April 20, 2018 Show with Jonathan Cruse on “How to Write Hymns & Spiritual Songs that Glorify God”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this 20th day of April, 2018, and I am so delighted that I have for the very first time on this program

Jonathan Cruz, who is pastor of Community Presbyterian Church of Kalamazoo, Michigan, which is a congregation within the

Orthodox Presbyterian denomination, commonly known as the OPC, and our guest Jonathan Cruz is also a published author of hymns that are available at hymnsofdevotion .com,

and today we are addressing the theme, How to Write Hymns and Spiritual Songs that Glorify God, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Jonathan Cruz.

Hi, Chris, thanks so much for having me on. It's an honor. Oh, it is my honor as well, brother, and if anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is

ChrisArntzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please provide us with your first name, at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say that your pastor or the congregation where you're a member has music that you are opposed to, or perhaps you're a pastor and you don't like the music in your own congregation, or whatever the case may be that would compel you to remain anonymous, we will grant that request, but if it's not a personal matter, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence when writing us with a question at ChrisArntzen at gmail .com.

Well, as I typically do, Pastor Jonathan, when I have a first -time guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I have them give their testimony of how, well, first of all, what kind of religious upbringing you had, if any, when growing up as a child, and also how our

Lord providentially drew you to Himself and saved you, and how you became aware of the

Reformed faith and how you eventually embraced it. Yeah, sure.

Well, I am so blessed to say that I knew the

Reformed faith since I can remember. I grew up in a Bible -believing home, and my family attended an

Orthodox Presbyterian church, so we were no strangers as a family to the Reformed faith.

I remember as a young kid seeing my dad's library just covered with these books that all had this name,

Boyce, on it, on the spine. I'm saying, who's this Boyce guy? And it was obviously

James Montgomery Boyce from 10th Presbyterian Church. Yes, I cut my teeth as a new

Christian in the 1980s by going to the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology every year, when

Dr. Boyce was still with us. Yeah, right. I grew up in a home that very much revered the work of Boyce and PCRT and the

Alliance. Sproul, obviously, was another household name. So that was just kind of the norm for me.

So like I said, I grew up in the church and in the OPC in particular. My family was all very involved in church.

My dad was an elder, still serves as an elder in that church. And I should say, Chris, I grew up in Pennsylvania, in central

Pennsylvania, not too far away from Carlisle. Now, do you consider yourself in central

PA or in eastern PA? They call it around here south -central PA. I'm a

New Yorker, by the way. I lived in New York all my life until 2015. Okay, well, we won't hold that against you.

And Carlisle PA is the first place I've ever lived outside of New York. Wow, okay.

Well, how are you finding it? I love it. I really love it. I love the church where I'm a member. In fact, as I just found out seconds before we went on the air, and I told you when we got on the phone with each other, my new associate pastor at the church where I'm a member,

Simon O'Maney, was a classmate of yours at Westminster Seminary in California.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Simon's a good friend. We came in together, and I was always jealous of him because of the accent.

You always know, you know, if you're going into the preaching business in America, it helps if you have, you know, a

Scottish brogue or an Irish accent. And you're right, it does. But, yeah, so I'm from a town called

Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. It's near Altoona or State College area of central

Pennsylvania. It's about two hours away from Pittsburgh and two hours away from Carlisle, right in the middle there.

And so we went to the—it was called Westminster Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Hollidaysburg, which is, as far as I'm aware, the only

Reformed church, certainly in our county, and I think perhaps even several surrounding counties.

Until recently, there's been more church plants. But so I grew up familiar with the scriptures and with Reformed theology.

I don't know when exactly I could say the Lord called me to himself and saved me.

I do not have one of those moments where I can point to it on the calendar. But I definitely remember when

I left home and, you know, went off to college.

I went to college in Philadelphia, actually attended 10th Presbyterian, you know, as we spoke at the

Philadelphia conference earlier. But it was at that time I realized, you know, it doesn't matter what family

I grew up in. It doesn't matter what books were on my dad's shelf. It doesn't matter what church

I attended. I really need to own my faith for myself. And so the way I like to put it is that, you know,

I don't think I—I think I was a Christian when I got to college, but I like to say that I felt somewhat of a useless

Christian and I wasn't living out my faith. So it was really my first year of college that I endeavored to be a useful

Christian, where I owned it for myself and relied more heavily upon the grace of God and took my faith more seriously.

Well, praise God. And how did you realize that God had placed a call upon your life to become a pastor?

Yeah, interesting question. It wasn't anything I was planning on, that's for sure.

I went to college in Philadelphia at Temple University.

So that's downtown Philly. And I went there to study film. So my intention going into college was to become a movie director.

I wanted to be the next Steven Spielberg. You know, I set the bar pretty high for myself. And I studied film there for about a year and a half until I realized, although I loved film and I still love film,

I wasn't up for the lifestyle changes that would be required of me to really pursue it and make it work.

You know, moving either to New York City or L .A. more likely. You know, years and years of working as a waiter or barista or something and hoping you'd get that big break.

And I wanted to stay closer to home. And so I thought, well, what else could I do? And I really had no idea.

So I switched my major from film to communications, which was kind of like a jack -of -all -trades major.

We still study film, but we also study things like journalism and, you know, public speaking, broadcasting, radio a little bit even.

And I decided, well, I'll just get this kind of generic track and we'll see what comes of it. And I also studied English a little bit.

And it was at that time where I switched majors, I didn't know what I was going to do, that somebody at the church

I was attending at Tent said, you know, you should apply to be an intern here and work with the youth ministry.

We think you'd be good at that. And until I heard that, I'd never once thought that I would be in ministry in any kind of way.

But there was something about, you know, they said it and I couldn't get it out of my head after that. And so I applied for this pastoral internship at Tent Prospeterian.

I got accepted and hired to work with the youth, that would be 7th and 12th graders.

They had their own kind of Sunday evening service every week where it was basically a worship service.

You'd have a sermonette, you know, we'd call it 20 minutes, 15 minutes, sing, pray, you know, break into small groups, do

Bible study questions, that kind of thing. And so that was in my last two years of college

I did that. And the more I did it, the more I realized I think this is something I want to do full time. I loved the idea of teaching.

I had never had taught before. I had never, Chris, I'd never done public speaking before. In fact, I was terrified of it.

Any time I'd ever give a five -minute speech in class in high school or college, I'd get terrified. But this kind of got me used to it.

And I realized what I'm doing when I was preaching or, you know, teaching up there, I was telling a story and I was crafting a story.

And it was the things that I loved about my film degree that I switched out of, I got to keep doing because I love telling stories for people and trying to present them in creative ways as a film major.

And I realized, well, I'm getting to do that. And if I became a preacher, I'd get to do that every single week.

And it's not just telling stories, it's telling the greatest story, which is the gospel and God's love to us and how he saved us from our sins in Christ.

And I thought, I think, you know, of course, obviously this is Providence. But unbeknownst to me,

God had been preparing me for pastoral ministry all my life, and I didn't realize it until that moment at my third -year college when

I realized, okay, I'm going to have to go to seminary. And that was kind of how that played out. Well, praise

God. And tell us some more details specifically about Community Presbyterian Church of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

And also we've got to announce the exciting news to those of our listeners, especially in Michigan and especially even more if they live near Kalamazoo, that you are having

Dr. Conrad Mbewe preach there starting tomorrow for a conference. He happens to be a dear friend of mine.

