A Spiritually-Healthy Believer Is Easily Edified

“A spiritually healthy believer is easily edified.”

I remember how forcefully that sentence struck me the first time I read it.  It hit me as being very insightful and extremely important, summarizing some important truths in just a few words.  It was written in the context of the life of the church, including as it relates to its gatherings to worship.

The first thing worth noticing is that it assumes, rightly, that the purpose for gathering is ‘edification’ (being spiritually strengthened) not entertained.  There’s a huge difference between the two – a difference many seem to be forgetting.

The New Testament makes it clear that, along with honoring God, the purpose of our gatherings is to edify one another – to build each other up in faith, love and hope.  And the Bible is equally clear that such edification happens via the ministry of the Word of God, spoken and sung.  It’s crucial to remember here that, according to the New Testament, our ‘true spiritual worship’ is our living, every day, consecrated to God, not conforming to the world, but being transformed by the renewing of our minds which results in knowing and doing God’s will.  (Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Cor. 14:3, 5, 12, 26; Col. 1:28; 3:16; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Heb. 10:23-25; 2 Pet. 3:18)

(It’s also important to recognize that none of the Biblical words for worship mean ‘music-making’.  The 3 key Biblical words for worship mean 1) bow down in submission and dependence, 2) revere, and 3) serve.  Of course all three of these attitudes and actions can happen through singing and music-making, but given today’s prevailing trends it seems helpful to remind that we need to resist the idea that ‘worship’ equals ‘music-making.)

And so we gather to glorify God and edify one another; in fact one of the most important ways that we honor God is BY edifying one another, helping each other spiritually.  And that brings us back to the idea of being ‘easily edified.’

The point of that phrase isn’t that it’s easy to grow in holiness, faith and love.  No, the point is that the spiritually healthy believer realizes the essential simplicity of how that process moves forward – it happens through the prayer proclamation of the Word of God, faithfully interpreted and relevantly applied.

All the spiritually healthy Christian (including new Christians) really need or want is to gather with the people of God around the Word of God to be encouraged to continue in the will of God.  Again, there is a simplicity to all this, a simplicity that can be lost in the midst of a prevailing spiritually UNhealthy  mix in evangelical Christianity today that confuses entertainment with edification and then looks to audio-visual technology to be the ‘means of grace’ (that is, factors of sound and lighting, etc., become essential to producing a certain effect of ‘worship’).  It’s a major topic that will be the focus of another post sometime.

But the point now is, the healthy believer doesn’t need all that.  He or she is ‘easily edified’.  Have the people of God prayerfully and reverently and joyfully gathered around the Word of God (spoken and sung) in the presence of God?  Well then, that’s all they really need.  That will ‘do the trick’ – they’ll be able to grow in devotion to God, to one another, and to the work He’s called us to do.

And there is one other key characteristic of the spiritually healthy believer.  Because he or she is now growing in the fruit of the Spirit, which involved a God-implanted love for fellow-believers, the spiritually healthy Christian does ‘is not self-seeking’ and ‘does not insist on his own way’ when it comes to gathering and fellowshipping together.  (1 Cor. 13:5).  One of the worst effects of the so-called ‘worship style wars’ of the past few decades is the erosion of the attitude of self-denying deference when it comes to matters of mere personal preference.

Well again, just to remind us, here are some other basic Bible passages that describe the attitude and outlook of the healthy, growing Christian:  

1 Cor. 10:31-33 “…whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, … even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many…”

Rom. 15:1-3  “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build them up.  For even Christ did not please himself…”

Matt. 20:28 “…the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve….”

Phil. 2:3-7 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.    In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus,  Who, being in very nature God,  did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;  rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant,…”

And isn’t that how the Lord described kingdom greatness?  Being willing to be a servant, a slave (!) to others?  (Mt. 20:25-27)

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Yesterday I saw a Facebook post from a young pastor who serves a growing, healthy church in Virginia.  His post was simple, straightforward, with a profound lesson:

 Bill's family joined our church.

No one invited them to dinner.

What did they do?

They began inviting people over for meals.

