Sing the Psalms! How to Incorporate the Psalter into Your Personal or Corporate Worship

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[@parksideevangelicalchurch2886]

For me, this is the most persuasive argument for singing psalms - "Sing The Songs That Jesus Sang!" (Print that on a T-shirt!) Jesus sang ALL the psalm and we get to sing the same songs that Jesus sang. The book of Psalms was the "hymn book" that Jesus sang when He went to synagogue every week. He very likely would have committed the entire psalter to memory (as most faithful Jews would have done in the first century). For the "difficult" psalms (the ones that don't 'cheer us up'), I often encourage our congregation to "look over the shoulder of Jesus" and meditate on how these psalms prepared Him for the most difficult experiences of His life and got Him though the Garden of Gethsemane, the unjust trials and the Cross. This, in turn, then prepares us to overcome through the trials of our own life. The gospels tell us very little about what Jesus was thinking or feeling, but the book of psalms mirror for us His internal, spiritual life and emotions in a profound way. Christians often say they want to become more Christ-like. Reading, praying, meditating on and singing the Psalms is a powerful means of grace that God wants us to use to achieve this. Finally, a couple more psalter recommendations for Christians in the UK or Ireland. The Free Church of Scotland have an excellent modern language psalter called "Sing Psalms." They are written in a wide variety of meters, (CM, LM, SM, 10 10 10 10, etc) and so can be sung to a wider variety of traditional hymn tunes. They often have two or even three versions of the same psalm in two or three different meters. (We use this psalter in our church). The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland has an excellent modern language psalter called, "The Book of Psalms for Singing" which also uses a range of different meters.

[@markmarkster]

Another advantage psalms are royalty free PS: people might actually remember more Scripture verses

[@innovationhq8230]

After being able to visit a Psalm singing church It really feels like a big downgrade to go visit a church with musical instruments and man-made hymns.

[@glorifyenjoy]

It is. We can never go back.

[@ElisabethLynn]

I have been singing Psalms and hymns for 10 years and visited the church I grew up in and was like meh… A man singing CCM with a guitar with his face on screens with lyrics. It was a letdown. I visited another church I used to attend and was disappointed they had a fog machine and the pastor’s wife was leading with a messy ponytail, baggy T-shirt, sweatpants, and tennis shoes and the man on guitar next to her was wearing a baseball hat. It was too casual. It seemed irreverent and disrespectful. It used to be my norm, but the whole concert experience isn’t my thing.

[@keaganrodden2047]

Thank you pastor everhard for discussing sweet psalmody. It is such a wonderful blessing the church has been gifted, yet one which so much of modern Christendom rejects.

[@vanessaclark6761]

I confess that I have only recently been introduced to the idea of Psalm singing, much less exclusive psalm singing. I'm sure 1st century Christians would find that very puzzling. I heard someone say that 'God has given us a hymnbook right in the middle of our Bibles, why would we ignore it?' That's a good point. I guess what it comes down to is that there are songs that contain Truth, and there are songs that contain how I feel about that truth. The more of our personal perspectives and feelings get inserted into a song the more toward error it slides. So we should try to keep that out of it to the best of our ability. I feel fortunate to attend a church where all the music is carefully curated and vetted. Nothing sneaks through that is not focused on the person and work of Christ. I am totally okay with that but I do love to hear the Psalms sung and I may incorporate some of that into my personal devotions. Thank you Pastor Matt for your always informative and interesting videos. Blessings to you.

[@LucianaPelota]

Thank you for this.

[@stelmasia]

thank you Matt, that's great what you have done here. It's intriguing that believers in the pre-New Testament era sung not just Psalms, but also what we would call 'hymns' - John Allegro (who was not a Christian) reports in his little book on the Dead Sea Scrolls that they have dug out hymns there as well, so Qumran society is proof positive for the inclusive psalmody.

[@TheGospelIsTrue]

I am really excited for Psalms of Grace from The Master's Press. I have the Leather edition of the Hymns of Grace, just awaiting the psalter! As for exciting Psalm singing, check out the The Psalms Project! They are slowly but surely making some pretty neat recordings of the Psalms!

