The Singing Church: The Hymns It Wrote and Sang

by Edmund S. Lorenz

IV. THE HYMN AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR TEACHING TRUTH

Another practical use of the hymn that will prove very valuable is to make those hymns that are didactic or meditative the occasion of discussing for a few minutes the doctrines they express, and so to teach, to bring back to memory, or to vitalize the articles of their faith which average Christians are apt to forget. There are Christian beliefs that do not call for elaborate discussion in a sermon, that are best impressed by emotional treatment in connection with a hymn. “Depth of mercy! can there be,” with a background of pure-minded Charles Wesley’s consciousness of sin, will give an opportunity of impressing the people with sin’s subtle and soul-destroying power. “There is a fountain filled with blood” will be the basis of a very short but a clear and tender exposition of the atonement made for sin by Christ on the cross. That a person may be conscious of salvation, of acceptance by God through Jesus Christ, will find fitting explanation in an exposition of “Rock of Ages, cleft for me.” What better opportunity for emphasizing the Christian’s dependence on Christ could be afforded than a study of “Jesus, Lover of my soul”? Our inability to understand the ways of God’s providences, and our need of a faith that does not demand explanations, may well be stressed in an analysis of “God moves in a mysterious way.” A score of such hymn discussions at irregular intervals during the year would prove illuminating, and help to remove the haze that prevents clear definition in the minds of the people of the doctrines on which their spiritual life must rest. Singing the hymn after such comments will make it more effective and fasten the Christian teachings in the minds of the hearers with links of steel.