Flight Paths

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

When I was being asked about demonic possession, I was also asked if I would bless the home.  The first thing I said is that, while I'm always willing to pray for anyone who asks about most anything, my prayers are not worth any more or any less than anyone else's.  I am merely a preacher, not some sort of shaman.  While I'm always willing to pray, the better protection against any sort of problem the world presents you is for you to develop your own close relationship with God through regular prayer.

1 Thess. 5:16-18  "Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you."

Phil. 4:6-7  "In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.  And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus."

1 Pet. 5:6-7  "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time; casting all your anxiety upon him, because he cares for you. 

In looking at these passages, three things stand out:  the regularity of prayer, the close relationship of gratitude with prayer, and the fact that you can and should pray about anything that makes you anxious.

In relation to this topic, one hears more and more about rituals performed to rid a home of "bad juju" or hexes.  (I'm looking at you, NCIS Special Agent McGee and your wife Delilah.)  This is nothing other than paganism, roundly condemned in the Bible.

Deut. 18:10-12  "There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you."

Notice that these things are not a part of the Law of Moses, done away when Christ fulfilled it, but are a part of an older, fundamental morality.  This is clear since the Canaanites, who were NOT under the LOM, were being driven from the land specifically because of these abominations.  We should fear to participate in anything that resemble magic, charms and fortune telling. 

1 Sam. 15:23  "For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry." 

Lucas Ward

Medicine has come a long way since ancient times and it hasn’t stopped progressing.  As a patient who has a rare disease, I have had my share of experimental surgeries and procedures, and endured experimental medicines and equipment.  Sometimes it’s just plain scary, but when it works, it’s amazing.  I can still see, several years after I was expected to lose my vision.  It may not be great vision, and the after effects of all these procedures and medications may not be pleasant, but let me tell you, any vision is better than no vision, and you will put up with a lot to have it.

 Blood is one area where knowledge is still blossoming.  But just think of this.  Transfusions were not common until the turn of the twentieth century, and even then it had to be a live donor for an immediate transfusion.  It went on that way for nearly four decades.  Finally, Dr Bernard Fantus at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago performed several experiments and determined that human blood, under refrigeration, could last up to ten days.  Still not long, but enough for him to start the first blood bank on March 15, 1937.  Imagine the lives that were suddenly saved.  It must have seemed like a miracle.

 Medicine has progressed even further.  My little bit of research tells me that at 1-6 degrees Centigrade, blood can now be kept up to 42 days, and that some of it can be frozen for up to ten years.  I wonder if Dr Fantus had any idea what he had put into motion.

 But sooner or later that blood does become stale.  It is no longer usable to save lives.  And if there is a sudden loss of power that cannot be maintained with a generator or other power source, all of it will spoil almost immediately. 

 Imagine a blood that never loses its potency, that never becomes stale, that will always save. 

 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, Heb 9:24-26.

 Jesus does not have to offer himself “repeatedly.”  He does not have to keep a fresh supply of blood handy.  The saving power of his blood lasts forever.  And what exactly does it do?

 It makes propitiation, Rom 3:23.

 It justifies, Rom 5:9.

 It brings us “near,” Eph 2:13.

 It purifies our consciences and makes us able to serve God, Heb 9:14. 

 It forgives, Heb 9:23.

 It cleanses us from sin, 1 John 1:7.

 Now understand this—it isn’t the fact that Jesus cut his finger one day and bled a little.  Blood in the Bible has always represented a death.  The blood that saves us is the death he willingly died on our behalf, because only a sacrificial death can atone for sin (Lev 17:11).  And we don’t have to worry about “types” and “factors.”  His blood will cleanse us from “all sin,” 1 John 1:7.

 Nowadays people want nothing to do with another person’s blood.  Everyone wears gloves.  But to gain the benefits of Christ’s blood you have to “touch” it.  How do you contact that blood?  You simply “die” with Christ.  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life, Rom 6:3,4. 

 And that blood bank still works for us.  It keeps right on forgiving as needed, as we repent and continue to walk in him for the rest of our lives.   

