I'm amused when we sing certain songs. We don't know the context in which they were written nor the intent of the words. For instance, we sing a song (we don't sing it as often as we used to) called "The Lord is in His Holy Temple." Those of you who know it know it as a song to quiet us down. The auditorium is buzzing with talking and fellowship, there is an excitement to worship, but we want to hush everybody up. (It reminds me of a basketball game I was attending one time. The crowd was screaming because their team had made a tremendous come back. The other team was forced to call a time-out. The cheerleaders rushed onto the floor and quieted the crowd because they wanted to do a cheer.) So anyway, the best song we can think of is "The Lord is in His Holy Temple." In other words, we say that God is in the building. He wasn't before, but He is now. So in hushed tones we sing,
The Lord is in his holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before him.
Keep silence, keep silence,
Keep silence before him.
There! Now we can go ahead and start worship. I was reading Habakkuk the other day and found the text for this song. It's really a conversation between Habakkuk and God. Habakkuk is questioning why God would use a godless nation such as Babylon to punish the Israelites. God answers with a series of "Who do you think you are" questions. Basically, once God has had His fill, He says, "Listen up! Silence. I'm going to speak and you'd better listen."
That's very different isn't it? Don't believe me? Go and read Habakkuk 2. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a very beautiful song. But just remember the context of the words. Shouldn't we all be listening for God to speak? Have a great day. JW
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4 comments:
That is interesting. It is interesting how over time the meaning of things get changed or distorted.
It kind of makes me wonder if that happens to history too. I mean how can we be sure that over time the meanings of other things haven't been changed?
Thanks for the thoughts!
Jeremy
I have never been a big fan of that song for that very reason...plus I have heard it used like the building we are in is sacred and we should be reverant...
God is in every building his people are in.
Then we have our dismissal prayer so we can dismiss God and now have a chorus sing to the congregation.
DELIVER ME!
Your basketball game story reminds me of another one...
At a youth retreat, me and two other youth ministers stepped out of worship for a few minutes to "deal with something."
When we came back, the kids were YELLING back and forth, "OU, OSU!"
My buddy Tom Dahlman quieted the kids and said, "Funny, isn't it? Funny that we can shout THAT loud for our favorite football team, but we can barely whisper when singing to God!"
The singing improved after that!
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