Music

Commandments Concerning Hymnals

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When the time shall come upon thee that thou art ready to prepare the hearts of the people for the sermon then shalt thou stand before the congregation and shall instruct them to take up their hymnal and either sing or make a “joyful noise” — for that is a a joke that shall never grow old (never grow old). And the people shall stand and sing at the sound of thy command and they shall raise their hymnbooks from the little racks on the backs of the pews and then proceed to not look at them at all for they know all the words already. And they shall lift of their voices to sing on the one and four for in such doth the Lord delight.

And from the Majesty Hymnal and the Soul-Stirring Songs and Hymns and the Songs & Hymns of Revival thou shalt surely sing. For the songs therein may contain the occasional Gaither number but they have long since been cleaned up and added to the canon of songs in which the Lord delights (as long as thou shalt accompany them only by piano). And if thou art in any wise uncertain as to whether or not any other hymnal is up to snuff then simply check the words to At the Cross and if they have conspired to remove the word “worm” from the first verse then chuck it. But of the responsive readings in the back of the hymnal we give no commandment because we’re not even sure why they’re there.

And thou shalt in no wise conspire to to use a video projector to replace the hymn book for this is a great and terrible step towards wanton use of hands in worship. For in the day that thou shalt let any person have their hands unencumbered by a hymnal then shalt come terrible temptation to clap them together or raise them above shoulder level or wave them in the air like they just don’t care. For such displays are an abomination in the sight of the pastor who shall then begin to suspect that people are enjoying the music more than the sermon which follows.

But of the holding of the hymnal the following rules apply. It shall in no wise be the case with the unmarried couples that they both touch the hymnal for the man should with great care hold the hymnal for both parties and he shall hold it at an awkward angle where neither of them can see to avoid all appearance of evil and flirty fingers. Married couples may hold the hymnal together with one hand on each side as long as they promise to keep their minds on the singing and not engage in finger hanky-panky either.

So shalt thou dwell in the church with gladness and so shalt thy children and thy children’s children learn the music that was only written in the last century or so but is better than everything that has ever come before it or shall ever be written afterward. And thou shalt keep them on the straight and narrow and rhythmless path forever.

Independent Baptist Book of Everlasting Rules and Requirements p 664.

134 thoughts on “Commandments Concerning Hymnals”

  4. By the time I got to “wave them in the air like they just don’t care” I was laughing out loud. My two-year-old had to come see what was so funny.

    2. Me too. These are always my favorite kind of posts and I nearly always giggle through them, but that bit was so unexpected that I completely lost it in a way that I’m sure is unsuitable for a school library. 😳

  5. Let us not forget that Hymn numbers are not the same as page numbers and that even thought a hymnal might contain over 500 songs, we’ll only use about 25 or 30 of them.

    1. YES. Yes yes yes!
      Both my old and current fundy church used the Soul-Stirring book. And yes, both ignore at least half of the songs. The funny thing? Both ignored almost all of the same songs. There are three, maybe four songs that we sing at the current and not at the old, but almost exactly the same ones. Why??

      1. Our church used “Soul Stirring” hymnbook but we sang almost every song. At college I took a class with Mrs. Colsten at HAC (class was hymns? or song-leading? or something)with this hymnbook as the textbook. (same hymnal FBC uses) Mrs. Colsten went through the hymnal song by song highlighting which ones FBC uses. Her excuse most of the time for not using certain songs was “no one knows those songs so it’s hard for the congregation to sing along.” The funny thing is she would try to prove her point by asking “Has anyone ever heard this song” – to which I would inevitable always raise my hand. She stopped that around hymn 100.

        1. Should have figured we use it just because FBC does 🙄 Three more months, just three more months, I can do this!!

      2. I don’t know what’s worse, only singing the same few, or, as in my former fundy church, when the song leader feels the need to justify buying a new hymnal and making the congregation suffer through insanely boring and long hymns that are “new” to the congregation, ugh! I could barely tolerate that before I left, I would be so inwardly groaning as the song droned on. Another fundy favorite is to pick hymns with words to add guilt effect to the sermon both before and after. It was SO obviously done.

        Darrell, every time you post one of these exerpts I am SO tempted to print it out and cut out any identifying marks and conveniently leave a few copies at the information desk at the old fundy church. The only problem with that is that I couldn’t hide and see the looks on the people’s faces as they read them! Well written fearless leader, well written! 😆 😎

  6. I do have most of the songs practically memorized (except sometimes that third verse that usually gets left out in most fundy churches but NOT in my new church, we usually sing all of the verses! A lot of times I am guilty of holding the book and singing from memory. 😆

    This had a chance to be tested out two Sunday mornings ago when I had misplaced my glasses and I can’t read without them. 😮 And wouldn’t you know that’s the morning our ladies choir had to go up and sing? 😯 I did that from memory plus all of the congregational singing. Well I have been saved for 37 years and I have always been good at memorizing. 😀

    However though this church uses two songbooks, the above mentioned Majesty hymnal and Soul Stirring Songs and Hymns, most Sunday evening services we use the dreaded projector with words on the screen. Being I’m far sighted I can read that without my glasses, hallelujah! :mrgreen:

    My husband and I do not like sharing a songbook since I have to have the thing practically in my face to see the words. He’s a foot taller than I am so that makes it hard for him to see it. 🙁

    1. In a former fundy church, I was called out more than once by a staff member if I did not have the hymnal in hand (I had the words to the 20 or so songs they sang memorized)… but he wanted me to give the appearance of participating, so I had to have the song book in my hands.

