9/13/2024 Only Christ's death is by the will of God (Gal 1:4), everyone else's death is not. Not getting into the R.C. Sproul's three types of will of God here (Decretive, Preceptive, Permissive) 基督的死像以毒攻毒 = 以死攻死：
9/11/2024 My company, SP, encouraged staffs to participate in the Tunnel to Towers 5k run & Walk NYC every year, this year is no exception. Company will pay for registration. Free T-shirts. On 9/29 Sunday, which is my problem. I wish these events aren't on Sundays. Preferably on weekdays, if not Saturdays. Since it's going to be on Sunday and that I would have to commute into the city, I wouldn't even think about it.
9/8/2024 We do not know what the image of God was like upon Adam before the Fall. While Martin Luther said that this image was lost since the Fall; John Calvin disagreed, saying that it was merely corrupted, not lost. ~ Stephen Tong:
Sunday Service at GCC:
A critique of the song Eleni used: How Long O Lord, How Long:
Lyrics:
VERSE 1
O Lord, our God, to You we come
Will You still hide Your face?
We cry before You and on our knees we pray
How long, O Lord, how long?
VERSE 2
Our sorrows leave us weak and worn
Surrounded by our fears
We look to heaven through feeble faith and tears
How long, O Lord, how long?
CHORUS
Till Your glory fills our eyes
And our faith is turned to sight
Till our thirsty souls are satisfied
How long, O Lord, how long?
VERSE 3
Our foes and enemies rejoice
Injustice seems to reign
Lord, we are shaken and we are losing strength
How long, O Lord, how long?
VERSE 4
But we will trust Your steadfast love
Your grace will be our song
You bring new mercies with ev’ry rising sun
How long, O Lord, how long?
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My comment:
Judging from the comment section of the Youtube video above, I think I am probably the only one (or few) who is criticizing this. Joy was somewhat on the same train as I ("This song is so sad, maybe only suitable in counselling session, but not in worship service"). I think Pak Tong would agree with me as well and here is my take:
This song is the worst that Eleni picked thus far. When I brought it up later to her, I don't think she cared to listen as her immediate prejudice response was "you can't satisfied everyone". Our differences in music has been: I propose quality music is a must for worshipping God; Her view of music is as long as the heart is there for the Lord, one can be blind to the quality of the music. Granted that we both would care about the lyrics, so that wasn't an issue. However, now, this song has proven that she only cares about titles, which is bordering idolatry of it (i.e. idolizing pastor, idolizing mere solo scriptura statements, etc.) In this case, because the song is taken of from Psalm 13, and that Sovereign Grace alleged claimed to be "Reformed", she immediately bought it without careful examination.
I believe I can sharply criticize it here because Psalm 13 is one of the Psalms I know by heart: Here's what's wrong with the lyrics - Psalm 13 is well known to be abused by pastors and preachers - twisting David's lament as an excuse for us to be depressed and blame God. This song is no difference as every of the 4 verses and chorus ends with "How long, O Lord, how long". In truth, the context of Psalm 13 never ends with "How long, O Lord, how long." In fact, though the inquiry for God's apparent delayed action was in the beginning, the context of the psalm actually encourages faithfulness in the Lord and praising God in the end. Quite a stark opposite to the context of the song. I can't believe Eleni finally made the mistake of choosing a very bad lyrics, theologically, this time instead of just the music composition. This only shows an ignorance to scripture, mainly, Psalm 13 and its beauty in glorifying God. This song is doing the opposite. I don't need to get into the commendations of this song in the Youtube video because those kind of commendation is as shallow as Eleni's take on this. I can easily imitate this style and write a Satanic piece using two famous lines from Scripture to fool these folks, if I were to play the devil's advocate. I just need to find some sooth sounding music from the musical library of the Meditation/Romantic category, and they would all be fooled. That is what's happening with how they take this song. In this sense, I'm disappointed at Eleni, I don't expect her to know much of music theory, but she should know better on the wording because of her knowledge of the Bible.