The Vision (7.18.25): Instructions on Singing Praise (Ephesians 5:19)

 

Image: Butterfly bush, North Garden, Virginia, July 2025.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 5:17-21.

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord (Ephesians 5:19).

In last Lord’s Day morning’s sermon we noted five essential aspects of wise Christian living as presented in Ephesians 5:17-21, including (1) Understand the Lord’s will (v. 17); (2) Be filled with the Spirit (v. 18); (3) Sing in your heart to the Lord (v. 19); (4) Give thanks always for all things (v. 20); and (5) Be submitted in the fear of God (v. 21).

Regarding v. 19, we noted the exhortation for believers to sing praise. This passage, along with Colossians 3:16, is one of the most important prooftexts in Scripture to justify singing as an element in corporate worship.

Can you believe that there was once a great controversy among early Particular Baptists as to whether singing was part of Scripturally sanctioned worship? Eventually singing was affirmed, in part by appeals to Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16.

We strive to follow the Regulative Principle of worship, meaning we want everything we do in worship to be something God has commanded in his word.

Notice at least four insights in Ephesians 5:19 regarding singing:

First, there is a horizontal aspect to singing:

“Speaking to yourselves….” Congregational singing offers mutual exhortation, comfort, and edification to the saints.

Second, we are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Some say this means, “Psalms, Psalms, and Psalms” (“hymns” means Biblical Psalms and “spiritual songs” means inspired by the Spirit, according to this view).

At the least, it means we should include canonical Psalms (from the book of Psalms) in our singing.

We hold that there can also sing songs drawn from other places in Scripture (beyond the Psalms), and that we can sing uninspired, yet sound, songs of praise, if they are Biblically faithful, just as we can offer prayers and preach sermons whose words are not inspired, but yet, are still edifying. Still, we ought also to sing the Psalms. With singing uninspired texts we always run a risk of saying things in error.

Third, singing must come from the heart.

The standard is not musical excellence, but singing sincerely and faithfully “in your heart.”

Fourth, there is also a predominant vertical aspect to singing.

Although, as noted above, there is a horizontal aspect to singing, in the end, our singing is not merely for man, but it is directed “to the Lord.” As Psalm 96:1 exhorts, “Sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth.”

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

WM 330: Changes coming to Modern Bibles

 

JTR

Vision (7.11.25): Walking as children of light and walking circumspectly

 

Image: Blueberries, North Garden, Virginia, July 2025.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 5:8-16.

“Walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).

“See then that ye walk circumspectly” (Ephesians 5:15).

Paul uses “walking” in Ephesians as a metaphor for conducting the Christian life. This began in Ephesians 4:1 when he exhorted believers to “walk worthy” of their calling and continued in Ephesians 5:2 with the command to “walk in love.”

In Ephesians 5:8 this theme persists as Paul exhorts believers to “walk as children of light,” in other words, to live as Christians.

He adds in 5:15 an exhortation to “walk circumspectly,” which means carefully, intentionally, and deliberately.

At the end of v. 15 we hear the spirit of Solomon. Walk “not as fools but as wise” (cf. Proverbs 3:5-6; 9:10).

He adds in v. 16, “Redeeming the time…” The verb “to redeem” means to purchase out of the marketplace. We usually think of this term as relating to salvation, but here it applies to sanctification. It means, Make the most of your time. Be a good steward of your time. Do not wander about aimlessly in life. Don’t fritter away your time. Make the best use of it for the spiritual good of yourself and of others.

Time is slipping away and soon our days will be gone. How will we have spent them?

R. C. Sproul observed on this passage: “We are called to be productive Christian people, and in order to be productive, we must be careful with our use of time. I have as much time in the day as the President of the United States has. To make the most of every opportunity means to make wise use of it, so that the things we are doing are productive and helpful, not destructive and wasteful” (Ephesians, 129).

It is likely not accidental that a great watch making industry developed in Geneva, Switzerland, the city of John Calvin and a center of the Protestant Reformation. The Reformers taught that we were to be good stewards of every minute in our lives, so they wanted carefully to measure it.

Life can indeed be swept away in a moment. I think of those floods that swept through Texas last week. I think of the dear brother in our church whose mortal life was also swept away so unexpectedly last week. Who knows if we will make it through this day, this week, this month, this year. Psalm 31:15 says, “My times are in thy hand.”

Paul says, “the days are evil” (5:16) He means we are living in this present evil world (cf. Galatians 1:4). We are living between the times, between the ages. We are awaiting the return or our Lord and the redemption of our bodies at the resurrection. But this does not mean we merely rest in passivity in this life. It means active living of the Christian life, active pursuit of faithfulness and holiness.

It calls for walking as children of light and walking circumspectly.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Sermon: Does the Bible teach the "Rapture"?

