1 Kings 22:43 [Jehoshaphat] walked in all the ways of Asa his father. He did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the LORD. Yet the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places.
Most of the kings in Israel and Judah were wicked. Only a few kings were good. And even the ones that were good, still were blind. Several times in Kings and Chronicles we are told that so-and-so did what was right, except…except for the high places. This little bit of pagan influence, this little capitulation to the culture was too ingrained in their thinking to be seen. Or if it was seen, it seemed too normal to think of doing anything about it. The good kings didn’t extend wickedness. They actually did much to curb it. They didn’t build or promote the high places like the bad kings did and the nation did under those kings (2 Kings 17:7-12), but neither did they destroy the high places like they should have. They were good kings with blind spots.
I have often wondered what are our high places? Of course, it is hard to see our own blind spots. If we could, they wouldn’t be blind spots. But even though we may not be able to notice every error, it’s still worth thinking and praying about what mistakes we are making without realizing it. And I’m not talking about current theological controversies. These are critically important, but we see the issues at stake, at least many of us do. Moreover, in asking what are our high places I’m not asking what are our biggest sins or the most important issues of our day. What I’m asking is this: what are the issues we aren’t even talking about or the unhelpful patterns and pressures most of us don’t even recognize?
In other words, what will future generations be surprised to see that we missed? It’s easy for us to see how previous generations of Christians were blind to the sin of racism or how it was a bad idea to kill each other over theological differences (even if some of the differences had eternal consequences). But if good Christians in the past—even heroic, admirable Christians—could miss something so obvious (to us), it begs the question: what obvious sins are we blindly committing and what obvious areas of obedience are we neglecting?
Over the next several days I want to highlight six areas that may be high places for us. Obviously, the fact that I’m bringing them up means they aren’t complete blind spots. In fact, I’m not the first person to talk about any of these areas. But still, I consider them “high places” because they are so prevalent (or missing) in the evangelical church in North America. Even when we see the issues and are talking about them, we still can’t seem to do much about them. When the cultural current flows us against with sustained force, we usually just settle for being decent Christians who do what is right but never take down the high places.
So what are some of our high places? Here’s one:
1. The lack of Psalm singing in our churches. Now listen, I’m not a Psalms only guy. I don’t find that position scripturally convincing nor historically necessary. I love old hymns, new hymns, Sovereign Grace music, Townend and Getty, even a good Spanish chorus or two. We have drums and guitars (and an organ) in our church. I’m not pining away for a straight-up Genevan liturgy with robes, an unchangeable order of worship, and unsingable metrical tunes. So, just to repeat, I don’t think the Bible restricts our singing to the Psalms. But you could make a better scriptural and historic case that we should sing only the Psalms than you could make a case for singing everything but the Psalms.
And yet that’s the practice in many of our churches. Is there a command of Scripture we disobey more frequently, and with so little shame, as the injunction to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16)? I mean, seriously, it’s right there in black and white. We are supposed to sing psalms. As far as I can tell, the exegetical debate is not about whether these three terms refer to something other than biblical psalms, but whether they might all refer to different kinds of biblical psalms. Either way, God wants us to sing psalms does he not?
Jesus sang the Psalms (Matt. 26:30). The early church sang the Psalms. The Reformers, especially in the tradition of Calvin, loved to sing the Psalms and labored mightily to restore them to the church. The Bay Psalm Book was the first book printed in America. The Psalms—150 God-breathed songs—have been the staple of Protestant (and especially Reformed) worship for 500 years. And yet how many of our churches sing a Psalm even once a month? I know there are exceptions, but by and large the evangelical church is bereft of Psalm singing. We might unknowingly stumble into one every now and again through Isaac Watts, but for the most part we don’t think about singing Psalms; we don’t plan to sing Psalms; and we don’t sing Psalms.
Assuming we haven’t started an irreversible trend, I imagine future generations will be puzzled by our avoidance of the Psalms. “Why did they give up on the Psalms?” they may ask. “Didn’t they know God wrote them? I suppose they were worried that no one would like singing Psalms. I guess they assumed young people wouldn’t stomach it. But why didn’t they try? Why didn’t they come up with new music for the Psalms? Why didn’t they teach their people about the emotional depth and Christological richness and the gritty honesty of the Psalms? And if they couldn’t think of any other reasons to sing the Psalms, why didn’t they just do it because the Bible told them to?”
You know, they ask pretty good questions in the future, if I do say so myself.