Today, most of our church has at least been invited into their home.

They changed our church.

Lord, help us be what we wish others would be for us.

Amen to that.

Finally, as I write this I think of missionary friends who are just returning after home assignment to the Dem Tribe in Papua, Indonesia.  Jared and I talked a number of times about how spiritually eager and excited these very young converts are – eager and excited to hear more of ‘God’s Talk’ so that they can be doers and not just hearers of the Word.  That’s what they really want; that’s what they really need.

It reminds me of those videos you see on YouTube when a tribal group received their first copies of the Bible in their own language.  They are ecstatic.  They are thrilled.  And they are wise – because they have a Spirit-given anointing that has already taught them that the Word of God is really all they truly need to continue to grow in their knowledge of God.

They realize what many in the West and in the U.S. seem to not be so sure of; but they are sure, for they remember that their faith in God came in the first place via "hearing the Word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17), and so now they have the joyful expectation that, with their very own Bibles in their very own language, they have all that they need for life and godliness.  They are ready to be ‘easily edified.’

But I’ve known easily-edified, others-serving, God-glorifying Christians in every church in America that I’ve been a part of.  And they are truly beautiful people, reflecting the beauty of their Savior, because they’ve adopted a mindset of wanting to be just like Him.  They bring glory to God, and edifying joy and encouragement to others.  I want to be one of them.

The Purposes of Singing in Worship

 “The hymnic material in the book of the Revelation…should alert us to the importance of singing God’s praise in a way that is truly honoring to him and helpful to his people. 

"Do our hymns and songs concentrate on praising God for his character and his mighty acts in history on our behalf? Do they focus sufficiently on the great truths of the gospel? 

"There is always a temptation to focus too much on the expression of our own immediate needs.” 

– David Peterson, “Engaging with God”

"Be Still My Soul"

"Be Still, My Soul"
by Catharina von Schlegel, 1697-?
Translated by Jane Borthwick, 1813-1897

1. Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly, Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

2. Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

3. Be still, my soul, though dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears;
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrows and thy fears.
Be still, my soul; thy Jesus can repay
From His own fulness all He takes away.

4. Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.



Hymn #651 
The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Psalm 46:10
Author: Catharine Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel, 1752, cento
Translated by: Jane Borthwick, 1855
Titled: "Stille, mein Wille"
Composer: Jean Sibelius, b. 1865, arr.
Tune: "Finlandia"

Joined to a Local Church

“There is no good, healthy, regular pattern of the Christian life if you are not joined with a local church, if you are not in covenant with other Christians.” -- Trip Lee

What Can Miserable Christians Sing?

From Carl Trueman:

“Having experienced — and generally appreciated — worship across the whole evangelical spectrum, from Charismatic to Reformed — I am myself less concerned here with the form of worship than I am with its content. Thus, I would like to make just one observation: the psalms, the Bible’s own hymnbook, have almost entirely dropped from view in the contemporary Western evangelical scene. I am not certain about why this should be, but I have an instinctive feel that it has more than a little to do with the fact that a high proportion of the psalter is taken up with lamentation, with feeling sad, unhappy, tormented, and broken.

In modern Western culture, these are simply not emotions which have much credibility: sure, people still feel these things, but to admit that they are a normal part of one’s everyday life is tantamount to admitting that one has failed in today’s health, wealth, and happiness society. And, of course, if one does admit to them, one must neither accept them nor take any personal responsibility for them: one must blame one’s parents, sue one’s employer, pop a pill, or check into a clinic in order to have such dysfunctional emotions soothed and one’s self-image restored.

Now, one would not expect the world to have much time for the weakness of the psalmists’ cries. It is very disturbing, however, when these cries of lamentation disappear from the language and worship of the church. Perhaps the Western church feels no need to lament — but then it is sadly deluded about how healthy it really is in terms of numbers, influence and spiritual maturity. Perhaps — and this is more likely — it has drunk so deeply at the well of modern Western materialism that it simply does not know what to do with such cries and regards them as little short of embarrassing. Yet the human condition is a poor one — and Christians who are aware of the deceitfulness of the human heart and are looking for a better country should know this.

