by Randall Goodgame
“Know ye what a hymn is? It is a song with praise of God.”
—Augustine of Hippo
In the summer of 1984, I hopped a few fences and walked along a sea wall to our pastor’s yard where “Brother Bill” taught me to throw his twelve-foot cast net into the canal. I remember his patience as I tangled the net around my skinny sixth-grade frame. I remember the taste of salt water and seaweed as I crunched the nylon rope between my teeth, and I remember his measured praise when I finally hauled in a few small bait fish. But I don’t remember any of his sermons.
I do, however, remember every word of “Because He Lives,” “Amazing Grace,” “Victory in Jesus,” “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “How Great Thou Art,” “It Is Well with My Soul,” and “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” From youth group I remember “Great Is the Lord,” “He Has Made Me Glad,” “Seek Ye First,” and “Father, I Adore You.” And my college’s Methodist chapel taught me “Come Thou Fount,” “Rock of Ages,” and “Be Thou My Vision.” Because of my childhood pastor, I can toss a cast net into a pretty circle. But I know the Gospel because I remember the songs.
Music helps people remember things. And music memories conjure much more than just information. Like “muscle memory,” music memories betray hidden workings of the human mind that we take for granted. Mysteriously, they can carry emotions and insight, scent and taste. In the time it takes to hear a melody, a whole world can flood our consciousness.
I wasn’t thinking so deeply when I first put scripture to music, however. The songs were simply problem solvers—helping our home-schooled kids memorize their weekly bible verses. But the practice helped me remember them, too. I wrote more and more scripture songs for myself, and eventually recorded them for the families that participated in my children-and-family music ministry called Slugs & Bugs.
That’s when the stories started—stories from parents about scripture-inspired conversations with their children–in the car, at the dinner table, at bedtime. Often through tears of gratitude, parents spoke of God’s word becoming a constant, living, life-changing presence in their home. The power of singing scripture surprised them as it had surprised me, and I understood their passion.
What do we do with these lives that we’ve been given? What do we do with our dreams, our bodies, our children, our gifts? And why is this all so hard? By grace, God’s word sifts through these questions for us. The two testaments lift the curtain on the eternal realm and reveal the untouchable beauty of God. Through history, prophecy, and poetry, our own story diminishes into the bigger story of God’s creation, his holiness, his justice, and his passion for us. In the life and words of Jesus, through the testimony of the apostles, we learn that God’s love and mercy is available to everyone, and we learn how “he gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us and to make us his very own.”
It’s all in the Bible. The words are thousands of years old, and we need them every hour. This is where those parents’ tears came from–a wellspring of gratitude for having gained familial intimacy with the immeasurably valuable word of God.
In the fall of 2021, I began to wonder, “What if this kind of revival—a revival of biblical literacy and spiritual growth through song–could happen in the church?”
By that time I had years of experience writing scripture songs, but a congregational scripture song is a bird of a different feather. Congregational songs require predictable rhythmic patterns and melodies that are simple enough to catch quickly–while still being interesting enough to inspire. And, they rhyme. Rhyming isn’t an option for scripture songs, so with only melody and rhythm to work with, a song could wind up as useful as a two-legged stool. Renowned twentieth-century hymnologist Erik Routley called hymns “songs for unmusical people to sing together,” but even unmusical people can tell a good song from a bad one.
Eventually, I felt called to create a hymnal of congregational scripture songs for the church. But like Eusebius, the early church historian, I felt “inadequate to do it justice.”
So I prayed for help–specifically for collaborative community–so that other voices could speak into the creative work of shaping bible verses into hymns. And truly, the Lord answered that prayer with blessings beyond measure, as the vision for the Scripture Hymnal grew and became a wonderfully collective work.
In all, twelve gifted songwriters joined the writing process—all devoted believers who love Jesus and the gospel. Other passionate souls worked on arrangements and copyright permissions and scripture readings and illustrations and book design. Dozens of churches from around the world participated in our pilot program, giving us crucial real-world feedback about using these hymns in worship services. And thirty-five worship leaders and pastors from Nashville and beyond contributed essential guidance and creative counsel on every song, eventually helping us shape 106 word-for-word scripture songs for the church. Those songs are now in your hands because of the effort, care, and enthusiasm of that earthly host—and I am so grateful.
Over the last few years, I’ve taken up flower gardening as a hobby. In my first attempt at growing perennials from seed, I almost lost two trays of creeping thyme. Under the grow-lamp in my garage, 144 seedlings sprang to life, then grew spindly and flopped flat–like a tangled spill of leftover rice noodles.
In distress, I called my master-gardener friend, Julie. She surveyed my setup and told me not to worry. My tiny plants were thin and weak because the grow-light was too far away. Obediently, I lowered the light to just above the seedlings–and waited.
Three years later, the stone steps that lead down from the garage are girded in green with cascading clouds of creeping thyme–all from that first planting. The sight and scent are a delight, blanketing the descent into the garden with tiny pink blooms from June to September.
People, like plants, need the right conditions to thrive. And as we grow in Christ, God’s word is our light, our food, and our weapon for battle against the enemy. We need it close, and when we sing scripture, it can get no closer. It joins our breath and vibrates inside our bodies with that mysterious engine of hidden powers: Music.
The truth found in scripture stays the same whether read or sung, but it’s the singing that often brings me to tears. It’s the singing that ignites my memory, creating a priceless storehouse of God’s holy word, always ready for the Spirit of the Lord to bring it to mind.
This is my hope and prayer for this hymnal–that, through song, God will weave his word into our minds and renew our hearts so that he might be glorified in the world. Like sunlight in the garden, God’s beautiful word makes us beautiful. We are set free to forget about ourselves–free to rest and rejoice in the wellspring of God’s love, energized by the compassion and wisdom of Jesus.
Music is a mysterious and powerful gift, given by the Great Mystery himself, and if scripture songs can help us dwell on him, grow in him, and bring him glory in the church, then “Come, let us sing unto the Lord!”