 Only once--that’s all he had to suffer.  Our trips to the blood bank will likely be more than once, but may they become less and less often as we grow in grace and faith and love.  It will be there when we need it, but let’s not squander a precious gift, nor take it for granted. 

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him, Heb 9:27,28.

Dene Ward 

In February the pine and oak trees suddenly burst out in fuzzy yellow green tufts of pollen that fell like snow on the ground and the sidewalk, covering our car in a thin layer of windblown chartreuse powder and stuffing up Keith’s nose like cotton.  In March the needles and leaves finished falling and the new ones almost instantly budded out in their customary spring green color.  The pollen dried and began falling in earnest, turning the new green grass brown under its carpeting.  Every time I finished working outside, I brushed my shoulders off before heading inside.

 I thought I was in good shape, but in the middle of the night my hand ran over my pillow and I felt it—several large grains of something, and as the sleep fog lifted I realized what it was—tufts of pollen.  On my pillow?  How in the world…?  And then I knew.  It had fallen into my hair, and my hair with all its corkscrews had trapped it like a net.  The only way it was coming out was with a comb—or rubbing it on a pillow, I guess.  The next morning I cleaned out my hair, brushed off the pillow and sheet, and swept the floor.  Then I walked around the house and discovered more on the floors of every room.  So I swept them all.  But that only fixed the problem that morning.  In the afternoon, I had to check my hair all over again.

 It’s easy to think you can be in the world and not be contaminated by it.  Yet every day you bring home those same contaminants if you are not careful to remove them.  They will not easily brush off.  They will not stop falling just because it’s you they might fall on.  And if you leave them, perhaps thinking you will get them out later, or that they will fall out on their own where they won’t hurt anyone, they will affect every part of your life before you know it.  Your language changes, your dress changes, your interests change, and finally, your attitudes change, and suddenly you are not the person you thought you were.

 I have learned to brush myself off every day while the pollen is falling, to run my fingers through my hair and untangle the ones that are trapped.  I check my shoes and the creases in my jeans.  And I do it whether I have been outside all morning or just a few minutes.  Contamination can happen in a flash.

 Be sure to check yourself this evening before you hurt not just yourself, but the ones you love. 

Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.  Jas 1:27

Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Joanne Beckley.

In the book, *The Bell Jar* by Sylvia Plath, the main character is wracked with a decision that needs to be made. That night, in a dream, she stands viewing a tree with all the figs withered and rotting on the ground. On awaking, she realizes that not making a decision is a decision.

Long ago I stood facing a live fig tree and viewed the same disappointment in myself because I couldn’t share the bountiful crop with my neighbor—they were all lying rotting on the ground, and the gift lost.

At times making decisions can be very difficult and the temptation comes to simply ignore or wish it away, even refuse to make a decision. And so, the decision is made.

At this moment in time, you and I are at the exact place we have brought ourselves through the myriad choices we have made along the way. The only thing over which we have much control is the very next decision we make today.

Will we make a wise choice, or jump in too quickly, or simply allow the figs to lie rotting on the ground and thus pay for the choice we actually made by not acting on the opportunity?

Life is not made up of simple answers. What life needs is the binding glue of convictions—what we believe and our hope for the future.

Romans 6:16 

“Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?”

So, what are we doing today with the most life-changing power in the world? We have this gift from God—the ability to make choices. All you and I need to do is use it in the right way.

Most of us have made three far-reaching and important choices: how to make a living, whom to marry, and ultimately whom we will serve. But what about difficult decisions yet to be made?

One man said, “Hard decisions are never met with gratitude.” This is so true. I have not met someone who joyfully greets the need to make a decision.

Before I list a number of points in decision making, we must realize that our decisions affect others. Nearly every decision we make will affect different people in one way or another.

It is important to be aware of the influence our decisions will have and understand what the “human cost” will be. Consider King Saul, who let his fears rule his heart above obedience to God by making a really bad choice—and lost his sons the right to rule the kingdom of Israel (1 Samuel 15).

5 Steps to Good Decision Making

Step 1: Pray 

Pray that with God’s help, you will wisely choose your thoughts and actions.

Step 2: Identify the Need 

Identify what you want to achieve with your ultimate goal in mind.

