He Touched Me -- William J. Gaither

 

It was actually someone else’s idea, but Bill Gaither found that he agreed so much with the suggestion, that he consummated the idea the next day. It was a spark from a special gathering, somewhere not too far from Bill’s home in Alexandria, Indiana, that compelled Bill to say “He Touched Me” in 1963 or 1964. Was it also the foresight that a certain preacher possessed that played a part in coaxing the music and words to emerge from Bill’s insides that day? Maybe it was in fact the synergy of three people -- Bill and two others at the gathering -- which gave Bill the inspiration that directed his mind and his hands to create something that would change his life. His life had already been changed, really.

 

Bill Gaither must have suspected that music and his faith would play a key part in his life one day, even years before that became reality. He certainly must have loved making music from an early age, a disposition that eventually began to take more concrete and meaningful shape when he was in college in the mid-1950s, when his brother, sister, and he formed a singing group. Bill’s education at Anderson College also included some formal music study, along with the degree in English that he acquired. That blend in his life continued for several years, as he taught school while also taking time out to exercise the spiritual music muscle inside himself. This included an invitation he accepted to play piano on an evangelism crusade with Dan (the evangelist) and Doug Oldham (singer, and son of Dan), not far from his central Indiana home when Bill was 27 years old. It was a moving experience one night upon which the three men reflected that was the catalyst for ‘He Touched Me’. With Dan’s prompting, Bill crafted the words and music within 24 hours, which were being sung by Doug soon thereafter. It was Bill’s stepping stone into a music career, something he was doing full-time just a few years later. That must have been some event! Perhaps it was not unlike other crusades, when the message, music, and crowd response fuses into something quite special. The three men agreed that the ‘touch’ of God was a reality in the lives of people in the bible; that night when the three men experienced His ‘touch’ with hundreds of others, perhaps the sensation was so real, that Bill just could not ignore it. Its transformative power takes one onto another plane, Bill said. ‘Something happen(s)…’, and you just have to let others know about this personal revolution.

 

Read some about what others did when Jesus touched them. That was what Dan Oldham was urging Bill Gaither to do as they excitedly discussed how He’d been present among them one night. There’s too many to mention in this short space, but without fail, those people who encountered Jesus became bold. They would not be silent. Even in the face of threats from powerful people, they were undeterred. Apathy became foreign to their consciences. He brings change. He brings release from burdens. He can lift one into a completeness, unlike anything you’ve ever experienced or imagined. He’s God. That’s how He does it. That’s what Bill is telling us…just get in touch with this God, and see what happens.

   

See more information on the song story in this source: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.   

See song information here also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_Touched_Me_(song)

Also see this link for author’s biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gaither_%28gospel_singer%29 

He Is Lord – Anonymous

An ancient confession this is, from an ancient song. We might say the apostle borrowed it for his own recitation of a reminder to those who would listen. Why did Paul appropriate a song that contained the words “He is Lord”? Like so many who came after him, Paul may have discovered that an important message becomes more memorable if music is the vehicle to carry the words we want to retain. It must have been no later than the 1^st Century, and not before then either, when this song emerged, given its appearance in a letter (Philippians 2:10-11) to a group of people in the area called Philippi (modern-day region of Macedonia and Thrace, in northeastern Greece) and the content of the words. Was its origin in fact the region and the people to whom Paul wrote? Early Christians in that area and time are not the only ones who need a reminder.

Paul was likely not actually in Grecian Philippi when he penned his letter to its residents, but instead in Rome or perhaps elsewhere. Nevertheless, his heart was amongst the people there, and hence the letter he took the time to write and send to them. A prison was his location, though we might say he was actually under house arrest. Perhaps the words were eventually in a Latin chant – Ipse est Dominus – some eight or nine centuries after Paul would have first heard them sung. The 1^st Century musical form is a mystery – but, perhaps originating from a type familiar to those who had worshipped in a synagogue. Even with our gap in knowledge regarding the music, the words today still possess a unique potency. They were words of ‘first importance’, as Paul had already written to another group of people (1 Corinthians 15:3) in the same area of southern Europe (also in modern-day Greece), some years earlier. So, is it possible that this Roman citizen named Paul may have in fact spurred the development of ‘He Is Lord’ among fellow citizens with his own pen? Was the music not yet extant when Paul wrote to Corinth’s believers, but had arisen by the time he was arrested in Rome and communicated with those in Philippi? We don’t know, is the short answer, but these words and their nature certainly had already been spoken by many others since Jesus’ resurrection in about A.D. 33. So, sometime in the 30 years between that seminal event and Paul’s words to southern Europeans, people began to confess and testify musically with the same purpose. He died and arose, and every one of us will be humble before Him, and confess His kingship. It will be a proclamation of fact, a joyous exclamation, and a hope-filled trust that I place at His feet.

