Matt Papa on Gospel-Centered Music:

The power of “song” is hard to exaggerate. Someone has said, “Let me make a nation’s (popular) songs, and I care not who make their laws.” Luther counted hymnody just under preaching in terms of theological formation. I say it this way: A song is a sermon people remember. People forget a sermon in a couple of weeks. They remember a song forever.

That means if we as worship leaders and Christian artists are leading people astray with our lyrics, I believe we’ve got a lot of heavy millstones waiting for us. Songs and art have power, permanence, and influence, especially in the realm of theology. And it probably goes without saying but that which influences theology influences everything. [Read more...]

JRR Tolkien’s description of Lothlorien sounds like a description of heaven:

The others cast themselves down upon the fragrant grass, but Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder.

It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no color but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them and made for them names new and wonderful.

In winter here no heart could mourn for summer or spring. No blemish or sickness or deformity could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lorien there was no stain.

J.R.R. Tolkien, LORD OF THE RINGS, The Fellowship of the Ring

Aslan’s instructions to Jill Pole before he sent her to Narnia on a mission:

First remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters. And now, daughter of Eve, farewell–