Ch 5 The Sounds of Theology Heard for Practice

Since you are eager for spiritual gifts, function in them for building up the church.

If you were asked the curious question, “What does God sound like?” how would you answer? You probably wouldn’t have an answer, yet you likely have given God a voice in one way or another. What God sounds like takes form in theology, which we have constructed with a plenary of voices to give various sounds ascribed to God. Our theology sounds the voice of God either with the words assuming to speak for God, or by allowing God to have the defining Word to speak for himself. All these sounds and words are voiced in basic speech that is used (1) to articulate a reality or a sense of it, and (2) to communicate that reality or transmit that sense.

On the one hand, the sounds and words articulating a sense of reality engage human imagination, which extends the limits of rational thought and may go beyond the constraints of the mind. On the other hand, human imagination is problematic when its sense of reality is incongruent or incompatible with the reality of life, that is, as constituted in its origin by its source. This issue is critical not only for our theology but also because the sounds of God in our theology are heard to form our practice.

This chapter outlines the vital interaction between human imagination, the Word and the Spirit, as noted in the above opening Scripture; and it defines the limits, constraints, and the necessity of each for our theology and practice to be whole and thus significant.

Christians would all have the answer for what God sounds like if we listened more carefully. The current challenge, if not confrontation, facing our theology and practice comes from the Word addressing all the words composing our theology and practice. The Word amplifies “Where are you?” and “What are you doing here?” because the pervasive condition of theology and practice today (1) doesn’t listen carefully to the Word, and thus (2) doesn’t know the Word, or ignores him, and even counters and contradicts the amplified Word (e.g. when we call the Spirit to come)—using synonyms, simulations or illusions, thereby substituting words for the Word. The Word calls us back to our musical beginnings and the primal sound that resonates in our innermost, because then the voice of God will be clarified and the sounds speaking for the Word will be corrected by the Spirit “abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Eph 3:20); and Paul reinforces this interpretive process for all voices in the church, so that it will make the church whole in relational significance together (1 Cor 14:12).

In the transformation of Peter’s person, his theology and practice finally resonated in harmony and fidelity with the Word to be in rhythm with the Trinity’s theological trajectory. He declares without his previous bias: “For we did not follow cleverly devised narratives when we made known to you the Word…[who] received the relational response from God the Father when that voice communicated ‘This is my Son, my Beloved’.… So we have the prophetic message made whole…. No true prophesy of the Word is a matter of one’s own interpretation and imagination because no sound of God ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God, not for God” (2 Pet 1:16-21).

To be in rhythm with the Trinity’s theological trajectory is to be in relational connection to hear God’s voice communicate directly. Just hearing the sound of God’s voice, however, is insufficient to discern the Word communicated, even while assuming there is a relational connection—as Paul illuminated about speaking in tongues (1 Cor 14). This relational connection requires our ontological and epistemic humility to let God speak for himself with the Word, rather than assume to be speaking for God with our words based on hearing fragments of what God sounds like. Peter, for example, previously spoke not only for God but also spoke to the Word, defining what God sounds like (Mt 16:22) and determining how the Word should function (Jn 13:8). Peter’s theology and practice were based on prevailing tradition and the religious status quo (e.g. Lk 9:33) and were not in rhythm with the Trinity’s theological trajectory—nor were they congruent with the experiential truth and relational reality of the gospel (as Paul exposed in Peter and other church leaders, Gal 2:11-16). What Peter thought God sounded like were sounds dissonant to God’s voice; these were the out-of-rhythm sounds composing his theology that he heard for composing his practice. As his theology and practice were eventually clarified and corrected, the humbled Peter learned that the rhythm of the Trinity’s theological trajectory has a distinguished sound, which cannot be duplicated by just any sounds composed by even the most orthodox of beliefs (cf. the church at Ephesus, Rev 2:2-4). Thus, he humbly affirmed Paul’s theology and practice as definitive to respond to the diversity of theology and practice existing in the church (2 Pet 3:15-16).

