“Good hymns are an immense blessing to the Church of Christ. I believe the last day alone will show the world the real amount of good they have done. They suit all, both rich and poor. There is an elevating, stirring, soothing, spiritualizing, effect about a thoroughly good hymn, which nothing else can produce. It sticks in men’s memories when texts are forgotten. It trains men for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations. Preaching and praying shall one day cease for ever; but praise shall never die. The makers of good ballads are said to sway national opinion. The writers of good hymns, in like manner, are those who leave the deepest marks on the face of the Church.
But really good hymns are exceedingly rare. There are only a few men in any age who can write them.” J.C. Ryle
30 comments
Thanks so much for this post! I have been thinking a lot lately about hymns. A friend and mentor challenged my husband and I a few weeks ago with something we had never really thought about. He explained to us the reason why some churches do not feel it is right to use have a “praise band” (the kind with drums, guitars, etc.). He told us that some people feel when music is used it takes the place of the person singing worship. He also told us a story about a voodoo priest who had converted to Christianity. This ex devil worshiper could not believe that Christians would be playing drums while singing praises to God. He said this was the same rhythm and beat he used to call the demons when he was practicing voodoo. Needless to say, we had a nice discussion on what it means to be “in the world, and not of the world.” As Christians we should look different than the world. However, often times, in an attempt to draw others to Christ (God’s power alone can do that) we end up looking just like the world. Now, I am not saying I never listen to music with drums. In fact, the church my husband and I attend has a very nice praise band. I will say it has got me thinking, though. I find that singing hymns when I am all alone is probably my favorite way to worship with song. I wish I knew more hymns. I wish more church’s still sang and taught hymns. I wish more people did not take these hymns for granted! Thanks again for the post! Sorry for such a long stream of consciousness. Like I said, I have been thinking about this topic for a few weeks now! 🙂 Have a blessed day!
~AFG
Megan Jenelle
It would not surprise me that someone would use chants or drums to call demons. God is the creator of the world, and the things in it. Satan can create nothing, that is reserved for God and humans. Satan has to copy as he is unable to come up with something original. Satanists have a “bible”, they fast, and they try to convert. I would say that the use of something by the unsaved would not negate the use of it by the church.
David used instruments as did the jewish people when they were celebrating and worshipping God. It is not something new.
I know you are not saying no more music with drums or whatever, and am not trying to start something, just wanted to give my perspective on why the enemy would use some of the same things as the church.
Also, God said to sing Him a new song.I would encourage everyone to sing their own song to God. How much more of a blessing it will be to Him when you make your own hymn or praise song! I think you’ll be blessed as He washes over you, too.
Kelly,
Thank you very much for clarifying what I was trying to say 🙂 I completely agree that Satan tries to mimic God! God is the creator of all things good, and Satan tries to recreate something similar, yet it is so far away from the truth! Finally, I think it is an excellent point that God gives us a new song! We each have our own testimony as to what God has done/is doing in our lives! Why not create a song of praise to Him! Great idea! Thanks!
~AFG
Megan Jenelle
I purchased a “Kid’s Hymnal” and accompanying CD, It has some newer and simple tunes as well as many established favorites. I also started learning traditional hymns to sing in our van since our radio broke and we haven’t had the money to fix/replace it. IT is neat to catch them singing “Sinking sand” or “God will take care of You” when they are playing.
Have you heard the story of the writer D. R. Van Sickle? Pretty amazing 🙂 Became convicted of Christ by his own hymn! He was an atheist before then.
I hadn’t heard the story, but after reading your comment, I went and looked it up. What an amazing story indeed! I love hearing how the hymns came to be, and reading stories of hymn writers.
It is wonderful, isn’t it? 🙂 I received it in an email and put it on my Myspace blog two years ago; it’s been an inspiration ever since.
Here’s a link to a calendar with pictures of country churches and lyrics from hymns, if anyone would like to see: http://www.amazon.com/Country-Churches-2010-Wall-Calendar/dp/1601166605/ref=cm_lmf_tit_13
Ric Ergenbright made a gorgeous journal of hymns, Scripture and nature photography too: http://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Devotions-Art-God-Collection/dp/0842340866/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287590636&sr=1-1
Well I haven’t had time to see what fruit it will bear in their lives (my boys are almost 2 and almost 4) but I have always sung hymns to my boys while rocking them to sleep. Some of our favorites are “Amazing Grace” (all 5 verses + the “Praise God” verse), “Something About That Name”, and “His Eye Is On The Sparrow.” Again, I don’t know to what degree it will impact them as they grow up, but right now I know that my sweet boys know these (and more) sweet songs about Jesus and hearing them sing every word absolutely melts my heart!
