mjwood93 - Tumblr blog

mjwood93 · 6 years ago

Text

Rhythms of Grace: How the Church’s Worship Tells the Story of the Gospel by Mike Cosper

Rhythms of Grace: How the Church’s Worship Tells the Story of the Gospel by Mike Cosper.

"The Story of the Gospel is all about Worship” (p. 73)

“Do you find yourself in God’s Gospel story week to week? How is the Gospel important to worship?” These are just a couple of the questions that Mike Cosper seeks to answer in his book Rhythms of Grace. Mike Cosper is one of the founding pastors at Sojourn Community Church, where he serves as pastor over the worship and arts ministry. He also writes for The Gospel Coalition. While I’ve never heard of Mike Cosper until reading this book, I had listened to a couple songs from a Sojourn Music worship album because of their association with Sovereign Grace Music.

At 212 pages or so, I flew through this book in about a week, and am able to say that I’ll be recommending this book to other worship leaders and musicians. It is perfect for the layperson as well as a pastor/elder who may be in need of more study on Gospel-Centered Worship. This book has a little something for everyone, with the first part of the book almost being a short biblical theology of worship, then moving into a short chapter dealing with church history, and then moving on at last to how do we apply all this to today with changes in worship styles, technology, and other complications.

Chapters 1-4 give a short biblical theology of worship in the Bible. Biblical Theology is a discipline of theology that traces a theme chronologically in history as it appears in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Biblical Theology is a good discipline to show how a theme or doctrine develops throughout the Bible and is fulfilled and consummated in Jesus Christ. We start right at the beginning (well, actually before the beginning) before the foundation of the world with God in perfect Trinitarian love. At it’s heart, the worship of God by His own self adoration is perfect worship and love. In the book of Genesis, it is out of this overflowing love that Adam is created as the first “worship leader”. Eden was a garden temple where God was able to completely dwell in the presence of Adam & Eve. Adam & Eve’s worship was not ritualistic or endless singing, but it was their whole lives devoted to God. They were called to expand and subdue the rest of creation to the glory of God, but failed in their sin, and so perfect worship between God & man was ruined. Sin distorts the beauty and harmony that God created, and we see this in the contrasted worship of Cain and Abel and all down the line of humanity through when God calls Moses to lead the nation of Israel out of Egypt, where they sing a song of God redeeming them and giving them a new identity as His people. It is at Mount Sinai where the Priesthood and Tabernacle are established. Because God is a holy, perfect, and just God, He requires that life be taken as the punishment of sin, requiring atonement of sins through the sacrifice of birds, bulls, and lambs. As Adam represented humanity and creation, so the priesthood represents the people of Israel. Further in history these priests lead the people in false worship, and the people long for a King like other nations, who also end up representing the nation and leading the people astray. The story of the Old Testament is one of utter failure, with God continually calling the people of Israel back to repentance. The Song of Jesus is one that is built up throughout the Biblical story and leads to his quotation of Psalm 22 on the Cross, facing God’s wrath and fury for the sins of His people. His song is one of redemption and through His death and resurrection became the center where it is possible to approach God the Father through a reconciled relationship. This is why Jesus is the True Temple, our True Priest, and our True Worship Leader. He has won and has restored what sin has broken. By union with Him and by His extension, we are called as the Church to do His work, being a light unto the nations, singing His praise and glorifying Him with our lives as living sacrifices.

Chapter 5 was one of the most helpful chapters to read titled “Worship One, Two, Three”. Cosper’s philosophy of worship is one that I’ll continue to use in the days ahead. His philosophy is that worship has one Object & Author, two contexts, and three audiences.

The Trinitarian God is at the center of our worship. He created us to worship Him, and even though sin corrupted our worship of Him, He makes us new creation in Christ so that our lives are completely offered to Him by Christ’s righteousness, who also brings glory to the Father. God is the One who put forward and directed His own sovereign plan, so that He is the author of not only our faith, but our worship.

