Below are several excerpts from a small section in Michael Horton’s Putting Amazing Back into Grace
In the medieval church, the Sacrament of Holy Orders entered those who were really “sold out” for the Lord into “full-time Christian ministry.” Christians were separated into “secular” and “religious” callings, as though those who decided to work for the church or Christian ministries were somehow more spiritual than those who engaged in “worldly” vocations. (p. 208)
Against this “sacrament,” the Reformers launched their biblical notion known to use as “the priesthood of all believers.” This doctrine insists that the milkmaid has as God-honoring a calling and contributes as much as any priest, though in a different way. One need not be a monk (i.e., an employee of a Christian organization). Christians ought to be involved with the world, as salt and light. (p. 208)
Bach’s chief ambition was to represent the Reformation in music both in secular as well as in church scores. In fact, he signed all of his compositions (secular and religious) with the Reformation slogan, Soli Deo Gloria, “To God Alone Be Glory.” (p. 209)
There was a tremendous sense among the Reformation’s adherents that this world is terribly important too. To be sure, heaven is the believer’s ultimate hope, but it is in this world where God has chosen to reveal, act, redeem, and restore. (p. 209)
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Tagged as // Culture, Michael Horton, Reformation
Filed in // Quotes
Comments [2]
I realize he’s addressing vocations here, but there is also the matter of real life in this world on our off-time as well. Mine isolates me from pretty much everyone and everything outside of church anymore, plus we are called to be good stewards of our time too, I have really no desire for the secular outside of work, and I am clueless as to how to balance that. My struggle is the fact that I get bombarded with the most profane aspects of this world the second I walk out the door. I’m a nurse, only a year and a half post-conversion, still very sensitive to sin and yet lamenting the beginnings of a desensitization to it; working in the world of the horrendously, blatantly profane, with daytime television and its “court” shows and “reality TV” and Jerry Springer and coworkers who routinely blaspheme the name of Christ at every turn, and who – along with the patients – for the most part reject the Gospel for the heatlh/wealth gig on TBN – also playing on patient televisions. So when I come home from that, from being literally on the front lines all day, what else could I do but seek refuge in the Sacred? I can’t find any secular reading or entertainment that isn’t profane anymore, or that doesn’t otherwise paint a fluffy, idolized picture of God for the public to “worship” instead of the real One. There is truth to the Psalm, “as a deer pants for the fountain, so my soul pants for you” and “Whom have I in heaven but you? And on earth there is nothing I desire…” . And so as I battle this, remembering the Psalmist’s words, “I will set no evil thing before my eyes”, knowing that it will necessarily be before my eyes and pouring into my ears for hours on end each and every day, as I rush to and fro at work, still trying to learn how to manage these things when even the stuff on the shelves in a so-called “Christian” bookstore makes me want to fly out of the building in tears, I’m beaten up pretty good, pretty regularly. And so what precious time I have, I want to spend with and learning of the One who redeemed me from the very same pit I see around me, even as I share Him with and beg Him for those I work with. Maybe that’s what the author was talking about after all, I don’t know. But we common, everyday lay people are out there in the midst of it all – sure could use the prayers.
As the saying goes “you learn something new everyday.” I never knew that about Bach.