Calvin and Music

You even get to hear James Jordan sing in this lecture!

Children and the Religious Meals of the Old Creation

Some jottings from James B. Jordan's chapter of the above title in Strawbridge (ed.), The Case for Covenant Communion:

... every single passage in the entire Bible that mentions or discusses children speaks of them as included in whatever religious event is under consideration. Jesus says to let the little children come to Him. Paul addresses children in his letters. Moses tells Pharaoh that the children must accompany Israel to the great feast God is calling them to. Moses, in Deuteronomy, commands that children be allowed at the feasts. Search how you will, you will find no passage anywhere that hints at the exclusion of children from any religious event or meal. (p50)

... there is no passage anywhere in the Bible that commands, hints, or show that children need to be catechized or instructed in order to make them eligible for any religious meal. Instruction took place at the meal, not before it. (p50, emphasis original)

It is sometimes asserted on the basis of 1 Corinthians 11:28 that a child must be old enough to examine himself before being served the Lord's Supper. But it is clearly adult sins that are being discussed, and, if this verse excludes children, then we should be starving our children on the basis of the command "If a man will not work, let him not eat" (2 Thess. 3:10). (footnote 2, p50f)

To summarize: the Bible contains no warnings against children participating at religious meals. It provides no age limit or other qualification of entry that differs from what is required of adults (circumcision for Passover; ritual cleansing for all Tabernacle events). On the contrary, every single passage that discusses children speaks of them as included in religious events. (p51)

As the contest between Moses and Pharaoh intensifies, it is precisely the presence of children at the feast that becomes the issue. During the plague of locusts, the eighth plague, Pharaoh dismisses Moses to go and be a slave to Yahweh. But then he asks who is going, and Moses says that all, including children, must go, and livestock for sacrifice as well. Pharaoh's response is that he must will not let both them and their little ones go. The men may go to the communion meal, but not the children (Ex. 10:8-11). [Footnote 7:] Personally, I'd be nervous about siding with Pharaoh on this. (p54)

Let's be very clear about what is being demanded of Pharaoh. Yahweh intends to have a feast with Israel. Communion-sacrifices as well as Ascensions ("burnt offerings") are required. And Yahweh insists that the children be present for this feast. For the men alone to be present, without wives and children, in unacceptable.

This is the whole purpose of the exodus: to celebrate a feast to the Lord at which children are present along with adults (p54, emphasis original).

... the analogies between the wilderness meals [1 Corinthians] chapter 10 and the Supper of chapter 11 could use more attention. Is not water called "blood" in 2 Samuel 23:17, and does not Jesus convert old "Jewish" water into wine in John 2:6 and 9? It would seem that the old meal of Rock-water and Heaven-manna is found anew in the Lord's Supper of wine and bread. And this being so, the fact that children as well as every other baptized person were included in the old meal has much to say about who is included in the new. (p64)

Against this kind of restrictive view, the Bible presents a God who generously feeds multitudes from His table. He showers down "sacramental" bread from heaven upon Israelite and Gentile alike, upon man and woman alike, upon old and baby alike. Jesus similarly feeds 5000 men and their families on one occasion, and 4000 on another, without seeming to worry about who was "worthy."

In fact, the inspection God is interested in does not take place before the meal, as a way of excluding people from it. Rather, it takes place at the meal. God judged Israel while they ate the heavenly food (Num. 11:33; Ps. 78:29-31). Paul says that the Supper ministers judgment, but he never says that because of this anyone should stay away. (Indeed, those in the wilderness had no choice: they had to eat the heavenly food, or starve.) In Matthew 22:11-12, the king inspected his gustes while they were already at the wedding feast. Belchazzar's Feast is another example. (p66, emphasis original)

Anyone living with this system of law and festival for 1500 years would naturally think that children belong at the Lord's Supper as soon as they are old enough to eat, and that Christian baptism is the ticket to the Lord's Supper. That's how it had always been.

The burden of proof in this matter lies with those who think Jesus or the apostles introduced some striking change. (p68)

The Golden Calf

The description of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32 is strange. Since Moses has been so long in coming down from the mountain, the people say to Aaron, “Come, make us gods (elohim) who will go before us” (v1). They hail the Golden Calf as their gods who brought them out of Egypt (v4) as Moses is said to have brought them out of Egypt (v1). Aaron declares a festival to Yahweh (v5).

James Jordan suggest that the Golden Calf serves as a replacement for Moses, a leader and a mediator between the people and Yahweh.

http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/rite-reasons/no-36-the-second-word-iv-implications/

You shall not make for yourself a carving

James Jordan points out another use of the word “carving” or pesel, in addition to Exodus 20:4, “You shall not make for yourself a carving”

there is another “carving” or pesel in the book of Exodus: the Ten Words, which God carved with His own finger. The verb “hew out” in Exodus 34:1 & 4 and Deuteronomy 10:1 & 3 is the verbal form of same word.

(Rite Reasons 34, ‘The Second Word II: Seeing & Hearing; Exposition’ August 1994)

Perhaps we are to meant to get the point that we are to worship God according to His Word, not according to any man-made word or law. In governing our worship, as in every area of life, God is the only ultimate law-giver. We are bound to God’s covenant word and we are not to attempt to rewrite it. We are not to substitute anything else for the Word of God. It is through God’s Word that we are to relate to Him.

Foetal Communion

Revd James B. Jordan argues that "those who believe that children do not belong at Jesus' table should excommunicate all pregnant women during the terms of their pregnancies."

