How Much ‘Lover’ Language Should We Use in Worship Songs?

00:00:00.000 | We talk worship lyrics on this podcast and you, listeners, are always sending us lyric questions,

00:00:09.600 | which is maybe the most polarizing genre of episodes that we make. I'm sure most of you

00:00:15.040 | remember our episode on the contemporary worship song, "What a Beautiful Name," back in episode 1077,

00:00:20.560 | or the lyrics of the worship song, "Reckless Love." We addressed those in episode 1202.

00:00:27.280 | Well, today a listener named Robert writes in to ask this, a more general question. "Hello,

00:00:31.040 | Pastor John. I've noticed in my own church a rise in the lover language in our contemporary worship

00:00:36.080 | songs. Scripture shows that marriage and, in some ways, sexuality, reflects something of

00:00:40.320 | Christ's relationship with his people. Should we understand that in a purely corporate sense,

00:00:45.280 | or is it right for individuals to sing words like, 'I have felt your touch,' or 'Jesus,

00:00:50.960 | lover of my soul?' What place is there for the intimate, personal lover language in corporate

00:00:56.640 | worship, and how much of this stems from allegorical interpretations of the Song of Solomon?"

00:01:01.680 | What a tremendous need there is for prayerful, wise, mature, experienced, Bible-saturated,

00:01:10.400 | theologically deep leaders of worship.

00:01:13.920 | Yes. Amen.

00:01:15.680 | Being able to play a guitar or a piano and carry a tune is not enough to fit a person

00:01:24.160 | for one of the most important pastoral roles in the church. I think after the pastor who preaches

00:01:33.600 | regularly, the designer and leader of worship services is the most spiritually and theologically

00:01:41.040 | influential person in the church, for better or for worse. And I begin with this emphasis,

00:01:48.640 | this call for prayerful, wise, mature, Bible-saturated depth and discernment in that role,

00:01:57.840 | because, as with most beautiful and precious things, the remedy for unfitting, inappropriate,

00:02:07.360 | foolish, tasteless things in worship services is not a rulebook, but maturity and wisdom

00:02:16.160 | and the gifts of discerning proportion and balance and beauty and effect.

00:02:21.840 | So, when Robert asks, "What place is there for the intimate, personal lover language

00:02:31.040 | in corporate worship?" my answer is, "Each pastoral worship leader must discern whether

00:02:39.040 | the wording of a song and its context in worship will provide the mental and emotional setting

00:02:48.240 | for experiencing love language in a way that is pure and holy and in fitting proportion to other

00:02:59.520 | emotions as well." You can see the enormous need for wisdom here. This is not simple.

00:03:08.160 | The more sexual and individual the imagery of Christ and the people of Christ become,

00:03:14.720 | the more problematic it will be for corporate worship, first because it's a challenge to

00:03:22.880 | transpose eroticism into spiritual affections. It can be done, but it is not likely that it will

00:03:33.760 | be done for most average people in corporate worship. Second, because Jesus Christ is a male,

00:03:42.640 | a man, and we can't expect males and females in the congregation to relate in the same way to an

00:03:54.880 | individualized male Christ speaking to them in language that carries erotic overtones.

00:04:02.720 | But I don't want to give the impression that we should allow the lowest common denominator

00:04:08.240 | of spiritual sensitivity and personal intimacy of fellowship with Christ to dictate the limits

00:04:18.000 | of our biblical expressions of affections for God. Again, the call for wisdom and spiritual

00:04:27.280 | depth in the leader and discernment is so crucial. Here's what I think the focus should be

00:04:35.840 | that would help solve these kinds of problems. Are the excellencies of Christ seen and savored

00:04:44.800 | by the people week in, week out in worship in a way that guards every one of these excellencies

00:04:54.480 | of Christ from disproportion by keeping it in relation to its counter-excellency?

00:05:04.000 | I know that sounds complicated. It's not. Here's what I mean. We must sing the excellence of His

00:05:12.240 | glory but mingled with His humility. We must sing of His transcendence

00:05:20.640 | and mingled with His condescension. We admire Him for His uncompromising justice, but even more

00:05:29.040 | because He's tempered with mercy. We admire Him for His majesty, but even more because it's a

00:05:35.760 | majesty in meekness, lion and lamb. We admire Him because of His equality with God, but even more

00:05:43.840 | because as God's equal, yet He has a reverence for God. We admire Him because of how worthy He is

00:05:52.240 | of all good, but even more because a patient He was to suffer all evil. We sing of Him because

00:06:00.880 | of His sovereign dominion over the world, but even more because of His dominion clothed in a spirit

00:06:08.960 | of obedience and submission. We love the way He stumped the proud Pharisees and scribes with His

00:06:15.920 | wisdom, and we love it even more because He could be so simple that children wanted to come near Him

00:06:23.600 | and spend time with Him. We admire Him because He could still the storm with a word, and yet

00:06:31.120 | He refused to use His power to come down from the cross. So when Robert asks, "Is it right

00:06:38.560 | for individuals to sing words like, 'I have felt your touch'?" my answer is, "Yes, provided everyone

00:06:50.080 | knows that when you feel His touch, you might be electrocuted." That awareness might keep the

00:06:58.960 | imagery of Christ's touch from drifting into sentimentalism or eroticism. So much depends

00:07:06.960 | on what the words of a song connote in our particular personal experience. When I think

00:07:14.560 | myself, when I think of being touched by God, touched by God, I think of 1 Samuel 10:26. I

00:07:21.360 | really did. When I was working through this, that's what I thought of. Saul also went to his

00:07:28.000 | home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched. That's gonna touch

00:07:36.560 | how what? That's a very different connotation than the first night of the honeymoon. So my plea to

00:07:47.200 | pastors is that they choose with great care who will design and lead this all-important part of

00:07:57.040 | the worship service—prayerful, wise, mature, experienced, Bible-saturated, theologically deep

00:08:06.160 | people. And if there isn't a person like that, then, Pastor, keep the leadership in your own

00:08:15.600 | hands until you raise up such a leader. And in the meantime, teach your people who Christ is

00:08:25.200 | and what worship is. Thank you, Pastor John. And if you want more from Pastor John on

00:08:32.000 | contemporary worship lyrics, he addressed the lyrics of "What a Beautiful Name" back in episode

00:08:36.960 | 1077, and he addressed the lyrics of "Reckless Love" in episode 1202. And thanks for subscribing

00:08:44.640 | to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app or on YouTube. We appreciate having you along

00:08:49.920 | three times a week. And next time we address a heavy topic. It's the topic of a pastor who came

00:08:56.240 | out publicly to say he was deconverting from Christianity, leaving the gospel, and abandoning

00:09:03.520 | Christ. How should we respond to such a heavy, heavy moment? I'm your host Tony Renke, and we'll

00:09:10.880 | see you on Wednesday.

00:09:12.240 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:09:20.640 | you

How Much ‘Lover’ Language Should We Use in Worship Songs?

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