February 12, 2016 Show with Gregg Hodge on “Minding Your Faith: How Men Can Have Devotional Lives that Will Actually Affect Their Real Lives!”

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.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we

converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another

wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear

from you, the listeners, with your own questions.

Now here's our host.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet

earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnsen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Friday on this

12th day of February 2016.

And that's just two days away from my birthday for anyone interested in possibly sending me

money or valuable gifts, so I just wanted to let you know that.

And I'm very excited to have, for the very first time on my program today,

due to the very strong and eager and enthusiastic recommendation of Mike

Gaydosh of Solid Grand Christian Books, one of the sponsors of Iron Sharpens Iron.

I have with me Greg Hodge of the band slash ministry Princeton

Revival and we are going to be discussing his brand new book, actually I'm not even sure if it's hot

off the press yet but it will be shortly.

The book is called Minding Your Faith, How Men Can Have Devotional Lives That Will Actually

Affect Their Real Lives.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron, Greg Hodge.

Chris, thank you very much, it is a pleasure to be with you.

I am as well and I am also excited that for the very first time I have sitting next to me a

dear friend of mine, he is John Busby Taylor,

Reverend Buzz as his friends call him and since I'm his only friend, I'm the only one who

calls him that.

But Reverend John Busby Taylor is the co -host with me for the very first time and he is a retired

pastor and I like to think of him as an eschatologist,

I don't know if anybody else has used that phrase before but he seems to study a

lot on different end times theories and so on, he happens to be himself a post -millennialist.

But welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron for the first time as my co -host, Reverend Buzz Taylor.

Thank you Chris and I hope everybody sends you chocolates since I am local with you.

And I'm so glad that Buzz finally was paroled and can be my co

-host today.

And before we return to Greg who is our guest today, Buzz, why don't you tell our listeners something about

very briefly, and I mean that very sincerely and strongly, very briefly

your history as a pastor in the different denominations where you serve.

Oh, you've known me that long, huh?

Very briefly, yes, yes, I come from a, well, my ultimate background was close to nothing.

I was raised in a denominational church that we stopped going to when I was very

young and for years we didn't go anywhere.

And then we heard the gospel through a Baptist church in Tonawanda, New York.

I'm from Buffalo originally.

And from there, I've kind of been around the block.

I graduated from a very fundamentalist university.

I was a Baptist pastor for about four years, an assistant pastor.

And then I've spent some time going through the whole Pentecostal scene and

Charismatic.

And I am today attending Carlisle Reformed Presbyterian Church where I've been for

about 15 years now.

That's a PCA church.

A PCA church, right.

When I moved to Carlisle, I started going there.

And you included among the churches where you pastored were also the Church of God, not the Cleveland

-Tennessee.

Right, the Findlay, Ohio.

The Church of God General Assembly, which they're actually larger in the Harrisburg area here.

Yeah, they seem to be everywhere, the Churches of God.

And next to the Brethren in Christ, I think it's the most popular denomination in this.

Area.

Probably, yeah.

And, well, Greg, tell us something about, before we go into your own personal testimony

of how you came to Christ and how you arrived at where you are today

theologically, tell us something about Princeton Revival.

The tributaries, a bunch of my friends, we

came together in

the form of a ministry that would involve music and writing and teaching, a

year underway,

at the

downloadable.

That's where we're doing it.

We're excited about it.

And I might as well give our email address right now if anybody listening would like to join us on the air with a question of your own.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail dot com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail

dot com.

And please include at least your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if

you live outside of the USA.

And so, by the way, I want to let our listeners know we will be sharing with you a couple of

songs during this broadcast that Princeton Revival has recorded.

So we hope you enjoy those songs that we will eventually get to.

Tell us something about your upbringing and how you eventually came to

embrace Christ as your Lord and Savior.

You should know that nobody gives

me heat for being a Buffalo Bills fan, brother.

Right.

Nobody's perfect.

I'm also a Yankees fan.

You get all the heat for that, of course, not recently, but somebody said to me a few years

ago, oh, the Bills.

Boy, I love to lose Super Bowls.

At any rate, so.

Yeah, yeah.

We're good at that.

But we still pull for them anyway.

At any rate,

so I was between that time and I grew up in a home that was not a Christian

family, which occasionally, and so my father came to Christ,

interestingly enough, the spirit of God called him through Billy Graham's ministry.

My brother came to Christ after that, my

older brother, Bruce, who's a graduate of RTS and friends with RSD, and

then I followed shortly after that.

I was still in high school and went to college,

dropped out of college, and after I came home kind of devastated, mostly for my

own laziness, I started going to church with my dad and began growing in Christ.

At that time, I think I was nominally just a baby before that, and

so I went to a small Baptist church and the youth pastor in that church brought me to a

concert where I really just sensed the Lord moving

in me to perhaps to use my gifts in music

in that way, so I went forward as a Dallas Home concert, which is

interesting to come back to later, but I met Dallas later in life.

I thought, I want to use my gifts for the Lord in music, if you'd be pleased, and so I thought, Dallas Home is

great, but we need some guitar, we need some crank here.

So I didn't realize there were bands like Petra and the Allies out there, but I

soon came to realize that they were out there and resonating with their ministries, so I got

into Christian music and I moved to Nashville, met my bride down there,

and we went to Southern Seminary straight after we were married,

and I spent the next three and a half years matriculating through the diploma program, which

converted to a master's after I got a bit of an interesting and eclectic

educational background.

And for our listeners who are unfamiliar with Southern Seminary, the actual full name is THE

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

And well -pronounced, brother, it's Louisville, it's Louisville.

I was preaching in Texas once, and a guy said, you could have come down this way and done it

right, but you're up there in Louisville, and so when I came up to the pulpit, I said, as you did, I said, well,

brothers and sisters, I just want you to know that we do have other fine schools.

However, I graduated.

And that must be very close to the country's most famous baseball bat

factory, isn't it?

It is indeed.