When Peter contrasted following the Word with what amounted to “cleverly devised fake news about the Word,” he testified about being an eyewitness to the transfiguration of the Word amplified by the Father. The credibility of his initial witness was minimized by his limited participation with the Trinity—focused mainly on the event at the expense of the relationship unfolding before his eyes. Later in his life, as he became relationally involved in the primacy of relationship together, the rhythm of the Trinity’s theological trajectory was distinguished for him by the sound of the Father’s voice communicating intimately with the Son. The relational quality of this sound unmistakably distinguished the theological trajectory of the Trinity, the rhythm of which vulnerably unfolded in relational terms (not the referential focus of a mere event) to resonate in the innermost of persons and relationships directly involved. Without distinguishing the relational quality of this sound expressed in relational terms, we could only speculate or remain clueless about what God sounds like; and that’s exactly how Peter initially reacted at the transfiguration. The dissonant sounds in his theology heard for his practice had relational consequences that needed returning to be consonant with the Word. His vulnerable relational involvement finally engaged the relational connection necessary to discern the relational quality of the Trinity’s voice essential for the Trinity’s theological trajectory.

The sound of the Trinity’s voice and theological trajectory is primal—constituted at the innermost of the Creator’s life—and is expressed to resonate at the innermost of all other life, notably in the image and likeness of the Trinity. This primal sound is irreducible to any other sounds, even to distinct sounds (including “sacred” sounds) reverberating in the human brain. Such sounds could be convincing about what God sounds like, but they are only substitutes generated by the human mind that don’t resonate in the innermost (1) to be in harmony and fidelity with the Trinity’s integral voice, and (2) to be in consonant rhythm with the Trinity’s integrated theological trajectory. According to the Word amplified in relational terms, the Trinity’s integral voice and integrated theological trajectory are not polyphonic, on the one hand, to define different sounds for our theology and practice; yet, on the other hand, the primal sound resonates in the innermost of persons to determine the relational quality of various sounds expressing the heart of the whole person from inner out. Just as experienced from the Trinitarian persons, this involves the various sounds (not different in relational quality) vulnerably expressed by persons who are not reduced or fragmented to a narrowed-down function conformed to the limits and constraints of the outer in.

Various but not different sounds in relational quality are involved in reciprocal relationship together with the Trinity, in order to engage the integral process of imagination that further opens our heart to express the primal sound. This basic imagination, however, should not be confused with the imagination of the human mind that isn’t in harmony and fidelity with the Word’s integral voice, nor in rhythm with the Trinity’s theological trajectory. These various and different sounds direct us to the limits and constraints of imagination, and the vital interaction with the Word and Spirit necessary for our theology and practice to be consonant with the Trinity, and thus whole in likeness and not fragmented by the different sounds heard for what God sounds like.

In his interpretation of the Bible, Walter Brueggemann says this: “I think the clue to being able to engage [the Word] is to stop asking ‘What does the text mean?’ and start asking ‘How does it work? What is the text doing? How do the parts interact with one another to create a field of imagination?’”[1] He expands on this imagination:

“I think that crafted, artistic speech is not descriptive but imaginative. It is an act of imagination that says “I am going to sketch out a world for you in what I am about to say.… What we have to recognize is that most of the ‘real world’ that we take for granted is also an act of rhetoric…. So I think we move in and out of worlds. And what has happened to the church, particularly the liberal church, is that we have been rhetorically constructing a world that is so like the dominant world that people can’t even tell the difference. Liberals have just echoed culture. On the other hand, conservatives have compartmentalized, so they create a little bitty alternative world that doesn’t relate to anything. This leaves us undisturbed in the dominant world, which is grounded in etiologies that are alien to the gospel.[2]

Brueggemann also talks about having a “thickness of relationship” with God in which this process of imagination unfolds, yet he appears limited in his understanding of the relational process with the Word in relational terms. This makes imagination too ambiguous to discern what God sounds like, and it opens the door for our imagination to hear sounds not communicated by the Word, whereby our words readily start speaking for the Word; this results in the dissonant sounds of theology not in consonance with the Word. Thus, Brueggemann’s hermeneutic may have distinct qualitative value, but it doesn’t get us to the relational quality of the primal sound resonated by the Word in direct communication to our innermost person to person. On the basis of the Word’s sound, his hermeneutic lacks the music-like lens needed to discern this innermost sound.