Step 3: Gather Information 

Gather information for weighing your options. Take the necessary time.

Step 4: Consider the Consequences 

Think about the positive and negative consequences for each choice. Think carefully and walk softly when there is a lack of information available.

Step 5: Make Your Decision 

If action must be taken, prefer the best choice—even if you will be seen as the one at fault and must ask for forgiveness.

Step 6: Evaluate Afterwards 

Take time to evaluate the decision you made and the action you took. Reflect not only on your success, but also on your mistakes. You cannot learn from your mistakes if you don’t take the time to reflect on them.

Consider questions like these:

- Maybe an assumption was way off or you didn't seek any other input. 

- Maybe you didn't give yourself time to think things through. 

- Are you afraid of failure or even the consequences of success? 

- Did you worry about what other people will think about you? 

- Even perfectionism may be getting in your way. 

- Perhaps you didn’t purposefully make a decision and must now face the consequences.

Analyze the situation and look at other possible alternatives you may have had. What did you learn? What will you do differently tomorrow as a result?

Yes, we can make bad decisions. Most of our bad decisions occur because they feel comfortable and automatic, and our emotions steer us incorrectly. Our perception of time is inaccurate and we fail to consider what might be down the road.

There are always consequences when we make unwise choices. A mature person will accept the consequences and learn from them. Likewise, when time proves we have made a wise decision, we will rejoice and give thanks to God.

God has given us the power of choice. No other animal in the world has ever had this power. Obviously, God has given us the ability to make good—even excellent—decisions.

Let us not cripple or weaken that gift. No one desires rotting figs lying on the ground.

Joanne Beckley

I took my first writing course as a junior in high school.  Our first assignment included stapling the rough draft to the final copy.  Imagine my surprise when the teacher handed back my paper with this written across the front of the rough draft:  This is too neat.  You didn’t make enough changes and corrections.  A rough draft should look that way—rough!

 Then I looked at my finished paper.  I saw words marked out, phrases circled and “pointed” by an arrow to another place in the sentence.  I saw other words added, and suggestions made with question marks beside them.  Whole sentences were bracketed and directions written above:  “make these phrases parallel;” “needs a concrete noun;” “get rid of the intensifiers.”  In fact, what I saw before me was a real rough draft, exactly how my own should have looked. 

 As the class continued and I learned better writing techniques, my rough drafts became messier and messier.  Sometimes at the end, it took me a half hour to decipher the code of scribbled notes and write what I wanted to turn in.  But inevitably, the rougher the draft, the better the finished product turned out. 

 I learned not to “fall in love with my own words,” as my teacher called it.  I took a red pen to my own creation and marked out words like a safari guide slashing through brush with a machete.  I kept a thesaurus handy to help with vocabulary choices, making nouns and verbs so concrete that few modifiers were even necessary.  I not only got rid of intensifiers, I deleted delayers too, then I worked on turning 8 word clauses into 4 word phrases, concentrating the effect of the writing, rather than diluting it.  Sometimes I even deleted whole paragraphs. 

 Before long I could write better the first time around, but still see places to improve on the read-through, smaller things that would have gotten lost in the obvious mess beforehand.  Even now, when reading something I wrote years ago, I automatically go into edit mode.  Even after it’s put on the blog, I notice things I wish I had changed.  What I said wasn’t wrong, but I could have made it just a teensy bit better, even after the half a dozen edits I always do.

 Today should be your life’s rough draft for tomorrow.  Every evening you should go over your actions, your words, your attitudes and see where you need to “edit.”  If you don’t see anything, you are obviously new to the idea like I was the first time I tried.  My first paper sounded pretty good to me, so I didn’t see the need to change much, but if you were to find it somewhere after all these years, I bet I could hack it to pieces in ten short minutes now.  That is how we need to get about our lives if we ever expect to improve as children of God and become spiritually mature.  We must learn to see the changes we need to make, the faults we try to hide from others and only wind up hiding from ourselves.  If I make the same mistakes every day, then my rough draft isn’t rough enough.