My favorite team, I love

being up there, and I can only say, if you are considering

deepening your walk with the Lord through academic study, either at Boyce College or in

graduate or terminal work, you would do well to visit that school and see it

for one of the finest institutions on the planet.

And of course, the illustrious Dr. Albert Moeller is the president there.

He is indeed the president, and I went there for that

Dr. Moeller, and they were very interesting times,

wonderful returns, but the spirit

of so much of what happened up there was just crazy wrong.

I learned a lot about ministry and just an ironic warmth toward people that you

disagree with, and bomb threats and just crazy stuff going on.

So you look at the transformation, and now, man, it's just a place that has a lot of peace and

community and really is flourishing.

It's been fun to be able to say that I went there, and it's been fun to see God continue to

bless that institution.

Now, obviously, I can't let you quickly gloss over bomb threats.

Is this during the controversy where liberals were being expelled from the

faculty there?

Yeah, it was indeed.

It was indeed, and I had an interesting year,

but basically,

brother, there was so much angst and hurt going on that people walked

back.

A lot of them did, but I remember one episode where the hallways, this was after someone tried to

slap Dr. Mohler in, I think it was a chapel or a convocation.

Wow.

This is crazy, crazy, disrespectful stuff.

Wow.

And, you know, hurt and all this notwithstanding.

It's just crazy for the public to see this or hear about this.

So there was the hallway to his office was lined with students just protesting him,

and he stuck his head up the door and looked down both ways quickly and pulled his head in and got on the phone

with Domino's and ordered pizzas for all of them.

But yeah, we were in, I think it was two different chapel services.

One was Dr. Richard Land.

If you recall, Russell Moore took over, was head of the Christian Liberties

feast from Nashville, and he came to speak.

If you know Dr. Land, I don't know if you're familiar with his ministry.

I am vaguely, but I don't know him personally.

Yeah, he, if you've ever heard him speak, he would, of course, came to speak.

To speak for the Southern Catholics of our day.

And, you know, great guy, incredibly well -educated and had

a long voice,

speak at chapel and

that was one occasion, there was another.

But yeah, it was a total period of unrest.

I do remember, I do remember Dr. Moeller leaning over

the pulpit in chapel ministry there with a Bible that, you know, they say, listen to the

Bible that's worn out, it usually belongs to somebody who's not listening.

And there he was, there he was with that Bible.

And when you just finished preaching of the Doctrine and Covenants, he leaned over the pulpit

and said, a word

is necessary.

We can understand it.

He just went on, he just down -listed all things.

And at close, he said, look, if you don't believe that, you're not going to like it here.

Let's pray.

And he was firm and there were difficult times, but I really praise

him in just a golden age,

generous, gone through a

great place, great stories.

And were you already a believer in the Doctrines of Sovereign Grace prior to going there?

Did that come subsequent to your education at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary?

Uh, prior to going, it was, I am

right now,

wasn't going to leave the best place, you know, but I went in there, I guess, so many look

back and you say, I

got there and more

deeply and, you know, it just,

I came, it

was hard and my spirit was agitated.

And, uh, I went in, I do remember going in and talking to Dr. Mohler and saying, listen, I need to find out

some things, uh, about Calvin's thoughts.

I'm really wrestling with this.

And I found myself angry at God.

I don't know that I don't want to believe this kind of a God.

And yet I, I had to submit to truth.

You know, what does Calvin say?

Dr. Mohler's, uh, usual wisdom and, uh,

and he's very concise.

He sees the question and sees the answer that needs to be given.

And he said, you know, Greg, let's just talk about the Bible.

And we'll, we'll get to, we'll get to Calvin later.

Uh, because, you know, we're only interested in Calvin to the degree that we, that we think that he's

declaring for us.

In those conversations, uh, he recommended it by the end of

that fear to God just showed me not

only their beauty, their power.

I mean, when you get that humbled and you realize even me, you start singing hymns,

you know, can it be, can it be, if it's real, if it's real, this is

crazy.

And the humbling effect of those doctrines.

And then that plays in the ministry of the rest that you believing in that kind of God, the

confidence and the joy that emerges to you too.

I know.

So, so glad I went there for a number of reasons, but that's one of them.

I came.

Yeah.

The way I worded that is for me, that's when grace became amazing.

Exactly.

And yeah, yeah.

And for, and for so many there, yes.

I'll give you the answer that came in today.

He said, does Calvin have five fingers?

And so, um, yeah.

Does that mean he's not listening?

Because he had 10, didn't he?

Well done. Yeah.

But, uh, in fact, my cohost here, uh, buzz is living proof that.

Reforms people do come out of Bob Jones university.

And, uh, he is one of many, uh, uh, men, men in the ministry that started

their education at Bob Jones university that had a, a history of, uh, anti

vehement anti -Calvinism.

And today it's not the case.

In fact, I just saw.

Uh, Steve Pettit, the current president of Bob Jones university preach at a conference along with

great reformed men of God, like Dr. Joel Beaky and Dr. Steven

Lawson.

Uh, and, uh, my favorite preacher on the planet earth, Dr. Conrad M. Bayway of Kabwatha

Baptist church in Lusaka, Zambia.

And some other, and some other men and Dr. Pettit, I don't know if

he's a five point Calvinist, but the message that he preached was surely a, uh, one that reflected the, the

reformed understanding of the Ordo Salutis.

So, but, um, I didn't mean to interrupt you there, brother.

So you are now at a place where you've come to, uh, love and

believe and passionately proclaim the doctrines of sovereign grace.

And, uh, you, how did you get involved in Princeton revival?

I wasn't in, by the way, I want to let our listeners know before either you or not, I forget to say it.

You are actually a descendant of Charles Hodge of Princeton from the 19th century,

Princeton, uh, divines, right?

Yeah.

There's a cousin relationship there.

And I,

uh,

to have

that

history,

I do.

And, uh, there's got

with that kind of blood rolling around.

So, yeah, I, I, uh, I, um, as

far as

the connection there to the, to the band, I think, you know, it is a metaphor.

