This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
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Who is this God?
Who is this God?
Who is this God, and what is his teaching?
The unknown creator, yet he is not far
from anyone's heart who is searching and reaching:
for in him all live, and his offspring we are.
Who is this God, and what kind of temple
would honour his name? He's the maker of all,
and he does not need any house: buildings crumble
and cannot contain him, no matter how tall.
Who is this God, and when is his feast day?
But he is the Lord of the whole of the year!
To give him just one, or to sacrifice beasts may
suggest we've forgotten that he's always near.
Who is this God, and how may we know him?
The maker of people, he came here to dwell:
revealing himself in a man he has chosen,
and proving this true, for he rose from death's hell.
Who is this God? Is he worth obedience?
And how may we judge him? As burden or friend?
As lover and teacher he seeks our allegiance:
as judge he would save us, forgiv'n at our end.
Who is this God? And what of this Gospel?
Shall we laugh to scorn? Shall we put faith on hold?
Or shall we believe? Shall we join his Apostle
and find love and joy in the city of gold?
Words and tune copyright © John Hartley 2006.
Based on Acts 17:16-32 and inspired by an exposition given by David Coffey.
Story behind the song
Although this has long been a favourite bible passage of mine, I was inspired to write this song when Rev'd David Coffey came to speak to the Rochester Diocesan Conference "Proclaiming the Faith Afresh", and explained that when Paul was invited to the Areopagus in Athens, the philosophers were following an established pattern of enquiry when a "herald" of a purported new god appeared in the city. They wanted to establish the answers to five questions (which form the first lines of the first five verses), with a view to establishing a space for this new god within the pantheon of the Greek hierarchy of gods.
But Paul turns the tables, by providing extraordinary answers to these questions:
- Who is this God? He's the one of whom you are already aware but you don't know.
- A temple? Irrelevant!
- A feast day? But he doesn't need anything from people.
- How to know him? Through Jesus who was raised from dead.
- And how should the philosophers judge him? The boot is on the other foot - the real God is the one who will judge them!
Paul's reply is so much off the wall that they laugh him away. It's a passage of scripture which shows that the real God doesn't fit into their system, except by turning it upside down. My song has probably failed to capture the impact of the passage, but it's an attempt to show how these are simply the wrong questions to ask of God.
Note on the tune: as Paul is being quizzed by the seat of officialdom, it seemed appropriate to incorporate into the tune a melody which would suggest a Parliamentary query - hence the chimes of "Big Ben".
John Hartley
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.