I've known him since 1995. We just recently had him on the program to discuss two of his books,

Foundations for the Flock and Pastoral Preaching. And I am going to be blessed by hearing him also locally at the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals conference, the Philadelphia Conference on Reform Theology.

Full circle, Chris. Yeah, that is only named that out of love and tribute to Dr.

James Montgomery Boyce because it is no longer held in Philadelphia at the Tenth Presbyterian Church, but it's held now at Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Right, Bryn Mawr, yeah. But tell us something about Community Presbyterian Church of Kalamazoo. Sure, I'd be happy to.

Well, this is my first call, well, first official call on the ministry side.

I graduated just a year ago from a seminary in San Diego.

Well, it's Candido, technically, Westminster Seminary in California. I'm sure your associate pastor,

Simon, is from there and my professors on the program, I'm sure. Yeah, in fact,

Dr. Jim Renahan, you must have heard of him because he ran the IRBS, Institute for Reform Baptist Studies there, which is now going to be launching its own seminary in Mansfield, Texas this

September. Right, yeah. The seminary is going to miss him a lot. He's a great guy, and even though I wasn't part of IRBS, I definitely appreciated the work that he did.

So in my last year of seminary, I started looking for potential calls, putting feelers out there, seeing what vacant pulpits were available, and some people also approaching me.

By the time, I guess it would have been right around the Christmas, New Year, right around the 2017

New Year, I had three calls that were very different calls that my wife and I were deciding between.

One was church planning in California. One was to be an associate pastor of a much larger church of a different denomination in Pennsylvania, and then there was to be a solo pastor of a smaller congregation here in Kalamazoo.

So there was no apples -to -apples kind of comparison. They were all different works, you know, church planning, pastoring, associate pastor, and all different areas of the country.

And so that was a difficult decision, but with much prayer, we decided to accept the call to come to Kalamazoo and the

OPC here. This church has been around since the early or the late 70s, actually.

It was planted by a dear, dear man of God named

Abe Edgar, who actually also was the pastor of the OPC church in Middletown, PA, which is pretty close to Carlisle, if I'm correct, right outside of Harrisburg.

Maybe you don't know, Chris, because you've only been here a little bit. That's right. Well, I'm only a half hour from Harrisburg, so if it's close to Harrisburg, it can't be that far.

It's close to Harrisburg, yeah. So Abe planted the church in the 70s. We acquired our building, which is a beautiful stone structure that was built in the 40s, in the 80s, and I'm now the fourth minister of this congregation.

It's a place filled with beautiful people of God who love the

Word of God, who love to hear it preached, and who love to sing it as well.

We have a beautiful church sanctuary that just accentuates the sung voice, and it's a treat.

If you're ever in town, Chris, you've got to come and worship with us. Oh, yeah, sure. It's really a great privilege

I have, not just to minister to them, but just to worship with these people. So we've been around, yes, since the 70s, and we're in a bit of a, maybe one could call it a church revitalization process right now.

The membership had become quite small in the last few years, but in the time that they were in between ministers even, which was actually four years.

There was four years before I came while they were without a minister, which is hard on any congregation, but actually in that time, by God's grace, the church started to grow, which just shows that it's not up to any minister, it's up to God.

And we are so grateful we've continued to see that growth, and we're excited to see what the

Lord has in store for us here in Kalamazoo. Well, I feel a lot more comfortable if I ever visit you folks, that you won't throw me out when you find out

I'm a Reformed Baptist, because I know that you're having Conrad Mbewe preach at a conference there.

Conrad Mbewe, who is, I believe, and I'm not exaggerating, I believe he is the most powerful preacher alive on the planet

Earth. And I have always been thoroughly and enormously blessed by Dr.

Mbewe. And by the way, this is something, a bit of advice for you, if you haven't done this already.

When Conrad first came to the United States, and I don't know if I mentioned to our audience, he's the pastor of Kabwatha Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

I've mentioned it many other times in other days, I just don't know if I mentioned it today. But when he first came to the

United States, for the very first time in 1995, he preached at the church where I was a member,

Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island. And we ran an advertising campaign for at least a month before he came.

And I worked for a radio station at the time, part of one of the largest, in fact, the largest radio network, the largest

Christian radio network in the world, Salem Media. And we ran a month's worth of advertising with a clip of Conrad preaching.

He was really preaching his guts out, as they say, on the cross of Christ.

And over the three -day period of our conference, we had over 500 visitors, and that does not include the people who are members of our church.

So we were totally blown away. The phones were ringing off the hook all month because of this clip that we played of Conrad.

But that's just advice, if you ever get them back, so you can next time even give the conference more publicity.

Yeah. Well, let me tell you a little bit about the conference. So this is a,

I want to say right from the start, this is not our conference. This is not Community Presbyterian Church's conference.

It's actually a conference we are holding in concert with another church in town,

Emanuel Fellowship Church, which is a member of the United Reformed Churches in North America, the URC congregation.

Yeah, very familiar with that denomination. Right, yeah, and the pastor of that church is a wonderful man named

Bill Bocastein. I know Bill. I've had Bill on the program. Well, that's what he told me when

I told him I was coming on the program. Yeah, I've interviewed him a number of times.

Yeah, so Bill's another PA transplant. I mean, he's from Michigan, but he was pastoring in Carbondale, Pennsylvania.

That's right. And he came to Kalamazoo about, I think, maybe two years before I did, and we've just hit it off, you know, great friendship, a good great brother in Christ, and a real good encourager for me, you know, a new minister.

And we talked right away about the possibility of wouldn't it be great to try a conference out together, you know, kind of pull together our resources and see what we could do.

And the credit goes to Bill because he's the one who got Conrad to come and to find

Star. Apparently, you know, he had been just plodding away for a long time, sending him e -mails saying, hey, if you're ever in the

United States, come visit us in Kalamazoo. And he would try that every year. And Conrad this year finally said, hey,

I'm going to be in your neck of the woods. I'd love to come preach. And so Bill told me that, and I said, hey, Bill, this is our conference, you know, because he was just coming to do pulpit supplies.

I said, oh, we've got to make an event out of this. We have Conrad in Bay Wayne Town. Let's try our conference. So this is our first, hopefully our first annual conference.

We're calling it the Faith and Life Conference in Kalamazoo. And obviously

Conrad in Bay Wayne is one of our plenary speakers. We have another speaker, I'd be happy to talk about him a little bit later,

Micah Edmondson, who's going to be coming up from Grand Rapids. I had Micah on my program a couple of months ago.

Yeah, well, you know, he's a wonderful brother -in -the -Lord, very energetic preacher.

It's going to be an exhausting day for the people sitting in the pews getting preached at by Conrad and Micah.

They just bring such force with them tomorrow. But so we're putting this on together.

It's hosted at Emanuel's Church. They have a bigger facility. But we are putting it on together as a joint effort.

And, yes, if any of your listeners are in the Michigan area or want to drive over, free conference and free lunch and everything.