A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party — a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals. Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is — or at least should be — all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our worship? Few Christians in areas where the church has been strongest over recent decades — China, Africa, Eastern Europe – would regard uninterrupted emotional highs as normal Christian experience.

Indeed, the biblical portraits of believers give no room to such a notion. Look at Abraham, Joseph, David, Jeremiah, and the detailed account of the psalmists’ experiences. Much agony, much lamentation, occasional despair — and joy, when it manifests itself — is very different from the frothy triumphalism that has infected so much of our modern Western Christianity. In the psalms, God has given the church a language which allows it to express even the deepest agonies of the human soul in the context of worship. Does our contemporary language of worship reflect the horizon of expectation regarding the believer’s experience which the psalter proposes as normative? If not, why not? Is it because the comfortable values of Western middle-class consumerism have silently infiltrated the church and made us consider such cries irrelevant, embarrassing, and signs of abject failure?

I did once suggest at a church meeting that the psalms should take a higher priority in evangelical worship than they generally do — and was told in no uncertain terms by one indignant person that such a view betrayed a heart that had no interest in evangelism. On the contrary, I believe it is the exclusion of the experiences and expectations of the psalmists from our worship — and thus from our horizons of expectation — which has in a large part crippled the evangelistic efforts of the church in the West and turned us all into spiritual pixies.

By excluding the cries of loneliness, dispossession, and desolation from its worship, the church has effectively silenced and excluded the voices of those who are themselves lonely, dispossessed, and desolate, both inside and outside the church. By so doing, it has implicitly endorsed the banal aspirations of consumerism, generated an insipid, trivial and unrealistically triumphalist Christianity, and confirmed its impeccable credentials as a club for the complacent. In the last year, I have asked three very different evangelical audiences what miserable Christians can sing in church. On each occasion my question has elicited uproarious laughter, as if the idea of a broken-hearted, lonely, or despairing Christian was so absurd as to be comical — and yet I posed the question in all seriousness. Is it any wonder that British evangelicalism, from the Reformed to the Charismatic, is almost entirely a comfortable, middle-class phenomenon?”

–Carl R. Trueman, from “What Can Miserable Christians Sing?” in The Wages of Spin: Critical Writings on Historical and Contemporary Evangelicalism (Christian Focus: 2004) pp. 158-160.

The Sad Superficiality of CCM

The world needs true Christianity, a profound and powerful faith and vision -- but so much of American 'Christendom' is anything but....see for example the lyrics of one of the most popular "Christian" songs, 'Hold Us Together', which does not even mention God or Christ, barely alludes to Scripture ("brother's keeper") and drones on with repeated platitudes: 'Love will hold us together...' 'This is the first day of the rest of your life', lyrics that are more reminiscent of The Captain and Tenille and a kitten calendar than of the Biblical Gospel which announces our only hope -- 'Jesus is the Lord who saves'.

Only One Call to Worship

"There can only be one call to worship, and this comes at conversion, when in complete repentance we admit to worshiping falsely, trapped by the inversion and enslaved to false gods before whom we have been dying sacrifices. This call to true worship comes but once, not every Sunday, in spite of the repeated calls to worship that begin most liturgies and orders of worship. These should not be labeled calls to worship but calls to continuation of worship. We do not go to church to worship, but, already at worship, we join our brothers and sisters in continuing those actions that should have been going on – privately, familially, or even corporately – all week long." -- Harold Best

How long?....

How long wilt Thou forget me,
O Lord, Thou God of grace?
How long shall fears beset me
While darkness hides Thy face?
How long shall griefs distress me
And turn my day to night?
How long shall foes oppress me
And triumph in their might?

O Lord my God, behold me
And hear mine earnest cries;
Lest sleep of death enfold me,
Enlighten Thou mine eyes;
Lest now my foe insulting
Should boast of his success,
And enemies exulting
Rejoice in my distress.

