RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
I prefer chanting the psalms over singing hymns. It locks in the memory better than anything else (which is why many in the Patristic age had the psalter memorized).
Do you prefer hymns over psalms?
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earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Yes I have. Though I understand your point.
Of course we as laymen do not get to choose.
So this may only apply to the elders to which my point stands, that they rather sing a hymn over a psalm in that point of service. Now as a laymen in the pew if one defers to the elders judgment to sing hymns then in my opinion they do not practice the RPW. I know many will object to that statement, but the fact remains extra biblical hymns are not commanded to be sung in worship. I know one sides is right and one is wrong, and I believe the EP is right and have historical evidence and good information that leads me to to believe people think incorrectly the word hymn in the bible includes songs not inspired.I hope my logic is clear now and seen as not fallacious.
The RPW is a rule and as I said I believe people are breaking that rule or principle.
I like to have a systematic way of reading my "preferred" bible.
Some do; for instance T. David Gordon says this. But if psalms, hymns and spiritual songs are three things and not a reference to the 150 psalms, what proportion is required to avoid sinning in this regard?
Ryan&Amber2013
Puritan Board Senior
I personally think Psalms could easily entail all three categories. I just wouldn't limit it to that and see more freedom in that area. But I would have no issue worshipping at a psalms only church.
iainduguid
Puritan Board Junior
Preaching from the Old Testament and Preaching from the New Testament are two things that we would all regard as Biblically required, but is there a set proportion of each required to avoid sin? No preaching from the Old Testament would seem extremely unwise, as would only preaching from the Old Testament (which, from an inclusive psalmody position, is what EP looks like to us). But Christian wisdom is required to discern exactly how much and in what order we preach from the different testaments. and there is liberty for different churches to come to different conclusions. (This if course assumes an IP position, but that was what you asked for).
However, one reason many of us are reluctant to argue strongly against an EP position is that it feels like arguing against preaching from the Old Testament exclusively, when the far greater issue facing the church is that some churches almost never preach from the OT. To argue against singing psalms exclusively feels very far from the biggest issue for us (whereas I understand why it is one of the big issues for EP folk).
While I follow your post generally, I am not sure I quite understand this part specifically. How exactly is the singing of psalms exclusively akin to preaching from the Old Testament exclusively?
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
In other words, per the argument, we would be using man-made, man-inspired words to preach instead of sermons already provided for us like in Acts 2 and 17
iainduguid
Puritan Board Junior
Insofar as it is exclusively singing the types and shadows rather than singing the explicit fullness of NT revelation. Now before anyone insists on the richness of the types and shadows there in the psalms, LET ME AGREE WITH YOU! I teach people to preach Christ from the OT for a living. No one loves the OT types and shadows more than me. But if the day we worship on reflects the reality of Christ's death and resurrection (first day rather than seventh), and the prayers we pray reflect the coming of the messiah ("in Jesus name") and the sign of the covenant we apply reflects the newness of the new covenant (baptism rather than circumcision), and we insists that our sermons should never be suitable to preach in a synagogue, then it seems plausible that Christians should sing an explicitly trinitarian doxology ("Praise God from whom all blessings flow..."). I'm with the Scottish commissioner to the Westminster assembly, David Calderwood, who said when its use at the end of metrical psalms was abolished there "Let it alone for I hope to sing it in glory".
(There will now descend fifty posts from EP's with responses, all of which will deserve good and thoughtful - and especially Biblical - responses, but none of which I have the time or energy to answer right now. Most of the challenging questions in practical theology have to do with the question of continuity and discontinuity between Old and New Testaments and a fuller treatment of these issues is long overdue. Too often non-Ep'ers have simply dismissed EP'ers as cranks and not given them the respect of proper, well thought through answers. I think there are answers but a discussion board combox is not really an adequate place for a full treatment, and my life is too busy right now with treatment for a recurrence prostate cancer. I'm sorry of that frustrates some.)
Susan777
Puritan Board Sophomore
That’s an interesting statement. How do you do it? I’d love to memorize psalms and if that would help I would do it. What exactly is chanting?
So sorry to hear about this, Reverend Duguid. You’ll be in our prayers.
Regi Addictissimus
Completely sold out to the King
That greatly saddened me to read. My wife and I are lifting you up in our prayers. If you don't mind, I will add you to the RHB/PRTS corporate prayers Monday morning. Please let me know if there are specifics we can be praying about.
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A couple of things in Rev. Duguid’s post prompts one of those 50 replies:
EP is often rejected due to a desire to sing praise that is Trinitarian in nature and that proclaims the full work of Christ. My comment is that the Psalms are as full of the Trinity and of Christ’s completed work as the NT- indeed, they provide glimpses into the decrees and purposes of Father, Son and Spirit and into the work of Christ, and from his own mouth, that we would never have if not for them. THAT’s why we are to sing them! “I will tell of your name to my brethren, I will sing your praise in the congregation.” He vowed to do this, and won the right through his resurrection from the dead. Therefore the Psalms and instruct us in ways that are unique to other parts of Scripture. They were sufficient for the church in all ages, they are timeless.