“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” is one of my favorite hymns by one of my favorite hymn writers, Isacc Watts. I remember reading somewhere (or at least I think) that Charles Wesley (another of my favorite hymn writers) said that he would give up all the hymns he had written, to have written this one.
Our children have heard music since they were in the womb. They would always move around the most while I sat playing the piano and singing with my husband while he played his guitar. There are alot of newer worship-ful songs that we enjoy playing and singing together, but one of our favorite things to do is to sing and play the old hymns to new tunes. We have an old tattered hymnal that belonged to my husband’s grandmother (she died before my husband and I met so unfortunately I never knew her, but she introduced him to Jesus and was a remarkable Christian lady who had the biggest influence in his life) and it has tons of hymns that I had never heard of before and that aren’t printed in the typcal “songbook” that you would purchase at your local Christian bookstore. Hymns are defintely fading today, but we hope to keep them alive in our home by singing and playing them together daily with our children. (We’ve never been into the “Deep and Wide”, “Wise Man, Foolish Man” “Climb Climb Up Sunshine Mountain” kind of children’s songs anyway, not saying they’re wrong, they just seem kinda shallow and cheesy 😉 )
We love hymns! There is a depth of experience and relationship with the Lord in the hymns that continue to resonate with believers in every successive generation. And there is a connective quality that links His Body across time. Such a powerful tool to help our children understand their heritage in the Church. The commonality of experience, struggles and joy brings the hymn writers to life for our children. And for me!! I almost always weep!!
We are studying hymns as part of our morning Bible time this year. I was surprised to see your You Tube link, because When I Survey is the hymn we are learning right now!
We go through a verse every day or so and dissect it. We talk about what it means, how it applies to us, any Scripture references, etc. I grew up in the Methodist church, so I have many hymns memorized-all verses. As wonderful as our non-denominational church is, we sing mostly praise songs. We sing hymns about 25% of the time I would say.
But I want my kids to have all that great theology from hymns in their hearts and minds, so we do it together at home.
It is so lovely and heartwarming to hear my 8 kids that are still at home singing in unison a great hymn of the faith!! It has been a blessing to us!
I absolutly love hymns and the rich doctrines they teach about our great God!I grew up going to a church that sings mostly hymns,after I got married we started going to a church that did not sing hymns only praise songs with a worship team.Their thought was that they needed to cater to the unsaved world to get them to come to church.I found myself zoning out during the praise song time because the songs kept saying the same things over and over,I also started struggling because I was not being fed spiritually.God convicted my husband that we needed to go back to the church we grew up in and we have grown so much since then.I have to hold back tears as I sing hymns because the words are so powerful and convicting.I love to hear my children learning hymns and singing them on the way home from church,I know it is something that will always be with them as they grow up.It is good to hear that others realize the importance of hymns.
my church has went in the last six years from hymns to only praise music for the same reason.I have been struggling for quit sometime.I cry my eyes out anytime I hear a hymn.I tried to thank you yesterday for your reply to my comment I hope you noticed it.
I agree that hymns are wonderful. There is just something so spiritual about them, and if based on the Bible, they can teach great truths in a way that easily calls them to mind.
Older hymns have a certain sort of spiritual seriousness that is often missing from Chris Tomlin-type fare. Our ancestors were serious about the worship of their God. We need to get back to that.
Be careful with hymns, though. Some of them are doctrinally suspicious. While I’m a Trinitarian who absolutely believes Jesus is Lord and God, songs that suggest God’s name is Jesus irk me to no end (see, e.g., Dearest of all the Names Above by Isaac Watts). God has a name, and only one name (the Bible says the Lord is one and His name one), and sorry, but Jesus is not it. God the Father is not named Jesus. The Holy Spirit is not named Jesus. Only the Son is named Jesus. The true name of God is a four-letter Hebrew word often transliterated as Yahweh or Jehovah in English.
Also bothersome are hymns which teach that Jesus sits on the Throne. That is biblically unsound. The Bible repeatedly says things like “to Him Who sits on the Throne and to the Lamb.” The Lamb does not sit on the Throne as far as I can tell. This is problematic because it leads to a sort of Oneness theology.