But I with expectation
Have on Thy grace relied;
My heart in Thy salvation
Shall still with joy confide;
And I with voice of singing
Will praise the Lord above,
Who, richest bounties bringing,
Has dealt with me in love.

--The Psalter 1912

Theology and Song

“Any theology that does not lead to song is, at a fundamental level, a flawed theology.” ― J.I. Packer

How Helpless Guilty Nature Lies

How helpless guilty nature lies,
Unconscious of its load!
The heart, unchanged can never rise
To happiness and God.

The will perverse, the passions blind,
In paths of ruin stray;
Reason, debased, can never find
The safe, the narrow way.

Can aught, beneath a power divine,
The stubborn will subdue?
Tis Thine, almighty Saviour, Thine,
To form the heart anew.

O change these wretched hearts of ours,
And give them life divine!
Then shall our passions and our powers,
Almighty Lord, be Thine!

-- Isaac Watts

How 'Exciting' Should Our Sunday Meetings Be?

This is such a wise and timely post from Bob Kauflin: "How Exciting Should Our Sunday Meetings Be?"

Why is Christianity in Decline in America?

A provocative article from Matt Walsh:

"....And that’s been the strategy of the American church for decades: just try not to scare people. They put on this milquetoast, tedious, effeminate charade, feigning hipness and relevance, aping secular culture in a manner about as cool and current as your science teacher retelling a Dane Cook joke from nine years ago, and then furrow their brows and shake their heads in bewilderment when everyone gets bored and walks away.

"Christianity is fading because more and more of our leaders want to steal people from the true faith and deliver them to this convenient version. But that isn’t what actual Christians want, and the Christians who do, only want it because it doesn’t much resemble Christianity at all. Those folks eventually figure out that the only thing more secular than Christian secularism is secular secularism, and there’s really no reason to choose the former over the latter. The transition from Convenientism to agnosticism continues unabated...."

For the entire article, click here.

Vintage Worship -- the Glory of Historic Hymns

An excellent article by Matt Boswell, including a great summary of what hymns do for us:

"Vintage Worship"

"I Worship Thee, Most Gracious God"

I worship Thee, most gracious God,
And all Thy ways adore;
And every day I live, I seem
To love Thee more and more.

When obstacles and trials seem
Like prison walls to be,
I do the little I can do,
And leave the rest to Thee.

I have no cares, O blessèd Will,
For all my cares are Thine;
I live in triumph, Lord, for Thou
Hast made Thy triumphs mine.

He always wins who sides with God;
To him no chance is lost;
God’s will is sweetest to him when
It triumphs at his cost.

Ill that He blesses is our good,
And unblest good is ill;
And all is right that seems most wrong,
If it be His sweet will.

-- Frederick W. Faber

Newton Hymn: "Shall Men Pretend to Pleasure?"

Shall men pretend to pleasure
Who never knew the Lord?
Can all the worldling’s treasure
True peace of mind afford?
They shall obtain this jewel
In what their hearts desire,
When they by adding fuel
Can quench the flame of fire.

Till you can bid the ocean,
When furious tempests roar,
Forget its wonted motion,
And rage, and swell, no more:
In vain your expectation
To find content in sin;
Or freedom from vexation,
While passions reign within.

Come, turn your thoughts to Jesus,
If you would good possess;
‘Tis he alone that frees us
From guilt, and from distress:
While he, by faith, is present,
The sinner’s troubles cease;
His ways are truly pleasant,
And all his paths are peace.

Our time in sin we wasted,
And fed upon the wind;
Until his love we tasted,
No comfort could we find:
But now we stand to witness
His pow’r and grace to you;
May you perceive its fitness,
And call upon him too!

Our pleasure and our duty,
Though opposite before;
Since we have seen his beauty,
Are joined to part no more:
It is our highest pleasure,
No less than duty’s call;
To love him beyond measure,
And serve him with our all.

The Gospel Cannot Be Improved

“The message of the gospel is an announcement about what God has done in Christ, and when it goes forth in power it is because God has done it. The gospel is not made more powerful by a dynamic preacher or a rockin’ band; those things might adorn the gospel in an excellent way, but the gospel cannot be improved.” -- Jared Wilson

A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth....

