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The Stories Behind the Songs on This Single
Thu., Dec. 28. 2023 4:41pm EST
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Here are the stories behind the songs on our 26th single of 2023:
THE BOOK-O-ROMANS
As we've described it in previous parodies, the first epistle to appear in the New Testament is a "Romantic Letter" and an "Old Time Romans Road." It's also a book of the Bible that has eternally changed the lives of countless souls, including such prominent figures in church history as Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Wesley.
For Augustine in A.D. 386, it was Romans 13:13-14. Upon reading it, he later said, "A light flooded my heart and all the darkness of doubt vanished away."
For Martin Luther in 1515, reading Romans 1:17 was revelatory. He encapsulated the ensuing experience this way: "I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates."
For John Wesley in 1738, it was Luther's commentary on Romans: "He was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ," Wesley recalled. "I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for my salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken my sins away, even mine; and saved me from the law of sin and death."
I think I originally wrote this parody in the winter of 1996-97, but I changed almost all of my lyrics the week before recording the vocals in December 2023. The opening words "If you're bad" are a bit tongue in cheek. When you read the Book of Romans, you'll plainly see that "there is no one righteous, not even one ... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:10, 23).
ZEDEKIAH
Although we didn't release this parody until December 2023, I got the first part of it in January 2010. Zedekiah was the last king of Judah, the third of Josiah's sons to reign. He was on the throne when Jerusalem fell to Babylon in 586 B.C. Well, actually, he'd just left his throne to flee from King Nebuchadnezzar, who had besieged the city for the previous year and a half.
Zedekiah is mentioned in four books of the Bible and alluded to in at least one other. 2 Chronicles 36:11-13 sums it up this way: "Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke the word of the Lord. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him take an oath in God's name. He became stiff-necked and hardened his heart and would not turn to the Lord, the God of Israel."
His final fate is recounted in 2 Kings 25:6-7: "He was taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where sentence was pronounced on him. They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon."
You can learn a lot more about his personality in the Book of Jeremiah, where he appears in 13 chapters. I see him as a tragic and sometimes even sympathetic figure. Zedekiah's main problem was that he feared and trusted men more than He feared and trusted the Lord. Sound familiar?
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