Is That Too Much to Ask?
So, I'm listening to an oldies station (not a lot of variety up here in the woods if you don't like country) and invariably they'll say something like, "Coming up next, Paul Revere and the Raiders" and I'm thinking of, you know, "Louie, Louie" or "The Legend of Paul Revere" and this instrumental thing starts playing and I'm thinking that somehow a different station just trounced the signal from my oldies station. I wait for the thing to be over and the announcer says, "That was Paul Revere and the Raiders in that rare classic, 'Like Long Hair.' It's a little known fact that that cut was really a version of a Rachmaninoff Preleude. Coming up next, Tommy James and the Shondells with 'I Am a Tangerine.'"
What?
Now, I'm no huge oldies fan but why do we have to listen to all the obscure cuts from the albums? I guess if you're really into the music, that's what you want to hear... I don't know. Is there something inherently wrong with playing Louie, Louie or Crimson and Clover? The Classic Rock stations seem to get it right. Yeah, the DJs are probably sick of playing "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions" but most of us don't really want to hear "March of the Black Queen".
I guess I'm a product of the Top 40 station mindset, dunno.
But here's the thing. There's a reason that the songs we all know from the 50s and 60s and 70s are the songs we all know. They speak beyond the generation that first listened to them. I don't doubt that "I Am a Tangerine" had meaning for, well, SOMEBODY when it was released...but, really, is it one of the enduring themes of that generation.
Do we really want to build a legacy on the obscure and the unimportant?
So what? Well, maybe this is a bad analogy but here goes...
I get so sick and tired of people who will pull out one or two verses of the Bible - something obscure - and build an entire theology around it. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, that exactly what the Prayer of Jabez is. And there's a lot more. Much of the Word-Faith movement seems to me to take passages completely out of context, sometimes really obscure passages, and build a doctrine on them. What really bugs the heck out of me about that is that they do so TO THE EXCLUSION OF THE PRIMARY THEMES OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.
Okay, a little loud there, sorry.
Think about the main themes of the Bible: Sin and repentance, struggle and comfort, failure and hope, ultimately the victory of God over all evil in creation, even the evil within us... It's not about our happiness, it's about God's holiness. It's not about our contentment, it's about God's provision. It's not about what I get OR what I give, but about who God is...
It's so easy to do (PLEASE, I DON'T ASCRIBE TO THE FOLLOWING THEOLOGY, THIS IS A RIDICULOUS EXAGGERATION):
Here, take Psalm 137:8-9
8 O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
9 Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!
Throw in some good old fashioned "wrath of God" stuff from Exodus and maybe James and John saying, "let us call fire down" on that Samaritan town and the two witnesses from Revelation (fire coming out of their mouths to destroy their enemies) not to mention the Four Horsemen... Hey, let's pull in Jesus' trashing the temple and his "Woe to you, pharisees and scribes" speeches... Ananias and Sapphira...
Man, God hates sin SOOOO much - and sinners, too. In fact, God hates sinners so much that we should kill them - happy (or blessed!) shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AGAIN, I DON'T BUY INTO THAT INTERPRETATION, BUT...
I actually had someone tell me in all seriousness that we should hate the sinner AND the sin - that God doesn't love sinners... WHAT? What about that whole, "But God proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."??? "For God so loved the world..." Not "For God so hated sinners..." How do you reconcile that?
Sigh... Maybe Paul's warning has come true (again):
the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.
I don't have it all together - I'm not that arrogant - but I'm always going to fall back on what the Bible says OVER AND OVER AGAIN - God loves us enough to give us a choice to love him, and he hopes we'll respond to that love by loving God and loving people...
Is that too much to ask?
Maybe...
What?
Now, I'm no huge oldies fan but why do we have to listen to all the obscure cuts from the albums? I guess if you're really into the music, that's what you want to hear... I don't know. Is there something inherently wrong with playing Louie, Louie or Crimson and Clover? The Classic Rock stations seem to get it right. Yeah, the DJs are probably sick of playing "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions" but most of us don't really want to hear "March of the Black Queen".
I guess I'm a product of the Top 40 station mindset, dunno.
But here's the thing. There's a reason that the songs we all know from the 50s and 60s and 70s are the songs we all know. They speak beyond the generation that first listened to them. I don't doubt that "I Am a Tangerine" had meaning for, well, SOMEBODY when it was released...but, really, is it one of the enduring themes of that generation.
Do we really want to build a legacy on the obscure and the unimportant?
So what? Well, maybe this is a bad analogy but here goes...
I get so sick and tired of people who will pull out one or two verses of the Bible - something obscure - and build an entire theology around it. Lest you think I'm exaggerating, that exactly what the Prayer of Jabez is. And there's a lot more. Much of the Word-Faith movement seems to me to take passages completely out of context, sometimes really obscure passages, and build a doctrine on them. What really bugs the heck out of me about that is that they do so TO THE EXCLUSION OF THE PRIMARY THEMES OF THE BIBLE AND THE CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.
Okay, a little loud there, sorry.
Think about the main themes of the Bible: Sin and repentance, struggle and comfort, failure and hope, ultimately the victory of God over all evil in creation, even the evil within us... It's not about our happiness, it's about God's holiness. It's not about our contentment, it's about God's provision. It's not about what I get OR what I give, but about who God is...
It's so easy to do (PLEASE, I DON'T ASCRIBE TO THE FOLLOWING THEOLOGY, THIS IS A RIDICULOUS EXAGGERATION):
Here, take Psalm 137:8-9
8 O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
9 Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!
Throw in some good old fashioned "wrath of God" stuff from Exodus and maybe James and John saying, "let us call fire down" on that Samaritan town and the two witnesses from Revelation (fire coming out of their mouths to destroy their enemies) not to mention the Four Horsemen... Hey, let's pull in Jesus' trashing the temple and his "Woe to you, pharisees and scribes" speeches... Ananias and Sapphira...
Man, God hates sin SOOOO much - and sinners, too. In fact, God hates sinners so much that we should kill them - happy (or blessed!) shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AGAIN, I DON'T BUY INTO THAT INTERPRETATION, BUT...
I actually had someone tell me in all seriousness that we should hate the sinner AND the sin - that God doesn't love sinners... WHAT? What about that whole, "But God proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."??? "For God so loved the world..." Not "For God so hated sinners..." How do you reconcile that?
Sigh... Maybe Paul's warning has come true (again):
the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.
I don't have it all together - I'm not that arrogant - but I'm always going to fall back on what the Bible says OVER AND OVER AGAIN - God loves us enough to give us a choice to love him, and he hopes we'll respond to that love by loving God and loving people...
Is that too much to ask?
Maybe...
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