[@timothyreynolds6255]

Love your thumbnail. LOL. At our church for Lent we will be singing/chanting the Psalms each Wednesday evening service just 2 men - pastor in front, me in balcony as congregation meditates on words. Very cool. Excited to do it. Psalms are part of every service at our church. Thanks for this video.

[@annapeyton5605]

Thank you for this video!! I’m from a non psalm singing tradition (sadly), but am interested in getting started in my own personal devotions. Thanks for the info and resources!! 👍🏻 👍🏻

[@definit1on119]

Thanks for this presentation. I Was able to purchase the book of psalms for worship through your affiliate link. I agree the psalms should be part of our daily devotional but I do enjoy oceans as well 🤷‍♂️ Be well

[@TurrettiniPizza]

The Directory of Publick Worship was actually published and established by law to replace the BCP by Parliament before the WCF was completed.

[@joshbeveridge7858]

Thank you for the video brother. I’ve been following for a while and enjoy the channel. As a member of Psalm singing church I can definitely say, I’ll be getting one of those shirts ASAP 😁. Hope to see you move to the exclusive psalmody position one day. The psalms are truly sufficient, therefore hymns seem unnecessary at best and strange fire at worst. The exclusive singing of psalms will also bring unity to the universal church one day, at least in my optimistic eschatology lol. How glorious will it be when the natural branches are grafted back in and return to a church that sings their songs (talk about being provoked to jealousy Rom. 11:14). Keep up the good work!

[@jasoncoghill1341]

Consider the following Biblical verse: “Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted. If a congregation were to sing it from the book of Psalms, you would say that's lawful; but if they were to sing it from where it's found in the other section of God's Holy, inspired word, and include the whole chapter, would you say they are offering "strange fire" to the Lord...??? 99.9% of Christians certainly would not. "Exclusive Psalmists" would certainly say "Yes".

[@kilgen28]

Thank you very much for this post. This will likely be read by many people who will profit from it. I thought of a couple minor technical items as I listened. The mosaic tabernacle during the wilderness wanderings may not have included regular singing. That mostly came later after King David. And the Psalm tunes Calvin had composed were mostly not in meter as we think of it today. His tunes often incorporate syncopation not often found in our common meters. Elizabeth I derided Calvin’s tunes as “Genevan jigs.” Thanks again for this.

[@Yesica1993]

"Genevan jigs" - That is too funny!

[@Creationhorse]

Could you provide a link to the little brown one that has a CD?

[@paulrose8614]

Since they are commanded, can you do a brief video on spiritual songs?

[@jacobbrown4971]

For anyone looking for some good renditions of the psalms I'd recommend Josh Ogden, Austin Sebek, and Bifrost Arts. Not everything these artists put out are psalms, though I like most of their music, but the renditions of psalms they do have are awesome. Especially psalm 143 by Austin Sebek. Edit: I just found this dude Brian Suavé. This guy is brilliant and has some amazing renditions of the psalms. Check him out!

[@ZachFish-]

You are a legend! Some great artist, ty!

[@2Nickcdj]

Pastor Matt, You should check out the Trinity Psalter Hymnal that we in the URCNA and OPC use. I love that it has both.

[@calthresh4940]

He links to it in the description

[@2Nickcdj]

@@calthresh4940 Oh man I missed that. Thanks!

[@janepeterson3016]

Can you please provide a link to the psalter that has an accompanying CD available?

[@clarkemery117]

I’d like for my church to supplement the hymns with psalms

[@HebrewGreekKnowledge]

So this has me thinking about all the other Songs that are recorded in scripture, are there resources where those have been set to meter as well?

[@LBCBrandon]

I grew up in the Christian Reformed Church and have great memories of singing from the old, blue CRC Psalter and the newer gray version that was released several years ago. I think I still have a copy of both of them somewhere. The church that I’m in now, which I’m likely on my way out of for a number of reasons, is all drums and guitar solos now. I hate it.

[@ing-mariekoppel1637]

Sing the Psalms. Excellent idea Where do I find melodies? Do I make the melodies myself?

