“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” – 1 Corinthians 13:1
The church in 1st-century Corinth was divided over spiritual gifts, particularly the gift of speaking in tongues. The apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 13 as a gentle rebuke to the misuse of gifts and the arrogance that came from competing over them. The first verse above could be paraphrased as “you can be speaking the most impressive-sounding things, but if you’re not saying it to benefit those who hear, you’re just making noise.”
But not just any noise – Paul purposefully chose two specific instruments. In a symphony, an appropriately timed cymbal or gong has a glorious impact that perhaps no other instrument can match. However, although you might not catch one bad note from a clarinet, you won’t miss a gong or cymbal played at the wrong time, even once! To God, the only one with a truly perfect ear, that’s what loveless words sound like.
“If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played?” – 1 Corinthians 14:7
“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.” – Ecclesiastes 5:1
When recently reading Ecclesiastes I was initially put off by the seeming harshness of this verse. What sort of sacrifice to God is foolish, or even evil? What is this verse of the Bible I believe in telling me to do, or not to do, and how does it point to Christ?
Then I was reminded of Micah 6:6-8: “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
When Jesus said “it is finished” on the cross, He was saying His sacrifice is enough and it is all we need. We don’t go to church to negotiate with or bargain with God. We cannot impress God. We can offer nothing He does not already have and has not already provided. This is good news!
We only offer ourselves in worship. We “draw near to listen”, to know Him, and to follow Him. Take a listen to one of my favorite hymns today and just be available for whatever He has in store for you. He is enough for you, and for the world.
Often in the Bible, a person’s name tells us more than just what they are called – it tells us something about their character or history. Also, a name describes the authority and honor due to someone, like when we do something in someone’s name, we claim their authority to do it. There are many names for our Lord Jesus, describing His character and authority, and a great summary of these is the worship song, “Jesus, Name Above All Names.” It has two main verses, listing many of Christ’s names, as follows:
Verse 1 Jesus, name above all names Beautiful Savior glorious Lord Emmanuel God is with us Blessed Redeemer living Word
Verse 2 Jesus, loving Shepherd Vine of the branches Son of God Prince of Peace Wonderful Counselor Lord of the universe Light of the world
There are many truths about Jesus we can know, and much meaning is contained in the names from this song, but as infinite God, we cannot understand every truth about Him. A verse that reminds us of this is Revelation 19:12 – “His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself.”
We know Jesus by many names, but He has at least one that only He knows. We know many of His names, but none of them can fully describe Him. Likewise, He has many crowns (“diadems”), but none of them can fully describe His power, authority, and honor.
But it was because of our Lord’s humility, taking on the form of man and voluntarily suffering death on the cross for His people, that Philippians 2:9-11 declares: “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
He alone has the name that deserves all of our devotion and respect. While we cannot fully understand Him, we can seek to fully trust Him.
People have strong opinions about Christmas music, like when is the right time to begin listening to it. Personally, I like to have a long Christmas season but also don’t want to distract from other good holidays like Thanksgiving, so for me the right time is once Thanksgiving is done. I have a Christmas playlist on my phone of my favorites and its playing regularly when I drive around or while I’m wrapping presents or putting up the tree.
People also care a lot about which songs to listen to, sometimes in strange ways. A tradition we have every year (mainly because of my kids) is called “Whamaggedon.” What’s that? It’s a contest to see how long you can go without hearing “Last Christmas” by Wham. Apparently, lots and lots of people play this and the winner(s) is the one who gets to Christmas without hearing it. Not that it’s a bad song, but it’s just a fun thing to do in the holiday season.
There are a lot of things to like about Christmas music, even if it’s enjoying goofy songs like Frosty the Snowman or watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special on TV. But when it comes to genuine Christmas carols, we all have our favorites. Mine is a beautiful, simple song with a great theme of humility, a trait we can all appreciate during Christmas.
This carol imagines that, in addition to the 3 Magi, the baby Jesus also had other visitors who came to worship Him, including a “Little Drummer Boy.” You can read the lyrics here, or watch the video below, a version performed by for KING and COUNTRY. Generally, the simpler the version of the song, the better in my opinion.
Why do I like this carol so much?
