THE SONGS OF THE LORD
Written By: Rev. Rodney Teal, NuthinButGospel Staff Writer
The sung praise of God is a prominent feature of Scripture, indicating that it should be a prominent feature in the lives of Christians and The Church. It has been noted that song is unique among the gifts that God has bestowed upon humanity in that it is the only gift given to us on loan, for when all of God's children are gathered home to praise God throughout all eternity, we shall give back to God the gift of song.
Often we neglect song as a God-ordained mechanism for promoting our individual spiritual growth and development and for enhancing communal worship. We treat singing as if it were just for the choir or just for Sunday morning or as if it were a spectator sport in which vocal acrobats compete for the hottest riff. However, the songs of the Lord, whether "psalms" or "hymns" or "spiritual songs" are important for all Christians in all places and at all times. Singing is not a "musical-thing"; rather, it is a "Christian-thing"!
While the public expression of praise and worship through music is designed to exhort, edify, and comfort The Church even as it reaches The World for Christ (cf. I Corinthians 14:3 and I Chronicles 25:1), there is a place for the songs of the Lord in the private devotional life of every Believer. And when song is properly positioned in our private devotion, our public, corporate expression of song is made more effective.
Ephesians 5:18 - 20 and Colossians 3:16 - 17, speak of three types of sacred songs - "psalms," "hymns." and "spiritual songs." The Apostle Paul, a principal architect of Christianity, was a preeminent scholar of Jewish Scripture. In addition, he was a well-educated Roman citizen, with in-depth knowledge of Greco-Roman culture. Paul's use of three different words "psalmos," "hymnos," and "pnuematikos ode" (psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, respectively) in the Ephesians and Colossians passages is neither accidental nor insignificant.
"Psalmos" is particularly important, when viewed in conjunction with Paul's writing in I Corinthians 14:26, where Paul notes that a psalm is a spiritual gift on par with "teaching," "tongues," "interpretation [of tongues]," and "word of knowledge." (Some versions of the Bible translate "psalmos" as "hymn" in I Corinthians 14:26, but the Greek is clear.) Paul understood a psalm as a spiritual gift bestowed (sovereignly and directly) by God on a man or woman. One who sings a psalm sings a song given directly to him/her by God. (I suppose that one might digress, here, that singing the sermonic solo does not necessarily make one a "psalmist.")
The Apostle Paul's use "hymnos" is a cultural allusion to Greco-Roman practice of composing songs in praise of gods, heroes, or conquerors. The word hymnos is a derivative of another Greek word meaning "to celebrate." It is only used twice in the whole of the New Testament - in Ephesians 5 and in Colossians 3. If gods, heroes, and conquerors were worthy to be praise by hymns, it is only fitting and proper that the God of gods, the Hero of heroes, the Conqueror of conquerors be given the same kind of praise.
Paul's use of "pneumatikos ode" (English "spiritual songs") refers to songs ("ode") that come from the spirit realm (i.e., "pnuematikos"). It is a tacit acknowledgement that there is something spiritual about the songs of the Lord, even when the singer has not received a song(s) by direct, Divine Impartation as is the case with a "psalmos."
Paul, the Jewish scholar and sophisticated Roman citizen, brings together "psalms" and "hymns" and "spiritual songs" in his writings to the Ephesians and the Colossians to teach both the Jews and the Gentiles who were part of the churches in those regions. He does it using language and cultural sensitivity that both Jews and Gentiles could understand. A master instructor, Paul writes one lesson for all of his students: the Gentiles who would focus on hymns from their social location and the Jews who would understand psalms and spiritual songs from their religious roots.
Most of the time, we try to classify sacred music by equating "psalm" with Anglo-/Euro-anthems, "hymns" with the standard hymns found in a denominational hymnbook, and "spiritual songs" with gospel music. What we are really doing is overlaying the Biblical text with American cultural (and racial) prejudice. The truth of the matter is that regardless of form - "psalm" or "hymn" or "spiritual song" - all of the sung praise of God is "a good thing". Psalm 92:1 declares, "It is a good thing to sing praise unto Thy Name, O Most High!"
We ought each aspire to the spiritual gift that God may impart to us in the gift of the "psalm." Every one of us ought to sing the story of the glory of our God in "hymns." All of us should use "spiritual songs" to our advantage. We ought to aspire, sing, and use these songs of the Lord as part of our individual devotional activity. In so doing, Paul reminds us that we will be continually "filled with the Spirit." The sung praise of God has the effect of keeping our minds stayed on the things of God and allows us to be filled or guided by the Holy Spirit. Then, when we come together for corporate worship, "psalms" and "hymns" and "spiritual songs" enhance the worship service not merely because they are nice or pretty but because they have meaningful roots in the hearts and lives and minds of individual, Spirit-filled Believers, who have committed themselves (as individuals) to praise God. We can then sing together in the words of Fannie J. Crosby:
This is my story
This is my song...
Praising my Savior all the day long!