I should say Chick -fil -A lunch. That seems to be the biggest pull. When we tell people we're having Chick -fil -A, they want to come.

But I keep telling people, you know, you've got to come and hear Conrad. So I heard Conrad when

I was, let's see, this was in 2013. I heard him at a missions conference, kind of like an inner band.

It was called Cross Con, a youth missions conference. Yeah, I remember seeing that advertised, actually.

Yeah, it was one of these just massive things where there are 15 ,000 college students.

It was in Louisville, Kentucky, where they hold the Gospel, or together for the

Gospel every year. And I heard Conrad preach. I never heard of him, didn't know who he was.

And truly, as you said, Chris, it was, and I've told my congregation this, it was the greatest sermon I've ever heard in my life.

He preached, he just preached the cross so clearly. Amen. You know, his title wasn't his own.

It was the death of death and the death of Christ. So he had borrowed that from a classic work.

John Owen. Yes, that's right. And it was a superb exposition, convicting exposition of the scriptures and our need to see the cross as a reality.

He did wonderful apologetic work on it, too. The empty tomb as a reality. And I was definitely changed by that sermon.

And so when I heard that he was coming into town, I said, well, we've got to do something. So we're so excited to have him.

So the conference is tomorrow. It's just a one -day conference, morning and afternoon, 9 to 2.

And it's on the mission of the church. Conrad is going to speak. There's three talks.

Conrad is going to take two of them. Mike Edmondson is going to take one of them. And then also then Sunday evening, if anybody, or Sunday, if anybody is in town,

Conrad will be preaching at Bill Bocastein's Church Emanuel Fellowship. And in the evening we're going to do a joint service with our two churches, so giving our people plenty of opportunity to hear this wonderful preacher.

And I just actually, you know, PCRT, they also have a kind of satellite conference in Grand Rapids.

That's right. And Conrad was here just last week, so I got to hear him again two times and get to talk with him, spend some time with him up in Grand Rapids at that conference.

And then I know he's going to be at the Pennsylvania one. So it's good stuff.

I already heard it, the PCRT stuff, and I would encourage everybody in the area to do whatever they can to go and hear him.

Yeah, praise God. Well, I assume that people can get more information about this conference at kalamazoocpc .org.

I made the mistake. I was getting an error coming up on my computer screen over and over and over again because of my failing eyesight at 56 years of old.

I still haven't bit the bullet in getting a prescription pair of glasses.

So I kept typing in Kalamazoo OPC because I knew that you were in the Orthodox Church. Oh, yes, right.

So it's kalamazoocpc, for communitypresbyterianchurch .org, kalamazoocpc .org.

And I'm assuming all the information about the conference will be there. Yeah, the information is there. It's under our resource tab, or you can go kalamazoocpc .org

slash faithandlife, one word, faithandlife. And that will take you to all the information you need for the conference.

And like I said, it's free. You don't need to register. But if you want to let us know you're coming, you can register there on the website.

Praise God. Well, we are going to play one of your songs that you have written before we even go into the topic of our program today.

As we said earlier, if those of you who just tuned in and perhaps missed the announcements at the beginning, our guest today,

Jonathan Cruz, not only is he a pastor, but he is a writer of modern -day hymns. Of course, if he wrote them, they have to be modern -day.

But we are going to be discussing how to write hymns and spiritual songs that glorify

God. I have done a number of programs on hymns that glorify

God and music that glorifies God and so on, because this is obviously a very divisive subject in the body of Christ.

It has divided Christians like almost nothing else. Yeah, I'm so glad to be on talking about this subject then.

Yeah, a lot of churches have. Well, it's important because of that reason.

It has split churches, and it's really sad to see what kind of tension and strife and hostility comes up just because of the music.

A lot of times, I think perhaps even most often, there is a bit of selfishness going on in this respect where people are trying to bully their way into churches and denominations regardless of who they may offend or what have you.

But there's all kinds of reasons why we sinners, we're all still sinners while we're on this earth, and unfortunately a very important and beautiful gift from God, which is music.

Unfortunately, that has been the cause of sin in the church. But before we go to a break,

I'm going to play one of your songs, and I'm hoping that this works because I haven't even tested it yet.

We're going to play Lamb, Precious Lamb, and here it is by Jonathan Cruz.

Oh, and guess what? It's not working. I'm clicking the wrong thing. Oh, here it is. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Here it is, brothers and sisters. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, give us this day our daily bread.

Give us this day our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,

Praise God.

Praise God. I'm hoping that you were as blessed as I was by that, and I have a very strong feeling that most of my listeners were just as blessed as I was.

But we're going to be going to our first break right now, and when we come back, I'm going to read you the lyrics to that hymn because they are truly magnificent.

And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Don't go away.

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So I hope that you discover that program. By the way, to my guest here that we are interviewing, and if you just tuned us in,

I'm interviewing Jonathan Cruz, pastor of Community Presbyterian Church, which is an OPC congregation in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Are you familiar with my dear friend Pastor Bill Shishko? Only by reputation.

I haven't yet had the privilege of meeting him in person, but I do know

Bill and the Shishko family well by their reputation in the denomination, well respected, and have done a lot to further

Christ's kingdom. Amen. In fact, I don't think Jonathan, one of his sons who is a pastor,

I don't think he is far from your age, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, I think he might be about 10 years older than me, but yeah.

And he's also serving in New York as well, right? That's right, yes. In Queens, New York.

Right, yeah. So perhaps you all can meet at one point. That's the nice thing about our denomination is it's not too big, so you get to meet everybody sooner or later.

That's right. And if you just tuned in, we are discussing how to write hymns and spiritual songs that glorify

God, and we are also announcing the two upcoming conferences where Dr.

Conrad Mbewe of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, will be preaching, the first of which begins tomorrow at Community Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and then the other one, where I will be in just a matter of days, from the 27th through the 29th, will be held at the

Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, but we'll give you more specific details after our midway break.

I want to read for our listeners the lyrics to that breathtaking hymn that we just played before the break, and I am just taken aback by your writing abilities, brother.

We have the lyrics here for Lamb, Precious Lamb. Lamb, precious lamb, whose blood was shed for me, spread on the frame of Calvary's cruel tree.

The paschal sacrifice is all my stay. Dear lamb who came to take our sins away.

Lamb, spotless lamb, for naught is wrong in thee. No mark or blemish nor impurity.

From the world's founding thou was truly slain. Come purge my sin and cleanse my every stain.

Lamb, willing lamb, thou walked the sufferer's path, endured the shame and drank our cup of wrath.

Still vain and selfish, off we disobey. O faithful shepherd, keep us in thy way.

Lamb, mighty lamb, who triumphs over sin, severed its chains to make us whole within.

Gentle in power, both kind and strong thou art. O lamb and lion, conquer all my heart.

Lamb, worthy lamb, who reigns for endless days. Maker, redeemer, thine be all thy praise.

We join the eternal choirs of heaven, great king. Glory and honor to the lamb we sing.

Truly, truly beautiful brother. But let me read you the lyrics of this other beautiful hymn here.

A sinner saved by grace my daily theme must be. Arise my soul and now embrace this all sufficient plea.

