What is the importance of hymns in worship? Dr. Ligon Duncan reflects on the importance of congregational singing in worship, explaining how hymns help us understand and articulate biblical truth.
I love hymns. But more than simply loving hymns, I realize how edifying hymns are for us as we sing praise to God in the public gathering of the saints. The singing of the saints in the congregation is designed to do several things at the same time.
The Corporate Importance of Hymns
Number one, it’s designed for us together to praise God with the same lips and voices, lifting up words of true Scriptural praise to the one true and living God. And so it actually pulls us together as a congregation. Another thing that hymns do is they exhort one another. I think how often hymns actually address our brothers and sisters in Christ. When they say things like “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation,” that sentence is actually addressed to one another. We’re saying, “Hey, let’s praise the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation, together.” And I need that exhortation from my brothers and sisters in Christ.
In times of trial, when we can’t think of words to say, things that we have sung come to mind.Sometimes I come to church, and the last thing that I am truly prepared for is to give myself in glorifying God in the public worship of God. And I need the exhortation of my brothers and sisters saying, “Let us praise the Lord together. Let us come into his courts with praise and with thanksgiving.” And so, so often in what we sing, we’re actually exhorting one another to praise God.
The Personal Importance of Hymns
Another thing that hymns do is that they unite our heads and our hearts—what we believe, our convictions about the truth of God’s Word, and our devotion to God. And they are expressed together with our voices, and in a mysterious way, it actually mingles our convictions and our devotion and impresses deeply on us what we are singing as true. That’s why so often in the hour of death, we remember songs that we sang years and years ago, and those words come to mind. Or in times of trial, when we can’t think of words to say, things that we have sung come to mind. Of course, singing hymns helps us memorize Scripture and other sound biblical theological truth. But it especially mingles conviction and devotion and thus presses those truths deeper into our hearts.
