Sojourn Community Church, where I am a member, has just released their newest album nationwide. The album is called “Over the Grave,” and contains songs inspired by and adapted from the hymns of Isaac Watts. Here’s what SojournMusic.com has to say about the album:

In the midst of the Reformation in England, Isaac Watts recognized that people needed to see the gospel in the psalms and hymns of the church, and they needed to sing them in language and metaphors that they understood. In this, he became not only the father of the modern hymn, but the pace-setter for contextualizing the gospel for the people of God.

As musicians, pastors and songwriters, our desire was to explore the hundreds of hymns that Watts wrote during his lifetime, to learn from the incredible range and depth of his lyrics, and to re-envision those songs with modern language and melodies. In particular, we gravitated towards themes that seem unfortunately absent in modern worship — themes about God’s wrath and judgment, His righteousness, and a dramatic vision of the cross and atonement of Christ.

This CD is the first installment of the Isaac Watts Project: songs inspired by and adapted from his hymns. The record was written and performed entirely by musicians from Sojourn Community Church — 35 in all. It is our hope that this project, like Watts’s hymns, will point us beyond the music and lyrics to see the glorious Savior who inspires them.

You can purchase the cd at Sojourn Music. You can also purchase the album on itunes or at amazon, where you can also preview the songs.

Today marks the official release of the Holy Bible: Mosaic. To celebrate the release of this bible (see yesterday’s post for more information), Tyndale is sponsoring a contest where you could win a deluxe edition of the Mosaic Bible, as well as a chance to win up to $500 to spend at Amazon.com. On top of that, the blog tour in support of the Mosaic also started today with a stop at Polycarp’s blog.

You can purchase the Mosaic at Amazon: Holy Bible: Mosaic NLT

This leads to a few announcements for this blog.

1. I will be reviewing the new Mosaic Bible. I’m hoping to get this up soon, but I have been taking time to get familiar with it, starting with jumping into using the liturgical devotional for this week last night.

2. The blog tour will be making a stop here. The blog tour started today as I mentioned above, and this blog will be featured as a stop on the tour. On October 5th, I will be featuring a guest post from one of the contributors to the Mosaic. I’m really excited about this, as I’m a big fan of the contributor—whom I’m not going to announce just yet. Just make sure to tune in October 5th for a guest post!

3. I am going to be giving away a free copy of the Mosaic! That’s right… Tyndale has given me (along with 49 other bloggers) the ability to give away a free copy of the Mosaic Bible! I will be posting a contest in the next few days with the rules, and will be announcing the winner sometime after that.
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Tomorrow marks the release of a brand new Bible from the folks at Tyndale House Publishers: The Holy Bible: Mosaic.

I’m extremely excited about this Bible, and was able to secure a copy for a forthcoming review. Here’s the “about the book” from the new Mosaic website:

“On our own we are little more than bits of stone and glass. Together we are the Body of Christ. Holy Bible: Mosaic is an invitation to experience Christ in His Word and in the responses of his people. Each week, as you reflect on guided Scripture readings aligned with the church seasons, you will receive a wealth of insight from historical and contemporary writings. Full-color artwork, quotes, hymns, prayers, and poems enhance the rich devotional experience. Also includes a Dictionary/Concordance, NLT word study system with Hebrew/Greek dictionary.”

Essentially, it is a devotional Bible that connects the reader with church community throughout the centuries and around the world. Some of the key features include: writings from every continent and century of the Christian Church, full-color art, and liturgical readings and meditations for each week of the Church year.

If done well, this Bible could become very important to an individualistic society, reminding us of the depth and breadth of what Jesus’ Church really is. Will it be a glimpse into John’s vision?

“I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. And they were shouting with a mighty shout,
‘Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne
and from the Lamb!’”
(Revelation 7.9–10 NLT)

Tune in tomorrow for a few Mosaic related announcements!

You can purchase the new NLT Holy Bible: Mosaic at amazon.com: Holy Bible: Mosaic

Brent Thomas (Holiday at the Sea) shares his thoughts.

Brent says:

“While I am glad that people are studying Scripture and prophecy in particular, and I am glad that people are looking for Jesus to come again, I worry that what many people are looking for is actually unbiblical…”

My friend shared this link on facebook–it had me laughing out loud as they say. Seriously, one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time:

No Pets Clause [emailsfromcrazypeople.com]

By now, many of you have heard of the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. It’s certainly an interesting case, and political mouth pieces from both sides have been doing what they do best—vomiting up an impressive amount of useless words. Bi-partisan word-vomiting. It’s not that I don’t care about opinions and editorials and so forth. I do. I want, and need, to hear what others think. But it just gets frustrating hearing the same fallacious arguments over and over.

