Truth For The Heart
“I Wonder As I Wander” is an American Christmas carol with words and melody by John Jacob Niles. He based it on a few snatches of song he heard on July 16, 1933, in the small Appalachian town of Murphy, North Carolina: “A girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform attached […]
Read MoreThe libretto of Messiah is taken from numerous books of the Bible: Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Lamentations, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Luke, John, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, Hebrews and Revelation. If you’re not familiar with the passages selected by Jennens, you can read them at the above link. The first five verses of Isaiah […]
Read MoreMany people know that Handel wrote the music for Messiah. But what about, Charles Jennens, the man who chose the Bible passages for its libretto? Messiah was born of a personal tragedy. In his 2010 commencement address, For the Mouth of the Lord Hath Spoken It, Dr. Al Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, […]
Read MoreWhen I was growing up we attended a church with a large music program, and I first sang in a choir as a young child. In December our minister of music would have all the choirs sing the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah. The adult choir was at the front of the church, while the […]
Read MoreThat very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. […]
Read MoreThen Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, ‘I WILL STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP OF THE FLOCK SHALL BE SCATTERED.’” Matthew 26:31 – – Men scattered by their fears in bleakest grief; Mourning without hope; despairing sorrow. Locked in two days […]
Read MoreWhen the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, “Behold, He is calling […]
Read More“So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified. “They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in […]
Read MoreO sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down, Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown; O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss till now was Thine! Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine. What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain; Mine, mine was […]
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Kindling for Candles 