Two contexts exist for our worship, one that is scattered, the other that is gathered. Scattered worship is how each Christian individually is able to worship God in their own private and public lives. It is important to note that we can only have this intimate living sacrifice of worship because of what Christ has done on the Cross. The fact that we can worship God while driving in our car is a huge deal, one that we should be continually thankful for! We cannot sustain ourselves and our relationship with God individually though. We are called to be with community and this is where Gathered Worship takes place. Because Jesus is the Cornerstone of the true Temple and fulfills the OT temple and priesthood, we become the dwelling place of God, even more so when we unite and worship Him together. Therefore this makes our gathering on Sundays completely unique. Little temples are making a greater temple that are united to the True Temple. The goal of all this is to proclaim the Glory of God, and to spur and encourage one another on so that we can go out back into the world to proclaim the Gospel and His Kingdom.

Three audiences exist: God, the Church, and the World. God is our audience as we come to Him through His Son Jesus Christ. We can worship Him fully because of Jesus interceding for us at the right hand of the Father. The Church is the second audience. We are called to sing to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, encouraging and teaching one another in this way. The last audience is the world. Through the Church’s song we are called to be a light and declare boldly through our singing the glory of Jesus Christ to the world. It is important to have a balance of audience direction from week to week. If not careful, a church could move to something more like a seeker-sensitive church, where the emphasis is on the audience of the world. “Worship that celebrates the gospel brings all three audiences together: the God who saves by the Gospel, the Church formed by the Gospel, and the world in need of the Gospel” (p.90).

Chapter 6 moves on to Worship as Spiritual Formation, mainly emphasizing why we gather as a Church and how we use the Word in worship to form our habits as worshippers going out into the world. Gathering itself is a habit that must discipline ourselves to do. Not only that, but how we gather, what we teach through our songs, and the language we use during this gathering all form our habits for how we express and articulate our worship. We need to make sure we are discerning and scriptural about all these things. Ultimately, our gathering is to encourage us in the Gospel and our hope-filled future of Christ returning and our uniting with Him.

Chapters 7 & 8 deal with Worship in the history of the church and liturgical aspects of worship. From the beginning of when the Church was created, the Gospel has always shaped it’s liturgy. Liturgy itself means “the work of the people”, and when the church gathers we have work to do. This means to Glorify God and to spur each other on to good works. But how we do these things, and how we view God and worship Him, is based on the content that we include in our services. “The words we hear, sing, and speak in worship help form our images of God,.... our understanding of what the church is and does,... and our practices of engaging with God, with each other, and with the world” (p.118). Everything we do in a service explicitly and implicitly teaches something. To help find ourselves in the story of the Gospel, we must frame our services by the Gospel. This includes the elements of:

Adoration

Confession

Assurance

Thanksgiving

Petition

Instruction

Charge

Blessing

or, can also be framed as:

God is Holy - Creation - Adoration

We are sinners - Fall - Confession/Lament

Jesus saves us - Redemption - Assurance/Thanksgiving/Instruction

Jesus sends us - Consummation - Communion/Charge/Blessing

From the early church, to the Reformation, to the Free Church, to age of Revivalism, all various church denominations have used these practices and framework to some degree when shaping their service. Much of the problem with a modern church service is that it is based on what’s called “The Temple Model” of a pilgrim traveling to Jerusalem. I include this next paragraph from Cosper’s book because I believe it is of importance, describing a large portion of churches today:

“The problem with this model is twofold. First, it’s developed backwards. The theology of the Temple Model is a theological interpretation of an experience, and it is divorced from any kind of historical perspective on the gathered church. Second, it ignores most of what the New Testament teaches us about worship, the presence of God, and the temple. instead of being led by Jesus through the inner curtain, we’re led there by a worship leader or a pastor - a pseudo priest. God’s presence is measured in emotional impact, and it’s mediated through music and preaching, displacing Jesus from his role as Mediator and worship leader” (p.113).

This type of worship can lead people astray, and into unknowingly thinking that they are just there to feed a spiritual/emotional high. Even in our worship, we should not look to ourselves, to a worship leader, to a pastor, but to Christ Himself to help us worship all the more.

Chapter 9 is all about singing. Singing is all throughout the Bible and usually has to deal with the redemption of God’s people. God sings over us and we as the people of God have sung to Him throughout the ages. We are to sing a “new song”. This does not mean a literal creative new song with some fancy new chord progression, but has to deal with the new song of Jesus Christ our Lord saving His people through the Gospel. Worship is so much more than an individual encounter with God, as much as the modern worship movement may make it seem, but it is about our song as the people of God to our God. As I have explained earlier in this review, singing should be about teaching one another, and we are told to do this through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. What we sing and how we sing are so important, because our song sung together is a testimony and declaration to the world about what we believe. This means singing and submitting to each other’s preferences as well, because, this shows love to one another, and continues to not hurt our witness to the world. Within all of this, the end goal of music should be to serve the congregation’s singing, in scriptural truth, but also in quality and other factors, such as a key that is suitable for them.