Other hymns have bad theology, too. When the Roll is Called Up Yonder (one of my favorites as a kid because my grandma liked to sing it) has a verse that says, “On that bright and cloudless morning when the dead in Christ shall rise”…but isn’t Jesus *coming on a cloud*? How can it be a cloudless morning? How is that not supposed to confuse a kid?
Or take “Alas, and Did my Savior Bleed?” The famous refrain “At the Cross/at the Cross/where I first saw the Light/and the burden of my heart rolled away/it was there, by faith/I received my sight/and now I am happy all the day.” Since when does becoming a Christian make one happy? Aren’t we in fact to suffer – at least occasionally – for the cause of our God and Savior?
Not nitpicking…and yes, the newer “hymns” take way more liberties…yes, teach your children hymns, but make sure that they have sound theology because hymns are more memorable/powerful than the spoken or written word. If falsity goes in, it may be difficult to get it out.
Then again, there are references in the New Testament to the Son of Man sitting on a throne, so I could be wrong about that. My larger point still stands, I think.
I asked *the same* question of “When A Roll Is Called Up Yonder” as a child!! Got smacked, sent to my room and told I was “being a smart a**”, but then again I was always getting in trouble for “thinking to much”. 😉
You got smacked? Geez. Well, I just recently heard sage words, it’s better to be a smart a** than a dumb a** 😉
Ha! Ha! Never thought of it that way 🙂 (And we don’t use this kind of language in our house, although both my husband and I grew up hearing it and much worse.)
“Has a verse that says, “On that bright and cloudless morning when the dead in Christ shall rise”…but isn’t Jesus *coming on a cloud*? How can it be a cloudless morning? How is that not supposed to confuse a kid?”
I don’t think that’s a big deal at all. Maybe it began cloudless until Jesus came along. And the thing about suffering?? That doesn’t negate being joyful at all. Christ says His burden is light, and His truth after all is joyous.
As the wife of a worship pastor (and leader of a praise band), music used in worship is very dear to our family’s heart. My husband and I were raised on traditional hymns. We know so many by heart. I sing them to our children and with our children every day. One of my faves is “I need the every hour” which is very popular here in the small churches in the South. It was penned by a housewife (for lack of a better word)!
We also believe in “singing a new song” and my husband believes in singing an old song in a new way. He likes to take hymns and update the music to teach them to our current church (Many of which came to Christ as adults and do not know the older hymns). One he recently taught the church was “Jesus paid it all”! What a great song for us to have in our hearts.
I will say that I happen to agree with Kelly L on the idea that God created everything. Yes, people who worship other things or entities may mimic some practices of faith (prayer, fasting, singing, insturments, baptism) but that should not mean that we as Christians should began excluding those things from our lives. The Bible shows many instinces of insturments being used in the worship of God. Obviously, God loves music because he created man and man loves music too. We named our oldest child “Lyra” which means “insturment of God” after the Lyre, a guitar type insturment used to worship God by the Jewish people. Just because that insturment is now our modern day guitar and is used in music that is not worshipful, we should not exclude it from being used to worship God. Worship by singing and music is an expression of love and joy that should overflow from the Christian’s heart. I can be moved by hymns or praise songs. The truths included in the lyrics of both types of songs can speak to my spirit.
I completely agree. I love the hymns and reading the history behind them makes them even more meaningful. Thanks for the YouTube idea. I have been wanting to practice hymns with my boys, and hadn’t thought of looking them up that way.
I love the hymns, too. My favorites are “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (the line, “prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love! Here’s my heart oh, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above” just brings tears to my eyes, it is so true in my life), “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” gives me chills every time I sing it, as does “Holy, Holy, Holy”. Not only are the words compelling, but they are so musical. I love singing the parts! Another thing I love about hymns is their staying power. The words to “O Sacred Head Now Wounded” are about 1,000 years old. I’ve read that Bernard of Clairvaux wrote them in the 1100s.
Kristin, those are some of my favorite hymns, and my oldest and I have memorized them! One of my very favorite hymns is “How Firm a Foundation.”
What an interesting discussion! And as a student of, and writer about, our English hymnody for many years, I always like to hear of folks who love our traditional hymns (or miss them, when churches seem to virtually abandon them).
