Blest Be The Tie

I thought I would change things up today and take a look at a hymn. This is my personal favorite hymn, Blest Be The Tie (#302 in Hymns For Worship), it focuses on the tie that binds Christian hearts together in love. This is a principle throughout scripture, and here are just a couple of passages discussing brotherly love.

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all because I have you in my heart since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 1:3-8 (NASB) “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” — 1 Corinthians 13:1 (NASB) But now to the actual hymn. It opens with: “Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love;” The concept of love is so perverted today that most people wouldn’t understand this. That topic could be an entire article on its own. But for Christians, we can’t lose the meaning that the song intends and is validated by scripture. Paul wrote extensively (especially in Philippians) about love, fellowship, and joy in each other. 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a great definition of love as well. Love is something to have with all our brethren, something that is different from just a good feeling. We should care and be concerned about their wellbeing, we should love them enough to point them to Christ if they’ve made a mistake. The second verse I like in particular: “Before our father’s throne We pour our ardent prayers; Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one, Our comforts and our cares.” This verse stresses the idea of one. One Father, one prayer, one hope, one aim. We should be unified! This comes with the love previously mentioned. We want to be with the people we love, we want to do the same things, have the same goals, and support each other along the way. This is the genius way God designed his church to work! Verse three discusses the same principle, but in a different light: “We share out mutual woes, Our mutual burdens bear; And often for each other flows The sympathizing tear.” This is the darker side of love and unity. The difficult side. We are to bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) and help one another through temptation and hardship alike. The last verse is my personal favorite: “When we asunder part, It gives us inward pain; But we shall still be joined in heart, And hope to meet again.” This verse is particularly hard-hitting for me because I have many close brothers and sisters that live very far away. For those of you who do not know me, I live in Bozeman, Montana. Many of my closest brothers and sisters live in the east or southeast, roughly two thousand miles away. This verse always reminds me of all the wonderful Christians I know from far away, and it helps me remember that even though I am two thousand miles away, we are still “joined in heart.” We still have the same goal, the same Father, and the same struggles. In Hymns For Worship, the verse under the title is 1 John 1:3, “what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” I think this is an excellent verse, to sum up, this hymn, one of encouragement, and one that helps us see the larger picture. –Jacob Brewer