It's a signal that our

signal that our country has drifted away.

I mean, all of the old seminaries that were started to the glory of Christ,

and prayed over and filled populated with, with educators who would deposit, um,

proclaimers of the truth right into society.

And when you think of Princeton now, um, and I think it's actually maybe

getting, getting healthier again, but we've all, we all are, have seen the drift.

And so we need a revival of that.

I think I'm, uh, you know, of course, not in all theological ways, a fan of Richard Baxter, but one of

the things I loved about Baxter, I think is necessary again today, especially, you know,

with the, we need to

have maintaining distinctions and combinations, but let's please pull

together on the, on the gospel and have a revival as it were, um, that rallies the

gospel, the champions of the gospel.

And, uh, Richard Baxter said that, uh, and he, and he said, what we need to get people into is the word of God,

which he wrote so that we would learn so that we would love so that we would then live it out.

And, um, that's been lost because people aren't in the word and, uh,

churches are not proclaiming the word because the pastors are not, you know, until recently, I think

there's some good indications of returning this, but I don't think pastors are being trained to think biblically or to think as

a whole.

And that's because the academies have abandoned, Christians have abandoned the academy.

And so we

need, and I was thinking, I think needs

to come back to universities and colleges and that it will trickle down into congregations and

revival in the

country.

And, um, we are in dire need, uh,

that that alone, of course, is not going to get us there, but you're not going to get far without.

I can't agree with you more.

And, you know, I, I fear that we're on the verge of actually starting a whole new

religion aside from Christianity.

I mean, you talk about, I mean, it's become in vogue to, uh, not talk about

doctrine and, you know, it's become a dirty word and people pride themselves

in ignorance because, well, they're all loving and it doesn't cause any divisions if you don't talk about doctrine.

And the irony is, is that, uh, they all are talking doctrine.

It's just bad.

Anytime that you're talking about something regarding the scriptures and what is in them, you're talking

about doctrine and it's either good doctrine, it's biblically faithful doctrine or it's bad.

I was shocked because I did some work here locally with a, with a radio station.

They had a doctrinal statement and it was about as, as, as milked down as we could get.

It.

I mean, it was just basics about, you know, the inspiration of the scripture, the DD of Christ and so forth.

And even with that, we had complaints that, you know, we're being too divisive.

We might alienate certain sects of the society, you know, sections of the society because we take a stand on inspiration.

It's like, how much can you get rid of before you no longer even have Christianity?

Yeah.

Well, Dr.

Moeller has,

I forget, uh, the side

of

my hand, the child that came in and I

was more important, the, uh, inebriated guy who was complaining about

hangnails or whatever he was.

So they, they place you in sequence based on, on your importance.

And, uh, it

was an interesting image for him to use that there are doctrines where all doctrine is important.

Um, but, uh, to pick up the phrase that Richard Baxter

used, mere Christianity needs to be articulated.

And I think learn first, this is part of why I think my book is, uh, hopefully timely as

well as timeless when it, what it contains.

But I think it's timely because men in, uh, in modern, at least Western

evangelical culture, um, are so ignorant.

And most of us are still learning how to think, to process a

sentence, you know?

Yes.

Uh, and I'm,

and I am a

Jerry Bridges, my goodness.

I mean, these are, these are minds, uh, and men with experience that I can only hope to.

Have.

Along the way, you realize capacity to reason.

It needs to be developed.

And I was reading last month, uh,

smart.

You didn't get the strongest soldiers, but a coward to sleep.

And the most brilliant scientist is worthless.

If he's asleep, uh, it's just not, not, uh,

we're, we're, we've got a

lot of

catching up to do.

And so the whole notion of minding your face of the word, I

think about how we should use.

It and that we should, uh, before we go to our first station break, I am going

to play a song, uh, by Princeton revival, uh,

called show me.

And I hope that you are all blessed by it.

And, uh, this is, uh, uh, by the group Princeton revival, as we said earlier, that

our guest Greg Hodge is a member of, which is a ministry and apparently a

recording group, a band.

And Greg has been penning music and lyrics for most of his life.

Has enjoyed writing with and for Christian artists, such as white cross, Bob

Halligan, Randy Thomas, Wes King, and Morgan Cryer.

Recently, Greg has had the joy of returning to writing, recording, and performing songs with his long time

friends and co -members of the Nashville based ministry, Princeton revival.

And as I said, here is their song show me, and we're going to be back after a few

station.

Well,

as I

said,

that

was

show

me

by

Princeton

revival,

and

we're

going

to be right back.

With Greg Hodge from Princeton revival right after these messages.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen, and if you just tuned us in for the first half hour and for the

remaining 90 minutes, we are interviewing today our very new

guest for the first time on this broadcast, Greg Hodge.

He is with Princeton Revival, which is not only a ministry, but it is also

a performing group, and they are recording artists.

You've toured with some pretty well -known groups, haven't you?

Definitely.

It's very fun.

Bill and I are, we feel, I think the Greek word is peon.

We feel like peon.

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

Our bass player is Matt Chapman.

Great music from the, Matthew toured the world.

A -Train Smith.

Aaron is 65 years old.

He looks in amazing shape.

That's Aaron on the drums.

He also makes claims to a very wonderful field.

Played on.

Yeah, he's toured with Michael Smith, Michael William Smith.

He's toured with 77, Charlie Peacock.

I mean, the list is, it's crazy.

So to have him is a real honor.

Bill Randall is my longest friend,

longest friendship standing.

I will say that my wife is my best friend, but I've known Bill since I was 19 years old,

and Bill was 17.

If possible, we used to play in Pennsylvania and

New York quite a bit regionally, and

you know, we opened up for Amy Grant and Krumbacher, et cetera, et

cetera, et cetera.

So we had a little bit of a following in upstate New York and Pennsylvania, so maybe some of the listeners might remember

his band.

We now refer to it affectionately as Wasbad.

He moved to Nashville, and Bill is a keyboardist, and he went on a tour with Rebecca

St. James.