A sinner to my core in Adam's fallen race. But in Christ Jesus something more.

A sinner saved by grace. When Satan's sin and shame accuse me to my face.

I shield myself behind this claim. A sinner saved by grace. No harm can now befall.

No evil can displace. My ransomed soul when this my call. A sinner saved by grace.

And when before the throne the judge reviews my case.

My peace will be he loves to own. A sinner saved by grace.

Absolutely breathtaking. Now, in addition to writing the lyrics, did you also compose the melodies to these hymns?

No, I cannot take any credit for that. If your audience is familiar with hymns, they'll recognize that tune that you just played.

It's called Saint Michael. It's an older hymn tune. And it's most famous probably for being written by or being included in the original

Genevan Psalter. So there's psalm singers out there that would have recognized that tune.

But I do have a number of composers that I work with. I appreciate music, and I do play piano and those kinds of things.

We can talk about that later. But as far as composition, I leave it to the experts. So Lamb, Precious Lamb, which you heard, was composed by the former director of music at 10th

Presbyterian Church, Paul S. Jones, who's just an expert in all things regarding worship.

He's written the book Singing and Making Music, published by PNR, and also the little booklet

What is Worship Music. He's also known for writing hymns with the late

Dr. James Boyce. People like Eric Alexander, Phil Reichen, which I'm sure your audience will be familiar with those people.

So he and I have written about ten hymns together, two of which are going to be included in a brand new

Psalter hymnal that's coming out just in a week at the end of April. The Trinity Psalter hymnal is being released by Great Commissions Publications.

It's a joint effort of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the

United Reformed Church as well, which is a great fraternal effort where we could come together.

This new Psalter hymnal includes all 150 psalms, different settings of all 150 psalms, and then about 400 hymns selections, great hymns from as far back as the 6th century, and of course great hymns from the 18th century and 19th century, and then even hymns from the 21st century.

So I'm privileged to have four of mine included in that project, but two of them were the music is composed by Paul Jones.

So I stick to writing the words, Chris. That's my area of expertise is the text, and I leave the music up to people who are better gifted at that.

Well, praise God that you're going to be in a new Trinity hymnal. That is probably the most frequently used hymnal of the

Reformed churches, both those that are Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, and Reformed Baptist all over the country.

I know that that's what we use at Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Oh, and now you guys will have to update it.

That's right. Are they going to include your hymns in the Baptist version? I don't know.

You'll have to talk to whoever's on that committee. Well, I'm going to take one of our listener questions before we go to our midway break.

And by the way, for when we come back from the break, if you could let me know of another hymn on this list where there's actually singing,

I'd like to play another one. Sure, yeah. Okay. Well, first of all, we have

Gordy in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He says, Have we exhausted our ability to write biblically sound songs and hymns, or are too many people pandering to our desire for emotionally stirring lyrics and melodies?

Interesting. Well, I am emotionally stirred by traditional hymns, so I don't think there's anything wrong with being emotionally stirred.

But anyway, if you could comment on what Gordy said. Sure. Well, it's kind of a two -part question.

So the first part is, have we exhausted the ability? No, we have not exhausted the ability.

Yeah, our guest is proof of that. I hope, yeah, I hope not. I hope I'm proof that there's still people out there doing it.

But then the second question is, or are we, can you re -read that again, pandering, how did he phrase it?

Are we, or are too many people pandering to our desire for emotionally stirring lyrics and melodies?

I think that if you're not stirred by many, if not most, of the classic, traditional, biblically saturated hymns, there's something wrong with your soul, as far as I'm concerned.

But I don't mean that to you, Gordy. I'm talking about to people who only want modern music, or should

I say contemporary music. Now, obviously, our guest's music is contemporary, but it is reminiscent of the more traditional style of hymnody.

And there is a, I don't know how to phrase it.

The modern music can appeal to the emotion in a different way. And the themes of grace and the themes of the

Bible that saturate the traditional hymns, I mean not all hymns are good, but I mean those that most of us who are

Reformed use, they do stir me emotionally, and I think should stir.

But anyway, if you could continue. Yeah, sure. Well, like I said, it's a two -part question. So the first one, have we exhausted our ability?

No, we haven't. But are too many people pandering to emotionalism? I would say yes, that is true.

I think what Gordy's getting at, and to your point, Chris, being emotionally sturdy is not wrong, but I think what

I'm assuming the questioner is talking about is the desire to put an emotional response at the fore, you know, at the front of what we are doing in worship and what we're doing when we write worship music.

I do think that that is a trend today where if you're not feeling something, if you're not, you know, if there's not an emotional experience that overtakes you, then it's a bad song or something doesn't work.

And so therefore, sadly, we've seen in the contemporary

Christian music scene a lot of, we could call it sentimentality in music.

I would say, I hope this isn't too strong a word, it's manipulative where it's emotion, which isn't wrong, but it's emotion for emotion's sake.

I think that's what Gordy's getting at. And yes, that is happening today, and it's wrong, because what should be at the fore and at the front of our desire in both writing songs to glorify

God and in singing them is God and not our response. And if we put God at the fore, if we give

Him prime place in our hearts, we will be stirred. There will be an emotional response, because we will be so filled with the wonder and with the majesty and with the awe of who

God is and what He has done for us in the Gospel that we will not be able to help but bow the knee to Jesus and to have the tongue confess in song to Christ.

That is an emotional response, and that is a good one. But what we're seeing today is a trend that tries to circumvent the indicative of what

God has done for us that drives the response of our hearts. We circumvent that and just go straight for the heart, and that's what

I would call manipulative. And that should have no place in the Church today.

Yeah, amen. And as we read in Luke 7, 36 -50,

Therefore I say to you, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much.

But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little. And we've got to remember that if you know that you've been forgiven for much, you will love much.

And I think that that will reveal itself emotionally. Not that everybody expresses themselves the same, because you'll have

Charismatics and Pentecostals mock many of us who are

Reformed because we are responding emotionally in a different way. We're not dancing around and doing all kinds of gymnastics.

And that can be a false demonstration of emotion. It doesn't necessarily mean it's false, but it can be.

And that is not to say that some of the accusations against Reformed Christians are not actually accurate.

I'm not saying that we don't deserve that insult on many occasions.

But anyway, we have to go to our midway station break. And if you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Don't go away.

We'll be right back, God willing, right after these messages from our sponsors. Hi, I'm Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, here to tell you about an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

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And before we return to our discussion today, we just have a couple of more upcoming events that we want to plug.

The aforementioned conference that we have discussed already,

I just want to remind you about it. It's going to be held tomorrow, April 21st, and Sunday, April 22nd, at the

Community Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, featuring my favorite preacher alive today,

Dr. Conrad Mbewe, who is the pastor of Kobwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and also featuring a person who has been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio once before,

Micah Edmondson, who was also an Orthodox Presbyterian, I mean, also in addition to our guest,

I should say, because Conrad, as many of you know, is a Reformed Baptist, as I am. And if you want more details on registering for this free conference, go to kalamazoocpc .org,

Kalamazoo, which is spelled K -A -L -A -M -A -ZOO,

C -P -C dot org. And then, right on the heels of that,

I get my turn to hear Pastor Conrad Mbewe again, right here in Pennsylvania, at the

Proclamation Presbyterian Church of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, April 27th through the 29th. I can't wait to be there and see my dear friend again.

