Beside Still Waters Ministries

At the church where I previously served, I wrote several newsletter articles about hymns to try to educate them and enrich the congregation’s worship.  I thought I’d post them here now, to share with whoever might be interested.  I basically encompassed two main aspects with these articles – history (of a particular hymn or a hymnwriter) and meaning (what is it really saying?).

So, first I thought I’d start off with defining what a hymn is, and as you will see I am not just talking about hymns as you think of them (i.e. old, traditional, only in a Hymnal) but rather all music sung as a congregation in praise to God.  Then, the term “hymn” most definitely includes the contemporary “praise & worship” songs, as well as the older songs often found in hymnals.  I hope you enjoy this article, and find it enlightening and helpful.  Please feel free to post any comments or suggestions – your favorite hymn or hymnwriter you want to know about or whatever.

Let me first set out some general statements about hymns:  The term, “hymn,” actually refers to the lyrics and not to the music itself.  The music the hymn is sung to is referred to as the tune or setting, and traditionally the tunes are given separate names though with contemporary music they are usually the same name. One example of this is the hymn Be Thou My Vision – the tune it is generally associated with is called “Slane.”  Throughout the history of the Christian Church, praise has been a common characteristic of hymns.  We know from several references in the Bible that Christians have always sung hymns (Acts 16:25, Eph. 5:19, Col. 3:16) which makes hymn singing traditional in the truest sense of that word.

Hymn singing is a usually a group activity, and associated with a worship service.  Hymns are more than just sung scripture - they can be new or old, and even be spontaneously created.  Because of the nature of the lyrics, hymns are also poems and have common literary characteristics such as rhyme and alliteration.  Hymns that stand the test of time are very theologically rich, and they are a great tool to teach basic Christian doctrine.  The majority of hymns are metrical, and so you can interchange different tunes that have the same meter.  I’m sad to say that also throughout Christian history hymns and hymn singing has often been controversial, as I’m sure you have experienced.

The word “hymn” is a derivative of the Latin hymnus, which comes from the Greek hymnos, derived from hydein, to sing (The Catholic Encyclopedia).  Throughout the Bible instances of singing in general and hymn singing in particular can be summarized as:  singing occurred when there was cause for celebration (for example, after a battle - Exodus 15), when there was an opportunity to praise God (even throughout the normal day – see Canonical Hours), and to encourage one another (Paul and Silas in Prison in Acts 16).

St. Augustine, one of the great fathers of Christian theology said, “Do you know what a hymn is? It is singing to the praise of God. If you praise God and do not sing, you utter no hymn. If you praise anything which does not pertain to the praise of God — though in singing you praise, you utter no hymn. A hymn then contains these three things: song, and praise, and that of God. Praise then of God in song is called a hymn.”  (Exposition on the Psalms, Ps. 148 – you can read it online at CCEL)

Here are some other definitions from resources I found on the internet:

“A Christian hymn is a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally conceived, which is designed to be sung and which expresses the worshipper’s attitude toward God, or God’s purposes in human life. It should be simple and metrical in form, genuinely emotional, poetic and literary in style, spiritual in quality, and in its ideas so direct and so immediately apparent as to unify a congregation while singing it.” – Carl F. Price, 1937 [from What is a Hymn? Paper of the Hymn Society of America, © Hymn Society, Boston, MA.]

HYMN: A term of unknown origin but first used in ancient Greece and Rome to designate a poem in honor of a god. In the early Christian period the word was often, though not always, used to refer to praises sung to God, as distinct from ‘psalm’. The Western and Eastern (Byzantine) Churches developed widely differing hymn traditions. [From: New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]