I don't know if you are familiar with her ministry, and of

course her, and so Bill toured with Rebecca for,

and became more a part of his life.

He wanted to come off the road.

He's been around, but he's a keyboardist.

The guitar player, Randy Thomas, is the guy that started out with

your friend.

He moved to Fort Myers, Florida, and that has

just been, he just won't make that draft, but it's

incredible.

He's toured with, and hit after hit for Dolly Parton for,

well, he wrote the song Butterfly Kisses, if you remember that song.

Oh yeah, definitely.

Anybody with a daughter is going to know that song.

He's a new

guitarist

named Tim Calhoun, who's recently

joined us, and Tim is the one recording the EP that we're working on, the record that we're doing right now that will be out,

Lord willing, by March.

So he was a session player in New York City for years,

and then moved down to Nashville.

He's toured with some country

acts, and I think

they have a group that would come into the church, and not only be able to

play, because we certainly don't want to be known for just entertaining.

I think that what we do is entertaining, but we're not seeking to be boring.

The goal, reflecting on that evening,

was the night that the Spirit called me back to the

Word, resources on how to do it, and not just the impulse to do it, but they'll lead with resources

to get them back into the Word of God.

And to have five guys in the band, all of whom teach, all of whom have a different testimony and story, and all of whom have different

particular personalities that link up

in conversations that certainly have been foreordained by orchestrating fathers.

So we love what we do in that way, and it's far more than the music.

The music is simply a prop for the conversations in the ministry.

Great.

And we do have a listener from Lindenhurst, Long Island, CJ, who asked,.

It is always interesting to me that Christians should

go into the public square and to different avenues where there are

many unbelievers.

And my question to you is, as a band, is there ever a place that you believe that would be

inappropriate for you to perform, not because you don't want to reach the lost, but because

of the fact that you may be giving a public appearance of giving

approval to the venue where you are performing?

CJ, as far

as being secular, I

think, for

me, where I would draw the line is,

if I'm going into a place personally that brings my conscience under conviction, or

to any activity,

there's

always the

person who's uncomfortable if it's not in the church,

can't

get paid,

you

know, he

just would have a freedom

in play.

There are so many bands out there that cater to the church, which is great.

We need that.

But we, and we are hopefully, are not

a lot of that.

We are seeing,

to exclude women here, we

are, you know, our demographic,

we get out there in places where

guys after women meet

them

in those places, and with love.

And we want to thank our listener in Statesville, North Carolina, Betty from the

Anglican Orthodox Church, who is very interested in this topic and is spreading the

word about this program today to others.

Thank you very much, Betty.

And Buzz Taylor, my co -host, you are actually a part, or have been a

part of bands that are comprised not only of Christians, and you perform in the public square.

Of course, the music, obviously, is relatively tame enough where you could do something

like that, like old -fashioned kind of music, correct, like classic.

Well, yeah, I've been involved in various swing bands, jazz bands that, you know, play big band style.

It's been a lot of fun, but I've also been in Dixie bands that have played for weddings, and you talk

about free -spirited music in those bands, wow.

So I was right, you are a heretic.

Yes, yes.

But, of course, I'm limited in the type of bands that I am associated with, because I don't

play a rhythm instrument, I play trumpet, so I have to go where the horns are, you know.

But I'm very jealous listening to what you guys are doing, and it's like, wow, I'd love to be part of something like that.

You know, an avenue.

Well, Buzz, you'll be, sorry to interrupt, I was going to throw in there before we get too far

past the

swing.

I was offered the opportunity to perform.

Oh, my goodness, yes, yes.

The songs that you're listening to.

Wow, you own Glenn Miller's piano.

I do, it's in his California home, and boy, I certainly enjoy it, because I grew up

listening, not only, so I

love that music.

Oh, yeah, I've played a lot of that, but also, even in that era, there were those that were considered more

radical, like, I don't know, Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson and all those.

That's kind of the area I gravitated for a number of years.

Sorry, go ahead, I'm interrupting.

That's all right.

I just wanted to ask you, because as you are fully aware, Greg, music,

probably next to eschatology, and probably also you might

want to throw in there, women in leadership, music, eschatology, and women in leadership are probably the

three most divisive, church -splitting, war -starting

issues that the church is involved in, and I guess a quick follow -up would be

sign gifts and that kind of thing.

But the music, as you know,

can divide brothers.

Obviously, you believe that it is very appropriate and right to use more modern rhythms and

melodies and use of the electric guitar and things like that.

Are there rhythms and melodies that you believe are inappropriate

for Christian.

Worship?

I even understand that there could be a division between a Christian artist who

plays an instrument and plays music and listens to music, just like any Christian might listen to music,

that is not the type of music that would necessarily be preferred even by the artist

as worship music.

I mean, I know talented musicians that believe in a cappella worship only.

They're exclusive a cappellists and so on, even though they are gifted

musicians.

But do you see a certain melody that would cross the line and a

certain music style that would be inappropriate for worship?

There are principles

in the nature of worship and

the music that would go along with worship.

For

me, to note

that when the church is

creating, maintaining a context in which the things of the

Lord can

be pondered, all

about women, that's

an abiding principle for me.

Now, as we know, the gospel goes into all kinds of

cultures.

I think they're modern,

completely foreign.

It's the truth of a lyric, the truth of scripture on a lyric and a melody within that context.

And then you go down the street and there's another gospel -believing bunch, but we're

free to use that.

So for me, it's distracting in that context.

Is it an aid to the worshiper?

That would be one guiding principle for me.

Then I would make a distinction between that which is worship and that which is entertainment.

Yes, thank you.

You know, we are

not afraid to lead people into praise

and worship in

an even

sense of contemplative.

I do think that there are several songs that we've done that can be used.

One of the things that we do is we're seeking to find places where,

look, my style of music may not be fitting for the church,

who loves the theology that is represented and taught at Southern

Baptist New Life, I hope, to preach.

We're kind

enough to

play our

demos.

The record will have certainly more polished versions of these, but we've got two or three.

