Why Should We Sing the Psalms?

(The Psalm-Writing Testimony of Joe Tyrpak)

1. Why should we sing the Psalms?

The psalms are songs. In other words, they were originally written as poetry to be sung. As songs, then, these compositions cannot be fully understood or experienced (as God intended them to be) apart from singing. Experiencing the Psalms in a non-musical way would be like trying to experience Beethoven’s symphonies by reading his sheet music.

Further, Psalms are God-breathed songs. The book of Psalms comprised the only God-breathed hymnal in existence. That should carry some weight in corporate worship!

Lastly, the New Testament urges believers to sing Psalms both by example and command. Apparently Jesus led his disciples in singing a psalm after the last supper (Matthew 26:30). Worship in the early church included Psalm-singing (1 Corinthians 14:26). And, New Testament believers are clearly urged to sing Psalms as an evidence of Spirit-controlled living (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16).

2. Why are you writing new metrical versions of the Psalms?

These new compositions came out of a search to find a way that our church could sing the Psalms in worship. My search began with three possible options that I ruled out for various reasons.

My first proposed solution was to simply sing the Psalms that are included in our hymnal. To name a few, our hymnal includes “Search me, O God” (from Psalm 13 9:23 –24), “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” (from Psalm 90), “How Majestic is Your Name” (from Psalm 8), “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” (from Psalm 23), “Joy to the World” (from Psalm 98:4–9) and “Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven” (based on Psalm 103). Though I greatly love these hymns, this solution was insufficient for these reasons: (1) The hymnal contains very few of the 150 Psalms. (2) In most cases, the Psalm-based hymns which are in the hymnal are fairly loose meditations based on the Psalms rather than the actual Psalms themselves. (3) In most cases, each Psalm-based hymn only covered a portion of the Psalm it was based on. In other words, after singing the Psalm-based hymns in our hymnal, our church couldn’t really claim that we actually sang the Psalms.

Second, I considered singing from the historic English psalters. Many well-known English psalters have been printed ever since Gutenburg invented the printing press: 1562, 1564, 1640, 1650, 1696, and 1719, to mention some. There is a great website (www.cgmusic.com) that has all of these psalters and more. However, this option had several drawbacks as well: (1) Most of these Psalms are full of awkward grammatical inversions and archaic language. (2) Further, many seemed to evidence a forced and unartistic wedding of text and music. (3) I also had some problems with the tunes themselves. Although I am not a musician, I sensed that many of the old tunes were more of a logical conglomeration of notes rather than an artistically crafted and emotionally engaging piece of music. Therefore, I did not believe that it would be worth the years of effort to teach our people these tunes with which they were unfamiliar.

The last option I considered was using a modern psalter. To this point, the best that I have come across are The Book of Psalms for Singing and the Trinity Psalter (both of which are published by Crown & Covenant, Pittsburgh). These are outstanding publications especially because they are translations rather than paraphrases. However, I didn’t go with this option primarily because these metrical Psalms still employed archaic language which inhibits understanding, and, therefore, inhibits worship. (I am excited that Crown & Covenant is presently in a decade–long process of translating a new modern–English metrical Psalter).

So, having ruled out those options, I decided to try to begin writing my own metrical versions of several Psalms.

3. Why do all of your Psalms end with Christ?

As soon as I started attempting to compose, I learned two things. First, I discovered one of the most engaging and enjoyable methods of Bible meditation. I now refer to writing Bible–based poetry as “Biblical meditation on steroids.” Second, I discovered that the Psalms were explicitly and implicitly saturated with Jesus Christ. Therefore, I immediately felt that these metrical Psalms would be incomplete without incorporating the New Testament fulfillments in Jesus Christ (though I have taken a different approach from Watts in his Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament–rather than being interlaced throughout, the Christological references are reserved for the conclusion so that the closest approximation to the God-breathed Psalm can be sung).

In the end, my versions of the Psalms follow these six self–imposed guidelines. First, these metrical Psalms are complete Psalms. Second, they are paraphrases because paraphrasing allows more liberty in the Hebrew–to–metrical–English jump and because it allows for slightly interpretive explanations to aid in understanding. Third, they are written in contemporary language. Fourth, I composed each with a tune in mind—one that is fairly well–known and one that is appropriate in its emotional expressiveness. The familiarity of the tune allows for immediate usage. Writing with the tune in mind also ensured a more natural wedding of text to music. Fifth, I have written each Psalm with at least one stanza that shows the Psalm’s explicit or implicit references to the Lord Jesus Christ. Lastly, I have written with the goal that these Psalms be in public domain and available for any church to use without expense, provided that the stipulations explained at ChurchWorksMedia.com are honored.

My desire is that these metrical Psalms would rivet your attention in worship on the Lord Jesus, whose person and work is the heart of the entire Bible, and the heart of the Psalms.

Joseph Tyrpak
Assistant Pastor, Tri-County Bible Church

Tags: Psalm singing, Worship: Intentional