 Let me quickly say this: God doesn’t want you constantly discouraged, thinking you are never right with Him because there is always something you could have done “better.”  God wants us to know that we have eternal life, according to John (1 John 5:13), and that happens because of grace—not because you are perfect.  But that is a far cry from the complacency that believes it already has things figured out, doesn’t need to learn anything new, and always sees the faults of others without ever considering that it might possibly have one or two itself.

 Today, write your rough draft on the paper of time.  Do the best you can.  Then tonight, see what needs editing.  If you write the same thing tomorrow, you are still just a beginner in this class, no matter how old you are.  It’s time to get to work.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, Eph 4:15.

Dene Ward

After you read this book you will realize that even though you think you have read the gospels, you have never really read them at all.

 As one can easily see from even a quick reading, the Old Testament appears in one way or the other on practically every page of the New Testament.  Hays shows us not only those obvious citations but also allusions and something he calls "echoes," things that can only be seen by a reader well-versed in the Old Testament.  Just think of passages like these:

For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me, John5:46.

And he said unto them, These are my words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their mind, that they might understand the scriptures, Luke24: 44,45.

And those two are only a tiny piece of the wealth the author presents.  Already in my own studies I had come across Isaiah's vineyard parable (Isaiah 5) and its relationship to Jesus' own vineyard parable (Mark 12), but that is still nothing more than a thin veneer compared to the depths this author plumbs.

 Hays patiently takes us through each gospel, not only showing the use of the Old Testament in each, but also analyzing the methods that each writer employs and why he does so.  It will become painfully obvious that anyone who insists on using only a fourfold gospel approach to the life of Christ misses far more than half of what each writer was trying to show us because he is too focused on chronology and details to see the more complex allusions and echoes—that one will be stuck with clear citations only.  It also thoroughly scolds anyone who insists on ignoring the Old Testament as "no longer relevant."

 My readers, who I know are above average intelligence, must still realize that this is a scholarly treatise.  Occasionally, Hays writes in Greek, but probably 95% of the time he translates it somewhere else in the paragraph.  It would do you well to keep a dictionary handy, not because you aren't smart but because theology and exegesis are not your bailiwick.  I learned several new words after looking them up, not once but several times.  You can too.  Do not be discouraged by the page count either.  My copy contained about 150 pages of notes and indices in the back.

 Did I agree with everything in the book?  No, I did not, but would it impress you to know that premillenialists don't like the way he presents Christ's kingdom as existing now?  Funny what you can teach yourself out of with an intense study.

 Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels is published by Baylor University Press.

Dene Ward

My little boys used to bring me bouquets all the time.  Sometimes it was Queen Anne’s lace.  Sometimes it was a bright blue spiderwort.  Sometimes it was a rain lily or a stem of pink clover.  Sometimes it was just a dandelion bloom.  All of these are wildflowers, what any suburban lawn grower would call “weeds.”  Yet I put them all in vases of various sizes because they were all precious to me.  My little fellows had no idea the difference between domesticated flowers and wildflowers.  All they knew was “flowers,” and out here in the country we are surrounded by them.

 But even they would never have gathered a bunch of them, ripped off the blooms and handed me a fistful of stems.  The problem with religion today, including some of my own brothers and sisters, is they value the stems and not the flowers. 

 A few months ago someone told me how listening to a certain teacher had made his day so much better.  I anxiously awaited the lesson he had heard, but he never once said a word about the content.  All I heard was the teacher’s name, at least three times, and how that person had made his day better.  What he had done was throw away the flower and put the empty stem in a vase of water to admire.

 I understand having favorite speakers and teachers.  Nothing makes me happier than to hear someone compliment my husband and my sons.  But none of them teach for the glory.  They teach to help people. If all people remember is their names, then they haven’t been much help, have they? 

 If I can’t tell you what a person taught me, did I learn anything, or was I just entertained for a few brief moments?  One of my favorite teachers isn’t much of an entertainer, but I always go away with a new way of looking at things, even things I have been looking at for decades now.  He makes me think, and he makes me see the possibilities.  He makes me want to go look at it again myself, and I often do.  He makes me examine my life in ways I never have and want to change for the better.  Can your favorite speaker do those things, or does he just make you laugh and feel good?