There’s lots to comment on here. But let me join the discussion on a couple of points. I do agree with Lori H that we must be careful to check the doctrine expressed in our hymns. We need to get our theology from the Word of God, not from our man-made songs. As to her specifics:
Yes, I agree that “Now I’m happy all the day” (in Ralph Hudson’s atrocious reworking of Isaac Watts’s wonderful hymn, “Alas, and Did My Saviour Bleed?”) is trite and unrealistic. Nobody’s happy all the day. Even Jesus wasn’t! Sing the Watts original to the traditional tune Martyrdom and you’ll be fine. I saw another such fantasy in a gosple song we used in church yesterday, Elisha Hoffman’s “I Must Tell Jesus.” The second stanza says, “If I but ask Him, He will deliver, / Make of my troubles quickly an end.” No, not always. He didn’t do that with Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.” (When I’m leading the service, we skip that stanza!)
Having said this, I think Lori H can be challenged on some of her other points. 1) As to hymns referring to Jesus as God, given His equality in the triune Godhead with the Father and the Holy Spirit, there is nothing wrong with that. It is done in Scripture (see Acts 20:28; Tit. 2:13; II Pet. 1:1, KJV or NKJV). 2) As to objecting to hymns that have Christ now seated upon a heavenly throne, the Bible’s clear about that also. He is. Though He has not yet taken His messianic throne, He is seated at the right hand of the Father on His (the Father’s) throne (Rev. 3:21).
3) As to James Black’s description of the day of Christ’s second coming as a “bright and cloudless morning,” I think we may need to allow him a little poetic license there. Perhaps it’s simply a way of describing the dawning of a new day. Christ return with (or on) the clouds of heaven is mentioned a number of times in God’s Word (e.g. Dan. 7:13; Matt. 26:64). But those would seem to be no ordinary clouds. The day will not be cloudy and overcast. We know that because “every eye will see Him” (Rev. 1:7). I wonder if that isn’t a description of the bright hosts of heaven, both angels and saints, that will return with Him in triumphal procession. (Something like the “cloud of witnesses” mentioned in Hebrews 12:1.) And since the Lord Jesus is “the Bright and Morning Star” (Rev. 22:16), and since, in His heavenly glory, He shines “like the sun” (Matt. 17:2; Rev. 21:23), it should be a bright and cloudless day indeed!
As to the appropriateness of drums in worship, I can only give you a personal opinion, based on long study. It’s interesting that although many different kinds of instruments are mentioned in the Bible, drums never are. To my mind, they do not belong in the house of God–at least, not as they’re used in much contemporary worship. (I’m not talking about the percussion section of an orchestra, or symphonic band, in which they are used quite differently.)
The argument that “God created everything” and therefore everything glorifies God is a fallacy–because it mixes the general with the specific. It would be like saying that God created human speech, therefore all speech glorifies God. We know that’s not the case (Eph. 4:29). And when individuals create or present music, God’s gift has passed through the filter of human personality, and it can be good or evil. For my article on Drums in Worship, see…
http://wordwisehymns.com/2010/12/05/drums-in-worship-appropriate-or-not/
Those of you who love and enjoy hymns, I invite to check out my daily blog on the subject, Wordwise Hymns. Each day I describe something related to hymn history that occurred on that day. The site’s being visited by people from over 165 countries of the world. Y’all come!
And finally, if you’ll excuse a brief “commercial:” With the arrival of fall, we begin to think of the Christmas season up ahead. If you do not have a good book on the subject of our Christmas carols, I encourage you to take a look at mine, Discovering the Songs of Christmas. In it, I discuss the history and meaning of 63 carols and Christmas hymns. The book is available through Amazon, or directly from Jebaire Publishing. (Might make a great gift too!)
Excellent points, Robert. Respecting Christ as God is vitally important; I had no idea anyone challenged this.
I would like to point out that the statement that “since God created everything then everything glorifies God” is not what I said or meant in my post. This is an absurd line of reasoning because man can corupt anything. Look at what our sinful nature has done to sex! No, what I meant was that God created music and is pleased by it’s use to worship HIM! I think God is grieved by many of the things that we, as humans, have corupted.
Also, to say that drums are fine as part of an orchestra but not fine if used in a different way, contridicts your statement about the fact that drums are not found in scripture and therefore should not be used in worship. This statement speaks to your “personal music preference”. Drums, in all instances, should not be used based on your findings according to scripture.
Just because something isn’t mentioned in scripture doesn’t mean there is no place for it in church. If that were the case, we better get rid of the piano as well.
Oh, superb piece of text! I have no clue how you came up with this article..it’d take me weeks. Well worth it though, I’d suspect. Have you considered selling banners on your blog?
I have not checked in here for some time because I thought it was getting boring, but the last few posts are great quality so I guess I will add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend 🙂