A Lamb goes uncomplaining forth,
The guilt of all men bearing;
And laden with the sins of earth,
None else the burden sharing!
Goes patient on, grows weak and faint,
That spotless life to offer;
Bears shame and stripes, and wounds and death,
Anguish and mockery, and saith,
"Willing all this I suffer".

This Lamb is Christ, the soul's great Friend,
The Lamb of God, our Savior;
Him God the Father chose to send
To gain for us His favor.
"Go forth, My Son," the Father saith,
"And free men from the fear of death,
From guilt and condemnation.
The wrath and stripes are hard to bear,
But by Thy Passion men shall share
The fruit of Thy salvation. "

From morn till eve my theme shall be
Thy mercy's wondrous measure;
To sacrifice myself for Thee
Shall be my aim and pleasure.
My stream of life shall ever be
A current flowing ceaselessly,
Thy constant praise outpouring.
I'll treasure in my memory,
O Lord, all Thou hast done for me,
Thy gracious love adoring.

-- Paul Gerhardt (1648)

My Song Is Love Unknown

My song is love unknown,
My Savior’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I,
That for my sake
My Lord should take
Frail flesh, and die?

He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed-for Christ would know:
But oh, my Friend,
My Friend indeed,
Who at my need
His life did spend.

Sometimes they strew His way,
And His sweet praises sing;
Resounding all the day
Hosannas to their King:
Then “Crucify!”
Is all their breath,
And for His death
They thirst and cry.

They rise and needs will have
My dear Lord made away;
A murderer they save,
The Prince of life they slay.
Yet cheerful He
To suffering goes,
That He His foes
From thence might free.

In life, no house, no home
My Lord on earth might have;
In death, no friendly tomb,
But what a stranger gave.
What may I say?
Heav’n was His home;
But mine the tomb
Wherein He lay.

Here might I stay and sing,
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King,
Never was grief like Thine.
This is my Friend,
In whose sweet praise
I all my days
Could gladly spend.


(Words by Samuel Crossman, 1624-1683)

Why did Jesus die on the cross?

[The liberal theologian's] Jesus isn’t much different from a Gandhi or a Nelson Mandela, great leaders who inspired people to suffer and die for the sake of others, but he cannot take your sins away. I’m all for justice and helping the vulnerable, but I do that from the strength of the “sweet exchange” that Jesus made atonement for my sins, that I’m forgiven, redeemed, reconciled, and justified. At Easter I don’t sing hymns that go:

On that cross condemned for died
By corporate forces who have lied
Called us to global protest
Jesus bids us to do our best

Rather I sing:

Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!


-- Michael Bird, "Why Jesus Died on the Cross"

The Key Biblical Words for Worship

The Key Biblical Words for Worship:


1. Worship as homage or grateful submission (proskynein)

• kneeling, or prostrating oneself, bow down (cp. Gen. 24:26ff., “Then the man bowed down and worshiped [lit., fell on his face to] the Lord…..” Cp. Gen.42:6; Ex.4:31; 34:8; 1 Chron.29:20; 2 Chron.20:18; Ps.95:6; Isa.66:23; Matt.2:11; Phil.2:10
• expression of awe and submission
• falling on one’s face in reverence/prayer/petition/entreaty/supplication Cp. Num.20:6; Rev.7:11
• offerings given to God (cp. Rom.12:1-2; Phil.2:1; 4:187; 2 Tim.4:6;)

2. Worship as service (latreuein) rendered to God

• The service of a slave; cf. Deut.5:9; cp. Deut.10:12,20; Matt.4:8-10
• Specifically, religious or priestly service (cp. Rom.12:1-2; Heb.12:28-29)
• “The language of service implies that God is a great King, who requires faithfulness and obedience from those who belong to Him.” (D. Peterson, “Engaging with God” p.69), cp. 1 Cor.10:31

3. Worship as reverence or respect (sebomai)

• · Cp. again Heb.12:28-29; Acts 9:31; 2 Cor.7:1; Phil.2:12-13