The Word celebrated in exuberance over the interpretive lens of child-like persons, whose vulnerable hearts discern the primal sound of the Word revealed in the innermost (Lk 10:21). Their discernment of what is innermost to the Word is essential to interpret the relational messages communicated by the Word, all of which resonate music-like; and the relational context and process for this music-like interpretation require the vulnerable involvement in reciprocal relationship together to understand the Word. Their interpretive lens is in contrast and conflict with the hermeneutic used by “the wise and the intelligent.” The latter give primacy to the mind over the heart, as they depend on their rational thinking, for example, about propositional truth over the experiential truth resonating only in the heart. These two hermeneutics collided later after the Word cleared out the temple of reductionism. In this redemptive change to wholeness, the children resonated with the Word and cried out “Hosanna to the Son of David.” Perceived as presumptuous, their interpretation angered the learned leaders to debate with the Word about who knew best what God sounded like (Mt 21:12-16).

What the Word amplifies for us is not the contrast or conflict between generations, although the amount of education (formal and informal) persons have undergone is a key variable. The Word illuminates for us that the hermeneutic we apply to God’s revelation is the interpretive lens we use in everyday life. That is to say, how we see our self, others, relationships, our situations and contexts, even the world, is the lens we bring to the Word. This lens is shaped by the type of education we have received, which results in the contrast and conflict illuminated above by the Word.

Unfortunately for the church and its persons and relationships, the hermeneutic dependent on the mind—and shaped by ancient Greek philosophy and the modern Enlightenment thinking—has prevailed in theology and practice through our own today. This includes the mindset that developed from informal education yet based on the same thinking. This narrowed-down lens has prevailed at the expense of what’s primary to God and thus in life, rendering the heart to notions of subjectivity unable to be objective about the truth of God. Moreover, the relational consequences from this hermeneutic have rendered the Word without the innermost of the primal sound and thus without the relational quality essential for constituting “me” in consonance with the Trinity. This is the hermeneutic that transposes the relational quality of the Word into the quantitative information of words transmitted by the wise and intelligent speaking for God—words whose sounds may reverberate among Christians (notably in the academy) to compose their theology and are heard for their practice, but which don’t resonate at the depth necessary to be credible as “my witnesses.” All these sounds for theology are the dissonance heard for practice, which never become whole in consonance with the Word.

The limits and constraints of this narrowed-down lens may not be apparent in our theology but they are evident in our practice. For example, when religious leaders asked the Word “to show them a sign from heaven,” the Word exposed the lack of depth in their narrow lens. “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times” (Mt 16:1-3). When the primary focus is fixated on the quantitative, the qualitative gets obscured or lost. Furthermore, the qualitative constituting God is always illuminated in the relational context and process of God’s self-disclosures. Therefore, any hermeneutic lacking qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness will not have the depth to know and understand the Word—ask the early disciples (Jn 14:9).

The Word is not ambiguous about the hermeneutic necessary to discern the sound of God’s voice. This music-like sound is distinguished from all other sounds because of the primal nature of its relational quality. Just as babies discern the sounds of all languages, notably from persons relationally closest to them, this hermeneutic has the depth of focus from inner out (1) to discern the primal sound resonating from the innermost of God, and (2) to understand the relational quality of the Word’s communication in relational language. The depth of this interpretive lens is evident in the qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness of its everyday practice, with the primary relational outcome of knowing and understanding the Trinity beyond and above any secondary matter (cf. Jer 9:23-24).

