Jesus, Priceless Treasure

[DeanZF]

I love the richness of this one. 'Tis true that part of its fabric will be lost on those who've not experienced language of that era and who are not interested in expending the energy to crack open a dictionary to discover the meaning of words not in their vocabularies.



I listened to an interview of John McArthur today (of Grace to You fame, I think). He was discussing the whole Emergent Church/Emergent Worship issue and the essence of his warning was to refuse to dumb down or numb down the truths of Scripture, to avoid "going to the levels where the unsaved are found". Part of that has to do with language like this. As a Chistian Church Culture and even in the super-secular society that surrounds us, we've been so willing for so long to discard anything that requires effort to understand that our reading and comprehension levels have diminished--no, a better word would be atrophied, I think. The folks in the pew today, fairly new to Christendom have little idea of what it is that they're part of. Words like justification, sanctification, and phrases like "propitiatory sacrifice". Sin is a word seldom heard, and change of life and lifestyle are concepts that are deftly avoided. Christ is being drummed out of Christmas, out of "spring break", out of Thanksgiving and anything else imaginable.



Don't give up on language that is loftier than that of the average pewsitter in your congregation. Obviously you don't want them to drown, but you want to challenge them to greater depth and to educate them in their heritage and in their inheritance. Most of the modern hymns and choruses don't do that. Fight for their rights!! :boxer: