From David Robertson, minister of St. Peters’ Free Presbyterian Church, Dundee.
Robertson notes that many are observing the ongoing debate within his own denomination about whether they will allow the singing of material not sourced from the Bible in their worship services.
What this post is about though is an issue that Robertson notes in the wider reformed/evangelical church spectrum:
…I am writing you this open letter is to ask you to reconsider your own practice – as we are re-considering ours. I realise that many of you have a wide variety of practices, and we would certainly not want to argue for a uniformity across the board. However there is one issue that really puzzles me – why do more of you not sing psalms?
I was at a large evangelical leaders conference recently which was excellent in every way – the only problem I had was that in the conference booklet the worship section had over 100 songs, and yet as far as I could see, there was not one psalm. I have worshipped and preached in many different churches throughout Scotland, the UK, Europe and the US, and it has surprised me how many evangelical and even Reformed churches, make such little use of the psalms.
Why use the Psalms? …
I appreciated this section:
The Psalms are Ecumenical – they do not come from Scotland. They are not Presbyterian. They are not ‘ours’ or indeed any one particular church in one particular era. They belong to the whole Church of Christ throughout the whole world and throughout the whole of it’s history. I love the fact that I am singing words Paul, Augustine, Calvin, Knox and many others have sung. Above all I love the fact that these are the songs that Jesus sang – that he learned as a little boy and that he memorised – even being able to cite them as he died on the cross. Read Bonhoeffer’s wonderful little book on the Psalms and you will see what I mean.
Read Robertson’s whole post here: Psalms Please – A Plea.
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