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.

All My Hope -- David Crowder and Ed Cash

 

He recounts that it was a most unusual party, with a theme that resonated very well with a song he and his friend were preparing to introduce. That’s how David Crowder remembers “All My Hope” and a prodigal party to which he was invited one day in the 2016/2017 period (perhaps the scenes from the party looked a little like the one shown here in this image of a J.J. Tissot late 19^th Century painting, The Return of the Prodigal Son). How many people have parties for convicts released from prison? How many convicts have given themselves to a new life, walking in a totally different and new direction because they’ve seen the consequences of hedonism? David Crowder and Ed Cash can probably name at least one, now that they’ve observed or heard about this one prodigal that gave such potent life to the lyrics they’d shaped into a song. His name was Wilson, and though he had lived in despair and had then felt the exhilaration of physical freedom after decades of incarceration, his redemptive story is not unique. His life’s a metaphor. God didn’t come to die and rise again for people who were already in good shape – all humanity has need of Him, and we’re all prisoners without Him.  

 

David Crowder says he was traveling (place unnamed) and some friends coaxed him to go to the party, to help provide the celebratory musical environment for the event. David’s curiosity was piqued, once he heard the story about the guest of honor and realized that some of his and Ed’s lyrics for ‘All My Hope’ were so fitting for the occasion. This fellow named Wilson was ‘no stranger to prison’ (v. 2 of the song), and he’d worn real ‘shackles and chains’. Something in his prison life had stared him in the face, however – could it have been something like Prison Fellowship (founded by Chuck Colson), which has worked for over 40 years (since 1976) to help fellows like Wilson experience hope in a new direction? David and Ed, however, don’t provide those details. Instead, their focus is on the work that God does on a person…’yesterday’s gone’ (chorus) they write, a recognition that the fresh start is real in that person’s life who reaches out to Him for redemption. Being ‘forgiven’ and ‘washed by the blood’ (chorus) is that ‘salvific action of the one and only son of God’ (David’s words in the video interview). You can be a ‘prodigal returned’ (v.1), just like the once-profligate son (Luke 15:11-32). An amazing thing, isn’t it, to have the guiltless, divine, and eternal God do something like this! David recounts that he’d never heard people sing and rejoice with such energy, as he did at that party. Perhaps that’s because we rarely have such a stark view of someone’s body that has been in a ditch, covered with filth, only to see that same person lifted out of the muck and cleansed to a spot-free condition. This person has ‘been to the river’, and ‘felt fire from above’, and is ‘held by the Savior’ (v.1). That’s the lens through which God sees all those He made in His image – His creation, with self-inflicted wounds, and covered with grime that threatens to infect our insides and kill us with gangrene-like effect. He’s there with the cleansing agent – Himself.  

 

We’re all reclamation projects. Fresh Start was a ministry that had real impact where I live, initiated by a now-departed Christian sister to reclaim people for God’s original purposes for them, and based on what one of the first century’s apostles said. (Thank you, Candace Strother for helping others get in touch with 2 Corinthians 5:17!) Her efforts still echo today, and there may be other Wilsons that you know that help keep you grounded in how rescue happens, and what it looks like. It’s really not a ‘how’, but a ‘who’, right? The who is Jesus. That’s what David Crowder and Ed Cash want us to tell others – it’s ALL about Him, in big capital, italicized letters. ALL My Hope emanates from Him. Nothing can shake what He’s accomplished for you and me.   

 

The song story in brief form is found in this article: All My Hope - Wikipedia

See and watch/hear the more complete story here also, and hear a really rich rendition of the song: Behind The Song: Crowder Shares The Heart Behind His Single “All My Hope (feat. Tauren Wells)” | Freeccm.com

 

See link here for image information, including public domain status: File:Brooklyn Museum - The Return of the Prodigal Son (Le retour de l'enfant prodigue) - James Tissot.jpg - Wikimedia Commons . 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 100 years or fewer.