We've got a version of How Firm a Foundation that we play.

You know, we've got a couple free ballads that we do that would be more than fitting or

think of unless, of course, you're an a cappella church.

We do that in those cases.

We just unplug Bill's power cable and play the piano.

But yes, we're about their faith

and about where they are with life.

I mean, we call a lot of our audience, we describe as second half.

Most of the men that come and hear us are 40, 50, 60, 70 years old.

So redeem that genre with

lyrics that are so blatantly about Christ.

And again, if I may, I'm reminded of C .S.

Lewis's brief little article called Christian Literature.

I think it's in his book, The Seeing Eye.

It's his collection of essays.

Either that or God in the Dark.

I can't remember which one it's in.

But at any rate, The Seeing Eye, Christianity and Literature, in which he's

asking when writing, how does one define

good or valid as

it applies to music?

Well,

first

of all,

what makes

good literature

genres?

And it

still

does so.

And in fact, of

course, for music, I think that

we need to allow our beyond sound

like somebody like Paul is standing up there.

Does that make sense?

Right.

I think we need to allow for the liberties of other genres of scripture to come into play.

So when you look at poetry, Hebrew poetry, as any poetry, relies on imagery and

metaphor to trigger my own imagination so that I identify with

my own experiences.

And it's emotions and thinking,

remembrances.

But for the Christian to tie those into scripture, or for the growing Christian or for the

unbeliever to lead them into scripture.

Part of what we're using that in the church or whether we're using that out

somewhere where it's outside the church, we try to bring them into that good

music with a lyric that is contemplation of Christ or something

more deeper than others.

If you think of the... I think I gave you the lyric.

Essentially what that is, Chris, is it's a prayer for illumination.

Hmm.

And at some point, we should turn to the fact that when a band does a teaching concert, as we call

it, we don't call it just a teaching concert.

It's a narrative through the contents of Minding Your Faith, the book, because the book is trying to get you into the Word of

God.

Some of the first songs that we do because you don't...

And we talked about the fact you don't approach scripture without asking God to give you illumination.

And by the way, let's pick up right where we left off with illumination.

And it reminds me of Lydia, the Seller of Purple, whose heart need to be opened by God before she could

understand what Paul was teaching.

But if you could just hold that thought, we're going to go to a station break.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back.

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Sorensen.

If you just tuned us in for the last hour and the full hour to come, we have as our guest

Greg Hodge of Princeton Revival, which is not only a musical group, but also a ministry.

And before we return to our discussion, not only of Princeton Revival, but also

Minding Your Faith, how men can have devotional lives that will actually affect their real lives,

a new book by Greg Hodge.

Before we go back to that discussion, now we're going to play one of the Princeton

Revival songs, Way Above It All.

We hope that you are blessed.

Way Above It All by Puritan Revival.

I'm Christopher Love, your DJ all night long here, playing your favorite Reformed rhythms and Puritan

tunes to get through the night.

The DJ was coming out of me.

And this is really going to your head.

Well, when I heard about the Puritan Christopher Love, I said to myself, that has got to become my DJ

name.

Puritan Christopher Love, actually, he had a quote that I heard

Don Kistler bring up in a conference back in the early

2000s, I believe it was.

He was teaching on the Puritans at a conference at the church where I used to be a member of.

In New York.

And when he said this quote, it actually brought me to tears.

He said, Jesus Christ is a far

greater Savior than you are a sinner.

And that simple sentence brought me to tears in that church.

And that has become my sign out slogan as everybody who has been listening to Iron Sharpens

Iron since 2006.

That's how I sign off every day on the program.

But for those of you who just tuned us in, we have Greg Hodge, who is not only an

author, but he is also a musician and songwriter and with the ministry and musical group

Princeton Revival.

And in studio with me co -hosting is my friend, Reverend Buzz Taylor.

And Buzz, before I forget, why don't you give our listeners your website for your Bible

study that you're involved in with Jim Harris.

It's almost like we're all three under the same roof right now.

That's right.

The Harris is across the hall, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I hesitate to give it because it's so new.

We just started and it hasn't even been filled up yet.

But yet, I want you to know.

Yes, it's BackPorchBible .com.

BackPorchBible .com.

Yeah, we're the Back Porch Bible Institute because we like to sit on my back porch and talk about theology.

And by the way, Greg, I can call you Greg, right?

Of course.

That is his name.

When you were mentioned.

I've been called a lot worse, brother.

Yes, yes.

When you have the name Buzz, you've heard it all.

But you were mentioning earlier about C .S. Lewis, and I thought you were going to go a particular direction, but

I think it was C .S. Lewis, so you'll have to correct me if I'm wrong.

But I believe he's the one that said, we don't need more of Christian things being done.

But this is a terrible quote.

You mean a terrible misreading, misquoting.

Misquoting, yes, yes.

But the idea is still there.

But what we need to do is normal things with the Christian world and life view.

And I'm not afraid to call my musical adventures

concerts instead of worship services because I do believe in the concept of otherness when it comes to worship.

And but yet, you know, everything I do is not a worship service, but God can still get glory.

Just I mean, to use an example, I've caught myself driving down the street

before and some really good song will come on and I'll start raising my hand and I'm like, oh, wait,

this isn't Christian.

Wait a minute.

You know, but simply because God has given such abilities to men, such talents to perform.

I'm going to give myself away here.

But when I listen to some of the old Doc Severinsen recordings, that's trumpet the way God

intended, you know, and he gets just as much glory, whether the person's actually

deliberately trying to give God glory or not.

Well, it reminds me what you just said.

I don't know if you're familiar with the story of Martin Luther being approached by a cobbler

who was asking Luther and I may be butchering the story, too, but he.

Was welcome to the club.

Something to the effect that he was asking Luther, will I better serve God if I

sell my cobbler business and take my wife and children overseas to become a missionary?

And Luther said to him, I suggest that as a cobbler, you make a good shoe and sell it at a

fair price.

Yes, that was it.

Yes.