Chapter 10 places an emphasis on the role of a worship leader being a pastoral one. Those who lead are stewards of God’s Word, and should know it well. We as worship leaders place the thoughts and words used into people’s minds, mouths, and hearts. Worship leaders have the greatest opportunity to summarize doctrine and make the language of the Bible fresh and new to their congregation’s ears. We should make sure that what we sing should be rightly contextualized and understandable to our congregation. We should also be aware of who we have in our congregation, and what situations are arriving and have gone before us in the congregation, and should know the congregation’s needs and sufferings. This is an area where I personally need to grow in, so it was good for me to read.

I’ve read six books on worship this year, and this would probably take place at number three for favorite worship book that I’ve read; number two being Christ-Centered Worship by Bryan Chapell, number one being Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin (who also does the foreword for this book). I continue to learn and see that our theology shapes our doxology and vice versa, therefore one must be discerning with each, because they are of the utmost importance. Worship is what we were made for; to worship God through Jesus Christ, because of what he Has done on the Cross. He is our True Worship Leader, and may we ever look to and depend on His mercy and grace to help His name be glorified all the more. I thank God for Mike Cosper, his ministry and this much needed book.

#worship #mike cosper #music #gospel #the gospel #the gospel coalition #liturgy #christ #christian #book review

1 note · View note

mjwood93 · 6 years ago

Photo

When Wright is Right, When Wright is Wrong: Thoughts on N.T. Wright and “How God Became King”

 A note to the reader: This is my first foray into a blogpost dealing with Theology so, please be gracious. I understand I have a long way to go in terms of writing and am open to constructive criticism.

 I’ve never enjoyed disagreeing with someone more.

 N.T. Wright is the well-known, highly controversial New Testament Scholar, current Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Saint Andrews. He was former Bishop of Durham, and is well known for his four volume work on Christian Origins and the People of God. 

I have not had that much experience at all with Wright until fairly recently. Wright is someone who I’ve always heard Christians rant and rave about. In my undergrad I always heard about his claims of “How there’s so much more” and “How we got it all wrong” as Christians when it comes to the Gospels, or Scripture as a whole. It wasn’t until I started reading more Reformed authors and those into Biblical Scholarship that I really started to see him pop up more, which would make sense in reading academic work. I was very curious why Reformed authors would quote Wright in particular, because from what I knew at the time they claimed to be at odds with their theological systems as a whole. I decided to delve into Wright myself, and purchased the book “How God Became King”. I have supplemented this reading with listening to interviews and lectures on how the Reformed and broader Evangelical community view him, as well as some lectures from the former Bishop himself, to try and get a full picture of his theology. 

So, from the get-go, would I recommend N.T. Wright? Well, yes and no. Let’s get something straight here, there are ALOT of good things about Wright and to completely blanket him as a complete enemy to Christianity is just wrong, but for as many good things that Wright says, there are just as many bad ones that do greater damage to someone who may not have a full understanding of the Gospel. But first, let’s start with the positives:

 When Wright is (W)Right 

1. The first thing I will say about Wright is that he is a brilliant, readable, clear, sometimes humorous, and insightful communicator. He can write easily for the layperson as well as an academic. For example, I especially enjoyed reading about his views on the Temple in the Bible, and while I’ve read and listened to many Reformed authors convey their thoughts on this theme, Wright is the one who has communicated that theme probably with the most ease and coherence. 

2. I think it is great that he is a proponent of Biblical Theology or “whole-bible” theology. My generation is probably the most illiterate generation of Christians from a Scriptural standpoint. We can quote Bible verses in and out of context without having any idea of how that verse or passage of Scripture fits into the rest of Scripture as a whole in terms of context and canon. Many Christians today cannot even tell us what the broad story lines or themes of Scripture are, how they run through the rest of Scripture, why they are laid out that way, most important of all being how that relates to Christ and by extension to His Church. In “How God Became King”, Wright is able to give us “mini-tours” if you will on the themes of Israel, Temple, Christ, and most of all Kingdom from Genesis to Revelation. I would make a few modifications, but for the most part Wright is correct in how he lays out each of one of these themes, and one is able to follow them with ease and coherence as I said before. The fact that he is giving a broad outline and cares so much about it is different from the rest of shallow Christianity. 

