One of the biggest complaints I get from people (not that
I get a lot) is that we don’t sing enough hymns. I completely disagree. We sing a lot of hymns. I believe the real issue is that people don’t
understand what a hymn truly is. Colossians
3:16 says “Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God
with thankful hearts.” Now what people
typically think, is that praise songs are considered psalms, songs from a hymnal
are considered hymns, and they have no idea what to do with spiritual
songs. But is that really what the
Apostle Paul meant when he wrote those words?
I don’t think so.
When
Paul says to sing “psalms” what I truly believe he meant was that we are to
sing psalms from the book of Psalms.
Before it was named the book of Psalms it was simply known as the “Book
of Praises” because almost every psalm contains some note of praise to God. These psalms were set to the accompaniment of
stringed instruments and served as the Temple Hymnbook. And even though we don’t have the original
music for how these psalms sounded, I do believe that we still sing psalms in
our churches. The words of the book of
Psalms are littered throughout the Baptist Hymnal and in our modern praise and
worship songs. Martin Luther’s “A Mighty
Fortress Is Our God” (a Baptist Hymnal classic) is based on Psalm 46. Chris Tomlin’s “Forever” (a very popular
Praise and Worship song) comes straight from Psalm 136. So, I believe we as the “Church” are still
singing psalms.
Next
let’s look at “hymns”. Most church goers
believe that hymns are only found in hymnals.
But is that biblical? The word
hymn in the Greek means “praise”. So is
it not just a song of praise? If that’s
so, then almost every song we sing during our congregational worship time is a
hymn, whether it’s found in a hymnal or not.
But really, that makes sense. For
instance, the Baptist Hymnal is updated every 10 years or so. Some songs are added and some songs are removed. Are the new songs now considered hymns? Are the songs that have been removed no
longer considered hymns? What about the
songs that were originally considered “praise songs” but have been included in
more recent editions of the hymnal? Are
they now hymns even though they were once praise songs? I believe they are all hymns.
Finally, let’s look at “spiritual
songs”. Most people don’t know what to
do with this classification of song.
I’ve heard this described as many different things by many different
preachers, but I don’t know that any of them ever got it right. Instead of doing any research, they just try
to take the Christian musical styles of the day and turn one of them into the
category of “spiritual songs”. I believe
what this really means is that these songs should be inspired by the Spirit of
God. So, if this is the definition,
then songs from a hymnal, modern praise and worship songs, even songs from
Christian radio would be included in this list.
Ultimately, I believe that all of the
songs we sing in church should fall into one or more of these categories. Most probably fall into all 3. But really, I believe the key to
understanding Colossians 3:16 is found in the last 2 words “thankful hearts”. That’s the key to truly worshipping. Regardless of whether it’s a psalm, hymn, or
spiritual song, we are to worship God with thankful hearts. And if we do that, then song types just won’t
be an issue.
Worship Big!
Brad
Worship Big!
Brad