The ongoing issue for all of us is whether or not we practice this music-like hermeneutic in our current knowledge of God to give credibility to our theology and practice as significant. The interpretive lens everyone (without exception) brings to the Bible has been shaped already by our life contexts. How biased our interpretations of the Word are depends on whether the influence on our lens from our life contexts becomes our primary determinant for our theology and practice, or if it is maintained as secondary—without selective or subtle substitutions for the Word’s primary terms with our biased terms. This interpretation process is critical in order to distinguish the hermeneutic necessary for our interpretive lens to be in harmony and fidelity with the Word in the innermost, and thereby for both our theology to be congruent and our practice to be compatible with the Word at the depth of the innermost.

The Word further illuminated with the Spirit the key variables for this interpretation process and if the results will be integral or fragmentary. In the Trinity’s communication to change existing churches to wholeness, we return to the church in Sardis for this hermeneutic lesson (Rev 3:1-3). Apparent in the prevailing perception, this church had a reputation of being alive in a city that hosted many pagan cults, whose practices pervaded the surrounding context. A key variable here is that this church lived behind their reputation (onoma, name or brand used as a substitute for what a person actually is). Even with their identity of being alive, the Word made no such assumptions about what they were and how they functioned, but rather examined them from inner out. Another key variable here is the basis for how the interpretive lens in use sees things, not in theory but in actual function. Without being influenced by the surrounding bias, the Word exposed what actually existed beneath the outer layer of “being alive.” By setting aside any secondary criteria (important or not), what only seemed apparent on the outside also became evident in the innermost that “you are dead” (nekros, the condition of being separated from the sources of life, thus being unaccompanied by something). This assessment wasn’t biased by the secondary but based on the primary interpretive lens that “I have not found your works complete according to the interpretation of my God”—that is, incomplete based on God’s whole terms and not as defined by the surrounding context, whose influence was and still is fragmenting for the church. How so?

In contrast and conflict with this church (and many churches today like it), the music-like hermeneutic exercised here by the Word makes definitive how to interpret ecclesiology so that the church will be complete, whole and not fragmented. Their “works” (ergon, function denoting what defined them) were not “complete” (pleroo, to fill up, make full or complete, see Eph 1:22-23; 4:11-13). Since no explicit sins in the surrounding context such as idol worship and sexual immorality were identified in the church’s practice (as occurred in the church in Thyatira, Rev 2:18-23), their incomplete works point to something more subtle or lacking. Based on the prominence of their interpretive lens from outer in—with the ‘in’ becoming obscured or lost with primacy given to the ‘outer’—their reputation signified only a substitute (onoma) of the true identity of who, what and how his church is and thereby functions. Secondary substitutes for the primary become illusions that a narrowed-down lens promotes in its theology and practice, all with relational consequences. While the Word’s polemic about soiled and white (leukos, bright, gleaming) clothes described those incomplete and a remnant who weren’t incomplete respectively, bright clothes symbolized those who participated in God’s life to be credible as “my witnesses” (Rev 3:4). This illuminates the primacy of relationship and vulnerable involvement together from inner out, which soiled clothes symbolized a barrier to or precluded. Any type of “soiled” clothes—whether stained by blatant sin or dirtied from subtle incomplete work—would have this relational consequence.

What the Word illuminated in this church for us to apply today points to the underlying context for human life, in which all surrounding contexts are based and from which they unfold. The influence and bias most prominent in all human life that has shaped human perceptual-interpretive frameworks and lenses emerged from the beginning in the human context of sin—that is sin as reductionism, which is evident in the human condition but not apparent to many (including Christians) in their identity and function. This pervasive hermeneutic reinterpreted what is essential for persons and relationships, composing a ‘new normal’ for anthropology based on reduced ontology and function, whose compelling influence has pervaded theological anthropology to make Christian identity and function incomplete “according to the interpretation of my God.” Thus, any new normal is not natural, that is, not primal to its source of origin.