3. From what I’ve heard, when it comes to apologetics dealing with the Resurrection and Historical Jesus, he is a must read. Just from the snapshot I’ve gotten in “How God Became King” how he deals with Enlightenment thinkers, as well as calling out flaws of the Jesus Seminar, I’m definitely adding “Jesus and the Victory of God”, and “The Resurrection and the Son of God” to my reading list. You will find these along with other books of his referenced in almost any scholarly bibliography. 

4. He is able to point out flaws in our current Western tradition that should not be ignored. Wright is correct when saying that some Christians incorrectly make the Gospel about “just going to Heaven when you die”. The Gospel is not a Heaven-destination flight, it is about the fact that we are dead in our sin, and it is only by God’s power through faith in Christ that we have a reconciled relationship with God the Father so that we can live in obedience for His Glory. Sadly, Wright does not make this the Gospel at all, which I will have to deal with later. 

5. Though not in HGBK, another positive thing about Wright is that he is against homosexual marriage. When it comes to this subject we should find an ally in Wright.

 6. Also not in HGBK, but another good thing about Wright, is that he is in support of more theologically-related Worship. Specifically Psalmody or Psalm-singing. His Plenary Address in 2012 at the Calvin Symposium of Worship on the Psalms is one of the best lectures I’ve ever heard. Seriously. If there is one thing you check out from Wright, let this be it and nothing more. 

Now, on to some more concerning matters. 

When Wright is Definitely Wrong 

1. The Gospel and our Sinful Condition - Though the Kingdom theme is one that is central to the Bible and God Himself (I’m reading a book right now God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants that deals with this), the Gospel is not “Jesus is King over all Heaven and Earth” and that’s it. The Gospel is how through the substitutionary atonement of Christ, sinners have a reconciled relationship to God the Father and are declared righteous in and through the work of Christ alone, and can now truly be obedient to Him by the Holy Spirit for God’s Glory. Instead of this Penal Substitutionary atonement view, Wright holds the Christus Victor atonement view, which basically says Christ overcame the powers of the world and took all the consequences (effects) of sin and evil in the world, and defeated the dark spiritual powers of the earth and the rest of the cosmos, so now Jesus is King over all the Earth and in Heaven. Now, this is correct, but it does not go far enough, and it does nothing to affect our SINFUL CONDITION and standing before a holy God. The Bible says we are dead in our sin and cannot choose God. The Christus Victor view presupposes that we are able to choose God and Christ on our own and therefore at the very LEAST ends up being Arminian. Though Wright says many Christians do not have the dial turned up on the Kingdom when teaching the Bible, I think Wright goes too far and turns it up to eleven, drowning out everything else. Another way I would put this is, that Wright says a lot about Jesus being King, but does nothing with Christ’s role of mediator as Our Great High Priest. Wright never ultimately defines what he wants this Theocratical Kingdom of Jesus on Earth to be and look like.  

2. Justification - New Perspective on Paul. In very broad terms this means justification is mainly or solely a corporate/communal matter and doesn’t really deal with individual justification. Individual justification is largely a Western thought process. Wright uses his own translations of the New Testament (which in my opinion are just very clunky to read) and in HGBK, he literally translates a passage that deals with our individual justification before God and translates the word justification into “God’s covenant-faithfulness” i.e. God keeping you in the community. This does not deal with our repentance and again, our sinful condition. To emphasize our corporate standing with the Church is important when one becomes a Christian, but to completely divorce that from our individual standing before a holy God undercuts the Gospel. To make justification solely a corporate matter also could lead to a works-based salvation of how one stays in the community. Behind the New Perspective of Paul there is also an undercurrent of ecumenicalism and that “if we can just get rid of what Luther said about justification, then we can we can see that really each denomination of protestantism and Catholics aren’t that different at all. It was Luther who read Romans and Galatians wrong, so the Christian church has misread the Bible for the past 500 years”. Really? If we read the Patristic fathers, we can see very easily that this is not the case at all for the doctrine of Justification. 

