I ask a not so trivial Bible trivia question – What OT passage about God is most frequently quoted by OT persons?

Luke may have majored in math since he described the early church with words like full number, added, increased, and multiplied. Becoming and being church was a matter of doing the math.

“Oh, the B I B L E, that’s the book for me.”

I have been told to shut up a few times recently. More often I regret that I opened my mouth. But I refer to a colloquial exclamation of shock, surprise, or incredulity at some event in one’s life. On a deeper level, Scripture speaks of times when God’s prophets “shut their mouths” or tell their hearers to be silent. Let us inquire what they have to say to us.

While we traditionally call Abraham the “father of faith” it might be better to call him and his wife the father and mother of faith strugglers.

If you read my last article, I suspect that you asked what I meant when I proposed that we “perform Psalm 77.” How does a congregation perform a psalm? Why Psalm 77?

Although this article is about remembering, I thank John Coffey for forgetting to change the address for his Journal of Christian Studies. They come to the church address, I read them and forward them to John. Often they are so good that I forget. I refer to the September issue on Theology of Suffering and the article, A Theology of Remembrance in Psalm 77. I invite you to read that lament Psalm.

No, I do not have a prophecy about the future of congregational singing. For those of you who worry about that future, Mark Shipp says there are good reasons to worry in his article, Congregation Song Is in Trouble in January’s issue of the Journal of Christian Studies. I recommend reading it and his positive answer, What Makes a Good Hymn.

All the churches we read about in the New Testament were singing churches. The churches we read about in the centuries that followed were singing churches. In fact. the term acapella, singing without accompaniment of musical instruments, simply means “in the manner of the church.” I affirm that the church today should be a singing church, i.e. acapella. Why? 1) They had many wonderful things to sing about and 2) They were following the teachings of the Lord through his personal representatives. In this lesson I emphasize #1 and will sketch the reasons for #2.

Let us take an imaginary trip into the Gospel of Matthew. This time we will begin at the ending of his Gospel. Imagine that you are the eleven who have kept the appointment to meet Jesus on a mountain in Galilee. You see the crucified Jesus now risen from the dead. He confirms the news that he is alive.

When someone glances around our place of assembly, they see a lot of volunteers: volunteers to clean the building, bring food for the needy, pictures of work-days with many happy volunteers. What about Jesus and his church? Are they volunteer? I do not find the word “volunteer” in the Gospels but there are some answers to the question. Consider Matthew which we explored in class last Sunday.

For some time, I questioned the line from A. W. Dicus’ hymn, Our God, He is Alive, “in Him we live, and we survive.”  I was attracted to E. H. Ijams book, To Survive and to Surpass, especially when I took his course, Building Better Churches, at Harding Graduate School. Brother Ijams described the ministry of a store-front church in downtown Nashville which became the Central Church of Christ. In our ministry here in Storrs we learned from telling our story in ministry that we were a Servant-Survivor church. We resolved that we wanted to become more a Servant-Evangelist church in our ministry.

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article proposing that we change our identity goal of being a New Testament Christian and a New Testament church to being New Covenant Christians and a New Covenant church. You may say “What’s the difference? What’s the big deal?”. Permit me to ramble a little.

63 years ago, my good friend and colleague Neale Pryor recited to some of us at Harding Graduate School this nursery rhyme. “Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been? I’ve been to London to see the queen. Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there? I frightened a little mouse under her chair.” Aside from the political implications of this ditty at the installation of the Queen of England, there is the obvious incongruity of one’s actions at a very important event.

One day last week, I forgot the date, I went down stairs only to ask, “what am I here for?”. Then I remembered and returned upstairs with several items in hand. But now I have forgotten exactly what I remembered to get. This scenario illustrates our easy exchange of remembering and forgetting. But is it true to the biblical idea of remembering? There is a reason why the title of last weeks article, “A Covenant Remembering God Amidst His Not Remembering People” is not “forgetful people.” Let me explain.

I am amazed by the covenant theme throughout Scripture both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. There is covenant making, covenant keeping, covenant breaking, and covenant renewal. Above all, there is a covenant remembering God in a not remembering covenant community. In last Sunday’s excellent lesson, Patrick walked us through Psalm 107 with its emphasis on the steadfast love of our covenant making God (Ex. 34:6, 10).

I was caught by surprise last Sunday when I saw that I was to lead us into partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Since I had been thinking about the church as a covenant community, I shared some thoughts about covenant-making in the Old Testament, (Dt. 5 & 7) as basis for our thinking as we drink the cup of which Jesus said in the New Testament, “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt. 26:28).

Yes, I am saved, I am being saved, I will be saved. I remember a Sunday in Clarendon, Arkansas 62 years ago when I preached a sermon that began with these words.

Last Sunday a visitor asked me what was my favorite verse in the Bible. I replied with Isa. 54:17: “This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD.” Perhaps in your reading of Isaiah 53 & 54 you might say Isa. 53:11: “The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.” I explained that my favorite verses are those which I am currently studying and praying about. After reading the startling chapter 53, the following chapter 54 is often minimized or detached. Rather than favorite verses, I propose that we ask about the relationship between Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 54.

Remembering Jim Durdan