If you'd like to join me, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org,

click on events, and then click on Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology. As I said earlier, it is only named the

Philadelphia Conference out of love and respect and tribute to the late

Dr. James Montgomery Boyce, who held the Philadelphia Conferences for many years at the 10th

Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Now they are being conducted in Michigan and in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and the

Michigan location has already had their Philadelphia Conference, and the

Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania location will have its conference, as I just mentioned, the 27th through the 29th of April at the

Proclamation Presbyterian Church, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The spirit of the age, and the age of the spirit is the theme, and speakers include

Conrad Mbewe, who I just mentioned, Richard Phillips, who is the pastor of the 2nd

Presbyterian Church of Greenville, South Carolina, a friend of mine and a guest a number of times on this program,

Jonathan Master, and Scott Oliphant are among the other speakers. If you'd like to register, go to alliancenet .org,

alliancenet .org, click on events, and then click on Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology, and please, whenever you respond to one of these ads for special events or for anything else, please tell our advertisers that you heard about them from Chris Arns and an

Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Last but not least, this is my least comfortable or my most uncomfortable portion of the show where I have to beg you for money.

The advertisers who have spent hard -earned money keeping this program on the air urged me for a long time to make public appeals for donations.

I ignored their pleas for years, going back to 2005 until just recently, a number of months ago,

I never made a single public appeal for donations, but we are in such urgent need of donations to keep this program going that I hope that if you love the show, you don't want it to go off the air, you are blessed by it, you love the guests and topics we discuss, you share the free

MP3s with others, well, please, if you can, go to www .IronTripandZionRadio .com,

click Support, and then click Click to Donate Now. That's the new option on our website where you can donate instantly with a debit or credit card by clicking

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Don't put your family in financial jeopardy by giving to Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Those two things are commands of God providing for your church and your home.

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click support, and click, click to donate now. We are now back to our guest today,

Pastor Jonathan Cruz of Community Presbyterian Church, which is an Orthodox Presbyterian Church congregation in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and he is a published author of hymns, available at hymsofdevotion .com.

We are discussing how to write hymns and spiritual songs that glorify God, and if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. We have a listener all the way in Kinross, Scotland, Murray in Kinross, Scotland, says,

Oh, great question.

Unfortunately, it won't be able to be live streamed, but we are working on taping it to put up the clips on the website after it's over.

Great. Well, thank you, Murray. Keep listening in Kinross, Scotland and spreading the word about our program in the

UK and beyond. Well, I'm going to play another song that you have written, and perhaps this time

I'm going to read the lyrics of the song first, and by the way, let me repeat our email address.

It's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And this next song is I Have Such a

Gracious Father, and I'm going to read the lyrics first, as I just said.

I have such a gracious father who has saved me from my sin, cleansed me from my foul transgressions, made me pure without, within.

When I cried out for salvation, in his word my God replied,

Child of mine, O look to Jesus, trust his mercies now applied. I have such a loving father who enfolds me in his arms.

When I'm weak and scared and lonely, all my worries he disarms. When I cry out for compassion, in his word my

God replies, Child of mine, look, see new mercies breaking with the morning skies.

I have such a mighty father who is king and lord of all. He upholds me by his power lest I stumble, faint, or fall.

When I cry out for protection, in his word my God replies, Child of mine, look, see new mercies breaking through the morning skies.

I have such a faithful father who abides in heaven above. Though I wander, he is waiting and will welcome me with love.

When I cry out for direction, in his word my God replies, Child of mine, look, see new mercies breaking with the morning skies.

And now I will play this psalm for you and I hope you are greatly blessed by it.

I have such a gracious father who has saved me from my sin, cleansed me from my false transgressions, made me pure again.

For salvation, in his word my God replies,

Look to Jesus, trust his mercies. I have such a loving father who enfolds me in his arms.

When I am lonely, all my worries he disposes.

In his word my God replies, Child of mine, look, see new mercies breaking with the morning skies.

I have such a mighty father who is

King and Lord of all. He upholds me by his power.

Lest I stumble for protection, in his word my

God replies, Child of mine, look, see new mercies breaking with the morning skies.

I have such a faithful father who abides in heaven above.

He is waiting and will welcome me with pleasure.

In his word, look, see new mercies breaking with the morning skies.

Praise God, what a gorgeous hymn. Oh, thank you Chris. And we have a question from R .J.

in White Plains, New York. He says, what would be your biggest criticism of modern day

Christian music? And I know that there is much wonderful Christian music being produced today, but it seems to be in the minority still.

What are your complaints? Yeah, I want to start by saying

I don't have a blanket criticism of modern Christian music. As you said, I'm part of the modern

Christian music movement, and I think it's part of our duty as Christians in every age and every generation to be singing a new song.

But my biggest concern, it goes back to what we talked about with the previous question, is that essentially, like I said,

I don't want to make a blanket statement, but by and large, a lot of modern mainstream Christian music that's meant for worship, mind you, this is the issue

I have, that music that's meant for worship tries to get to the heart by bypassing the head.

And that's not Christian. That's bad theology. God cares about the whole person, and He wants us to think about what we are saying to Him when we sing to Him.

More than anything else, we should care about what we say to God and the way we say it to Him.

And in mainstream Christian music, as I've said, it's very sensational. It's about the emotions.

It's about that feeling you get without having any substance behind it.

And also, in the way it's done, there's a lot of things that make me uncomfortable, that worship music is turning into something more of a show or a concert that's put on for our entertainment rather than God's exaltation.

And I think that's something we need to be very careful about. Yes, you are a hymn composer, hymn writer, and there is something distinct about a hymn in that it is specifically written for congregational singing.

That's right. And there are some... Now, I beat up on modern or contemporary

Christian music so much, I think I give, or in fact, I know I give many people the wrong idea.

I love quite a good number of contemporary

Christian songs, even songs that I love that are not...

I don't believe they are conducive for corporate or congregational worship, but I still love them.

And that's an important distinction to make, isn't it, Chris? Yes. What we are listening, perhaps, for our own edification, you know, you drive in the car or something, as opposed to what we are presenting in a corporate setting, not just because it's a worship service which

God has called us to, but also you need to take into consideration things, as you said, that are conducive for a large group of people that have all kinds of different musical abilities and are coming from different Christian experiences.

That's the kind of thing I take into consideration when I'm writing hymn lyrics. I do think there are certain things that you can take into consideration when writing words, if you want to get into that, that actually will make a song more conducive for corporate settings.

Amen. And I disagree with those, and there are many, even who would share my theology, even, who have said that rhythm and melody and the music that is composed, that goes behind the words of our

Christian worship music, is neutral, they will say. And I have long said that I think that that's actually absurd, because melody and rhythm and beat create moods.

It is without question that they create moods, and not all moods are appropriate for worship.

Right. Now, if people want to make the claim that music is neutral, then ask them why it is that armies don't march to war to lullabies.

Ah, there you go. Music has, it's not neutral.

It carries with it moods, affects, meanings, with or without the words.