But we were talking about Illumination before we went to the break.

And if you could pick up to the teaching concerts and your discussion on Illumination before we

return, before we venture on into the discussion of your book.

Sure.

Well, in the larger picture of each of the

songs, I was supposed to

use that word at least once, right?

I'm sorry, even backing up to it, Buzz, what you guys are just saying that to

use the term worship in its technical sense, that could signify

the church gathered

people that

we're all familiar with.

But you're so correct.

You're so right.

And so relevant, I think, to point out all of life's work.

You know, I remember Spurgeon

and his wife said, do it outside.

But I do think that there's some people who just, you know, heaven won't be heaven unless

there's a complaint box for them.

I just don't resonate with that.

I, you know, the goal, the goal is to edify, to build up and strengthen it.

What could be more strengthening than to go to a night out with men?

Sometimes we just have men's events.

Sometimes we do father that we're doing.

But what could be more edifying?

It's not about calling it a worship, sir.

Maybe it's better to couch what we do under fellowship and witness.

It

should involve some

acknowledgment of the goodness and the greatness of God.

So you come out to a Princeton Revival show and you're going to be led through a series

of thought, God.

If I happen to raise my hand along the way, because I love

your extended guitar solos, extended

keyboard solos.

There's a,

my goodness, we

certainly hear a lot.

I go to worship service all the day long and I hear all my own church per

se.

But, you know, you, there's so

many, let's do it well.

And when it's done well, we can worship the Lord through it.

Indeed, the very premise, when you come to the concert, we're going to step you through.

The book.

And so we start out the concert with, with Be Thou My Vision.

Love that song.

And then we stop in the third verse and read

Valley of Vision.

But it's a beautiful poem.

We're here tonight to recognize that the broken, the contrite heart is the one that's full, et cetera.

And then, then we show a clip from Dr. Brad Green,

a teacher at

Union

University over the ESPN game.

And we plug in and what comes up on the

screen is calling Dr. Severinsen recalling,

and we've been created to glorify God through enjoyment.

If the old,

we've, we've seen that we

glorify God through enjoyment, by enjoying him.

That's, that's our purpose.

And you don't, point two, you can't fully enjoy God to thereby glorify him.

You can't enjoy him without getting specific knowledge.

The more that I know about golf, the more that I think there may be a possibility somehow, someday, some way that

I might enjoy it.

And that's true of a relationship with my wife.

The more specific the knowledge, the greater the potential of enjoyment.

Their hobbies, their own

initiations to get

into

scripture and pray for illumination that we would gain,

build

himself

to during

the concert.

So the concert is the book in which each of us speak on the notion of, so we've got a

song called specificity, which talks about the joy of specific knowledge that we do help the Burma foundation.

Uh, so this is what you mean by the concerts being a workshop.

Is that what you mean?

Well, we offer,

uh, we would, we

would ways in which,

right.

So it's one of the, if you will, it's one of the events.

Then you can have the teaching concert, which is a one night event that lasts two hours, hour 15 for the,

for the, if you will, the show, the teaching concert, and then 45 minutes of informal discussion with anybody in the band about the book.

Uh, the next step up for that is the workshop, which is, we're trying to do this at college campuses where we have

a Q and a followed by a private session,

50 minute session, where you can go and talk about one of the four kinds of Bible studies that the book offers with

one of the band members.

Uh, and then the conferences is all of the band members talking about,

and then get all of the sessions.

And then we, uh,

bring us

in there.

If you don't know who we are, you've never heard us.

You can just ask me to come in and do a men's practice kind of thing.

But by the time you get to workshop, uh, we're, we're moving through a teaching concert that is helping you

understand the importance of glorifying God through knowing him.

And that, that knowledge is accessed only in scripture, appreciated in general

revelation, but it's, it's accessed only in special revelation.

And here's how we historically theologians have studied.

And, uh, so I articulate four, I use P's just by way of, you know, uh, alliteration because I'm a

Baptist and they have to have alliteration to help me.

So formally what I'm doing is I'm taking you through biblical, historical, systematic and

introduce and fix.

We've never been to seminary to these concepts.

And so I'm offering, Hey, let's spend a month doing what we call it for biblical.

I call it passages.

Take it.

How do I rightly understand a passage?

And so there's a chapter on how to do that.

And then the next is take,

take a month and look at personatic

theology, uh, whether that's God or, uh,

mankind or, uh, Christ or the spirit of the church, the future.

Um, then what you do is you spend a month with a part of that doctrine.

I'm sorry.

Did I just use the word doctrine?

But, and I explain it.

It's always, all we're talking about is teaching.

What does the Bible teach or reveal?

Or what is it that God is trying to say to us?

Uh, and so you spend a month with, with the question, why should I read the Bible?

Why does that have authority over me?

It's been a whole month.

And then you move on to the final P which are the third P, which is person.

And so here, I'm not talking about persons of the Bible.

I'm talking about those who've gone before.

I'm talking about dead people.

Take out Athanasius.

Take out Augustine.

Take out Luther.

Take out Calvin.

Take out, you know, a number of any, uh, of, of the classic writers who have penned

words for us that like older brothers, uh, can sit down with us or grandfathers can sit down with us with

all their education, all their wisdom.

I mean, I know that today's modern seminary graduates, so many of them are just as educated as Jonathan Edwards.

Um, you know, to read Edwards in a way that is

beyond it.

So, so to make friends with some of the persons that have gone before us.

And the song Way Above It All that you just played, Chris, is a reflection, of course, as I know you guys have already picked up.

It is a meditation on Christ exalted above all things.

You read, so we talk about that in the concert.

And then the beauty and the power of that, that kind of Bible

studies talks about practices.

I mean, once you begin to develop a way of accurately discerning truth, you put

those truths together in a mosaic, uh, called systematic theology of propositions.

Then you want to see those things come alive and defended and articulated in the lives of those who've gone before us.

But all of that should lead into our own lives of, I want this to be my reality, Lord.

I want to know you in this way.