Lacking this interpretive depth in their hermeneutic, the reputable church in Sardis wasn’t complete in its identity and function because they used substitutes from reductionism to define their theology and determine their practice. Because their interpretation of sin did not encompass sin as reductionism, they engaged in subtle relational distance from the vulnerable presence and relational involvement of the Trinity—the separation from the source of life that rendered them nekros—likely unaware that their veil still remained and that their practice was engaged before God essentially “in front of the curtain” still covering God’s intimate dwelling to prevent intimate relational connection (as implied in Heb 10:19-22).

Thus, like the church in Ephesus (Rev 2:1-4), their hermeneutic lacked the qualitative sensitivity and relational awareness to interpret the relational quality of the whole of God, thereby (1) reducing the innermost of God and themselves to an incomplete condition and (2) sustaining them in variable fragments of theology and practice that cannot add up to being whole, just incomplete, however the fragments are composed. And, like all churches with such a hermeneutic, they needed a “Wake up” call from the Word, because their reduced theological anthropology and incomplete view of sin prevented their ontology and function as persons and as church from being whole—whole in the innermost “just as” the innermost of the Trinity that the Word prayed to constitute his family (Jn 17:20-26).

The Word amplified that “unless you change from outer in to inner out and become child-like persons in your hermeneutic to discern the voice of God, you will never be involved in the depth of relational quality distinguishing my family” (Mt 18:2). The musical hermeneutic gives us the perceptual-interpretive framework and lens (1) to discern what’s primal to the innermost of God and (2) to distinguish the primal sound of God’s voice resonating apart from any and all sounds reverberating from whatever source. When we are vulnerably involved in this irreducible and nonnegotiable interpretation process, the sound of our theology is whole from the depths of inner out and therefore heard in wholeness for our practice.

Take to heart the axiom from the Word amplified for us: “The measure of the hermeneutic you use will be the measure of your theology and practice you get”—and that will result in either more or less of the relational quality shared from the Word (Mk 4:24).

From the birth of human life and the early development of our minds to the latter days as human minds fade in dementia—and anywhere in-between that the human mind creates a barrier—the sound of music resonates the deepest, getting to the innermost regardless of the capacity of the mind or without the interference and bias of the mind. When our theology and practice at best reverberate in our minds but do not resonate in the innermost as music does, then our theology and practice will always be incomplete. The mind-shaped theology and practice are what commonly have prevailed, ongoingly composing a new normal, while musical (music-like) theology and practice only resonates as uncommon—and thus will only be heard when clearly distinguished from what’s common or a new normal (cf. Lev 10:10; Eze 22:26; 44:23).

The reasoned mind posits that “truth is truth”; and information from the Bible is used to support this proposition, whereby theology is defined. This narrow interpretive process, however, doesn’t necessarily result in how practice is determined. What the mind posits with good intentions easily falls into conventional wisdom or some other common convention, which then composes common notions of truth determining practice. Different notions of truth have emerged throughout church history—notably evident today in evangelicals to progressives—to compose a wide diversity of theology and practice never observed to this extent before. What is not so apparent in this diversity is how little of it resonates in the innermost to experience the relational quality of the Word as Truth; the relational consequence is to not experience the relational reality of the Word’s relational involvement of love in the primacy of reciprocal relationship together person to person. The notions could be present in theology and practice but the experiential truth and relational reality in the innermost is lacking or missing, making them incomplete no matter what they claim or proclaim. So, how do we define the Truth distinct from merely the notions of truth?

The issue facing us is less a propositional one and mostly (not totally) a relational one. Our theology and practice cannot be complete/whole (or tamiym, as Abraham was covenanted to walk with God, Gen 17:1) in the innermost and involve our whole person unless they are distinguished and ongoingly engaged just by the Word’s relational terms (as Ps 119:1-2 summarizes and Ps 119 defines). Ongoing reciprocal relationship with God at the innermost is the functional primacy and purpose of God’s law (and related categories), all of which define the relational terms of how to be involved together in the relationship of love and not about what to do—the essential difference distinguishing Deuteronomy as the Book of Love and not of Law. As discussed previously, hesed and agape need to be interpreted and understood as the primary function of how and not the secondary of what. This is the unmistakable (though not always apparent) difference that emerges from reduced theology and practice (as evident in the churches in Sardis and Ephesus) and hybrid theology and practice (as evident in the churches in Thyatira and Laodicea), all in contrast to whole theology and practice.