And what's so important about hymn writing and worship, especially in worship music, is finding texts and tunes that are properly set to one another, that have a healthy marriage, we could say, where they are perfectly fitting for one another, so that the mood of the music is drawing up the mood of the text.

It all needs to be in service of the words, so that we are singing to God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and with meaning and feeling, and it's all compatible.

We're not singing about, you know, you try taking a hymn like, and I do these little classes,

I go around to churches and do hymn seminars, and you could sing a great hymn like, lead on O King Eternal to the tune of O Sacred Head Now Wounded, and it will feel wrong to you, you know?

It's just something that's not right. It doesn't match up. And so, yeah, music is certainly not neutral.

It matters, and it matters to God, we could say. You know, I'm going to say something that I'm hoping that I'm not offending some people who are listening who may have been at the same event that I was at, but I think it's very appropriate to say.

Now, this was an event, I have to be very clear, that my congregation where I'm a member was not a part of this event.

Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle was not the church orchestrating this. In fact, it wasn't even a

Reformed church. I mean, let me also say that there were dear brothers and sisters in Christ at this event who

I consider my brethren, and I love them, and they were very gracious in inviting me to this event.

But my heart sank, and I felt very troubled because they had the person who was leading the singing, who was a camp director.

I think he was primarily a youth director, but he was serving in the capacity of a worship leader at this event.

He had us sing Amazing Grace to the melody of Gilligan's Island.

Yes, I've seen that done before. And my heart sank because those precious, precious, deeply meaningful words that John Newton penned with a former slave trader, evil, vile man who discovered the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ and his forgiveness and his atonement and redemption provided on the cross of Calvary, that this precious hymn was being really,

I don't know if, I know that they weren't consciously making a mockery of it, but I can't see how you could not make a mockery of those words by singing it that way.

Yeah, that tarnishes it for sure. Well, I'm very delighted to hear that you do seminars, and we'll talk a little bit about that when we come back from our final break.

This is the last break that we will be going to, and if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own while we still have time, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. And please only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away.

God willing, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

Pastors Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the

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Christianity? Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert? Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship?

And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that the in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

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That's wrbc .us. Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference

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And I want to thank the publishers of the New American Standard Bible for renewing their advertising contract with Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

They have been with me even before the launching of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio in 2005 when they started to sponsor the live moderated theological debates that I began orchestrating with my dear friend

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, one of the elders at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church who

I, on Long Island, have had orchestrated over 25 debates, 10 of which were with Roman Catholic apologists and he also had debated

Muslims and liberals and homosexual advocates and wondrous Pentecostals and other individuals.

Well, the publishers of the NASB have been sponsoring nearly every single thing that I have set my hand to do in a public forum.

And I just thank them more than I can possibly convey in the English language.

And if your church is going to be getting new hymnals that include our guest's hymns, if you just tuned us in, our guest today is

Jonathan Cruz, pastor of Community Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and he is a hymn writer and you can find his hymns at hymnsofdevotion .com

and some of his hymns will be included in a new edition of the Trinity Hymnal. If your church is getting new hymns that include our guest's hymns, why not, at the same time, take a look at those

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another sponsor of this program, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania who says,

How can we be dogmatic about the style of music we sing in our churches when the

Bible does not provide for us musical notes or anything like that as our infallible guide?

Good question. It's a really important question in that we don't want to be overly dogmatic in areas that we cannot be.

Of course, there's a freedom in certain things, especially when it comes to things like style.

There's no way in which we could say that the traditional hymns that perhaps you and I are familiar with and like that come out of 18th century

Europe or 19th century Europe are the only way in which God is glorified, obviously.

That's probably not what it sounded like in ancient Israel. It's not what it's going to sound like if you go to other countries in the world, and we know that God is glorified in heaven by the praises of all people, tribes, nations, tongues.

So certainly there is an aspect where we cannot be too dogmatic. What we,

I think, need to come down hard on is by saying that it's wrong to say that style doesn't matter at all and that there are certain styles, there are certain ways in which we can perform music, present music, compose music that are not pleasing to God.

And it doesn't just mean just because you're writing something as a traditional feel that automatically it is acceptable to God, just because you're writing something that has a contemporary vibe doesn't mean that it's not acceptable to God.

But style still matters. God requires our very best just by nature of being made in the image of God.

We are commanded, we are required to devote over to Him everything in excellence as much as we can as sinful creatures.

And I think too often in the music of the church today we don't think about that.

We kind of turn a blind eye to excellence. We allow things that are mediocre.

We allow things that have the wrong kind of connotations.

We spoke before the break, Chris, about how music is not neutral and it carries with it moods and tones and it carries with it affect.

And we could be using music in church that has the wrong kind of affect, that reminds us more of the stadium concert than it does about the sacred space in which we are worshiping.

So we can't come dogmatically down and say, this is the right style. But whatever style we are pursuing, we need to very carefully and intentionally ask ourselves, what is it conveying?

And I think that the Bible does clearly give that kind of stipulation to us that what we're offering up to God matters.

Yeah, I've said this on another program about music, but those who are staunch about their defense that anything goes when it comes to music,

I wonder how many of those people would say the same thing with the manner with which one preaches the gospel.

If a minister ascended into the pulpit and for the entirety of his message was preaching like Jim Carrey in one of his very bizarre comedy movies with the funny voices and so on,

I mean, unfortunately, there would be a lot of people who would love that. I know that. But I wonder if they are regenerate, if they would love, and I'm speaking of if they would love the way, if they would love their preacher to preach that way.

I'm not saying you can't enjoy and laugh at Jim Carrey as long as he's preaching. Right, yeah. Well, the Bible speaks of worship with reverence and awe, and it also speaks elsewhere, especially in the

Psalms, of worshiping with joy and with gladness, but it never speaks of worshiping with flippancy or with levity.

And to say that style doesn't convey, can't convey things like flippancy or levity is wrong.

To say that style doesn't matter at all is wrong. God cares about the way we worship, and if you don't believe that, then pick up your

Bibles and look in the Book of Leviticus and read the story of Nadab and Bihu. God cared so much about the way that they worshiped

Him that He struck them down dead. Now, we praise God that He's so gracious with us, and even though we come to Him as sinful creatures, and there's no worship that we can offer this side of Heaven that is perfect,

He condescends to us, He stoops to us, He aids us by His Spirit, but that doesn't give us license to not care about the way we worship.

That ought to be of the utmost importance to us as Christians, because truly the most important thing we will do this side of Heaven is worship.

Amen. And we wouldn't want a minister on the other end of the spectrum for a half hour to an hour and a half, however long he preaches, screaming at us nonstop, no matter what he's saying, like some of these screech, heavy metal singers, because there are

Christians who think that's acceptable music in the church as well. Well, would you want your pastor just to scream at you, almost in a way where you can't even understand what he's saying, regardless of what the content of his message is?

Now, I understand that. I'm not talking about the very appropriate raising of the voice and thundering with the truth of God's Word.

I'm talking about screaming and so on. But anyway, I think that we've made our point with that. I want in the next 20 minutes that we have left, for you to really let our listeners know, especially those who are aspiring hymn writers or musicians or songwriters or worship leaders, to want them to get from you your counsel in regarding writing hymns.

