Posted by: Stuart Townend
Filed under: Songwriting, Theology
Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs
So it’s important that lyrics are true and reliable if people are going to sing them and allow them to feed truth into their daily lives. So does that mean we should restrict our song content to Scripture quotations?
While there’s a strong argument for saying “yes”, it is clear from Scripture and church history that the people of God have always benefited from contemporary expressions of eternal doctrine applied and expressed in a way that their generation can easily grasp. The meaning and content of Scripture should always be central to the songwriter’s work; but there is value in moving beyond the mere reciting of Scripture in order to explore the meaning, much as a preacher might do in a sermon.