In Praise of Psalmody

29May07

“Could we sing some more psalms?”
In eighteen years of vocational church ministry, no one has ever asked me this question. Most of those years have been in some form of music ministry, with a 4-year stint as solo pastor for a small, town-and-country church. I have heard a lot of questions in those years.

People have asked me if we could sing more “new songs,” meaning something of the praise & worship or CCM variety which they learned at a camp, a conference, another church or on the radio.

People have also asked me if we could sing more of “the old songs,” usually meaning songs they grew up singing, songs their parents grew up singing, or anything written in the ninetheenth-century gospel song style. Rarely is anyone talking about “old songs” from the 16th or 17th century when they ask this question!

Still no one has asked me about the psalms. I’m not suggesting my experience is universal, but I believe it to be typical among evangelicals. Psalm-singing has fallen into general disuse over the last 200 years. A few denominations have maintained a deep commitment to psalmody in worship, and a smaller number have maintained an exclusive psalmody position, admitting no hymns or songs “of human composure” to the public worship of the church. But the church at large has ignored psalm-singing as such.

Of course there are the occasional psalm “snippets” or phrases that make their way into contemporary songs. I thank God for these occasional uses of the psalms. There are also a few psalms that are better known as hymns: “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need” (Psalm 23), “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” (Psalm 100). But “snippets” what the apostle Paul had in mind when he exhorted the Ephesian Christians to “be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:18b-19, NKJV)? Or when he wrote to the Colossians, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16, NKJV)? Whatever else Paul may have intended in these verses, one thing is certain: he expected that we would sing psalms. James instructed, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms,” (James 5:13, NKJV).

Historically, psalmody has been the norm for Christians in the Calvinistic camp while hymnody has been carried forward by the Lutheran tradition. Among the Scottish Covenanters and Baptists in England, the exclusive psalmody position held sway until well into the 18th century. The Covenanter position is alive and well among their descendants on this side of the Atlantic, the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America. But Benjamin Keach fought for the inclusion of “hymns of human composure” in the services of Particular Baptists and won that battle by the mid-1700s .

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF PSALM-SINGING?

While I enjoy singing historic Christian hymns as well as those written in recent years, I have recently become an advocate for psalm-singing. We are commanded in Scripture to worship God in this way. Yet I believe there are benefits which accrue to those believers who will commit themselves to this practice. Here is a partial list of those benefits:
1. You never have to wonder if you’re singing false doctrine.
2. Psalm-singing trains the mind to understand what brings honor and glory to God in worship.
3. Since the psalms cover the full range of human experience as well as the fullness of God’s attributes, the worshiper has an ample and extensive vocabulary for worship: praise, thanksgiving, supplication, complaint, sorrow, confession, penitence, imprecation, outrage, testimony and messianic prophecy.
4. Joy comes from knowing you are being obedient to the New Testament exhortations to sing psalms.
5. Singing the psalms increases our love for God as well as our faith in Him.
6. I do not take the exclusive-psalmody position, but I believe Psalm-singing lays a firm foundation for the other hymns and spiritual songs used in public worship.
7. Psalm-singing enriches and enhances your private worship as well as the public worship of God.

WHERE TO FIND PSALMS FOR SINGING
I have discovered a number of resources for suitable psalm settings and tunes.
Songs from the Psalms in Light of the New Testament by Isaac Watts. Watts paraphrased nearly every psalm and gave a Christological emphasis to them. Most are in common meter, long meter or short meter. Suggested tunes are listed in the front of the book.
The Book of Psalms for Singing from Crown & Covenant Publications. This is an excellent resource for someone who wants a complete set of psalms arranged in singable units. One thing I appreciate about this psalmbook is its effort to set every phrase in verse form. Also, the verse numbers are given in the text of the psalms themselves for easy reference and comparison to the Scripture. Every psalm is set with its own tune, but most are easily sung to other tunes of the same meter.
Trinity Hymnal, Baptist Edition from Great Commission Publications. This is the “old blue” Trinity Hymnal from the 1960s modified and reissued by GCP along with Reformed Baptists in 1995. Along with revisions to accomodate Baptist congregations, the “responsive reading” psalm section at the back was replaced with a psalter supplement to cover psalms not significantly represented in the main text of the hymnal.
Our Own Hymn Book: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Public, Social, and Private Worship compiled by C.H. Spurgeon and reprinted by Pilgrim Publications. The first one-hundred-fifty selections in this publication are devoted to settings of the psalms known to Spurgeon in 1866. The meter is given, but no tunes are suggested.

I have used all of the above resources for use in congregational singing. I understand that the “new” Trinity Hymnal and the Trinity Psalter are good psalm resources as well, but I have not used them.

If you have not considered singing the psalms before, I want to encourage you to give it a try. I have found it to be most rewarding in congregational worship as well as personal devotion time.

Greg Dixon

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