Sure, yeah, I'd be glad to. Well, let me just say that so that nobody tunes out if they're not planning on being a hymn writer, that the counsel

I could give regarding hymn composition is the same counsel I give to any

Christian as far as considering what makes a good hymn a good hymn. So, even for just your lay

Christian, you should be thinking, as you pick up the hymnal each Sunday, and hopefully throughout the week as you make it part of your family worship, is this a song

I should be singing? Are these words that I should be lifting up to God? And so some of the tips I have for how we should be composing hymn texts

I think are helpful in that respect, too. So, my hope is that everybody will find this useful.

I like to break it down to two kind of main categories, Chris, if I could just talk about those two categories.

And that is our hymn texts should be first, acceptable to God, and secondly, accessible to us.

So, acceptable to God and accessible to us. And then, just a few points for each of those, but if we kind of use those as, you know, hooks to hang our thoughts on as we talk about hymn texts.

The first thing is that our words must be acceptable and pleasing to God.

And I think a few ways we can do that, hopefully they're obvious. I don't want to be saying anything groundbreaking here.

The first thing is it needs to be biblically based, right? This is what we love about our brothers who are, you know, exclusive psalm singers, is that they recognize it's important to sing the

Word of God. I hold that same conviction, even though I write hymns and I sing hymns. I don't think we should be wasting our time singing any hymns that can't be found in Scripture.

That is to say, their theological concepts, their content can't be rooted in the themes of Scripture.

You know, Paul says in Colossians 3, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

One of the ways that we can be saturated with the Word of God is by singing songs that are saturated with the

Word of God. So, not that you, you know, every line you can be able to say, oh, that's, you know, that's

Matthew chapter 6 or that's Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8, but that, the hymn as a whole is scriptural.

And I think it is great that when we do have, you know, lines that are lifted straight from books of the

Bible. So, our hymns to be acceptable to God, they need to be Bible -based. They need to be

God -centered. And by that I mean, and this is another issue that we were asked about with the issues with newer music today, worship music, a lot of it is me -centered.

The pronouns are all, you know, I, me, we. It's all about us and our feelings rather than about God and who

He is. And I think when hymn texts are grounded in the Bible, they naturally will tend to be

God -centered. In fact, it's pretty impossible for them not to be. So, when we sing to God, our primary concern should not be our feelings, our emotional experiences, but our concern should be

God, who He is and what He has done for us. So, good hymns will, therefore,

I think focus primarily on God's work of creation and redemption through Jesus Christ.

They will focus on His attributes, you know, God's love, His power, His wrath even, His justice,

His judgment, His wisdom. They need to be Bible -based and God -centered. And then one last thing just to throw out there for how hymns can be acceptable to God is this category

I call theological maturity. In fact,

I'm pretty sure, you know, I've been saying it for so long, but I'm pretty sure I need to credit Pastor Terry Johnson.

I don't know if you're familiar with him down in Georgia. Yeah, I think that comes from one of his books.

He talks about our worship being theologically mature. And the idea is this.

We can have biblically -based, God -centered words that are truthful, but don't reflect an appropriate level of spiritual maturity.

And, you know, the example I like to use is that, while it's true to say that, you know, the B -I -B -L -E is the book for me, and we stand alone on the

Word of God, those are true statements, perhaps a better expression for congregational worship is found in more substantial poetry, like how firm a foundation the saints of the

Lord have laid for your faith in His excellent Word. They're both conveying the same truth, right?

The Bible is the Word of God, but there's one that has theological substance and one that is, we could say, theologically trite.

Now, it's a kid's song, so in certain settings, it's perfectly appropriate. Yeah, I was at a... Congregational worship.

I was at a worship service a couple of years ago, and they opened up the worship service.

This was not a child's service. This was a corporate worship of adults and children gathered together, and this was at a

Pentecostal church. And I have friends there, and I love them, but they opened up the worship service with a song that had one line in it that was repeated for about,

I don't know, four minutes at least? And that line was... Another issue, right, of vain repetition.

Yeah, and the line was, This is how we worship Him. Clap your hands.

This is how we... And that went on and on and on, and I had to just drop my hands to my side and stop singing because I felt like a fool, and I felt...

In fact, I remember thinking, even if I had a child who was in a children's church service of some kind,

I would be upset even if they were teaching the children to sing that song.

Right. There's that famous book by Phillips, you know, your...

R .B. Phillips, or J .B. Phillips, Your God is Too Small, and sometimes our worship is too small for our

God. We see God as being too small, as if He's pleased with that kind of thing, but we need to recognize that hymn singing is a forum, you know, this corporate hymn singing is a forum in which there's a broader public encountering

Christian doctrine, so our poetry needs to... It takes thought because it should permit the least educated to comprehend, maybe not at first glance or first read, but let the least educated comprehend in some sense, but also give the more thoughtful, discerning mind something to ponder and, you know, kind of chew upon and give back to God in meaningful praise.

So those are just some things I want to offer up to people as they consider what makes a good hymn text and how they might set out at writing good hymn texts.

The first thing, it's got to be God. It has to be acceptable to Him, and you know you're doing that if it's based on Scripture, it's focused on God and what

He's done for us in Christ, and it reflects an appropriate theological maturity. But then the other aspect is it being accessible to us, and this is really important, right?

What I mean by this is that it's something we can dive into, we can remember, something that we can sing with meaning.

We talked about how emotionalism isn't entirely bad. We should be stirred up to singing. And so the text needs to also be accessible.

So how are some ways we can make a text accessible? In the English language, rhyming obviously is the first thing that comes to mind, right?

You know, our hymns rhyme. That's kind of a main tenet of English poetry.

What's important about rhyming, though, is that it doesn't exist to control what the text has to say. In fact, you know,

I'm not going to point out any song in particular, but I'm sure you've been there and you've sung certain hymns or songs or worship songs that it rhymes, but it was so awkward to get to that rhyme that it stands out, you know?

We don't want the rhyming to draw attention to itself. It is supposed to serve the text, and it does help us to remember it.

There are different ways in which you can employ rhyming, different rhyming schemes.

You know, there's A, B, A, B, and then you can throw in A, B, C, you know, C, B, A. It's all kinds of interesting ways in which you can work with rhyming and the metrical setting to get across certain feelings in hymn texts.

To give an example, there's a hymn called Praise the Savior Ye Who Know Him by Thomas Kelly, and it has a meter of 8, 8, 8, 5.

So that means 8 syllables, 8 syllables, 8 syllables, 5 syllables. And the rhyming scheme reflects that meter,

A, A, A, B. And so what this does is it gives the text a natural momentum, even apart from the music.

As you read the poetry, you feel it, that 8, 8, 8, and then 5, it's just kind of an abrupt, climactic last line of each stanza that has a different rhyme than the other two.

So those are ways it gives the poetry, like I said, momentum, and that helps for that particular text, which is an uplifting and upbeat text.

Another really important thing in hymn texts is parallelism. Parallelism is the art of repeating motifs throughout stanzas, and this helps singers to quickly grasp the hymn's theme or meaning.

