Worship: Artistic Transcription

Worship: Artistic Transcription

Ezra 7:10, “For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the LORD, and to do [it], and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.”  – NKJV

 

One day I attended a writer’s workshop and sat in on a session conducted by a lady named Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts.  She began her presentation by imploring the writers in the room to become scribes and not just writers.  She explained that a scribe was one who spent time in the king’s presence to hear from him and then transcribed the heart of the king so the people could read and understand.  It was more than a charge to write but it was a charge to put effort behind making sure what you write has the King’s seal of approval.  As I listened something quickened in my spirit as it relates to artists in general.  How do we know that what we are producing has the King’s seal of approval?  Are we transcribing the heart of the King for the people to experience…or are we simply led by artistic savvy, general knowledge, thoughts, feelings and/or emotions?  According to John 10:4 Jesus explains that sheep follow because they know the voice of their shepard…but how?  The only way we can know the voice of the King is to spend time with the King.  Ezra was known as a “ready scribe” so I think it is fitting to examine his habits as we employ artistic transcription.  Ezra’s process was simplistic; preparing, seeking, doing and teaching.

The verse above begins with Ezra preparing his heart to seek.  Why did he need to prepare his heart? Well let’s first deal with an aspect of cooking to make our illustration.  I remember buying an iron skillet and receiving a set of instructions that I needed to follow before I could cook on the pan.  The first instruction was to wash the pan.  Well that made sense to me, who knows what got into the box in transport.  After washing the pan and making sure it was completely dry, I then had to get a tablespoon of cooking oil and use a towel to spread the oil over the entire pan.  This didn’t make sense to me because in my thinking, I just made the pan dirty again.  Well if that instruction sounded ill-advised, you can imagine that I thought the manufacturer was a complete idiot when I read the next line…”put the pan in the oven at 500 degrees for 30 minutes and repeat three or four times”.  So let me get this straight, wash the pan, dirty the pan and bake the contaminants into the pan?  Who wrote this manual?  Well I followed, what I deemed to be less than desirable instructions, and the first time I used the pan I found that it was easy to clean and nobody got sick.  Had I not prepared my pan, I would have ruined it on the first use.  What am I saying?  Well let’s examine the heart for a moment.  In Genesis 6:5 the writer expressed that the Lord saw, “…the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every intent of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.”  Jeremiah 17:9 tells us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”  Without digging any deeper we can see the natural condition of man’s heart is very much contrary to the nature of God.  Understanding that we can’t get to the “hill of the Lord” without “clean hands and a pure heart” we can see that we start with an extreme disadvantage however, there is hope.  2 Corinthians 7:1 encourages, “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”  There is a process we can engage to prepare ourselves to be in His Presence and it starts with simple confession.  1 John 1:9 tells us, “that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  This is our preparation.  God knows about it anyway but if we “fess-up” and judge ourselves, He doesn’t have to judge us. (1 Corinthians 11:31)

After we’ve made our preparations, we now must seek Him out.  Earlier this year we dealt with the concept of seeking as it relates to prayer from Matthew 7:7.  In this case let’s examine the word from the Hebrew context.  Seek means, “to resort to, inquire, require; to frequent a place; to consult; to seek deity in prayer and worship; to seek with a demand; to investigate; to ask for.”   Here we find a different phrasing than the Greek definition, but a similar concept.  As a scout I remember playing a game called “Capture the Flag”. The concept was, two teams penned against each other seeking one another’s flag.  Whoever got the opposing teams flag and brought it back across their boundary line won.  Most times the game was played at night and the neckerchief or “flag” would be placed over a flashlight.  The only light you could use to see the flag was the light of the moon and the light under the flag.  One person would guard the flag so that if you approached and were caught, you would be a hostage until someone freed you.  Seeking the flag meant that through all of the obstacles set before you; you had to maintain your focus to not only get to the flag, but to bring it back to your side.  So it is with seeking the Word.  The light from God’s Word is constant and it’s like a beacon that beckons you to come.  However as you begin your search, the body gets sleepy, the phone rings, the kids go crazy…things happen that will take you off your mark.  You must have a press deep down in your spirit that will not let up until you find what you are looking for.  Deuteronomy 4:29 says, “But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Now you’ve prepared and you pressed through the seeking and found the Word that you needed. So what are you going to do with it?  I love the fact that the next thing Ezra did was not teach, but do.  How can you teach someone to do something you have never done?  I believe this is the problem with some ministry efforts.  I’m not going to spend a lot of time investing in a book written by someone whose marriage failed if I want mine to succeed.  Don’t get me wrong, they will be able to tell me all the things not to do and this is valuable information.  However I can’t base my relationship with my wife on what not to do, I need to know what to do if my marriage is going to be effective.  The root meaning for the “do” is, “to fashion, accomplish, work, make, produce; to act with effect, to observe, acquire”.  Doing is not theoretical, it’s actual.  James 1:22 encourages that we “Be ye doers of The Word and not hearers only”.  You put the theory in practice and once it’s proven you are qualified to teach.

The Hebrew root for teach is, “to learn, exercise in, to be taught or to be trained”.  I remember being in an elementary school class where the teacher said, “I got mine, you gotta get yours”, in reference to education.  Whether she realized it or not she was communicating that she had “arrived” and we had to work to get where she was.  Although the motivation of the need to work was correct, the attitude that was portrayed in the phrase, carried over into her teaching practice.  This is the same teacher that my mom caught doing her nails while a fight was going on in her class. This teacher was not vested in the outcome for the students at all.  The root meaning implies that in order to be an effective teacher, you must be a student.  As you teach the class, you are practicing the concepts with the students so they learn by example.  Sounds like we can’t get away from “doing” and the reality is, hands on job training has proven to be much more effective than simply sitting through seminars to get instructions.  We must engage the process.

One might ask, “what does this have to do with worship?”  Remember, worship is ascribing worth to God.  Did you notice “scribe” is in the midst of “ascribing”? When we minister in worship, it doesn’t mater if we dance, sing, do a skit or play an instrument; we are “writing” worth to God, which make us scribes. We can’t “copy out” the heart of God for the people if we haven’t spent time in His presence, sought Him for direction and agreed to do what He says.  This is the process makes us apt scribes and allows us to teach the statues of God as we do the work of the ministry.

However you transcribe, make sure you set out to acquire the King’s seal of approval.