Thankfully, whenever I need a breath of fresh air, I can also look in at what one of my e-friends has to say. Thomas Turner, blogger at Everday Liturgy, is almost always that fresh air. Thomas writes:

“What this incident defines for me is not whether we are racist or not, whether police act stupidly or not, or whether arresting someone for disorderly conduct on their own property is ethical or constitutional. There is only one thing for certain in this mess, one problem that stands out above the quagmire: we don’t know who are neighbors are.”

The fact of the matter is that Henry’s next-door neighbor didn’t recognize who he was. Think about that for a minute. She didn’t know what her very neighbor looked like. This isn’t just against her. This is an indictment on both of them. Even more so, it’s an indictment against us all. Thom continues:

“Not knowing the person who lives across the street from you, that’s just sad. But that’s the state of affairs in all of America (not just the suburbs). We have become anti-neighbor. That’s just not a cultural fault. We are supposed to treat everyone as a neighbor. We as a people are failing as a culture to follow the golden rule on a daily basis in part because we are not mean, rude, belligerent, or nasty. It’s far worse. We are indifferent and apathetic. We are lukewarm neighbors, ones who cannot even stop to wave or chit chat.”

Though I’ve quoted quite a bit, I suggest going and reading the entire article: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

A few days ago, I uploaded my review of N. T. Wright’s book Justification. Though I happily recommended the book, the overall tone of the review was critical… which even surprised me. The problem was simply this: I only disagreed with Wright in a few places, but those places formed the major argument of the book.

I wanted to write another post that hit on the things that I thought were good or right in the book, but I found that someone else has essentially said what I would have said, and said it better. Here are some notes from Kevin DeYoung’s pre-review:

Wright is right about a lot in this book. He is right to follow Calvin’s view of the law more than Luther’s. He is right to think that lawkeeping in Judaism was supposed to be a gracious response to God’s covenant mercy (“supposed to”, not “always was” in my opinion). He is right to see that the story of the Bible has God at the center and not us. He is right to see that Paul’s gospel is steeped in “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world” theology. He is right to think that not all his critics have taken the time to understand what he is saying (though Piper certainly has). In short, Wright is right more often than he is wrong. But I don’t think he is always right, nor is he always clear.

See the rest here: http://www.revkevindeyoung.com/2009/07/nt-wright-justification-gods-plan-and.html

One of my favorite scholars, Christopher Wright, was interviewed by the koinonia blog recently&mdashan interview consisting of the single question:

“In what way have we as evangelical Christians failed to grasp or live out the fullness of God’s missional intent? How (if at all) has our theology of evangelism been weak?”

Wright has responded by giving 5 false dichotomies where the Church has over-emphasized one aspect instead of realizing both. His insights are spot-on, in my opinion, and I suggest every check out his response in the post “False Dichotomies in Mission” part 1 and part 2.

The false dichotomies his talks about are:
1. Individual and Cosmic/Corporate impacts of the Gospel
2. Believing In and Living Out the Gospel
3. Evangelism and Discipleship
4. Word/Proclamation and Deed/Demonstration
5. Evangelism from Ecclesiology

I highly recommend the read.

No, not me, unfortunately.

Fortunately, it’s a good friend of mine—Alicia. Alicia emailed me recently to tell me the good news that she is now writing a column on Christianity based out of St. Louis, which is the second best “louis-” city after Louisville. Her focus, thus far, has been apologetics though she has a pretty open range of issue she can and will be discussing. I definitely suggest checking it out: Alicia’s column.

My good friend Jacob has started a new blog and asked me to be a contributor. The blog, Image of Truth, is “dedicated to engaging aesthetics and the arts from a Biblical Christian perspective,” and will feature several contributors from a range of protestant traditions. The goals for the blog are listed as:

• To equip the Church to recognize the importance of beauty and developing a truly biblical aesthetic, that is, a philosophy of beauty.
• To equip the Church to recognize the importance and sanctity of the arts in the daily life of the Christian and the corporate Church, as well as in the history of God’s people over the course of history. Specifically, we will address issues of visual art [drawing, painting, sculpture, printing, etc], music, theater, film, and literature.
• To engage the arts in our contemporary culture. Interacting with and analyzing various artistic expressions today, from contemporary art to music, film, and theater.

I’m really excited about the opportunity. I will continue posting here at katagraphais, of course, and will also cross post my Image of Truth postings here as well.