If you know hymns, there's parallelisms all over them. You probably don't even recognize it. But if you think of, well, even some of the ones that you played from my selection,

Lamb, Precious Lamb, that's going to be one of the ones in the forthcoming Psalter hymnal. Every line starts with lamb and then a descriptor.

So it's Lamb, Precious Lamb. Lamb, Spotless Lamb. Lamb, Worthy Lamb.

And so you can see there's a parallelism which tells the singer there's a theme I'm supposed to be picking up in this hymn.

So that aids us, that assists us in being able to access the hymn text.

A more famous one would be Take My Life and Let It Be, right? That's Francis Haverhill. Every stanza is take my something, and then the

Lord would do something else. Take my feet and make them move, right? And take my life and let it be, take my hands and make them move, take my feet and let them speed with gospel news.

Every line is take my, and the author and the singers with the author gives over something to the

Lord. Abide with me. Every stanza of abide with me ends with abide with me.

You know, every single stanza gets back to that theme of comfort, that the Lord is with us.

So parallelism is a wonderful way in which you can work with the themes of a particular text.

Another one that you read from my selection, had parallelism, is

A Sinner Saved by Grace, where every line ended with getting back to that chorus, that theme of the

Christian, that we are a sinner saved. So, you know, we sing in the second verse, a sinner to my core in Adam's fallen race, but in Christ Jesus something more, a sinner saved by grace.

When Satan, sin, and shame accuse me to my faith, I shield myself behind this claim, a sinner saved by grace.

So if we want text to be accessible to congregants, coming from a wide spectrum of backgrounds and maturities, employing things like rhyme, parallelism, even the content structure is vital in making a hymn accessible.

And by that I mean that the hymn should have not just a unifying theme, but it should kind of serve to promote a story.

It's telling a story. It's not just a random collection of thoughts. Even if they're true and orthodox and they rhyme, you don't just want a random smattering of things.

It should have a content and a structure. A Mighty Fortress is a perfect example.

If you think A Mighty Fortress is our God and you don't sing all the verses, it's a pretty depressing hymn,

Chris, because the first verse ends by saying that, speaking of Satan, for still our ancient foe doth seek to work us well, his craft and power great, and armed with cruel hate on earth is not his equal.

If you were to just end there, it would be pretty depressing. But when you sing it all, you realize that the end of each line feeds into the start of the next.

And that hymn has a concept, and it tells a story. So this is what's so important about our worship words that we give to God, that we should be thinking carefully about how we write them.

We should be thinking carefully about which ones we use, because God is a

God who is worth it. If I can just put it like that, we get the word worship from worth -ship.

He is worthy of this kind of praise. He deserves very careful attention to this task, which

I've said before is the most important task we could ever engage in, singing praise to him, coming before him and lifting up our hearts and our souls in thankful adoration.

He is a God worthy to be praised, and therefore our praise should be worthy of him. Amen. We have

CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, who says, Don't you think that we who use traditional hymn books should explain to the congregation when archaic words are used in the song so that especially new believers can understand what they're singing to begin with?

Absolutely. I think that's a great thing, and I wish more ministers would do that. You know, a common example is, Come thou fount of every blessing, which in that second verse has that word ebenezer, right?

Right. Here I raise my ebenezer. Well, most people don't know what that means. So you could do what, right?

You could chalk it up to archaic language and say, They'll just never worry about it. You could say,

Well, it's old language, so we're not going to sing it. There's a couple things you could do that would just kind of bypass the issue.

Or, which I think is the better option, would be for the minister, the worship leader, just to take 30 seconds, right, and to explain what is an ebenezer, right?

It's this symbol of God's faithfulness to us. And when you do that before the singing, not only does it deepen our understanding of the song we're about to sing, but it deepens our understanding of the

Bible, right? It's another opportunity for whoever's up front to teach and edify the congregation.

And also, another thing about these archaic words is it reminds us that when we gather in corporate worship, we're joining with the voices from ages past, right?

It's not just us. It's not just here in the church today, you know, whatever that particular Sunday is.

We're joining with them in the past, just as we know one day we're going to join with them in ages to come in heaven, right?

Amen. That ancient throng that we sing about in,

Oh, hail the power of Jesus' name, right? Oh, that with yonder sacred throng we at his feet may fall, and join the everlasting song and crown him

Lord of all. Amen. That's what we're aiming for in worship, right? To join with the church down through the ages.

And so, yeah, that's a great question about what we should do with old language. I think it's an opportunity. It shouldn't be a hindrance.

It's a great opportunity. And that's also a great reason to incorporate the Psalter in the worship because of the very thing that you said, to connect not only with the saints from the new covenant, but even from the old covenant.

Absolutely. Well, I want you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners right now in just about two minutes' time.

Okay. Well, worship is the most important thing that you will ever do this side of heaven. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, because I do want that to be etched in your listeners' hearts and minds.

Worship is the most important thing. We know that based upon our internal design, we could say just the way we're created.

You know, Romans 1 and 2 talks about this, that we're made for worship, and if we're not worshiping God, we're going to worship something worthless.

And we also know that it's the most important thing we'll ever do because it is the only thing we will do for an eternity.

You know, if you think about the mission of the church, to plug this back into our conference tomorrow, we're going to be talking about evangelism, we're going to be talking about edification.

Those things are going to pass away. The third thing that we're talking about is worship. That is what continues in heaven.

And so we should consider now, and I hope this isn't putting it in kind of too crass of a way, but now we're kind of practicing for what we're going to be doing for an eternity.

And because of that, we should take it very carefully. It is not something that should be taken flippantly, especially for the ministers out there who are listening.

I would exhort them to really care about preparing worship services and to really think and pray over the songs that you are choosing because the way that music is, right, we're much more likely to memorize words to a hymn than we are to memorize

Scripture just because of music and rhyming and all that kind of stuff. So I want ministers to be really careful.

What words are you etching into people's memory? They ought to be words that are acceptable to God, that are

Bible -based, that are theologically mature, that are Christ -centered, and words that draw us into worship and do not hinder us from coming into God's presence and offering up a sacrifice of praise.

So I want people to take worship seriously, Chris. I want them to recognize that God wants us to take it seriously and that is not meant to take away the joy of it at all.

Amen. And I want you all to remember that the conference, the Faith and Life Conference, at Community Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, is being held tomorrow and Sunday.

And the website for more details is kalamazoocpc .org. That's K -A -L -A -M -A -Z -O -O -C -P -C -D -O -T -O -R -G.

And you'll find out all the information that you need. And also, I don't want to forget to remind you that the

Banner of Truth Ministers' Conference, where I will be attending, God willing, May 29th through the 31st, will be held in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, featuring

Alistair Begg, Jimmy Gibson, Mark Johnston, Al Mohler, David Strain, and Craig Troxell, who

I believe is an OPC minister. That's right. And if you'd like to register for this conference, which is on the theme,

The Ministers of Christ, go to banneroftruth .org, banneroftruth .org, click on Events, and then click on 2018

U .S. Ministers' Conference. Thank you so much, Brother Jonathan.

I look forward to having you back on the program. I want to thank all of you who listened, especially those who took the time to write in questions.

I hope you all have a safe and blessed weekend and Lord's Day. And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater