Bulletin Articles
I will sing praise with the spirit, & I will also sing praise with my understanding
1 Corinthians 14:15 — “What then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with my understanding. I will sing praise with the spirit, & I will also sing praise with my understanding.”
I love every second of our time together on Sundays. Each part of our worship to God has a unique purpose and so much significance. But when it comes to our singing together, I would like to borrow the words of the Psalmist to say this: “Hallelujah! How good it is to sing to our God, for praise is pleasant and lovely.” (Psalm 147:1)
It is truly a good thing for us to sing praises to our God, He surely deserves it! But for every second of praise that we give our God, it is important that we understand that singing is also meant for the encouragement of one another (Col. 3:16). How can we expect to build one another up, when we don’t understand what we are singing?
Many of the hymns in our song books carry deep and thoughtful meaning. However, it can be tricky at times to understand the words we are singing. And there could be a couple of reasons for that.
One, some of our hymns are very old. In fact, one of the oldest set of lyrics in our hymnal comes from 350 AD! (#175 — Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence). Sometimes the language from those hymns don’t get updated, so we don’t always know some of the words we sing! And in some cases the words are still in Latin! Like #220 — Night, with Ebon Pinion.
Two, many of our hymns are written with several Bible passages in mind. Although they may not be explicitly quoted, they are definitely what is supposed to be in the mind of the singer. For instance, in the 2-4 stanzas of #496 - Lord, Increase My Faith, each stanza is referencing a specific Old Testament character, do you know who they are? (See me if you have the answers!)
So the next several weeks of bulletin articles will be simple. Different men have agreed to write an article on specifics hymns. Some may deal with words we need to understand when we sing, others may deal with passages we should think of while we sing certain hymns. And some men may just write about their favorite hymn and exactly why they like it!
But the goal will be simple: to gain a deeper understanding of what we are singing. After all, Paul did command us to: “speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Eph. 5:19-20).
