The Rise Of The Scripture Song

The Scripture song is one of the most popular musical forms used in worship today. Although scriptural texts have been the basis for the church's music throughout its history, recent historical developments have led to unprecedented use of songs based on short fragments of scriptural texts. During the last several decades the Christian community has witnessed a vast explosion of hymnody. Some of these new songs are produced by gifted authors, people like Timothy Dudley-Smith or Margaret Clarkson, who write hymns that build on the heritage of Christian hymnody. But a larger part of this "hymn explosion" is Scripture songs-actual scriptural texts or paraphrases of Scripture set to music, often in a popular style. Such Scripture songs are now used in almost every Christian church. You'll hear them in the "upstairs" church during worship, at church society meetings of young and old, in church concerts, and certainly at Bible-study meetings. Scripture songs have become an integral part …