August 30, 2023 - Good Morning! It's Wednesday, August 30.
This coming Sunday, at First Baptist Church of Center, we'll be singing a song co-written by two men who lived two centuries apart. And both parts of their song have remarkable stories behind them.
In 1807, William Wilberforce was the driving force behind the abolitionist movement in England, the movement to abolish the slave trade. One of his mentors was a man named John Newton, who had been Wilberforce's pastor when he was a boy. Oh, and in addition to being a pastor, Newton had written a little gospel song called Amazing Grace.
In 2007, Hollywood made a little movie about William Wilberforce, and called it Amazing Grace. The film's producers approached Christian songwriter Chris Tomlin about writing a new ending to the old song. Initially, Tomlin turned them down. After all, who could improve the world's favorite hymn?
But then Tomlin found out two things that changed his mind. First, he discovered that the last verse of the hymn ("When we've been there ten thousand years . . .") wasn't written by John Newton. So, the ending of the song had already been changed. And then he learned that before Newton became a pastor, before he became a Christian, he was a ship's captain. He was captain of a slave ship, a ship that carried human cargo, a cargo in chains. And so, Tomlin was inspired to add a new chorus that began with the words, "My chains are gone, I've been set free."
Two songwriters separated by two centuries. Two brothers in Christ, inspired to create a song of testimony and praise. A song for the ages. A song for this coming Sunday!
Meet you back here tomorrow,
Bro. David
dmathis@fbccenter.org