I want you to crush sin in my life the way that you crushed in Augustine's life to the

songs that are related to that.

So by the end of the concert, you've gotten to the point that we glorify God through enjoying

him and that we must know before we enjoy.

And the enjoyment is highly intensified the greater our knowledge.

And then that knowledge can be accessed only in scripture.

And we offer these four kinds of Bible studies that you might, and this gives you

diversity, a comprehensive personalized as well.

But it doesn't, you know, it doesn't allow you to stick and live there.

You've got to learn

all the

scriptures

and help them

do so.

Things that you mentioned, I hold on to over and over

again.

He says, don't try to do the right thing.

Stop trying to do the right thing.

Instead, pray to Christ and seek to become the kind of person who naturally does

the right thing.

Is that a beautiful distinction?

We do have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who says,

could not the sum of the language you've been using, such as all of life is worship,

be used wrongly to introduce man -centered and nonsensical things into a worship

service.

After all, you might love to play ping pong, but playing ping pong during a worship service during the

gathered assembly of the brothers and sisters in Christ would be ludicrous, would be man -centered, and would take the

focus off the one who we are supposed to be worshiping, praying to,

proclaiming, and giving our full attention to, the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

If you could comment on that or answer that.

Greg.

The saying that all of life's activities are worship, as a Christian anyway,

some have used that in order to go 180

degrees against the regulative principle, as we Reform people like to phrase it,

where the only thing we do in a worship service, amongst the formal gathering of the brethren,

we're going against what Scripture specifically teaches to do,

and then doing all kinds of things that some would, as our listener would find

nonsensical.

You could even go to the lengths of playing ping pong during a worship service,

if you consider all of life.

Sure, yeah, I mean, I understand the question there.

First of all, much of what we're doing

is not, or when

Bill is, of

course, there

are those, I mean, so you've got to

look to Scripture.

What do we find in Scripture that seems to indicate, these are

the fact -centered

worship,

hearing the word tongue, I resonate with Mark Dever,

and John Piper, those kinds of definitions,

of where, how long, and

Piper's called it expository play, and to me

that doesn't look

like what you see a person who is living and doing all things to the glory of Christ.

We certainly have that and other verses which seem to indicate that all of life, the sum of life should be

worship, and to live for the glory of God, that if we don't, if you can't play ping pong, and I,

you know, so I think that tension again

between principles

that would guide us, and

yet, again, remember, Scripture says

our primary purpose, that we would bring God glory through our

enjoyment of Him.

Well, if you would block me from enjoying Him, altogether.

And obviously,

there has to be a difference, obviously, also to be made between truly

enjoying God, as the shorter catechism asks in

the question about the chief end of man, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever,

there's a difference between, there's a difference between enjoying God

and enjoying something that we like as a hobby or as a peculiar

thing that we do, and trying to put a Christian veneer on it.

I think we have a problem of, a little bit of a problem of definition here, too, because when somebody says that all of life is

worship, if by that they mean, you know, I'm a Christian 24 -7, not just Sunday morning,

which, you know, that's true, and everything we do is to be to the glory of God, even playing ping pong, you

know, playing trumpet, whatever.

But on the other hand, I do see a principle in Scripture that there is a difference between the sacred and the secular.

And for example, you have, in the Old Testament, in their worship, you had

elements that were, we were specifically told, like their perfume and their incense, you are not to

use this in your home, you know, you weren't to go to church and say, hmm, that smells really nice, I like that

recipe, I'm going to burn that at home, and even the perfumes and things that were used.

In other words, like, I think an analogy could be, there is nothing, most

people, I'm sure, would agree, most Christians, anyway, would agree, there's nothing sinful about a Christian at

a carnival being involved in a pie -eating contest, but to do that at the Lord's table

would be blasphemous.

Right.

And in fact, we're going to our final break right now, and this is the last time we'll have to interrupt our discussion.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away, we'll be right back with Greg Hodge of Princeton Revival and my co -host, Reverend Buzz Taylor.

I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

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And Solid Ground Christian Books is also the publisher of a book we are discussing today, Minding Your Faith, How Men

Can Have Devotional Lives That Will Actually Affect Their Real Lives,

by our guest, Greg Hodge.

In studio with me as my co -host today is Reverend Buzz Taylor.

And you have a statement of faith for Princeton Revival.

Perhaps you could, for those of our listeners who just tuned in late, perhaps you could go over the main points of that, and

then we'll delve more specifically into the book for the rest of the program.

Sure, but

well,

yep, I

think people,

that's

one,

brother,

I believe, or either

been exposed

to, beyond that, I don't know what you want me to do.

I meant your mission statement, actually, is what I was referring to.

Oh, our mission statement.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Oh, great, great.

Oh, that, you just gave me a great relief.

I was stressed with that.

I need to get back to my library and crack open all my molar notes.

They already said it pretty well there in the creed.

So our personal mission statement is that we exist to promote and facilitate maturity

in Christian thinking and practice

and through downloadable resources.

And so you can ask me to double -click on any of that.

And your book, your new book that is coming out, is going to be the first of a

series, God -willing, of course, of four books.

Minding Your Faith is the one we are discussing today.

Men Worth Following is the hoped -for segue or

sequel to that.

And then you have Statement of Faith and Holy Communion.

If you could go through a description of each of those.

Sure.

I'm happy to review them now, available

sites.

Oh, great.

That's out.

It's been out since...

So I apologize for saying it's not hot off the press.

It is already off the press.

Yeah, no worries.

We are...

What you might have heard from Mike is that we're in the second printing now.

So we're very, very excited about that.

So that will be hot off the press here in a couple of weeks.

Very excited about that.

So that is the first in four,

as you say, Lord -willing

deepening by knowing Him.

Uh, then an unpack.

Basically trying to answer the question with my wife, who

do we want our son

to be?

We live in a culture, I would stick to some of this too.

My dad grew up in a time when the farm was saturated with a Christian worldview, and there were plenty of Christian

examples out there of strong men who were believers,

notwithstanding bad examples of that.

