Songs We Sing
The poets who write songs for worship are as prolific as ever. In fact, the church is embracing new songs at a rate that publishers have trouble keeping up with. Hymnals released ten years ago are already out of date.
But how do these new songs compare with the old standards? For the most part, they accomplish the goal of praising God, but I fear they lack the depth of the old hymns we have sung for so long.
For example, our young people like to sing,
I stand to praise You
But I fall on my knees;
My spirit is willing
But my flesh is so weak.
What do we learn? Not much. The sentimentality is so thick, we have trouble finding the substance. It's not that the song is unscriptural (cf. Mt. 26:41). It just seems that the composer put very little thought into his words.
Another sample:
O God, You are my God,
And I will ever praise You.
O God, You are my God,
And I will ever praise You.
I will seek You in the morning,
And I will learn to walk in Your ways.
And step by step You'll lead me,
And I will follow You all of my days.
Compare those words with a hymn composed by St. Francis of Assisi in 1225:
Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship Him in humbleness,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One!
The song figuratively portrays mankind singing praises to God, along with the radiant sun, rushing winds and flowing water. It closes with the doctrine of the Trinity. This was a praise song meant not only to exalt, but also to instruct.
Here's another example from arguably the greatest hymn writer in the churches of Christ, Tillet S. Teddlie:
Earth holds no treasures but perish with using,
However precious they be;
Yet there's a country to which I am going:
Heaven holds all to me.
Those are encouraging words taken right out of Matthew 6:19-21. I had the pleasure of meeting brother Teddlie before his death in 1987. He was blind by that time, and confined to a nursing home in Gunter, Texas, but, even as a boy, I remember being left with the impression that this was a man who possessed a great depth of soul. His songs bear that out.
The songs we sing in worship to God are supposed to "address one another" (Eph. 5:19). They are meant to "teach and admonish" (Col. 3:16). We should judge our hymns and praise songs by more than a good tune.
I'm not saying we should do away with everything composed after 1985. That is not my point at all. It's good to incorporate new songs into our worship services, as long as they are scriptural, edifying and informative. However, let's not neglect the old standards in the process. We can still learn from them.
