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"Articles on Hymnody"
The Passion
Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store; write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sin:
That when sin spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes,
All come to lodge [...]
Also, poetry appeals to the emotions, as does music, and like music, beautiful and rightly ordered poetry can habituate or train the soul to the right kind of internal movement. Familiarity with truly good poetry will encourage children to love the good, to hope for its victory, and to feel sad at its demise. [...]
Continue Reading →I think we all agree that the hill marked “The Battle of the Hymnal vs. the Projector” ought to have no man’s grave on it. This question is not a fundamental of the faith, and answers to the problem do not even fall out along the same lines of the broader worship debate, which is [...]
Continue Reading →Visitors that attend my church are often introduced to the seemingly obscure practice of fumbling for a hymnal, finding a page, and according to some, mumbling the words into the book they are peering into.
In an era of affordable projectors, Powerpoint and similar software, surely insisting upon hymnals is like insisting on horse-drawn buggies [...]
Continue Reading →Few readers here will be surprised to learn that most, if not all, hymnals, due to space constraints, omit a stanza or two from at least a few of the hymns found within their pages. The inevitable and, often, unfortunate consequence of this practice is that some great stanzas of devotional poetry are effectively lost [...]
Continue Reading →Paul Gerhardt (1606-1676) is regarded by some as Germany’s greatest hymn writer. His near-absence from many modern hymnals surely stands as testimony to our chronological snobbery. Nevertheless, a mostly untouched (by modern hands, at least) treasure-trove of Gerhardt hymns still exists for the hungry seeker. “Immanuel, to Thee We Sing” is one of his Christmas [...]
Continue Reading →Some of us deeply appreciate A.W. Tozer’s writings on, well, just about anything. Tozer also wrote some poetry, which while not masterful, is a good attempt at meaningful hymnody, and that by a busy pastor. It ought to encourage those of us who have tried our clumsy hands at the task to keep at it. [...]
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