But the culture was saturated with a Christian worldview, the stories, the films, the arts, the business

culture.

You know, you could pray in school.

We're now in a time period where

that's expected to be a man.

So we find them sitting on couches playing video games for hours upon hours,

job to job, because we're figuring out who we are.

I sat down and started reading a bunch of books as Richard

Baxter informed this, and you've got just all kinds of examples in the reading of Dead Theologians, right?

But looking for the answer to what is a vision for me?

What should I...

And so I came up with a 15 -clause phrase, and I began to teach that to my son

and some of his friends over a period of a year.

And then, you know, per books like Raising a Modern Day Knight, per books like that, we had a ceremony for

him in which we spiked that learning with a ceremony

where my closest circle of friends and my father, his

grandfather, both of his grandfathers, gave him a letter

inviting him to be a man worth following.

And they signed it, they made it

clear, look, if you begin to get into the Word of God, because we've given him a Bible that the elders have prayed over him,

he said, if you get in the Word of God, what we don't want you to do is

try to begin, your

life will begin to manifest these

traits.

So he signed it, we gave him a medallion, and we prayed over him, and it was one of the

most significant moments of my life.

And I think for my son as well, he's

still before that.

But

he,

quite without,

you

know,

the

Hebrew

word

shu,

will get rid of the sin in our life and become somebody worth following and do it on this kind of fuel and stuff.

But we need to remember that you're not, you shouldn't stop begging people to stop

their sin.

Start toward God.

By the very act of that, you're turning your back on sin.

But the emphasis is on turning toward God, humbling yourself before him, and finding your joy in him.

And you don't do that without certain doctrines writhing in your soul.

So that's the third book.

And then the last book is that we live in an age, in a country, in a culture, where

individualism reigns.

And it's me, my, you know, I have my own, you know, I can tell Siri to call me

anything I want to, because it's all about me.

And to our brother's good.

Men are important because God made them.

Triune God of Scripture, and how is it that we, that he's made it

possible for us to Because it's not just my life on fire that matters.

I want to get in the Word.

I want to become a certain kind of man.

I want to become that man living on the fuel, reason I'm existing, just

so that I can commune with a holy God.

And we don't do that alone.

We're not

going to

get that.

What does it

look like?

As long as the Lord carries, what does it look like for us to be

doing the

commune with him?

You know, I've spoken in the past and even interviewed people that

before coming to Christ were involved in either Islam or the

Nation of Islam cult.

And one of the things that drew specifically some of the black men that I have

spoken with into that cult is that they were raised in the

church, which was very matriarchal.

And there was no real evidence of

male strength and leadership.

And could that be said basically even beyond the boundaries of the African American

church at large?

But modern evangelicalism, has modern evangelicalism become feminized in your opinion?

Absolutely brooking.

I want to be the kind of, but you want to be

the kind

of guy,

your

wife

respects,

pray together,

encourage

him.

We do have a harder time, I think, getting together.

So that's part of our mission.

I've had part

of me that just wants to say,

seriously?

You know, how to better love the Lord.

As you learn to love the Lord, you're going to be confronted, as we were in the Bible,

obviously, with a reverse of gender.

We don't have words like mother, we don't have husband and wife.

We just say, oh, those terms in and of themselves are fine, but let's make sure that they are

signaling someone that pertains to either a husband or a wife.

And there's a complementary role that's defined in Scripture and needs to be lived out.

He's not just the son, and

he's honoring the parent or their memory.

And then he's in a vocation to manifest a life that is able to publish

the gospel.

So yeah, I think

that you do.

But wouldn't you say that the way that we proclaim the blood of Christ

in public, especially to a lost audience, can be often a clear

example of whether or not we are demonstrating true

Christian manhood and whether or not we are

acting in an effeminate way theologically?

Like, a perfect contrast to me would be the difference between what John MacArthur says from his pulpit

and when he's on talk shows being interviewed about the gospel

as compared to Joel Osteen, where Joel Osteen is just sitting there with a big smile on his face, and when

he's asked a tough question about the never -dying souls of those who are not Christian, he's like,

well, I don't really know about that, and I'd rather not focus on that.

Whereas John MacArthur, on the other hand, would be clearly demonstrating that without a

faith in Christ, you are going to be damned for eternity.

Isn't that an example of biblical manhood in contrast to

a feminized approach to evangelism?

Sure.

I mean, there

are a

number

of things that

I do think,

from

Boyce to Al Mohler's website,

and I think that's part of what Joel is, comes down to asking the

pointed question, we need mannish, and loving

clarity that

is serving him.

And aren't we supposed to fear God infinitely more than we fear men and their opinion of us?

And aren't we also supposed to be far more concerned over these souls of men than hurting

their feelings?

But I do think there's, I think a mature man, a maturing Christian, has more of a

positive agenda than a negative one.

And I just meet so many people, I just, we can't do anything but talk about what

negative.

Is.

I would so much rather, when we are worshiping,

highlight that and think on that.

Let's leave with a taste that's positive.

And I just, and I'm not saying we don't criticize.

I'm just saying, guys, I talk to so many people who just, they're not happy.

I mean, they could find a cow patty in the Lord of the Rings shire.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm not saying you're complimenting them in any way, shape, or form, but you have a conversation with someone that highlights this.

You know, Dean Martin Lloyd -Jones has a book that Mark Dever gave to me called Spiritual Depression.

And really, the book should have been titled How to Have Christian Joy, because he articulates that's what the book is about.

And he says that one of the reasons that men are not as effective is that

we all, we're negative, we're red, we can't find joy in

Christ.

And so we're not doing it.

And I'm sorry, Greg, we're out of time.

We're going to have to have you back very soon.

And I know that your website is PrincetonRevival .com.

Solid Ground Christian Books is at Solid Ground, Solid -Ground -Books .com, Solid -Ground

-Books .com.

And we just hope that everybody remembers for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.

We look forward to having you back as a guest, Greg, and we look forward to hearing from you and your questions on Iron Sharpens Iron.