Well, I love hymns. I love these God-glorifying, Christ-centered, Spirit-filled, Bible-saturated hymns. I love how they are packed with valuable doctrinal truths expressed in rhymes and poetry. I love how they are designed for congregational worship. I love how they transcend from generations to generations but remain fresh in their message.

And another admirable attribute of hymns is that they are written with a structured metric system. This means that a hymn can be sung even when the tune is unfamiliar as long as the hymn is of the same meter with a familiar tune.

When I was still unaware of this structure, I slightly deject when I browse a hymnal and glance at the great words of hymns like Richard Baxter's "Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care" or the Calvinist-appealing "I Sought the Lord" simply because I cannot sing them due to my ignorance of their tune. Such a grace from God that hymns have meters and that I was instructed of such metric system.

We can take as an example a grandly Theocentric hymn "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise." Although I do not really know its original tune, the hymnal says it is of meter 11 11.11 11 which is the same meter for the Christmas hymn "Away in a Manger." We can therefore take the words of the former hymn and sing it to the tune of the latter one. And here it goes...


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THE WESTERN JURISDICTION HAS LESS THAN 3 PERCENT OF THE UMC MEMBERSHIP, YET IT HAS 17 PERCENT OF THE SEATS ON THE CT. 

BY WAY OF CONTRAST, AFRICA HAS 35 PERCENT OF THE UMC MEMBERSHIP, YET ONLY 6.4 PERCENT OF THE SEATS ON THE CT.

Three Simple Questions

1. How important is tithing to your spiritual life? And how important is speaking in tongues to your spiritual life?
2. How often do you hear a sermon on tithing? And how often do you hear a sermon on God's wrath? (Or if you are a preacher, how often do you preach on tithing? And how often do you preach on God's wrath?
3. How much do you affirmatively discuss tithing? And how much do you affirmatively discuss predestination and election?

With your answers on the questions above, I want you to check out the following graph.


The Graph Explained

1. Using a free Bible software, words were sought in the English Standard Version New Testament.
2. The graph above represents the number of occurences of some words that have something to do with one of three subjects: tithing, God's wrath, and predestination.
3. For TITHING, the words "tithe", "tithes", and "tithing" were used. These appeared in 7 verses in 4 chapters of 3 books. [1]
4. For SPEAKING IN TONGUES, the word "tongues" should occur in the context of spiritual gifts. It appeared in 17 verses in 7 chapters of 3 books. [2]
5. For GOD'S WRATH, the words "God" and "wrath" should occur together. These appeared in 19 verses in 15 chapters of 6 books. [3]
6. For PREDESTINATION / ELECTION, the words "predestined", "chosen", and "elect" were used. These appeared in 19 verses in 11 chapters of 9 books. [4]
7. Except for tithing, some appearances were not counted due to context inconsistencies. While on tithing, all appearances were counted regardless of context. [This implies that, except for tithing,  the figures should have been higher if context is not considered.]

Now, were your answers above consistent with the graph?

Three Radical Statements (At Least to Tithers)
Once, I opened my Sunday sermon with these three statements:

1. "Pastor Bernard, your pastor, does not believe in tithing."
2. "John Wesley, the founding father of your Methodism, also did not believe in tithing." Then I quoted Rev. Wesley in his Sermon 50: The Use of Money, "Do not stint yourself, like a Jew rather than a Christian, to this or that proportion. 'Render unto God,' not a tenth, not a third, not half, but all that is God's... (emphasis mine)"
3. "Your pastor (and your founder) does not believe in tithing not because 10% is too much but because 10% is too small." I then absurdly rephrase Mark 12:30, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength and with 10% of your pocket." It does not fit, does it?

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