3. Inerrancy of God’s Word - Wright emphasizes the human author when talking about the Bible. Now don’t get me wrong, this is important to do. The Bible did not just drop out of Heaven, it was written over long periods of time by different authors who all had their unique writing style and wrote in different genres and in different cultural contexts in three languages. But I don’t think Wright ever relates the human authors of the Bible to God speaking. The problem is in the Bible we see Moses and others writing something in their books and when it is referred to later in the Bible, it is quoted something to the effect of “The Lord says…” To say the Bible is filled with error because of the fallibility of the human author or to say that the Bible is an authority but not our final authority for our faith and practice are slippery slope arguments. If the Bible is in error in some part where do we find them and where does the error begin and end? If the Bible is not our final authority then what is? Culture? Man? Experience? As someone who holds a Christ-Centered view of Scripture it is astounding to me that he says the whole Bible points to Christ yet he believes the Bible is not inerrant. The only way it could do that is if it was. He says multiple times in this book that Scripture DOES have authority but what that authority looks like and how much authority it has he never really defines. It is outside of HGBK that he has stated he thinks of the doctrine of Inerrancy as a response to the Catholic Church and Enlightenment thinkers of their day.

 4. Evolution - Wright is a supporter of Bio-Logos and from what I know, is at the very least, open to Theistic Evolution being the way the opening Genesis chapters took place. While I understand the intention of this view, ultimately Evolution and Christianity are two different world-views, one being based on chaos and naturalism, while the other is based on order and Truth. While I do think one can be a Christian and a Theistic Evolutionist, and there is grace to be given as long as one truly professes Christ as Lord and bears fruit, I do think they have seriously mis-stepped logically in their worldview, and do not realize the full implications of holding such a worldview relating to the Gospel. There is much more I could say on the whole Genesis issue, but I’ll leave that for another time. 

5. Caricatures of the Reformed traditions and their creeds - One thing I was continually disappointed in by the opening and closing chapters of HGBK, was how Wright ultimately makes it seem like HE has found the answer to what everyone else has been missing for the past two-thousand years. Nowhere in HGBK does Wright give any scholarly evidence for what he claims about the Creeds and Confessions. He claims that they do not tell the whole story of Christianity and he makes it seem like this was all former Christians of the time knew and repeated. “They miss the whole part about Israel and there is nothing about the Kingdom!” is what Wright basically exclaims, but teaching the story arc of the Bible was not what creeds and confessions were for. They were formed to combat against heresies of the day to mark out truth from error. The Puritans and other past Christians wrote extensively on the Kingdom and about Israel and the Church being the new creation of the one true people of God. I honestly just don’t know where he gets this idea, unless it is just to help sell the book. 

So, to come full circle, would I recommend Wright? Again yes, and no. I would not recommend him at all to someone who is a new Christian; someone who is still trying to flesh out the Gospel and the theme of Kingdom in their own study of the Word. I would want to make sure if someone did read Wright, that they knew what they were in for and that I could trust them with discerning different parts of theological systems. Is he completely wrong on everything? No. As I’ve said earlier, with the themes of Scripture that he does get right, he can be very clear and helpful. Sometimes he adds new insights and angles that I had not previously thought of before. His influence has gone far and wide, laying the groundwork for non-profits such as The Bible Project (who, while I like a good amount of their stuff, basically hold the same theology as Wright). His research and work on Second Temple Judaism should not be ignored. I do plan on reading his book on the Psalms and his Christian Origins series at some point. Reading Wright has helped me become a more discerning reader, and though it may be awhile before I pick up another book of his, the thoughts and discussion that have come out of reading him ultimately have been beneficial to me. I feel like I have much more of a grasp on what he actually believes, and could articulate that to someone else. And that should be one our goals as Christians who encounter and engage other world-views and those who even share (or claim to share) our own. If we are truly saved by the Gospel and believe what it says, then we should know that we have nothing to fear because His Truth will remain and conquer over all. It is sad to me that such a brilliant mind who gets large swaths and themes that lead up to and come out of the Gospel correct, but gets the central core of the Gospel wrong. I pray that he sees his error and comes to joyfully embrace the True Gospel for what it is.

#n. t. wright #reformed #christianity #christ #book #theology

1 note · View note