Some False Teachers to Avoid

Amazing Grace

I never knew that the hymn Amazing Grace had six verses originally. What I knew was that we usually sang four or five and a last verse that didn’t seem to fit. So this past Sunday when we sang six, with that last not seeming to fit, I decided to look at the author in the hymnal. Well it seems I knew John Newton wrote the lyrics but that last verse wasn’t his!!! It said it was from A Collection of Sacred Ballads. 

I’ve always been disturbed about this verse because it changes the whole flow of Newton’s thought, jumping from “I/me” to “we/we’ve.” This time I pointed that out to my wife and she said, “It sounds like a blog post.” I agreed, so here is some education about that non-Newton verse.

Let’s start with the original lyrics by John Newton:

1.

Amazing grace (how sweet the sound)

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

2.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear

The hour I first believed!

3.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares

I have already come:

'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.

4. 

The Lord has promised good to me,

His word my hope secures;

He will my shield and portion be

As long as life endures.

5.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,

And mortal life shall cease:

I shall possess, within the veil,

A life of joy and peace.

6.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,

The sun forbear to shine;

But God, who called me here below,

Will be forever mine.

Too many hymnals stop with the fourth (and sometimes the 5th) verse and add this verse not written by Newton: 

When we've been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We've no less days to sing God's praise,

Than when we first begun.

With a wee bit of research, this is what I found. The verse shows up in the book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and, according to Wikipedia, had been passed down orally in African-American communities for at least 50 years. It was one of between 50 and 70 verses of a song titled "Jerusalem, My Happy Home", which was first published in a 1790 book called A Collection of Sacred Ballads.

I really wish that non-Newton verse was left out and kept Newton’s verses.

There you have it—a thought for today!

Old Time Calvinism

[John] Knox and his lieutenants also imposed the new rules of the Calvinist Sabbath on Scottish Society: no working (people could be arrested for plucking a chicken on Sunday), no dancing, and no playing of the pipes. Gambling, cajrdplaying, and the theater were banned. No one could move out of a parish without written permission of the minister. The Kirk wiped out all traditional forms of collective fun, such as Carnival, Maytime celebrations, mumming, and Passion plays. Fornication brought punishment and exile; adultery meant death. The church courts, or kirk-sessions, enforced the law with scourges, pillories, branks (a padlocked iron helmet that forced an iron plate into the mouth of a convicted liar of blasphemer), ducking stools, banishment, and, in the case of witches or those possessed by the devil, burning at the stake.

Arthur Herman, How the Scots Invented the Modern World, pg.16

Ah, Calvinists! Sounds very much like a cult with a lot of un-Christian teachings and behaviors.

False Teaching Women To AVOID!!

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

This is how I dress for St. Patrick's Day, and for any Irish-themed festival, funeral or graveside service. Hard to see but the bonnet is a green Irish caubeen.

Atheism

"The Chosen" Heresies