worship songs

This morning (6/17/07) we looked at a few modern worship songs and the scriptures they were taken from. I think it's interesting to compare. Some song lyrics are taken word for word. Some take a line from scripture. Some are just related thematically. After singing the songs we discussed what themes were in the scriptures and how they compared to the songs.

First we sang "Your Love Oh Lord," taken from Psalm 36. This "modern version" was written and performed by Third Day. The consensus was that David, the author of Psalm 36, and Third Day were pretty much getting at the same thing. Singing about God's faithfulness and asking for the favor of God's love to those who know Him.

Second, we sang "Kindness" by Chris Tomlin. This is based just on one verse- Romans 2:4. The obvious difference here is that the whole song is not taken word for word from scripture like the last one. But rather it expands on the theme of crying out to God and praising Him for His kindness, which allows sinners like us to repent.

These were the only 2 songs we got to go through, but of course this could go on for a long time. The worship song "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" illustrates the third type of song. It may borrow exact lines of scripture, but it more covers the theme of singing praise to God for what Jesus did for us. In other words, it borrows themes and summaries of many passages of scripture.