 There is absolutely nothing wrong with going to someone for help with your Bible study.  God did ordain the role of teachers in spiritual things (Eph 4:11).  He meant for us to have brothers and sisters we could go to with questions and problems.  Paul told Timothy to pass on what he knew to “faithful men.”  He told the older to train the younger.  But God also holds us individually accountable for what we do with what we hear. “Work out your own salvation,” Paul told the Philippians, well after Jesus had already said, “If the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch.”  It is up to each of us to be careful to whom we listen and to examine what they say against the Word (Acts 17:11).

 A good teacher doesn’t care if he receives praise or not—that is not his purpose.  All he does is hold up the Word of God and present it to you.  “What is the straw to the wheat?” God asks in Jer 23:28.  That word “straw” has several meanings according to Strong’s, and one of them is the wheat stalk, or stem.  Which is more important, God is saying, the stem or the wheat it holds up?

 I knew a man once who nearly tore a church up because he insisted on “his turn” to teach when not only was he a lousy teacher, he didn’t even know the Word of God accurately enough to teach it.  Clearly, it was all about the glory of teaching to him, and clearly he needed the admonition in Rom 12:3:  For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

 I know the temptation.  So did Paul.  I refrain from [boasting], so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited, 2 Cor 12:6,7.  It shouldn’t matter to me what people say about my speaking or writing.  What should matter is how many I reach, how many are helped and encouraged and how many souls are saved.  And that is what should matter to those who listen and read too. 

 And do you know why this is so important?  If you value the who above the what, then someday, sooner or later, you will be deceived into believing a lie.  Even good teachers make mistakes, and you might be deceived by an honest error too.  That is why James tells us in 3:1 that teachers will receive the “greater condemnation.”  Teaching is a responsibility, and anyone who craves the glory is manifestly unable to handle that burden.

 Most of the preachers and teachers I know will tell you the same things I am now.  If you want to make me happy, then use what I give you, remember it and grow.  Share it with others who might need it.  Even if you forget where you got it, just pass the good news along.  That is what really matters.  Give them a bouquet of flowers, not a handful of stems.

For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself, Gal 6:3.

Dene Ward

We live on wooded property—spreading live oaks, pencil straight slash pines, red and silver maples, fast-growing sycamores, sweet gums with their spiky balls, wild cherry and water oaks, both of which will split and fall at the least breeze.  When I walk Chloe around the perimeter I dodge fallen limbs, both deadfall and green, every ten feet or so.  Sometimes I find larger limbs that have fallen overnight, and once one fell right in my path just seconds after I had passed. 

 Often in the night, especially a windy one in the spring or fall as fronts pass through, I hear limbs hit the roof.  They are surprisingly loud and I awake expecting to find something large and heavy only to waste Keith’s time as he climbs the ladder to discover a two foot long twig no bigger around than his thumb.  It certainly sounded bigger than that!

 A few months ago, after a particularly windy winter storm, Chloe and I came upon a fallen pine limb, three feet long maybe and about two inches in diameter.  This one, though, was not lying on the ground.  The wind had cast this one with enough force that it had stuck straight into the ground through the sod.  I pulled it out and a full six inches of it was below the surface.  Imagine if that one had come hurtling through the sky at me as I walked by.

 Words are a bit like fallen limbs.  You never know who they will hit and how.  We are often just as careless as the wind in hurtling them about.  We may think the only one who hears is the one we are addressing.  We may think that everyone knows us and understands how it is meant.  We may think that what was said was perfectly innocent and completely impossible to mistake for something bad.  We may be very wrong.

 Yes, people need to listen with as much charity as we need to speak.  The Bible, particularly the wisdom literature, is full of cautions not only about how we speak but how we listen.  Even Jesus said, “Take heed how you hear.”  Hearing involves maybe as much responsibility as speaking. Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others, Eccl 7:21,22.

 But just maybe we could stand to be a bit more careful in our speaking.  Words can hurt, and unlike physical wounds, may never heal.  What sounds like a twig to us may sound like a massive branch falling on the roof to the hearer.  And a multitude of the same kinds of words has an effect that is hard to erase.  What kinds of words do I use the most?  Praise or criticism?  Thanksgiving or complaining?  Encouragement or rebuke?  Tough love is necessary and is necessarily painful, but do I ever practice any other kind?  Are all my words, or even just the majority, “tough?”  And am I proud of having that sort of reputation?  Do people cringe when they see me coming?