Message from last Sunday afternoon (6.29.25) at CRBC in eschatology series:

Outline: 1. Review of three passages suggested by dispensationalists to provide the "biblical basis" for the "Rapture": John 14:1-3; 1 Thessalonians ; 1 Corinthians -52 (cf. MacArthur's Study Bible). 2. A sober evaluation and interpretation of those passages. 3. Conclusion and practical application.

JTR

The Vision (7.4.25): Following God and Living Life "As Becometh Saints"

 

Image: David's Phlox, North Garden, Virginia, July 2025.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 5:1-7.

“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children” (Ephesians 5:1).

“But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints” (Ephesians 5:3).

The beginning of Ephesians 5 continues a theme commenced in Ephesians 4:1 when Paul beseeched believers to walk worthy of the “vocation” wherewith they were called. He was exhorting the Ephesians believers to live as genuine and sincere Christians, not as a phonies or hypocrites.

One of the key statements that stands out as expressing this core thought is found in Ephesians 5:3 which speaks of believers conducting themselves in their practical living “as becoming saints,” or, as is fitting or right for saints. “Saints” means “holy ones,” not super-believers, but ordinary men and women who have been made holy and set apart by Christ.

What things are we to pursue and what things are we to avoid if we desire to live in such a way as is fitting for professed followers of the Lord Jesus?

Paul begins, “Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.” The verb here for “to follow” in Greek is mimeo, which means to mimic or to imitate.

Christ called men like Peter and Andrew, James and John to leave their fishing nets and to follow him, to become his disciples and to imitate him, to make him the model or template upon which they constructed their life and behavior.

In 1 Corinthians 11:1 Paul said, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” The word for “followers” here is a noun that comes from the same root as the verb mimeo in Ephesians 5:1. So Paul was saying, “Be ye imitators or mimics of me, as I imitate or mimic Christ.”

In Acts 11:26 Luke says the disciples of the risen Lord Jesus were first called “Christians” at Antioch. “Christians” was meant as a term of disparagement, but the followers of Christ took it as a badge of honor. They were “imitators” of Christ, little “Christs.”

Let us each examine our own hearts and lives. Are we following Christ? Are we living in such way “as becometh saints”? May the Lord himself help us so to do.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (6.20.25): Putting on the New Man

 

Image: Butterfly bush, North Garden, Virginia, June 2025.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 4:17-24.

Ephesians 4:22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Paul uses here an inspired metaphor, based on taking off and putting on clothing.

First, in v. 22, he exhorts the Ephesians believers to “put off…the old man.” This is a call to put off the old way of life, the way one lived when he was unregenerate.

When you get your clothes soiled and dirty, you take them off and you put on fresh and clean clothes.

Paul then exhorts, “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (v. 23). In Romans 12:1-2 Paul urged believers not to be conformed to this world but to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Paul then exhorts in v. 24: “And that ye put on the new man….”

Taking off the old man is one part of the transformation, but it is necessarily accompanied by a second part: putting on the new man.

Some theologians rightly speak of the necessity of both mortification (putting to death the old ways) and vivification (coming to life to the new ways). We need both.

R. C. Sproul offered the following thoughts on this passage:

Once I have been made alive to God through his divine initiative, quickened by his regenerating grace, my heart now throbs with spiritual life. There is now a radical discontinuity between my new self and my old self. It is not a total discontinuity.  A link remains between the old and the new man. The old man has been dealt a death blow, his destination is certain, but he is not yet dead. As Christians we are to feed the new man with all the means of grace that God has appointed and at the same time starve the old man denying him the occasions for sin (Ephesians,115-116).

The saved man not only gives up swearing, but he uses his tongue to bless.

The saved man not only gives up lust, but he gives his mind to wholesome and chaste thought.

The saved man not only gives up gluttony and sloth, but he takes up health and diligence.

Paul emphasizes here that the new man is a work of God’s creation. God made the world by his fiat power, and he makes new believers by that same power: “which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul likewise states that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

May the Lord help us, in this age, continually to put off the old man and put on the new man, until the time when, by God’s grace, we enter into the state of glory.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Audio Series: Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History

 

From X post:

Back in 2019-2020 I did a 126-part audio series of unabridged readings through all 10 books of Eusebius' *Ecclesiastical History* and offering a brief commentary and notes on each section read.

I was reminded of the series when I got this encouraging email from a listener yesterday:

Hello Pastor Riddle,

I am sending this note to thank you for recording Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History.  I recently completed the series and it was so nice to be able to listen when I had time, usually in the car.  Your notes and commentary at the end were extra helpful to pull everything together at the end of each episode and made the material much more meaningful and memorable.

If interested you can find the series here.

JTR

Video Clip: Will there be evidence of faith in the life of a believer?

 

 

 JTR