Helping One Another to Sing Well

The Place of Unique Ways to Assist Our Common Praise to God

Good Morning,

As I noted last week this will be our last regular post from the Westminster Directory of Public Worship. The rest of the month of August will be some clean up and close out. In September we’ll switch gears to the Directory of Church Government. However, before we do all that we have the third of three messages on the singing of the psalms to get to. Seeing the Lord’s gift in the Psalter at some times in the history of the church of Jesus Christ has been less clear than others. Yet, there has not been a moment since Moses wrote Psalm 90 that the people of God have been without the psalms in their worship. Interestingly enough today’s entry, while certainly touching on the singing of the word of God in the congregation of the holy, is as much a look into the pastoral love and care of the writers of the DPW as anything else.

Some people will tell you that the Puritans, the Scots, and/or the Presbyterians of this period of history, the Seventeenth Century, when the DPW was written were cold, unfeeling, killjoys who looked and sounded more like modern-day Pharisees than those who bore the peace and comfort of men witnessing the heart of Jesus. J.I. Packer and Leland Ryken both wrote books that sought to put to death that misguided idea. The Quest For Godliness and Wordly Saints respectfully are both worth reading to get a real sense for how the Puritan desire to see Jehovah honored in heart and mind was born out of a benevolent grace for the sheep, not a callous prissy submission to the law. As we look at today’s section it is important for us to put ourselves in the shoes of these men. They had in interest in seeing the whole community worship of God. They wanted every member to have and know their right to be a part of the life of Christ and to receive the spiritual mercy available in corporate Lord’s Day worship.

Let’s read the last portion of the Singing of the Psalms together:

That the whole congregation may join herein, every one that can read is to have a psalm book; and all others, not disabled by age or otherwise, are to be exhorted to learn to read. But for the present, where many in the congregation cannot read, it is convenient that the minister, or some other fit person appointed by him and the other ruling officers, do read the psalm, line by line, before the singing thereof.

It was the practice in the seventeenth century Presbyterian church that the psalms were sung exclusively without musical accompaniment. As we discover every week in evening service at Bethany you can’t hide behind the piano or the organ or a guitar in that scenario. Everyone needs to be singing to fill the room up with the joyful noise of the faithful. However, the writers do recognize that not everyone is equally gifted in this way, and so they came up with a solution. In those days the position of precentor was appointed by the elders to help in each worship service.

A precentor was not a new invention of the DPW era. I’ve made note before that the pattern for New Testament worship is not the OT temple, but the synagogue. The word synagogue you likely associate with the building where modern Jews go on their Sabbath for their service, and you would be correct. But they are not a new thing either. There is some disagreement as to when the synagogue first came into existence, whether before or during the Babylonian captivity, yet all are agreed that they were around well before the birth of Jesus Christ. We see our Lord attending there faithfully the weekly worship with His parents and something that He would have seen each week was a man who would lead the singing of the psalms. Ordinarily the person granted such responsibility would give a pitch key and then they would start to sing and everyone would then join in. If you go to a Free Church (Continuing) or Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America worship service today (among others) you would get a good idea of how this is intended to work. It is not as difficult as it sounds, especially if you are used to it.

When it comes to the specific concern of the DPW they are living in an era where there was widespread illiteracy among members of the body of Christ. That meant, as the above quote makes clear, that the precentor was not only going to help the people to sing in tune and tempo, but they would sing the first line or stanza and the congregation would repeat it. Growing up in West Virginia there were Primitive Baptist churches where this lining out process was the norm. They learned it from the Presbyterians. The goal as with everything else in this paragraph of the DPW was so that the whole congregation could be a part of the praise of God. It certainly would not have just been adults unable to read and write that benefited from the act of call and response singing. Children, those with special needs, and men and women who struggle with singing in general would all be engaged in learning the word of the Lord as they lifted up their voice as one unto God in the service of His covenant church in their public duties of worship on the Sabbath.

In closing. while for many reasons we don’t practice this anymore at Bethany, it is an interesting thing to consider, and may be worth our doing on the Lord’s Day evening as we learn the Psalm of the month together. If you come next Sunday, you might see it at our gathering at 5:30pm. The church should always be seeking ways to not only improve our singing, but to witness to the body of Christ working together in love to give honor unto Heaven in this section of the worship service. Imagine how the lining out of the Bible Song or hymn in our case might help you to focus on the words that we are using? It’s an interesting prospect. We should always seek to do all things well in our worship, and in a sense practicing our singing to God can be as important as learning how to pray well, how to read the Bible correctly, etc... It was certainly on the minds of our forefathers in the faith, hence their directions to close out this section on psalm singing.

Last word:

https://thereformedlife.net/2022/05/23/a-theology-of-singing

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church