Truth For The Heart
– For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9 – The lyrics of “Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All Splendour” were written in China by Frank Houghton, an Englishman. […]
Read More“Joy to the World” is one of my favorite Christmas carols. The words are based on Psalm 98, and it is one of the more than 600 hymns written by Isaac Watts (1674-1748).1 Watts wrote the hymn, however, not about the First Advent of Christ, but about His Second. “Joy to the World” was in […]
Read MoreThere are some songs with words and music so personally significant, I still remember the first time I heard them. Mary, Did You Know? was a song I heard sung by a small vocal ensemble at the water’s edge of a town harbor during an outdoor Christmas celebration over ten years ago. The lyrics and […]
Read More“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 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 had all the choirs sing the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah. The adult choir was at the front of the church behind the ministers, […]
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 to bleakest grief; Mourning without hope; despairing sorrow. Locked in two days […]
Read More“The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone. This is the LORD’S doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.” Psalm 118:22–23 Psalm 118 is in Book V of the Psalms and is the last psalm of the ‘Egyptian Hallel’, Psalms 113–118, a group of psalms used at Passover. Derek Kidner wrote: […]
Read MoreTonight was the first Passover seder. – Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families, and slay the Passover lamb. You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply […]
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Kindling for Candles 