With the Current, Not Across It

By Fred Sanders
The Scriptorium

I’ve stopped saying “Just before he ascended into heaven, Jesus gave his disciples the Great Commission.” Here’s why:

When I teach about the Great Commission (Matt 28:18-20), I underline its importance by showing that these are the last words Jesus speaks at the end of the gospel of Matthew. I love to explore how ideas and motifs from the beginning of the gospel are fulfilled here: the angel tells us at the beginning of Matthew that Jesus’ name will be Immanuel, God with us, and here at the end Jesus assures us, “I am with you always.” I love to point out that the language of “the Father and the Son” in the Great Commission builds on Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 11 (“No one knows the Father except the Son,” etc.).

The Great Commission, especially with its ringing trinitarian formulation, sometimes strikes us as a surprise ending to the gospel, but in fact it’s a fabulous consummation of leading ideas in the book. It’s how the gospel of Matthew ends with a bang. To see this is to see that all 28 chapters are part of the trinitarian gospel message that finally comes to articulation at the end.

Over the years of teaching on this passage, I have also developed a habit of saying that these are the last words that Jesus says before he ascends into heaven. It sounds more dramatic to put it that way: that his death and resurrection are behind him, he has spent 40 days with the disciples, and is now going to the Father. And his final words are the command to make disciples.

But here’s the problem: When I put it that way, I jump from Matthew to Luke. I cut the lines of argument that Matthew has carefully laid out, or I tangle them with the ascension story that is so crucial in another gospel, Luke’s gospel.

How bad is it to do that? I don’t know. 

No, I mean I really don’t know, it’s beyond me. I can name and describe a few of the dynamics of Matthew. But I can never be sure I’ve seen everything, because it’s holy, and deep, and written by two authors (one human, one divine) who are way ahead of me.

But one thing I’ve noticed is that Matthew does not end his gospel with the story of the ascension. His gospel is about God being with us in Christ, and it ends with… God being with us in Christ. He stands there and says, “I am with you always.” Wouldn’t it be a little silly if he had said this and then had flown away? Wouldn’t that be the wrong way to conclude? Wouldn’t that be a worse ending for a gospel that has emphasized how God is present among us in the person of Jesus? Doesn’t Matthew have to end with Jesus standing exactly there, as the narration just stops?

By innocently jumping from one gospel to another, I’ve been messing up the flow of thought of at least one of them. What I ought to do is be more careful about how I embellish the biblical accounts of things. I need to attend much more closely to what the Spirit is saying in the words of each biblical book.

I think of this as learning to trust the words and thought-patterns of scripture. I want to swim with the current that is flowing through Scripture, not across it. If I can stay consistent with Matthew’s way of thinking and talking, I can be in a position to pick up all kinds of momentum and nuance from what the Holy Spirit has planned and put in place in that book. If I jump from one frame of reference to another, my arguments may only be as good as I can make them with my own clever connection-making. But if I’ve got the current of Matthew behind me, I may say something that can hit an audience with a power greater than my own words or insights.

Of course by comparing the two gospels, we are able to say that, historically speaking, Jesus must have said these words and then later ascended. That’s how the end of Matthew and the end of Luke can be harmonized. That must be how it actually happened in history. But by presenting it that way, I am opting out of the stories told by both Matthew and Luke, and am preferring a historical reconstruction of my own making. Even though it’s a pretty good reconstruction, it’s not divinely inspired. So it could be faulty, and it will certainly be weak in comparison to God’s word.

Thinking about Thinking about Rap — Unexpected Thoughts over Thanksgiving

By Dr. Albert Mohler
AlbertMohler.com

Over the past few days the evangelical community has been talking about the kinds of things you would expect — the meaning of Thanksgiving, the turn to the Christmas season, the fact that some stores were opening on Thanksgiving Day and the various issues of the season. And then came rap. Out of the blue, when least expected, the topic changed to rap and the Gospel. Over the last few days a great deal has been written and said, sparked by a panel discussion at an evangelical conference in which rap music was dismissed as unworthy of evangelicals and of the Gospel.

I recognize the arguments made by the panelists. I am tempted to make them myself. In fact, I have made them myself … in my head. I know the arguments well. Form matters when it comes to music, and the form of music is not incidental to the meaning communicated. The biblical vision of music grows out of the union of the good, the beautiful, and the true in the very being of God. That union of the transcendentals means that Christians should seek only those musical expressions that best combine the good, the beautiful, and the true.

In other words, Johann Sebastian Bach. In my view, Bach got it just about right, even almost perfect. His music is an exhilaration of proportion and purpose in which form and message are precisely, intentionally, even magnificently combined. Bach is never far from me, especially when I am working and particularly when I am writing. I should acknowledge Bach in my books. Karl Barth listened to Mozart, and I love Mozart’s music (at least, most of it). But Mozart is a genius in a way that Bach was not, and genius can easily get in the way of musical art. Add to this the fact that Mozart’s worldview was seriously flawed. That explains why his magnificent but unfinished Requiem Mass in D Minor is so moving, but so unsatisfying. Beethoven’s pantheism and Enlightenment sensibilities do not ruin his music, but they do make his incredible music rather inaccessible for Christian worship.

Bach, on the other hand, is perfect. It is also important to know that Bach was a servant of the Lutheran Reformation. In his brilliant new book, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, conductor John Eliot Gardiner affirms that Bach saw himself extending the musical theology of Martin Luther, with the glory of God as his supreme purpose and the task of music “to give expression and added eloquence to the biblical text.” So we should just end the development of church music and Christian musical artistry with Bach.

But there is a problem with this proposal. Bach was writing music that was understandable to the culture of his day, and not just to the elites. As a matter of fact, many among the elites did not like his music, accusing Bach of using crude structures, lowly themes, and of borrowing from unworthy musical sources. And then there is the issue of his pounding music as found in his famous organ works. Those pedal sequences in his toccatas are jarring to the senses and physical in reception and impression. Hardly appropriate for use in church and the service of the Gospel.

And the people who would argue now about the unworthiness of rap music often think of Bach as the quintessential Christian musician. As I said already, I have made many of the same arguments myself. In my head. Thankfully not in public. Am I holding back?

No, I allow myself those arguments in my head when I want to absolutize my preferences and satisfy myself in the righteousness and superiority of my own musical taste and theology. The problem for me is that my theology of music will not allow me to stay self-satisfied on the matter, and by God’s grace I have not made arguments out loud that would violate that theology.

Rap music is not my music. I do not come from a culture in which rap music is the medium of communication and I do not have the ear for it that I have for other forms of music. But I do admire its virtuosity and the hold that is has on so many, for whom it is a first and dominant musical language. I want that language taken for the cause of the Gospel and I pray to see a generation of young Gospel-driven rappers take dominion of that music for the glory of God. I see that happening now, and I rejoice in it. I want to see them grow even more in influence, reaching people I cannot reach with music that will reach millions who desperately need the Gospel. The same way that folks who first heard Bach desperately needed to hear the Gospel.

The good, the beautiful, and the true are to be combined to the greatest extent possible in every Christian endeavor, rap included. I have no idea how to evaluate any given rap musical expression, but rappers know. I do know how to evaluate the words, and when the words are saturated with the Gospel and biblical truth that is a wonderful thing. Our rapping Gospel friends will encourage one another to the greatest artistic expression. I want to encourage them in the Gospel. Let Bach’s maxim drive them all — to make (their) music the “handmaid of theology.”

Bach’s English Suite No. 3 in G Minor is playing as I write this. It makes me happy to hear it. But knowing that the Gospel is being taken to the ears and hearts of new generation by a cadre of gifted young Gospel rappers makes me far happier.