. Certainly there are numbers of different kinds of crafts, industries, and trades noted in the Scripture. There are at least nineteen different artistic crafts[1] mentioned in the Bible. But craftsman seems to be one of those wide-ranging terms, a class term, that serves as an umbrella under which exist many more specific craft areas. Craftsman is very similar to two other wide-ranging, umbrella class terms: one being musician, where there certainly exist more specific kinds of musicians—for example harp players, flute players, trumpet (shofar) players, and cymbal players—each having a technical name. The other class term is singers. The term craftsman means “someone unusually wise at imaginative design and expression.”
Biblical Worship Applied
Biblical worship involves two essential elements: First, worship must be done with reverence. This is a reverence-based approach toward God. Worship is inward God-directed Expressions of the Heart. When God encounters people, the first human worship response one sees Scripture reveal is that people bow in reverence in some way.