I Want to Know Christ – Paul, and Gerald Moore

 

Was he thinking of making his words into a song? Paul, the apostle of the Bible’s New Testament, certainly would have endorsed any system – like music – that aids memory retention of important things that one wants to implement as life strategies, like the declaration he made when he told a group of believers “I Want to Know Christ” (Philippians 3:10). This was an especially noteworthy assertion because Paul was under house arrest at the time, possibly in Rome (perhaps 61 A.D.), or maybe in either Ephesus (53-55 A.D.) or Caesarea (57-59 A.D.) (The picture, Saint Paul Arrested, was painted in the early 1900s [author Publisher of Bible Cards]). Would Paul have thought that the Greeks like Plato and Aristotle (who lived four or five centuries before himself) practiced something really useful for the Christian disciple to adopt, a memorization technique called Mnemonics? It might more certainly be said that Gerald Moore, a believer who helped popularize Paul’s words to the Philippian church, must have believed that this ancient Greek method was really valuable, since he borrowed it to create in 1991 his version of Paul’s prison-inspired words. Song-making is indeed one of His best gifts to us.

     

What would provoke a person to say something like what Paul voiced here – ‘bring it on, give it your best shot and make me suffer, just go ahead and kill me!’ Has the individual gone mad, beset by dementia, or else decided that suicide is his best option? One might say so, if Paul had not also included the part about ‘know(ing) Christ’, and more deeply ‘shar(ing)…’, and ‘conform(ing)’, and ‘ris(ing)’ in power like Him. One could look at this one-time enemy of Christ and say that he got what he had coming to himself; in fact, Jesus told Ananias, the first believer to encounter Paul (when he was still known as Saul), that this threat-breathing persecutor would be shown how much he needed to suffer for God’s name (Acts 9:16). In Paul’s many letters (Gal. 1:13-14; Eph. 3:8; 1 Tim. 1:15-16, and 1 Cor. 15:9), he comes across vividly as one who remembered his previous ways and still felt dogged with regret. He owed a lot, more than he could ever pay. And, the only way out was for him to offer the rest of himself in the service of Jesus’ cause. He saw his own life – hearkening to his Jewish roots – as a kind of drink offering that should be ‘poured out’ for his many sins (Philippians 2:17). Near the end of his life, Paul repeats this metaphor (2 Timothy 4:6), anticipating that his own demise and resurrection in the image of his Master was close at hand. Impossible, you say? Saul-Paul might have echoed this, had he not received the ‘fill(ing) with His Spirit’ through the ministering hands of Ananias (Acts 9:17). He never forgot how much damage he’d done, but he also never forgot how much he had received in his conversion, a story that he told at least two times, many years later in his life (Acts 22 and 26). Jesus’ words still rang like new in his ears. It was a life he couldn’t keep to himself, praying that others would likewise be filled in a powerful way with this same Spirit (Colossians 1:9), transforming the impossible into reality.

 

Gerald Moore enters the picture, some nineteen centuries later, with a tune that musically sums up Paul’s greatest purpose following his Damascus Road conversion. Nothing more than his name is known of Gerald. Is that intentional, so that the focus is on how to follow my ancient brother’s model, to be sculpted as a follower of the Holy Sacrifice, even as Paul was? Gerald was merely the conduit, as any believer is, of a Spirit who’s at work, doing something that takes years, even decades – as it did in Paul’s life – to be fully realized. Gerald may have been the arranger, the tune-writer, for what someone else already was singing – we just don’t know much about that part. If it was first sung around a campfire, as perhaps many folk melodies like this one were, an as yet anonymous soul must have also wanted what Paul had the insight and courage to say. Look deep inside his words…they’re more than a campfire song. Want to know Christ? Gerald helps remind us what Paul knew comes with this life goal.

 

See here for publication information about the song and its full text: Praise for the Lord (Expanded Edition) 864. I want to know Christ and the pow'r of His rising | Hymnary.org

 

See here for description of memory system called Mnemonics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic

 

Information on Paul gleaned from the NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1985.

 

See here for information on the picture showing Paul being arrested: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_arrested.jpg. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer. {{PD-US}} – US work that is in the public domain in the US for an unspecified reason, but presumably because it was published in the US before 1929.

Poured Out Like Wine – Anonymous

He or she is unknown, but that detail doesn’t mean we cannot understand this composer. “Poured Out Like Wine” asks a question and then provides an answer, a conversation that indicates this poet was in tune with the Lamb, the One who modeled for every believer what it is to sacrifice. The composer-poet may have also identified with another 1^st Century character, one who was told he’d suffer much for Him. This apostle recorded his feelings twice in the last decade of his life that captured the attention of this anonymous composer centuries later, making one wonder if perhaps he was in a similar life situation. What’s really at stake when somebody endeavors to be a sacrifice…is it like what’s shown here in this 16^th Century representation of what the Aztecs might have experienced in their rituals?

“Poured Out Like Wine” could be the poignant phrase the Paul the apostle uses at least twice in his letters to describe his dedication to the mission God had given him, a solemn undertaking that perhaps millions, including the composer, have considered. Both times the apostle was in confinement (Philippians 2:17; 2 Timothy 4:6), a fact that underscores the sober nature of this commitment. It’s not for the timid or weak, and maybe can only be appreciated fully by someone like Paul after repeated episodes. He was likely nearing the end of life the second time he uses it, so he’d already answered ‘Yes’ to the question many times over. He must have felt at that point that he was an echo of the many centuries of sacrificers, not to mention his Savior who turned sacrifice into a passageway to renewal. So, it’s natural to wonder where the composer was along his life’s path when he jotted down these words. Was he just at the beginning, or was he somewhere along the way, perhaps trying to coax another to join the straight and narrow? His verses indicate he didn’t just launch into this life blindly, without hesitation. No, he had to be invited, persuaded (v.1). Maybe he was reminiscing the way the great apostle was, inspiring readers with his thoughts about what it was like to mimic Jesus as a suffering servant, and admiring the view of Canaan and his inheritance. Saying ‘yes’ to suffering must have a sweet taste after a life like Paul’s, to be in tune with God’s Spirit and able to acknowledge that one’s life has been well-spent, worthy of eternal dwelling with Him.    

Pour it out. Sacrifice. Focus on Jesus as the model. Coax others to do the same. Eye the light at the other end. These were all the things this nameless writer could have done as he contemplated and lived what he wrote. The song doesn’t need attribution. Its link is clear….clear back to Paul, and the One from whom he got it. Listen to Him in the first verse, and sing the second verse, if you wanna see what Paul saw.