The words he repeated were a subset of something else Paul had heard sung in his letter -- that Jesus was a servant first, even as He was God. Maybe this odd confluence resonated with Paul, especially as he experienced the confiscation of his earthly freedom but expected the reward of his faith in the future. That must have made it sensible for Paul to write and do as he did after his Damascus Road experience. Someone says if I confess Him today, He will accept and mediate for me later; if I don’t, the consequences are incalculably awful. Is it so really hard to confess His status, to believe He is the truth in every sense? Don’t just do so because you dread burning in Hell – though that is appropriate fear, for sure. Seek him out. See if He’s the genuine article, according to historical evidence. Others have done so (Lee Strobel comes to mind, in our contemporary age), even as they sought to prove Him false; they are the present age’s Pauls. God may have an amazing plan for you, just like He had one for Paul. Are you beyond being amazed today?   

            

The NIV Study Bible, its notes, and the scripture references in the above are the only source for the song story.

You're Worthy of My Praise -- David Ruis

He’s a Canadian, and was in British Columbia (see its flag here) when he penned some words and fused them with some music in 1991. David Ruis proclaimed that “You’re Worthy of My Praise” to the church where he was working, in order to bring disciples into the Christian fellowship, the calling that David believed was his. Music had been ingrained in his life from a young age, so because he was engaged primarily in planting a church, the music he loved was a part of the natural repertoire he used to season that effort. The freshness of faith that he wanted to inspire was also something that he’d learned as a youngster. As a classically-trained musician, David has the wherewithal to focus on the musically complex; yet he doesn’t, a disposition reflected in the words he’d write around 1991. Bow, worship, serve. Meet David Ruis.

David Ruis was just 5 years old when a pair of young newly-minted Christian parents made a decision to make David’s education a well-rounded one, rich in music. Piano and voice lessons, especially in the classics, were standard fare for young David, perhaps not unlike another young David many centuries earlier. He sang in a choir in Calgary, besides playing piano at a high level in the Royal Conservatory. So, David was well on his way to writing and performing music as a collegian, and then at age 21 when he was involved in a planting a church, an effort that would influence how he would come to write ‘You’re Worthy…’ several years later. He says that the focus on starting a new church drew him into the type of songs he would write through 1991, including in British Columbia, where he wrote ‘You’re Worthy…’ as one of his first efforts. Twenty-eight-year old David’s musical DNA would continue to animate his being for some time. The particular circumstances of the genesis of ‘You’re Worthy…’ include songwriting times with just a piano and his two-year old daughter, who sang the echo parts to help David craft the tune, a process that brought to fruition this song-gift over time. He says the church’s very affecting worship experiences also played an important role in his songwriting. Ruis was ultimately doing what church planters do: drawing new Christians into devotion with uncomplicated concepts that children could even understand – with submissive words like ‘praise’, ‘follow’, ‘bow’, ‘hail’, and of course ‘worship’. Ruis and his family have evidently engaged in this church planting lifestyle in several places in Canada and the United States, including in the American states of Missouri and California, and in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and British Columbia.

Given the upbringing and the lifestyle of the Ruis family (David and his wife Anita, and at least four children), what are the odds that more songs like what David wrote in 1991 will emerge? It’s almost a rhetorical question, isn’t it? The Ruises are part of what’s known as Impactnations and the Vineyard churches, which are focused on spreading Christian fellowship churches across the globe. Besides Canada and the United States, they have reportedly been involved in efforts far from what they might call home base – in Nepal and India. If they haven’t already been translated, one can imagine that David’s songs will soon be in other tongues besides English. That’s just the way praise travels – across the planet, and eventually into the heavens too. You think it’s already up there? Let’s go see!           

See the story in the book “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”, by Lindsay Terry, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2008.

          

See this link for a brief biography of the Ruis family: http://www.impactnations.org/FAQRetrieve.aspx?ID=56971

Also, see here: https://www.last.fm/music/David+Ruis/+wiki
 

Read an interview in 2012 with the author here: https://frankviola.org/2012/05/31/davidruis/