 

See link here if you want to know more about how a convicted prisoner’s life can be transformed for Christ: Prison Fellowship

Open My Heart -- Anonymous?, James Wright, Yolanda Adams, Terry Lewis, James Harris

 

The writer or writers of this song evidently believed something was missing. It’s almost as if James Wright, Yolanda Adams, Terry Lewis, and James Harris, and possibly someone else were suggesting that the spiritual umbilical cord (see the drawing here, depicting it in red and blue in a mother’s womb) to the Maker had become constricted, thereby choking off the sustenance that embryonic faith needed to survive and prosper. “Open My Heart”, they said, a plea that they felt would allow them to see and hear some things that they sensed were absent, even as their hearts tried to absorb and grow with the nutrients they expected to receive from above. Were their thoughts undergirded with those of ancient songwriters, as they searched for ways to articulate what they wanted to say? Does the umbilical cord ever become unnecessary? See what you think, as you consider the words that the two James’, Yolanda, and Terry wrote. (June 2023 Update: a reader indicates that the song was in fact written by someone [perhaps a female prisoner?, otherwise anonymous] in the Dwight Penitentiary [also known as the Oakdale Reformatory for Women, and Illinois Penitentiary for Women at Dwight in Livingston County, Illinois, see the map here] ‘as a testimony and someone asked for a copy.’ See comment section below blog entry. See link to information on this prison below. Also, beware that there is another song with the same title written by Yolanda Adams and three others [Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, and James ‘Big Jim’ Wright]; easy to be confused!) 

 

 

We don’t know what led these writers – James, Yolanda, Terry, and James – to write three verses of poetry (or, alternately, what led a female prison inmate in the above-mentioned Illinois penitentiary), apparently in the late 20^th Century (around 1990?), and to make them into a kind of prayer, perhaps not unlike many of the Psalms we can read in our bibles. Their circumstances, and even more general details about these writers, leave this blogger with little to offer about why ‘Open My Heart’ emerged over 30 years ago. So, their words are the only available clues to their states of mind, unless someone reading this can offer some other credible information (I’d love to hear it, including any other details about the name and circumstances of the female prison inmate in Illinois who may have written this!).  We can say the  poet/s wanted ‘to grow’ (v.1), even while they confronted issues that warred against this desire to mature spiritually. They had ‘feelings’ (v.1-3) that were misdirecting them or making their vision of God too foggy. Sound familiar? One or more of the writers felt their infant faith wasn’t being allowed to ‘stretch’ (v.1), so that they could ‘understand’ (v.2) their purpose in life, and to do that best by keeping God ‘very near’ (v.3). Is it too much of a stretch to think the writer/s of ‘Open My Heart’ were inspired by one or more psalms, particularly those which speak of ‘my heart’ as someone called out to God? The goals of this/these 20^th Century psalmist/s sound much like those of the one who authored Psalm 84:2 – ‘My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.’ Though He's an awesome being, it apparently wasn’t enough for writers in the B.C. period (Psalm 84) nor in 1990 A.D. (‘Open My Heart’) to stand at a distance and merely gaze upon the ‘living God’. The writer/s of ‘Open My Heart’ boldly prayed to ‘know’ (v.1), see (v.2), and hear (v.3) the same things that He does. It’s complete dependence, not unlike the suckling of a child at a mother’s breast, that these writers most wanted. That’s how the infant life becomes progressively viable, once we all exit the womb.

 

What would happen to a baby in utero if it did not receive rich nutrients and other things, like oxygen, from the mother’s body, via the placenta? We all know the answer – it dies. In some tragic cases, the mother’s body might actually convey something harmful to the baby, as when drug addiction takes over the mother’s system. God knows all about birth and death, and has Himself experienced both, and everything good and bad in between those two points. Did it cross the Omniscient One’s mind, when He was in the womb, that His physical body that needed the umbilical cord to prevent asphyxiation would succumb to death 33 years later from the same cause on a cross (according to the theories of contemporary medical scholars)? Suffocation, asphyxiation, smothering, choking – whatever you want to call it – has one cure. Hook up that umbilical between yourself and the One above.    

 

 

This link shows the lyrics and the four writers of the lyrics: https://www.shazam.com/track/118169867/open-my-heart

 

See here for a video describing the life of Yolanda Adams: https://genius.com/Yolanda-adams-open-my-heart-lyrics

 

See information here on the location where the song was potentially written: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwight_Correctional_Center

 

Public domain status of two images above: The copyright holder of the map-picture released it into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so:
(‘I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.’ [copyright holder]).  For the umbilical cord image: This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1928.