We need to get past the limits of our assumptions and the constraints of our biases in order to go deeply with the Word into the innermost. The hermeneutic that the Word illuminates (as in Rev 3:2) is the music-like interpretive lens that sees the innermost of life (as in Rev 2:23), and thus discerns what is primal to constitute life (as in Rev 2:4). This involves the primal sound that babies discern, and the essential relational quality of what God sounds like that child-like persons hear/perceive, receive and embrace of the relational messages communicated by the Word in self-disclosure person to person. The relational quality of the primal sound points directly to the function of music as the key variable for the hermeneutic necessary to discern the sound of God’s voice for our theology, which is heard for our practice to resonate.

Music in the right harmony and fidelity signifies (1) the relational quality that resonates the primal nature revealing the innermost of God, whereby (2) the primal sound of the amplified Word resonates in the innermost of child-like persons who receive the Word’s communication in relational language. This heart-level interpretation process unfolds ongoingly to the relational outcome that the musical hermeneutic composes to make our theology and practice complete, whole in the relational quality of the Trinity.

This essential function of music, however, is not like a sound bite that may reverberate sounds in the mind, but goes no deeper. Rather than what’s common in the diverse sounds of theology today, the significance of this function is like a soundboard that resonates deeper into the innermost—resonating at the depth that, together with the Spirit, clarifies, corrects and convicts us of interpretations of anything less and any substitutes, thereby countering and neutralizing the diversity of sounds speculating about what God sounds like. As the Word amplified above, anything less and any substitutes emerge and become the norm (or new normal) in our theology and practice when our perceptual-interpretive framework and lens don’t get to the depth of the innermost and make primary the relational quality of life for our persons and relationships, our churches and related academy—and thus lack the relational outcome that we together will be complete/whole based on the perceptual-interpretive framework and lens of the Trinity.

So, as the Word amplified for his disciples, how do we undergo child-like change to have this musical theology and practice, resonating music-like in the innermost?

First and foremost, “whoever becomes humble like this child will resonate in the innermost with musical theology and practice and be distinguished whole (nothing less and no substitutes) in my family” (Mt 18:4). Becoming humble (tapeinoo) denotes to bring low, that is, down to the level of a child in order to counter the status levels commonly used, for example, to define “the greatest” (as the disciples pursued). Humility has been interpreted with much spin among Christians, perhaps with false humility prevailing in our identity and function. Given this practice, how willing are we to change as the Word makes nonnegotiable for all persons in his family?

Two dimensions of humility are critical to examine if we want to undergo child-like change: ontological humility and epistemic humility. Ontological humility is more comprehensive, and epistemic humility is subsumed by it, yet epistemic humility addresses a more apparent issue for becoming humble like a child. As the Word amplified for our identity and function, “the wise and intelligent” define themselves by the knowledge they possess, so epistemic humility is a pivotal change (perhaps transformation) requiring them to redefine their persons based on a new theological anthropology. Children who have yet to be shaped by such education (mainly informal at early childhood) have little or no difficulty with epistemic humility, having yet to make assumptions and form biases that create barriers to the innermost. In other words, they have yet to be socialized in what is common to the rest of us so-called more developed persons.

More challenging and confronting than epistemic humility is ontological humility, which is inseparable from epistemic humility but more comprehensive. ‘Who, what and how we are’ have different identities and functions when based on either ‘outer in’ or ‘inner out’. To be humble about the identity (ontology) of who and what we are from an outer-in focus is a consequential process because at stake is our status measured by the amount of ‘what we do and have’ in a comparative process of ‘more-less’, ‘better-worse’. Accordingly, ontological humility makes us vulnerable to being seen, labelled, and treated at the bottom levels of this human hierarchy. To survive in such a stratified context makes ontological humility anathema, and Christians have adapted subtly with notions of virtual humility that in reality are contrary when exposed at the innermost. Thus, ontological humility requires the radical change specific to our ontology and function in the image and likeness of the Trinity. Here again, children, who have yet to be shaped by this comparative process, have no problem just being who and what they are from inner out, having yet to shift to the outer in to define their identity and determine their function. Of course, this period of childhood is short-lived and will increasingly require the radical change for them as well. Therefore, in whatever condition persons are living, the relational purpose of the Word is to change all of us from inner out to get us to the depths of the innermost, so that we can experience the relational quality of life constituted by the Trinity.

