David's Song: The Amazing Secret of Psalm 23

“It’s the music. Our pastor doesn’t use the old songs of the church, the ones I grew up with. Instead he has all kinds of new songs and choruses. Scriptures. The psalms. And I don’t like it.”

“I understand your problem,” I told him. “I know how you feel.”

Truthfully, I do understand and I do know how he feels. I grew up with the songs of John and Charles Wesley, Fanny Crosby, P.P. Bliss, and D.S. Warner. These were the “old” songs. Written in the last part of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, these were the heritage songs. I know them. And I love them.

But these are not the songs that Jesus sang when he worshiped in the synagogue. Strange to say, those century-old songs are the new ones. They are not the songs that the Hebrews chanted as they made mud bricks under Egypt’s blistering sun.

Interesting, even laughable, that we should have forgotten. The Scriptures set to music is not new. They are the old songs. Psalms especially were written to be sung. Even in the twentieth century. Even by people who resent their “newness” as they long for the tunes of their childhood.

The psalms are songs of power. Strange power. Almost incredible power.

Let me tell you two fascinating stories that hint at this power, this magic of songs.