 Those things I can control, but what about the things I say that are not meant to harm, but still manage to do so?  What about things I toss off without thought, directed at no one in particular, but that, like a fallen limb, accidentally come close to someone else’s heart?  Yes, for those who are mature, we can go back to the responsibility laid on hearers in that Ecclesiastes passage and in Jesus’ and the apostles’ words about being quick to judge, but what about the perfectly innocent babes?  What about young impressionable Christians? 

 If I shoot a gun into the air, the bullet will land somewhere, and my having shot it will make me accountable to the law of the land.  Will God’s law hold us any less accountable for the spiritually injured? 

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned, Matt 12:36,37.

Dene Ward

 “So the shepherds of Christ’s flock have a double duty: to feed the sheep (by teaching the truth) and to protect them from wolves (by warning of error). As Paul put it to Titus, elders must hold firm the sure word according to apostolic teaching, so that they would be able both ‘to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to confute those who contradict it’ (Titus 1.9, RSV). This emphasis is unpopular today. We are frequently told always to be positive in our teaching, and never negative. But those who say this have either not read the New Testament or, having read it, they disagree with it. For the Lord Jesus and his apostles refuted error themselves and urged us to do the same. One wonders if it is the neglect of this obligation which is a major cause of today’s theological confusion. If, when false teaching arises, Christian leaders sit idly by and do nothing, or turn tail and flee, they will earn the terrible epithet ‘hirelings’ who care nothing for Christ’s flock (John 10.12ff). Then too it will be said of believers, as it was of Israel, that ‘they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and … they became food for all the wild animals’ (Ezek 34.5).” (John R.W. Stott, The Message of Acts, 328–329, emphasis added, footnoted scripture citations converted to inline parentheticals)

Sweetest note in seraph song,

Sweetest name on mortal tongue.

 Do you know what a seraph is?  I bet you have heard the word “seraphim” before and know it is a kind of angel.  But even that is not quite right.

 In English we form plurals in several different ways:  “s,” “es”, “ies”, plus those plurals that are Latin derivatives where “is” becomes “es” (analysis/analyses), “um” becomes “a” (memorandum/memoranda), and “us” becomes “i” (cactus/cacti). 

 One way to form a plural in Hebrew is to add “im.”  So there is one seraph and more than one seraphim, one cherub and more than one cherubim.  A “seraph” song is a song a seraph, or several seraphim, might sing.

 We don’t really know a whole lot about angelic beings.  I can tell you one thing, though:  they don’t look like chubby little naked flying babies with wings shooting bows and arrows!

 The only word picture I could find of seraphim is of those around the throne of God in Isaiah’s vision of chapter 6.  They are anything but “cute.”  Those seraphim had six wings.  When they spoke the threshold of the Temple shook and smoke filled the rooms.  Those creatures could hold live coals in their hands.  John said the angels around God’s throne were “mighty,” Rev 5:2.  I do not know if those were seraphim or not, but they stood in the same place as Isaiah’s seraphim. 

 As to angels singing about Jesus, is that scriptural?

 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:13,14.

 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” Rev 5:11,12.  Earlier, in verse 9, John calls what they were doing “singing.”

 So from his birth to his ascension and afterward the angels sang about Jesus.  Seraphim, cherubim, archangels, whatever--I doubt any refused, do you?

 But here is the point of the song:  what our Savior did for us is so glorious, so marvelous, so gracious and good that everyone should be singing his praises, whether “seraph” or “mortal.”

 It is sad that our books do not contain the following verse to this song:

 And when to that bright world above

 We rise to be with Jesus,

 We’ll sing around the throne of love,

 His Name—the Name of Jesus.

Isn’t it an appropriate idea that where the seraphim stand guard over the throne of God, singing, we will also stand, singing praise to the Great Physician?

After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of [all] tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands; and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God who sits on the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels were standing round about the throne, and [about] the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, [be] unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. Rev 7:9-12.

Dene Ward