Why You Should Sing The Psalms

An attempt to convince you to learn to sing God's songbook

Church music has long been an area of interest for me.  

I grew up in a picturesque little church complete with a white steeple and bell, on a plain surrounded by mountains, and every Sunday we sang hymns.  Having that kind of foundational experience with the great hymns of the faith gave me a very strong appreciation of songs with theologically deep - not just theologically correct, but deep - lyrics.  I still love hymns very much, for a multitude of reasons. One reason is that songs that have stood the test of time, not just decades but centuries, tie us to believers throughout all that history until now.  

That said, I'm not one to eschew good modern music either.  If a modern song is theologically correct and rich (a rarity, unfortunately), I'm apt to love it just as much as my old hymns. 

Unfortunately, the challenge with any worship music, new or old, is to make a good judgement about whether this song is rightly praising God, or if it's subtly "me-centered" or praising man.  It can get very tricky, and I'll admit that I'm pretty picky about the songs that make it onto my personal list of favorites. 

With the challenge of finding Christian music that is sound and has the right focus, I started to wonder, why isn't Psalm-singing more common these days?  The Psalms are, after all, songs.  If God gave us a songbook right there in the middle of the Bible, why don't we sing them more?  

I have personally never been in a church that sang Psalms, and when I realized that, it started to trouble me.  There are some that think only Psalms should be sung in church - I'm not of that persuasion, but shouldn't we at least include the Psalms in the musical rotation?  Why wouldn't we?

There are a many reasons why a lot of denominations might not sing the Psalms anymore, and I'm not sure I'm completely equipped to give a good summary of that right now.  But the more I thought about it, the more I determined that though we might not sing Psalms in church much, that didn't mean we couldn't learn to sing them ourselves.  So this year I've been working pretty hard, reading books, trying to figure out how to do just that.

I will write a separate post about how we've started to add some Psalms to our repertoire, but first I wanted to give a few reasons why Psalm-singing is something worth doing - including within your own family.

1. The Psalms are God's songbook.  

As I mentioned above, there is no other songbook anywhere that can be rightly described as inspired by the Holy Spirit Himself.  All Scripture is God-breathed, and that includes the Psalms.  When we sing the Psalms, we are singing God's very words back to Him, and there is something very beautiful in that.

2. When we sing the Psalms, we can be sure we are singing theologically correct songs.  

You don't have to analyze the Psalms before you sing them to look for errors or a wrong focus - God gave us these songs to sing from His Word. As long as the Psalm hasn't been "adapted" beyond recognition, there is alot of peace in knowing we are singing Scripture.

3. The Psalms connect us to believers in the Old and New Testaments.  

Just as I love hymns in part because I know so many believers have sung those very words before me, the Psalms connect us even more with believers through the ages.  The Israelites sang these very songs, Jesus likely sang Psalms with His disciples, the early church sang psalms.  It's very inspiring to think we are singing the same praises to God that have been sung through so many ages.

4. I believe Scripture tells us to sing Psalms.  

I recognize some people will differ with me on this, but I think Ephesians 5:19 indicates that we should keep singing the Psalms.  Paul says:

"...speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord..."

I know many people say that this verse is just referring to different types of music, but I really don't see why the word "psalms" wouldn't mean the psalms of Scripture. 

5. Singing Psalms is an effective way to memorize Scripture.  

No other book of the Bible has been put to music as much as the Psalms have, and this gives us a prime opportunity to take God's Word and hide it in our hearts!  Not every Psalm song is a word-for-word adaptation, of course, but even if it's not word-for-word, a faithful adaptation will get the ideas of the Psalms embedded into your mind.

5. The Psalms are formative.  

If you get an opportunity to read Scott Aniol's book Musing On God's Music, I highly recommend it.  In it, he points out that the Psalms aren't just empty words - when we read and sing them, they are forming us as Christians.  The Psalms are a cohesive book about what it means to live as a believer in a fallen world, until Christ comes to earth as King and reigns forever and ever.  

Psalms show us how to respond when we are attacked and persecuted, when we are hopeless, when we sin, when we are needy, when we are full of joy, when we prosper.  They rightly order our affections, and train us to respond in a godly way no matter what life brings to us.  And they show us how to keep our eyes fixed on the Lord through every bit of it.  Why would we not take advantage of this beautiful gift God has given us in the Psalms by learning to sing them from our hearts, until we see Him face-to-face?

I hope I've convinced you to at least consider learning to sing the Psalms if you never have before.  I can tell you it's been a beautiful thing to start learning different Psalms with my kids through singing them together.  Hearing their little voices singing the songs God gave us is so moving, and I know the words are being absorbed into their hearts while we sing. Since I've started this process, snatches of Psalms have also come to me in the form of a melody playing through my mind, and it's been an encouragement whenever I think of one of our Psalm songs.  I know that learning the Psalms through song is going to be an effort that will be well worth it when I look back at how we spent out time together someday.

Another post coming soon on how to go about learning to sing Psalm songs when you are not very musically gifted, like me!

Have you ever sang the Psalms?  Does your church use a Psalter?  

I'm always interested to hear other people's experiences with Psalm-singing.