Get a Psalm Stuck In Your Head
God's songbook is meant to be sung.
A Very, Very Short History of Psalm Singing
These days it’s easy to overlook the fact that there’s a songbook in the middle of the Bible. The Psalms, of course, were the hymns of ancient Israel. But many Christians today would never think of singing them word-for-word.
Yet for centuries, this was the norm. Acts chapter 4 says that believers “lifted their voices” to sing Psalm 2. In fact, instruction to Christians to sing psalms shows up repeatedly in the New Testament (Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16, James 5:13). Jesus and his disciples likely sung psalms (Matthew 26:30, Mark 14:26).
Centuries later, psalm singing was still widespread. Eusebius became the bishop of Caesaria in the early 300s, writing:
The command to sing Psalms in the name of the Lord was obeyed by everyone in every place: for the command to sing is in force in all churches which exist among nations, not only the Greeks but also throughout the whole world, and in towns, villages and in the fields.1
In his Confessions, written around 400, Augustine agrees:
The Psalms are sung throughout the whole world and none can hide himself from Your heat.2
In the Middle Ages, monks in the monasteries founded by Benedict of Nursia chanted each of the 150 psalms weekly.
During the Reformation, Luther and other reformers created versions of psalms that ordinary people could sing in a local language, rather than Latin.
In America, it wasn’t until the 1800s—the Civil War era—that hymns gradually replaced psalms in Sunday worship. Ninety percent of church history came before this change! Although we now take it for granted that our worship lyrics will be of recent vintage, the shift was controversial at the time.3
The Word Within
What we’ve lost isn’t just active participation in a work of the Word and the Spirit. When believers stop singing Scripture, most also stop memorizing it.
Yes, psalm singing accomplishes the dreaded chore of Scripture memorization. When such singing is part of weekly worship, believers routinely learn God’s Word by heart.
But of course, few Christians today sing psalms. And what’s filling our minds instead of Scripture? Advertisements telling us to covet things we don’t need. Songs that lift up sex as a god. Angry screeds. Empty gossip. The world pours all of this and more into our hearts and minds every day. Historically, it happened that psalm singing faded from the life of the church just as new audio technologies began to fill our ears with every other imaginable sound.
What’s a Disciple to Do?
Maybe you’re convinced now. You’re ready to push back against the noisy void and start singing psalms. Only one problem: your church, for all its strengths, probably doesn’t sing Scripture on Sunday morning. In fact, you might not know a single believer who really engages Psalms as a songbook.
Start anyway. Then tell a friend what you’re up to. See where God takes it. I learned about psalm singing through a ministry called Theopolis. Here’s their version of Psalm 23:
Yes, the simple, ancient melodies of traditional psalm singing are an acquired taste. But spend time with them and you could soon find them every bit as captivating as modern tunes.
If you’re eager for something catchier in the meantime, listen to this jazz version of Psalm 1 made with AI. I made this some months back and since decided to stop using AI to make music. But for now I’ve left up the few tracks I produced this way. Maybe it will spark your human creativity.
And do your own digging into the psalm singing that’s out there. I’ve only scratched the surface and would love to know what you find.
The summary of historical psalm singing and quotes are from this article: https://rpwitness.org/article/the-history-of-psalm-singing-in-the-christian-church-1
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110109.htm (chapter 4, section 8)
I love this idea! I stopped listening to secular music when I became a Christian as I realised most of my old favourites were always singing about the devil and Lucifer etc. I really like Poor Bishop Hooper who have made beautiful songs for every psalm although they don’t always sing every word so not so good for full psalm memorization but I will try to search out some other options.
I was born again in a Jesus Peoples Church in 1975. I cannot number the songs we sang straight out of the Psalms. The amount of scripture that was memorized in those years, through the simple act of singing is astounding. It holds me in good stead still today, almost 50 years later.