Ontological humility addresses how we function in the innermost. Epistemic humility addresses how we function in our minds. Since the function of the mind has prevailed over the innermost, we need to exercise hermeneutic suspicion about the discernment of sounds in theology heard for practice. What interpretive lens is used? How was the Word interpreted? Is it based on the quantitative over the qualitative? Where is the relational in all this? When used with humility and thus chastened, hermeneutic suspicion can help clarify and correct our interpretations and put them into deeper perspective. For example, balancing the quantitative with the qualitative, and not allowing the secondary to have priority over the primary. Moreover, without the humility of a child, we always have to account for ontological simulations and epistemological illusions that readily compose our theology and practice to render them insignificant; they don’t resonate because they are composed without the depth of the innermost, even subtly composed by reverberating words speaking for the Word.

In the midst of the quantity of texts in the Bible, in order to perceive the relational quality of God we have to be vulnerably humble (both ontologically and epistemically) with our person to behold what distinguishes God—that is, as revealed in God’s self-disclosure communicated in the primal composition of relational language. It is critical then that we are able to critique interpretations based on referential language; this is not optional because the significance of our theology and practice is not about referential information (no matter how scholarly), but only for relational connection (e.g. Ps 119:8,10) to intimately know and understand God (as in Jer 9:23-242, in contrast to Jn 14:9). This is the relational purpose, process and outcome of all theological education (both informal and formal), which by the nature of changing to its newfound relational quality distinguishes the innermost of God and thus what is primary to have priority always over the secondary (as summarized in Ps 119).

The music-like tone is the key for theology and practice to make the changes necessary to resonate the innermost of the relational quality essential for all life. This opens persons and relationships to the primal nature of who, what and how they are, distinguished only in the qualitative image and relational likeness of the Trinity.

The essential dimension for theology and practice is relational, which composes the integrating theme of God’s revelation vulnerably disclosing the whole of God in irreducible and nonnegotiable relational terms for reciprocal relationship together. The quality of the relationship is also essential for the relational dimension to be of significance in our theology and practice. Therefore, our interpretive response to the Word is essential to be integrated with both the relational and the qualitative.

The qualitative is essential for music to resonate in the innermost, and this quality unmistakably underlies the music-like significance of musical theology and practice. The qualitative also gives balance to the mind by the function of imagination. Imagination is perhaps the most variable quality used by persons, and its function has been erratic in the human condition. Thus, imagination is the quality in music-like theology and practice that must be qualified if not chastened.

In many areas of life intentional imagination has diminished greatly in an increasingly quantified world, yet imagination emerges unintentionally in all human contexts because it’s a significant part of what makes persons human. We all imagine (consciously or subconsciously) about something frequently, whether good or bad, productive or not. When imagination is cultivated, it can take us beyond the limits of our assumptions and the constraints of our biases so as to perceive and/or experience something more deeply. This qualitative process applies to the texts of the Bible, whose limits and constraints in quantitative referential terms have been exceeded—for example, by narrative interpretations and even by the composition of qualitative stories that integrate the texts beyond a quantity of information without coherence. We cannot expect the relational quality of God and life to emerge from the Word by remaining within the limits and constraints common to us.

Human imagination, however, can take liberties unwarranted by the Word, thereby misrepresenting, distorting, contradicting or countering the Word. Prophetic voices claiming to speak for God were chastened in their imagination and turned around to listen carefully to the sound of the Word amplified in the innermost (Eze 13:2). On the other hand, the quality of imagination is an important function (1) to help us discern the harmony and fidelity of the Word keyed in relational terms, and (2) to give us the understanding needed to experience the Word in the innermost, which would likely not unfold without imagination.

