Music And DiscipleshipMuestra

"Rhythms"

In music we have an idea called Rhythm. Rhythm works similar to how grammar works in language. It tells us how fast to go, when to pause, how fast to pace the notes, what to emphasize, and so on. This is very helpful in thinking through how to shape and craft disciples.

Music is not the only thing that speaks of time, or rhythm. The Bible speaks of God’s perspective on time. Time relates to when all things are in order for something momentous to occur (kairos time), and it also speaks of dates and the hour for the occurrence of an event (chronos or chronological time). The difference between the two is pointed out in the Bible in 2 Peter when he writes; “a thousand years of time (chronos) is, from God’s (kairos) time- perspective, like a day" (2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 90:4).

God’s creates time to move along in a linear rhythm, but also to cycle around seasonally in order that the same seasons can come back around year after year: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer. The reason for God doing this, I believe one reason anyway, is found in Numbers 28-29. 

In your reading, you’ll notice how God orders the life of Israel into rhythms of time: daily in offerings (vv. 1-8), weekly in Sabbaths (vv. 9-10), monthly in offerings (vv. 11-15), and yearly in special occasions, feasts and festivals (28:16-Ch. 29). The seasons were the Passover Feast occasion which came in the Spring, the Feast of Weeks in May and June, the Law at Mount Sinai (our Pentecost), the Feast of Trumpets, which was followed by the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) celebrated in September, and finally the Feast of Booths following soon after, celebrating God’s protection of Israel as they traveled in the desert toward the Promised Land. Keep in mind Israel had just come out of slavery, and here, God put them under new rhythms in order to rehabilitate a bunch of slaves, and re-train them to live free. 

When we come out from bondage and Jesus saves us, he rehabilitates us and teaches us how to live free as slaves to righteousness instead of sin. He does this through rhythms. He sets in place rhythms for us to observe in order to grow into his story. Seeing God in moments, and letting him fill moments with meaning, is as important to the disciple’s growth as daily Bible reading.