In the following quote, N. T. Wright uses the metaphor of singing in a choir--going
from out of tune to in-tune, to illustrate the regeneration of the human heart and thus, behavior, once a person has met Christ:
“God loves us as we are, as he finds us, which is (more or less) messy, muddy, and singing
out of tune. Even when we’ve tried to be good, we have often only made matters
worse, adding (short-lived) pride to our other failures. And the never-ending
wonder at the heart of genuine Christian living is that God has come to meet us
right there, in our confusion of pride and fear, of mess and muddle and downright
rebellion and sin.
That’s the point
of the Christian gospel, the good news: ‘This is how much God loved the
world—that he sent his only son, Jesus Christ, so that anyone who believes in
him will not die, but will have life, the life of the age to come.’ That
summary, in one of the most famous verses in the New Testament (John 3.16),
says it all. God’s love comes to us where we are in Jesus Christ, and all we
have to do is accept it. But when we accept it—when we welcome the new choir
director into our ragged and out-of-tune moral singing—we find a new desire to
read the music better, to understand what it’s all about, to sense the
harmonies, to feel the shape of the melody, to get the breathing and voice
production right...and, bit by bit, to sing in tune.
Out of our desire to become better musicians, we begin to practice and to learn the habits of how to sing; to acquire the character not only of good individual singers but of a good choir; and so to take our place within the ongoing story of music—specifically, church music, the tradition going back to Bach and Handel and beyond. There is the sequence: grace, which meets us where we are but is not content to let us remain where we are, followed by direction and guidance to enable us to acquire the right habits to replace the wrong ones.” N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, pages 62-63
Out of our desire to become better musicians, we begin to practice and to learn the habits of how to sing; to acquire the character not only of good individual singers but of a good choir; and so to take our place within the ongoing story of music—specifically, church music, the tradition going back to Bach and Handel and beyond. There is the sequence: grace, which meets us where we are but is not content to let us remain where we are, followed by direction and guidance to enable us to acquire the right habits to replace the wrong ones.” N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, pages 62-63
No comments:
Post a Comment