The quality of imagination is a vital dimension that music amplifies for theology and practice to be complete/whole, thus it is essential to constitute their significance. When intensified in harmony and fidelity with the Word, this quality of imagination also leads us beyond our limits and constraints to open us to the quality of infinite dimension. This uncommon dimension unfolds ongoingly for us to experience in the innermost. Note that this infinite dimension isn’t linked to technological advances in algorithms from artificial intelligence; AI may enhance our imagination but it doesn’t intensify our imagination in harmony and fidelity with the Word.

At the close of his prayer echoing the Word’s family prayer, Paul illuminated this infinite dimension for the church and all its persons and relationships to be whole:

“Now to the Spirit, who by his amplified resources at work within us, is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine put together” (Eph 3:20).

In his closing communications to this disciples, the Word intimated how much deeper he wanted to take them; but “when the Spirit’s person comes, he will guide you into this infinite dimension” (Jn 16:12-13); and the Word’s prayer made definitive that the quality of this dimension involves the amplified relational process constituted by the Word, which unfolds in the immeasurable relational outcome constituted in the intimate relationships together with the Trinity (Jn 17:3).

Thus, try to imagine how deep the innermost of God can go. Then, imagine how deep you can go into the innermost with God; and, thereby, imagine how much can emerge from your innermost (both individually and together as church). Assuming your humble imagination, is it worth asking God for all that you can imagine?

Not only is this a legitimate effort to be engaged in, the Spirit’s person is vulnerably present and intimately involved in our innermost for reciprocal relationship together, in order to unfold this relational outcome “abundantly far more, infinitely beyond, than all we can ask and imagine put together.”

The quality of our imagination makes deeper connection and involves our persons in reciprocal relationship with the Spirit, together with the Trinitarian persons as One, so that we will experience in the innermost the infinite dimension of the relational reality of the Trinity. Before the experiential truth of this relational outcome becomes our relational reality, the dimension of our theology and practice remains finite with limited quality, which raises questions about their significance. Our vulnerably humble involvement directly with the Spirit, however, always intensifies our relational quality to embrace the infinite dimension of the Trinity’s relational quality in the innermost. The Word’s harmony and fidelity composing musical theology and practice resonates with this relational outcome, in order that the church and all its persons and relationships will resonate in this relational outcome, so that we will be complete/whole to resonate for this relational outcome in the human condition.

Therefore, when we are touched by the relational quality of the Word, we are opened in our innermost to the presence and involvement of the Trinity. If we aren’t moved in our innermost, what significance do our theology and practice have? When we are ongoingly involved in the primacy of reciprocal relationship together with the Trinity, the relational outcome resonates in the most natural and primal relational response we can have in our innermost: the relational quality of our relational involvement in love for the most vulnerably humble response of worship.

As it resonates in the innermost, this uncommon relational outcome converges in the finale of musical theology and practice: “to the Spirit’s person be glory in the church and in the Son and the Father into the church family infinitely ahead” (Eph 3:21). Nothing less and no substitutes for the primacy of worship can distinguish the significance of theology and practice, as well as their relational quality in the innermost, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

Holy denotes to be set apart from the ordinary, to be separated from the common, and thus to be distinguished as the uncommon from the common world. God is certainly uncommon, but our God is also whole—that is, the whole and uncommon Trinity. Whole-ly is the combination of whole and holy that distinguishes only the whole and uncommon Trinity.

Note: underlined words to be chanted, rapped, shouted, or any other style, in this rhythm but not sung; tempo increases after Bridge 1, then slows down after verse 6 to the end.

[1] Walter Brueggemann and Clover Reuter Beal, An On-Going Imagination: A Conversation about Scripture, Faith, and the Thickness of Relationship (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019), 34.

[2] Ibid, 53-54.