[@plazmathunderbolt]

The Psalters have melodies for them

[@thinktank8286]

Totally new idea to me. Ididn't know one could sing the Psalms, that we historicaly didn't know the music and notes behind it as intended. I hate to ask: but what impact does translation play on singing? So now I buy the argument than one should sing them, now it's a question of how? 😊 And I have no clue what meter is! I grew up in I the lights, laser, and smoke machine shallow tradition. I don't know many hymns. Missing something Biblical, historic, and good fruit.

[@jbishsr]

Where can I find the listening cds to go with the "Psalms for Worship"? We sing a number of these to familiar hymn tunes but would love to learn more of them. We don't have instrumentalists, we use mp3s, so it would be helpful to hear those other psalms. Thanks!

[@SB-gl7dv]

"Worshiptainment" has a very long history, starting with the community supported professional singers and musicians of Tent of David through the trained musicians of the Orthodox and Catholic churches to the trained musicians of the Reformation. Yes, congregational participation is an important feature of worship. It is not the only feature. David composed his psalms and sang some of them for Saul as a performance. We do well to be inclusive and accurate. Blessings in your ministry.

[@mchaywood83]

Would you guys sing songs by someone like Phil Wickham who might have a good song, but is published by Bethel Publishing? I'm curious if you would say no to all songs published by the parent group even if the song may be orthodox and put out by a different artist. We've chosen to say no to the same groups, but I'm curious about the people further on down the web.

[@CharlesSeraphDrums]

Thank you for this effort but this goes to show how far most Protestants have strayed from the historical worship of the Church. Attend an Eastern service: vespers, liturgy. Typically you’ll hear 6 to 12 psalms PER SERVICE sung and chanted. There is a special moment for the 6 Psalms at Matins, the Polyeleos (Psalm 135/136). Whilst I commend you for this, this is just weird for an Eastern Christian as it is a given that we will hear and pray the Psalter chanted once a week.

[@johnschultz3664]

Have you checked out the Trinity Psalter Hymnal?

[@CMIKAEL1172]

Im new to Psalm singing. Is it wrong to sing songs because i know many hymns that encourage me. I do see the commandment to sings the Psalms. Just curious. Do you know where i can find tunes to sing the Psalms? i bought the John Brown Psalter as it appealed to me. I did sing Psalm 100 today to the son Crown him lord of lords.

[@TwyneTheVine]

How do you feel about contemporary arrangements of Psalms? I've been very blessed by Jason Silvers' arrangements.

[@TwyneTheVine]

Looks like you already answered lol

[@samueljennings4809]

Shane and Shane also has great renditions inspired by the Psalms IMO.

[@TwyneTheVine]

@@samueljennings4809 I enjoy them as well

[@jimmyrogers7629]

I enjoy Brian Sauve, if you aren’t familiar with him.

[@TwyneTheVine]

@Jimmy Rogers I listened to his version of Psalm 2 and it's pretty good. Thanks for the recommendation. I served as an assistant pastor for a time, and I may be moving into church planting in the future. I hold to the position that psalms should be a part of worship, but I'm not psalms only. So these resources are a great help

[@reecesimmons3925]

would you be opposed to music meant for listening to based on psalms?

[@CarlViola]

I don’t get the avoidance of instruments they can help in worship the psalms even show this it’s not an either or.

[@SaneNoMore]

Despite being a member of a conservative Baptist church it saddens me to say they have abandoned the old hymns and sing no psalms… it’s all moder (loud) Christian music with electric guitar, bass and drums. It’s so loud I can’t even sing along because I can’t hear myself. I recent visited several other churches in my town none of them sing psalms and only one sung traditional hymns. We’ve really degraded in our worship music in my opinion.

[@jbheavenlyfootman]

I love so much of what you are doing. However, I’m a confessional Lutheran, and your description of our position as “you can do ANYTHING, so long as the Bible does not forbid it,” is horrendously off-base. The historic Lutheran position is definitely not THAT! Rather, we would look to the Scriptures as the final authority as to how we should worship, while also receiving and incorporating into our worship the practices of the catholic (i.e., universal) church, which do not contradict or compromise biblical principles and instructions for Christian worship. Only a cursory glance at examples of confessional Lutheran worship shows the inaccuracy of this description. Thank you for all that you do, but this is problematic.