EP is often rejected due to a desire to sing praise that is Trinitarian in nature and that proclaims the full work of Christ. My comment is that the Psalms are as full of the Trinity and of Christ’s completed work as the NT- indeed, they provide glimpses into the decrees and purposes of Father, Son and Spirit and into the work of Christ, and from his own mouth, that we would never have if not for them. THAT’s why we are to sing them! “I will tell of your name to my brethren, I will sing your praise in the congregation.” He vowed to do this, and won the right through his resurrection from the dead. Therefore the Psalms and instruct us in ways that are unique to other parts of Scripture. They were sufficient for the church in all ages, they are timeless.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
CHanting can get complex but it doesn't have to be. There are some good Lutheran sources that can help. It's just an elevation of the voice at a certain cadence that isn' tquite singing. I'll send you something later.
timfost
Puritan Board Senior
Of course we as laymen do not get to choose.
Earl, regardless if elders or laymen, this doesn't change my challenge. If elders sometimes choose a hymn and sometimes a Psalm, then they simultaneously prefer hymns over Psalms when they choose a hymn, and Psalms over hymns when they choose a Psalm according to this logic. Therefore you've "proven" that the same people who prefer hymns over Psalms prefer Psalms over hymns. This is logical absurdity.
Earl, do you understand what the "P" means in RPW?
In your mind is a rule the same as a principle? Dr. Duguid often reminds us that the RPW sets up parameters by which we apply rules. The belief that we don't follow the RPW because we don't abide by your exact exegetical application of the principle shows a real lack of understanding on your part.
Nope, not out of the water yet.
Thanks for getting back to me, though!
Tim, what is your working definition of the RPW?
timfost
Puritan Board Senior
Fesko:
"Briefly stated, the RPW is the teaching that only those things commanded in Scripture may be performed in the worship of God."
That sounds right to me. So where does God command, in your and others’ views who don’t hold to EP, the singing of uninspired praise? Does that come strictly from the Ephesians and Colossians passages? (Believing that hymns and spiritual songs refer to uninspired songs?)
timfost
Puritan Board Senior
We could go round and round applying the principle of necessary inference. For now, this should suffice:
I can definitively prove that a number of biblical believers were not EP. Are you able to definitively prove that any believers were EP?
iainduguid
Puritan Board Junior
Thanks. I'm currently in the midst of hormone therapy (one shot with a six month effect) and radiation treatment (every weekday for eight weeks), which has curtailed my activities somewhat this summer. I'd appreciate your prayers for no spread of the cancer elsewhere (which is the goal of the treatment), and a heart that is made more tender to the suffering of others and more fixed on the things of eternity through this process.
As far as going round and round applying the principle of necessary inference, who do you suggest as someone who has done this in writing? I’ve interacted with T David Gordon’s assertions some.
Do you mean you can prove there believers in the Bible who sang uninspired song in worship? Who were they?
I can only prove any biblical figures were EP in worship by necessary inference (I guess).
Ryan&Amber2013
Puritan Board Senior
Solomon for sure was not EP, his greatest biblical song not even being a psalm. Then there's quite a few prophets, Moses, Deborah, etc. David himself wasn't even EP. And also the 144,000 "And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth." If it is a psalm, why can only some learn it?
Oh ok, I see. They were inspired songs but not used by the church. Sure. Every inspired song in the Bible definitely wasn’t collected into the Tellehim, the Book of Praises, the song book of the church.
So the issue is that we are only to sing inspired praise in worship, and we are only to sing the inspired songs collected by the Holy Spirit for us to sing. The information that the Psalms only were sung in the worship of the church under the kingship of David is gathered from the historical passages dealing with David’s instituting of the temple worship.
Ryan&Amber2013
Puritan Board Senior
Thanks for clarifying. How about this: because the whole Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, can you sing any part of it you want? If not, where is the command that we can only sing 150 chapters out of the whole Bible?
I’m not an expert expositor of all these things- I would consult the Michael Bushell book because I think he exhaustively covers so much of this. But generally speaking, as I alluded to before, a reading of all the historical accounts regarding the instituting of temple worship is where we get the understanding that the Psalms were commissioned for the singing of the church by the Holy Spirit, through David and the prophets Gad and Nathan (2 Chronicles 29:25). The pattern continued in use through the reforms of some of the Kings like Hezekiah, and then you see Christ continuing the singing of the Psalms at the Passover (they are his composition after all) and Paul’s command to continue their use.
The question I began to have, with the background going on as a musician and singer in the church, was surely God has spoken definitively to us about what we’re to sing. I was reforming and saw the impossibility of uniformity of worship practice with the way we’re doing it in the visible church, which uniformity I think is God’s will, as far as song (and so many other things). What songs could all Christians in the visible church sing that would teach, admonish, and instruct without error (Eph and Col passages), and make us all of the same voice and heart and mind? The songs we sing are our confession, they are “put in our mouths” and we should be able to sing them with no qualms, no hesitations, no differences. Think about this issue in terms of the visible church and the unity and uniformity Christ prayed for and died for. The unity is for a testimony to the watching world.
Ryan&Amber2013
Puritan Board Senior
Good thought. Couldn't this be accomplished by singing any part of God's Word?
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
In heaven we will sing the song of Moses (Ex 15).
It could if he had set it up that way.
So no, it wouldn’t. But again, I believe it is clearly shown through a careful study through Kings and Chronicles on the subject that it’s these 150 Psalms God commissioned for our use. Check just the first couple of prefaces out Ryan: https://archive.org/details/truepsalmodyorbi00phil/page/n7
You can buy the book at Amazon.
Then go raise little Psalm singers.
Ryan&Amber2013
Puritan Board Senior
This is very interesting. In Heaven we will sing a song in the Bible that's not a psalm, but we aren't allowed to right now?
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