Chicken or the Egg?
Reflection
I love music so much! I will listen to nearly any genre or era of music. Ironically, I don’t have a musical bone in my body when it comes to playing an instrument or being able to read music! After a year of piano as a child; my teacher told my parents I should stick to tennis! As my musical tastes have evolved over the past 35+ years, so too have the ways we can access music. Now, with unlimited streaming services and this age of everything being just a touch of a screen away, I have access to a library of music with infinite possibilities. On average, I create a new playlist of songs on the streaming music service my family subscribes to at least twice a week. Thanks to algorithms built into the streaming service, I can discover musicians and songs I may never have discovered if the radio was my only source of music.
While I still enjoy music from any genre or era, in the past five years, probably ninety-eight percent of the songs I listen to are written and performed by Christian artists. Much like how poetry can evoke a strong emotional response from someone who is a connoisseur of the figurative language, rhyme, meter, theme, tone, mood, symbolism, and diction found in poetic writing, Christian music allows me to experience a deep emotional connection with The Spirit. When the lyrics of a song are theologically sound and parallel an experience in my own walk with Jesus, I experience deep shalom with my Abba. This morning, I read the following quote from Theologian and Pastor RC Sproul.
"One of the most dangerous things you can do as a
Christian is determine your theology by your experience."
I quickly hit the “Like” button, and after a few more minutes of doom-scrolling, I stopped and went back to this quote. I read it several more times, and as I did, I began to feel the nudge of the Spirit get stronger with each additional reading.
As I began to reflect on this quote, I decided to get my journal out and see if I could make sense of what the Spirit was nudging me toward. In my journal, I wrote this:
Theology <> Experience
As I meditated on these words, my mind jumped to the age-old argument of which came first: The chicken or the egg? Yes, this is how my brain works…I can’t explain it! I asked myself the same question each of you are probably asking now. “How on earth does the chicken or egg argument have any application at all as we strive to live as Disciples of Jesus and as beloved children of our Abba?” Let me explain.
Application
Friends, our theology should always come first and be the lens through which we see and then experience the world. A Google search will reveal that there are approximately 185 songs in the Bible. Or simply consider the 150 Psalms, written as songs that praise God. Psalm 95:1 proclaims,
“Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.”
Song is even used as a means of healing when David's instrumental music eased King Saul’s torment (1 Samuel 16). Over 50 times in scripture, we are directed to sing, and over 400 times, singing is referenced in scripture. We even read in Zephaniah 3:17 how God will “rejoice over you with singing.” Music and song as a form of praise are exquisite expressions of our love and gratitude for God’s mercy, grace, and provision in our lives.
However, we can’t let the emotions of our experience through song and music become the primary scaffold of our relationship with our Abba. Bishop JC Ryle once said, “I declare I know of no state of soul more dangerous than to imagine we are born again and sanctified by the Holy Ghost because we have picked up a few religious feelings.” Much like people and possessions can and will leave us feeling empty, emotions can be our Judas or our Peter and betray us or deny us. As far back as the Garden of Eden, the cunning and deceit of the enemy knew no bounds. The enemy will try and convince us because we aren’t experiencing or feeling the outflow of God’s heart for us, then He must not be present in our lives. I know this to be one of the great weapons and lies the enemy whispers into my soul like a soothing salve for a burn.
Scripture, though, will never fail us. Peter reminds us that “though the grass withers and the flowers fall, the word of the Lord endures forever” (1 Peter 1:24-25). Scripture has, is, and always will be the healing elixir for the terminal theology of this world. In our times of trial or wilderness, putting our hope in the felt emotions of our relationship with our Abba will only lead to the dehydration and death of the soul. Even Jesus, when led by the Spirit and tempted by the devil, anchored his heart to “it is written” three times rather than surrendering to the emotional and psychological weapons Satan used (Matthew 4:1-11).
Friends, rather than experiencing “all the feels” of our Abba’s love, I challenge each of us to instead hold firm to all the “TRUTHS” of our Abba’s infinite love found throughout scripture. Let scripture be our oasis of truth and life. Drink from the water Jesus gives, never to thirst again, becoming our spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14). God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. His ways are not our ways! True theology as a follower of Jesus, as a child of God, will be the soul that is built on the rock of scriptural truth and not the sandy soil of feelings and emotions! Amen!
In Christ,
Doug