[@MadreTheotokos]

Orthodox Christianity has sung the Psalms since Christ established them and before when they were Jews. Come to the East ☦️🕊️🙏🏻⚔️

[@Yesica1993]

Why did you have to make me look up the song, "Oceans"? I didn't even turn up the volume so the tune didn't get in my head. The lyrics were enough. The comments under the video I watched were even worse. Some things along the lines of, "It made me believe in myself" and some nonsense in all caps about "I can't wait until we have defeated Covid 19." It was all so "cringe", as the kids on the internet used to say. If this is worship music and if these are the people "worshiping", then come, Lord Jesus! And quickly.

[@Yesica1993]

I didn't grow up in church, much less a Psalm singing one. I had never even heard of Psalm singing as a thing until KZbin came along. This "singing the Psalms" thing is confusing to me. I am the musical sort. Amateur singer. I even used to sing on my worship team years ago. We don't have any of the original music. How can we possibly know the tunes in order to sing them? We have the words, but not the tunes. I wish we had the music! Obviously, no recording equipment existed. I don't even think musical notation existed. Anything we're singing is from tunes written way later by regular humans. The words are Scripture. The tunes are not. What ends up happening is that whatever made up tunes people created for the Psalms end up becoming revered as canon alongside the Bible. That would also include whatever songbooks or other books like the ones you referenced and showed. I know, I know. No Christian would SAY it's equal to Scripture. But that becomes the attitude: "Only the songs we sing in our particular book, and in the style of our particular book are the right ones. Anything outside of that is sinful." I even wonder if there are situations where one church may have a particular tune for a particular Psalm, another church has a different tune for that same Psalm, and they'd fight over which one is the right one approved by God. I haven't seen that. But I wouldn't be surprised. Again, the words are sacred Scripture. Whatever tunes people have made up through the years, are not. The video you showed: Please don't think that all "modern" churches or those outside your tradition are like that! I've been in churches and, again, on the music team, where we did use instruments. We always made sure the songs were biblical. We didn't try to drown out the people in the pews/seats. We were not trying or wanting it to be a performance. We wanted people focusing on Jesus Christ, not on us. We wanted them to be actively participating/singing. The last thing we ever wanted was to be doing a performance. Whether I was singing on the stage or whether it was not my turn to sing and I was with everyone else, those were some of the most profound worship seasons of my life. I know those who were there would say the same thing. I would give anything to have those times back. There are many styles for churches and church music/worship that are between 1) singing Psalms (whether exclusively or inclusively) and 2) the horrible extreme you showed in that other video. I'd walk out if I saw something like that. Please don't think all or most "evangelical" churches (whatever that is) are that way. All of that said, I would love to get into singing the Psalms. I'm having a bit of an issue in my new church where the music is... lacking in some ways. Nothing extreme. Nothing anti-biblical. But leaning more to the "I feel/Jesus loves ME" type songs instead of the more, "Jesus, You are" type songs that are directly focused on Christ. It's in that in between stage where it's very hard to pinpoint the issue. So I can't even say anything to anyone. But sometimes, I do cringe. When I come to church, I want to FORGET about myself. The last thing I want to do is sing about me and how I feel. I want to sing about Christ and who He is. I'm sure many people and churches would be very open to Psalm singing. They just don't know much about it or how to start. That's not the same as rejecting it. Oh, man. Using hymns we already know and putting different words to them, even the Psalms, would scramble my brain and make me crazy. Remember, I'm a musical sort and already have a bazillions songs in my head. But I guess that's just my personal preference. I can't make it into a "thus sayeth the Lord" type of issue. (Whispers: thoughIwishIcould) tl;dr My concern with all of this is that there may arise an attitude of, "The Psalms, and in the tunes we have in our particular book or tradition are the ONLY songs approved by God to be sung. Anything outside of that is sin. Or, at least, inferior." If that were so, God WOULD have given us the exact tunes. Then, no one would have any question about it. The words are Scripture. The tunes and traditions are not.

[@paulbriggs3072]

I hope its not the same Presbyterians who are just fine with homosexual clergy.