Archives For Discipleship

MacArthur on Preaching the Word

September 23, 2011

     Let’s face it—right now preaching the Word is out of season. Humanity is experiencing God’s wrath as He gives people over to consequences of sinful choices . . . . Society may be feeling this divine abandonment in our age more than ever before. And the decline in preaching in the church can actually contribute to people’s sense of helplessness. . . .
     But the market-driven philosophy currently in vogue says that declaring biblical truth is outmoded. Biblical exposition and theology are seen as antiquated and irrelevant. “Churchgoers don’t want to be preached to anymore,” this philosophy says. “The baby-boom generation won’t just sit in the pew while someone up front preaches. They are products of a media-driven generation, and they need a church experience that will satisfy them on their own terms.”
     But Paul says [2 Tim. 4:2ff.] the excellent minister must be faithful to preach the Word even when it is not in fashion. . . . Paul was speaking of an explosive eagerness to preach, like that of Jeremiah, who said that the Word of God was a fire in his bones. That’s what he was demanding of Timothy. Not reluctance but readiness. Not hesitation but fearlessness. No cool talk but the fire of the Word of God.

—John F. MacArthur, Jr., Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church Becomes Like the World, 33

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Melody, guitar chords, and first stanza for All Things Bright and Beautiful in my format.

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

"The Obligation to Excel"

September 21, 2011

A minimum level of education will be required by law. But the youth who is alert to life and wants to be more than a part-time hatrack will not be content with the minimum. For consecration to God carries with it the obligation to excel, not in competition with others, but in competition with oneself. God’s work demands trained minds. You have no right to be mediocre if you are capable of something better. Therefore undertake a program of learning.

—Richard S. Taylor, The Disciplined Life, 87

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

"Inditing a Good Matter"

September 20, 2011

The author of Psalm 45 begins by stating that his “heart is inditing a good matter” (45:1a). He thus expresses his viewpoint that he considers the thoughts that are filling his heart and pouring forth from it as good.

He then makes known the subject of those thoughts by saying, “I speak of the things which I have made touching the king” (45:1b). The good matter, therefore, that his heart was overflowing with concerned the King of whom he writes. He also expresses his skillfulness in setting forth his thoughts on his subject by declaring, “My tongue is the pen of a ready writer” (45:1c).

In the rest of the Psalm, he extols the King, beginning first by declaring His all-excelling fairness and superlative God-given eloquence (45:2a-b). He adds that because of His unequalled excellence in appearance, character, and speech, God has unendingly blessed Him (45:2c).

The Psalmist urges the King to gird Himself gloriously for warfare and to ride forth majestically to triumph over His enemies (45:3-5). Strikingly, he portrays the King’s decimating His enemies: “Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; whereby the people fall under thee” (45:5).

New Testament use of the next two verses (45:6-7) clearly identifies that this King is Jesus (cf. Heb. 1:2-6), the Messiah: “But unto the Son He saith, ‘Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows” (1:8-9). Plainly, both the Psalmist and the writer of Hebrews are emphasizing that this King, who is God Himself, is yet One who has been exalted by the One who is His God (the Father).

From the first seven verses of Psalm 45, an important truth that many likely overlook becomes clear. The Psalmist regards writing about the God-exalted Messiah’s fierce destruction of His enemies as “a good matter.” In contrast to the perspectives of even many believers today, his overflowing thoughts about the messianic King that he considered good include His work as the God-blessed Judge!

This inspired hymn, therefore, teaches us that our worship music should include songs that extol Jesus Christ as the God-exalted Judge and state that His righteous judgment of the enemies of God is a good thing. May God help our music to reflect aright His perspectives about the glory that He has given to His Son as the Judge.

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Here is a simple guitar arrangement of Finlandia that I produced recently. I would love to get feedback on it from other musicians, especially other guitar players.

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Seventy-Five Percent Finished!

September 18, 2011

Today marks a real milestone in my yearlong project of reading through the entire Bible in Greek. I finished reading 800 chapters in the Septuagint, which is more than 75% of the Bible in Greek—praise God!


Section Greek English
OT 800/920 409*/920
NT 20/269 269/269
Bible 820/1189 678/1189


*Includes listening to 105 chapters of the OT from the Bible on MP3

With 104 days left in 2011, I hope to finish the LXX by the end of October. I would then have 61 days to finish the Greek NT.

Praise God!

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

The enthusiasm to evangelize which marked the early Christians is one of the most remarkable things in the history of religions. Here were men and women of every rank and station in life, of every country in the known world, so convinced that they had discovered the riddle of the universe, so sure of the one true God whom they had come to know, that nothing must stand in the way of their passing on this good news to others. As we have seen, they did it by preaching and personal conversation, by formal discourse and informal testimony, by arguing in the synagogue and by chattering in the laundry. They might be slighted, laughed at, disenfranchised, robbed of their possessions, their homes, even their families, but this would not stop them. They might be reported to the authorities as dangerous atheists, and required to sacrifice to the imperial gods; but they refused to comply. In Christianity they had found something utterly new, authentic and satisfying. They were not prepared to deny Christ even in order to preserve their own lives; and in the manner of their dying they make converts to their faith.

—Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, 236; quoted in Perspectives of Evangelism: Encouraging Effective Evangelism, 45-46

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Free Guitar Music!

September 16, 2011

Here is an updated listing of the free guitar music on my site! God willing, I plan to add many more pieces in the future.

These pieces are intended for your private individual use only and in the original format. Please contact me if you would like to use them for any other purpose.

Sheet Music

Chord Prep Study

It is Well With My Soul – chord melody solo

Medley

Pachelbel’s Canon in C

Guitar Chords, Melody Notes (in my number format), and First Stanza

Jesus, I Am Resting

Like a River Glorious

Nearer, Still Nearer

Nothing But the Blood

O How He Loves Us! – New words to the tune of “Jesus Loves Me”; my song stresses the love of God for us through words that communicate many key doctrinal truths (See explanation of format).

Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart

What a Wonderful Savior

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

Other Music

God Is So Good – easy ensemble piece in four parts

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Pachelbel's Canon in C

September 15, 2011

Pachelbel’s Canon is one of my favorite pieces to play. For many years now, I have been using a simplified version of this piece in the key of C with nearly all of my guitar students.

Here is an updated version that features sheet music for playing the piece with two basic picking patterns (measures 1-16) and two basic strumming patterns (measures 17-33).

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.

Among believers today, First Corinthians 11:2-16 is a heavily disputed passage. Because this passage comprises fifteen verses in a key NT epistle, it deserves careful and thorough handling. 

Determining the meaning of verses 14-15 and making appropriate application is one of the many challenging aspects of the passage: “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.” 

Aligning the parallel parts of these verses helps bring out the meaning: 

Doth not even nature itself teach you,           

that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?
But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her:

for her hair is given her for a covering.

Based on the structure of the passage (note the exact parallelism of the relevant parts of the middle statements), these verses are setting forth what nature itself is teaching us. The word for nature (φύσις) does not refer to culture, environment, or human tradition. It refers to what is intrinsically within man. 

By using a precisely formulated rhetorical question, Paul asserts that we are to answer the question that he poses affirmatively. It is important to note also that the tight structure of the passage, especially the exact parallelism, shows that nature itself is teaching us something about both the man and the woman; the passage is not teaching just about what is true for a woman. 

Examining the Greek text of these verses brings out even more forcefully the relevance of the structure of the passage. Whatever application one comes to based on this teaching must do justice to what the original text actually says.

Copyright © 2011-2025 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.