Jordan sees in Judges 13:7, 14 evidence that symbolic or quasi-sacramental food eaten by the mother applies to the unborn child since Monoah is to observe the Nazarite food regulations until Samson is born.

The Sociology of the Church: Essays in Reconstruction (Eugene, Wipf and Stock, 1986) p249

The Great Code

Bible students, especially those sympathetic to interpretive maximalism, might enjoy:

Frye, Northrop, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature Collected Works of Northrop Frye Volume 19 edited by Alvin A. Lee (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2006) Originally published 1982. (And perhaps the subsequent Words with Power: Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990)).

I only had a short time to flick through it in the library. Has anyone read it?

Frye was not a Bible scholar and I think maybe not a believer, certainly not a traditional evangelical. He taught English literature at university level and realised that to understand Blake, Shakespeare, Eliot - indeed, pretty much anything written in English - his students really needed to know the symbolic and imaginative world of the Bible.


The title is taken from Blake who said that: “The Old and New Testaments are the Great Code of Art” (p10).

The book is Frye's personal encounter with the English Bible, and its role in shaping the human imagination and western culture.

Frye speaks of an “imaginative literalism” (pxvii) and describes metaphorical, allegorical and descriptive conceptions of language. He sees “allegorical, or metonymic [language], characterized by monotheism and a sense that there is a divine force transcending nature, so that words get their meanings allegorically by reference to ideas in the divine mind;…” (pxxxvi).

The Bible contains elements of the metaphorical, allegorical and descriptive but for Frye it is best seen as oratorical rhetoric, metaphorical and poetic language being used with existential idioms, direct address and kerygma. It is above all a proclamation (pxxxvii). The imagery and narrative of the Bible forms a mythological universe (p5). There is, apparently, ladder of “polysemous (multilevelled) sense” (p8), whatever that is!

I smiled to read Frye's reflection that even some readers of good will “may feel that to attempt a fresh and firsthand look at the Bible is mere foolhardiness, and of course they may be right, but the years have brought me an elastic conscience and a tenure appointment.” (p17).

No doubt there is plenty of wierd and wonderful stuff in the book showing how the Bible has been misunderstood as well as understood, but it looked like there might be some great Jordanesque insights along the way about the meaning of watery trees, gardens, bread, wine and so on.

Here are the chapter headings: (You've got to love the fact that Frye's book shares the chiastic mirror structure he sees between Old and New Testaments).

PART ONE: The Order of Words

Ch 1: Language I

Ch 2: Myth I

Ch 3: Metaphor I

Ch 4: Typology I

PART TWO: The Order of Types

Ch 5: Typology II: Phases of Revelation

Ch 6: Metaphor II: Imagery

Ch 7: Myth II: Narrative

Ch 8: Language II: Rhetoric

Jordan's Song Suggestions

Next time you're planning a service, how about picking some of these songs:

We can use a psalm as a call to worship (e.g. 20, 24, 27, 29), another for confession (6, 25, 38, 51), another for praise for our deliverance into the kingdom (5, 8, 9, 11, 18), another as an exhortation to hear the Word or as a preaching text (1, 14, 15, 19, 37), another as a communion meditation (16, 23, 36, 45, 48), and another as a commissioning dismissal at the end of worship (2, 47, 72, 82, 110, 149). (p77)

Beyond the 150 psalms, there are many other songs in the Bible that we can chant and that should become part of the warp and woof of our being, such as the Song of the Red Sea (Exodus 15), the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32), the Song of Deborah (Judges 5), the Song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2), the Prayer of Jonah (Jonah 2), the Song of Habakkuk (Habakkuk 3), several songs in Isaiah, the Song of Mary, the Song of Simeon, the Song of Zechariah, several songs in Paul (Philippians 2:5-11, Colossians 1:13-20; 1 Timothy 3:16), and the songs in Revelation. (p80)

[At the end of the service:] The appropriate response of the congregation is a psalm of dismissal, such as the Nunc Dimittis (“Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace”) or the Benedictus (“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people”).” (p93)

Theses on Worship: Notes Towards the Reformation of Worship second edition, slightly revised (Niceville, Transfiguration Press, 1^st ed. 1994, 1998)

In fact, maybe we should stick to biblical songs till we've got them memorised and then we can worry about mastering Spring Harvest 27, or whatever?

Jim Jordan's Sermon Class

There's a lot of concern in my circles for getting the one main point of a Bible passage and working out your sermon to serve a simple aim sentance that encapsulates the intended response of your conrgegation.

Part of it might be laziness in me, but I found this from Revd Dr James Jordan refreshing:

When I was in seminary, a few (not all) of my professors told us that laymen cannot really learn the Bible, and that it was pointless to try and teach it to them. Just give them one-point sermons (pabulum), they advised us. I have never found that to be true, and I think it is absolutely horrible advice. Jesus warned us not to lock up the heaven of God from men (Matthew 23:13). The way the Word is hidden in modern Presbyterian and evangelical churches, we can be sure that judgement is coming!

For my money, I'd rather forget all homoletics and rhetoric, and do away with three-point sermons, one-point sermons, analytic-synthetic sermons, etc. Just get up and read the passage and explain it, verse by verse, and make applications. Keep it simple, and filled with content. We need content, not rhetoric. I'm exaggerating somewhat, but I hope you get the point. We need saturation in the Word. Nothing else will do.

Theses on Worship: Notes Towards the Reformation of Worship second edition, slightly revised (Niceville, Transfiguration Press, 1st ed. 1994, 1998), p33