Most of us aren’t like the Magi who travelled far and gave expensive gifts to the baby Christ. We don’t have much gold, and we probably don’t keep frankincense and myrrh laying around. If the Magi were recognized for bringing these lavish gifts in eternal Scripture, how can we measure up? Is their example too hard for us to follow? How can we adequately worship Jesus? Little Drummer Boy answers these questions.
We can all identify with the boy because what he has to offer Jesus is something we can all offer: whatever we happen to have. The Little Drummer Boy gives us assurance that if we offer what we have, whatever we have, to our King Jesus, He will accept it. In the song, when Jesus smiles at the boy at the end of the song, we are all reminded that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)
The Little Drummer Boy shows us that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5). Humility doesn’t mean thinking of oneself as worthless or inferior to others. Humility means thinking of yourself in the proper place, a miserable sinner who is nonetheless loved by God and who God will use for His glory and will bring to perfection in eternity. As the great Lion Aslan said in C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian, “You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve. And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth.” Humility involves having the proper balance between shame and grace, with grace ultimately victorious.
This is why I wrote earlier that the simpler the version of this song, the better. Just about anyone can tap out “rum pa pum pum” on a drum and identify with the little boy, but not everyone can perform the more elaborate cover versions of the song and to me that dilutes the beautifully simple lesson of the song: whatever you have, however little of it you have, offer it to Jesus and He will smile at you. He will accept your worship, no matter how imperfect. To Jesus, it’s not what you have that matters, but what you do with it. You can be a beggar or an emperor, but with the right attitude toward Jesus our King, anyone can experience salvation and eternal life, gifts infinitely greater than anything on this earth and therefore infinitely greater than anything we have to offer Him.
So, whatever your particular “drum” is, pay Jesus a visit and play it for Him this Christmas and in the coming year! Offer to Him whatever you have and see what happens!
A recent post was about Jeremiah’s comparison of false religion to a broken cistern, with God alternatively being “the fountain of living waters.”[1] Jeremiah lived when most of God’s people – including most of the priests and prophets – had turned from Him to follow other gods. As Jeremiah remained faithful, correctly predicting that Jerusalem would fall to Babylon, he was persecuted, including this instance in Jeremiah 38:6, where King Zedekiah’s officials “took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.”
Since God is “the fountain of living waters,” the only path to eternal blessing, it’s incredibly ironic that Jeremiah, one of the few remaining faithful prophets and therefore a rare source of God’s “living waters,” should be cast into a cistern with no water. Perhaps it was broken. King Zedekiah thought he could silence the “living waters” Jeremiah represented by casting them into a cistern, trading truth for falsehood.
Later, Jeremiah seems to recall the cistern experience in Lamentations 3:52-57, where he said:
“I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause; they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’ ‘I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’ You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’”
Returning to the book of Jeremiah, we read that Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian eunuch, heard of Jeremiah’s situation and pleaded his case: “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.”[2] This unlikely source – a foreigner – was Jeremiah’s deliverance from God to rescue Jeremiah from the well. Ebed-melech gathered 30 men, “Then they drew Jeremiah up with ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.”
Jeremiah was not the only Old Testament figure to suffer for his faithfulness. Many years earlier, King David also referred to “sinking in the mire” in the Messianic Psalm 69, verses 14-15:
“Deliver me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me.”
David knew this feeling of sinking came not because of his sin, but when he was faithfully serving his Lord. David’s “sinking in the mire” happened under these circumstances from verse 9 of the same Psalm:
“For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.”
In Jeremiah’s case, as well as David’s and that of Jesus, whom Psalm 69 foreshadowed[3], we know we that cannot judge our faithfulness based on whether it improves our circumstances. When we do, we might stop being faithful because it seems we are “sinking in the mire.” Being reproached by the world and feeling down aren’t the circumstances we prefer, but “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”[4] Through these and all other circumstances, God develops in us deeper trust in Him.
Therefore, with David may we pray:
“But as for me, my prayer is to you, O LORD. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.” – Psalm 69:13
And in His time, He will deliver us, perhaps in ways we don’t expect.
Coda
In 1995, Christian rock group Jars of Clay released their self-titled album, and the track “Flood” has similar themes to this post. The song was also a mainstream hit, charting as high as No. 12 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart,[5] amazing for a song that is essentially a prayer like David’s in Psalm 69.
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 