Song: “That Kind
of Girl”
Artist: DC Talk
Album: Free at
Last (1992)
Track: 2
Musically, this album starts the absolute right way. You don’t even catch your breath after the
first track before Toby Mac drops into a very skillful rhyme that leaves your
head spinning. There is literally no
silence between these tunes, and they flow so naturally together. As a side note, the tunes are so close
together that the cut between tracks on the CD is actually misplaced by a
fraction of a second, leaving the “T-” from “Toby” on the first track, and the
“-oby” on the second. That’s a bit
annoying when you’re listening to songs on random.
But while we found “Luv is a Verb” to be a pretty cool tune,
lyrically it fell pretty flat. Let’s see if the boys do better here.
The Good
This song comes (sometimes directly) from the Proverbs. It very intentionally casts the “forbidden
woman” described in the book (chapter 4, for example) with the virtuous woman
of Proverbs 31. The depictions of these
women are clear and to the point, and the point is convincing.
To this day, I cannot read Proverbs 31 without hearing this
song in my head, and that is because the second verse comes directly from that
chapter, very often word-for word. This
is good stuff here, and not to be missed.
They take the exact same approach as Scripture does, and that is to be
commended and applauded.
I want to stress this, because I’m going to touch on a
couple of lines a little later. The
entire approach of the song is right and good.
We’ll nitpick a couple of points, but overall, this is the approach
Christian music should take.
Neither Good nor Bad
Talk about nitpicky!
I bring this one up because I reacted to it wrongly when I first heard
the song, and so I’m guessing others misunderstood as well. At least I think it was a misunderstand,
since the line is a bit vague.
When I was first listening to the album, I thought the
reference to the girl in the first verse drinking and smoking as alluding to
sinful activity. Mainly because I
believed those activities were sinful. I
now think they were just fleshing out a character here and weren’t trying to
say that a beer is sinful. I don’t put
the line in the “bad” column because I think it was my misunderstanding here.
To be clear, drunkenness is a sin, but not drinking. Alcohol has been the official drink of
Christianity for 2,000 years. Smoking is
not a sin, but is probably unwise, and so probably should be avoided. Now a good pipe now and then, well, that’s a
gift from God and should be enjoyed heartily.
The Bad
Only a couple of lines here that need to be discussed.
First, Toby claims that “God with bring her to me so I don’t
have to search.” This sort of “Let go
and let God” philosophy has been around for a while, but it’s not biblical. We are called to wisdom as Christians, and
often that wisdom will lead us to action.
We see the examples of the patriarch in the Bible, for example. Abraham actively sent for a wife for his son,
and later, we see Jacob make a similar himself.
They did not sit in the Promised Land and wait. We are called to be wise and responsible, to
seek the good. Oddly enough, the
Proverbs themselves teach us to seek a wife in 18:22, “He who finds a wife
finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.”
Now, wisdom may call us to hold off for a time, or that the
person we are with is not the right one.
This requires prayer and godly counsel.
But generally, we are called to seek a good wife. (Or husband.)
Next, DC Talk tells us that “When I finally meet her, I’ll
know how to treat her, but fulfilling all her needs.” Good luck with that one! This is the sort of nonsense that single
people say before they get married, and it’s a statement made of ignorance or
pride. The truth is that we do our best,
but it is Christ who fulfills all of our needs, not our spouses. Marriages built on this sort of wishful
thinking are going to be rocky.
Lastly, they say they will “cherish her forever.” Not really sure what’s behind this one. There is a sense where it is likely true that
we will cherish our Christian brothers and sisters forever. However, not as man and wife. Jesus teaches us in Matthew 22:30 that
marriage is a temporary thing, not carried with us in the resurrection. The vagueness of the line makes me a little
nervous here.
Overall
All things considered, we have a pretty solid tune
here. There are song lines I take issue
with, but oddly, they all come in the same bridge. The other verses are commendable. I say good job to the boys of DCT. The song is basically on solid ground.