      1. I was also told by someone who (I guess) had a right to tell me what to do that I shouldn’t hold the hymnal down too low because then I would be singing down into it, and I shouldn’t hold it up too high because it would block my view of the song leader, so there was a “just right” place to hold it. Balancing it on the pew ahead of me was also a definate no no. Oh and always maintain a smiling and joyous countenance while singing… very important so the people on the stage know you are HAPPY to be there. (even if you are not)

        1. I too remember how “rebellious it was to place your hymnal on the back of the chair in front of you…really?! REALLY?!! No wonder a lot of us are so skittish when we get out. Can’t even perform the smallest task without fear of upsetting “god.” Ugh

    2. At my former fundy church they do now use the projecter for a lot of the songs but the song leader purposely tells everyone to get their hymnals and turn to number whatever and the words never appear on the screen until you have already gotten the hymnal and turned to the page, very annoying since when you wear reading glasses you have already gotten them out and found the song in vain because you’d rather (I’d rather) just look up at the screen. Why are fundys so freaking annoying??? End of this rant. Tonight, I am going to church and the worship on Wednesday nights is SUCH A BLESSING!!! YaY… 😀

      1. Isn’t it nice to be going to a church where you look forward to Wednesday night service? Instead of dreading it like I did my old fundy church first because the service had to be preceded by the boring Sunday school teacher meeting where the pastor only instructed us as to how to teach the lesson, what a bore!

        As for them telling you to look it up in the book when it was going to flash on the screen requiring you to get out your glasses and find it, and acting like for some reason that made you better, that seems to be so fundy, as if going through more effort somehow pleases the Lord. Why do they think that? I remember one woman telling me she always wore her most uncomfortable clothes to church because she thought that would please God. I thought that was ridiculous. I told her I’d rather be comfortable at church since the sermon was so long and I would rather be paying attention to that rather than wishing he’d hurry up and finish so I could get home and get those uncomfortable clothes off. Where is it written that discomfort or more effort is more godly than comfort or taking a short cut? 👿

        1. I remember the founder of my former fundy church screaming a sermon about where in the Bible did it say women had a right to comfort???? 🙄

  7. I used to know most of the song numbers by heart: but only because I would arrange the songs for my dad to play from every Sunday. Three years of that and I was pretty good!

    1. Also, Darrell/Dar-El, these “commandments” are the absolute funniest. Keep them going please!!

  8. And back to the point I orginally wanted to make; the rule of 3 or more verses. If the hymn is more than 3 verses long the first two and the last verse shall be the only ones sung. There were a lot of songs that I never heard the middle verses to as a kid (although I could and did read them during the sermon if I got bored, which was often).

    1. Yep, it was the same story at my old church also. Many hymns have four verses, and in those, we’d only do the first, second, and fourth. If a hymn had three verses, we’d usually skip the middle one.

      I guess one more verse would have taken away precious time for an extra rant that the preacher wanted to squeeze into his “sermon.” On second thought, I don’t think that was the reason, because he’d take however much time he wanted, no matter how many crock pots were dangerously close to combustion at home.

      1. I think this is a North/South thing, not a fundy thing. Every fundy church in the South I’ve ever attended sings all the verses. Every fundy church in the North I’ve ever attended sings just the first and last.

  10. When someone here told me about the “no sharing hymnals” rule, I couldn’t believe it. In the church I grew up in, it was the usual practice to share a hymnal (or Bible) with whomever sat next to you– man, woman, or child. And often both people did put their hands on the book, and as far as I can remember, they didn’t appear aroused by this proximity. Obviously, we were apostates.

    1. I guess what I’m saying is that the Baptist purdah that many of you have experienced seems to be exclusive to the IFB. I don’t know of other Christian groups who practice it.

      Rules on modesty of dress are fairly common, but the rest of it– no touching the same book, no riding in the same car, no walking on the same sidewalk– is exclusive to the IFB in my experience.

    2. In my home church, it was considered polite to share a hymnal with anyone nearby who needed one. It wasn’t until I got to BJU that I became aware of all the complicated hymn-holding rules. I did LIKE it when my date held the hymnal for us both — it seemed chivalrous — but it also looked awkward and uncomfortable. It’s kind of funny that there were probably lots of couples all over the amphitorium outward singing praise to God but inwardly he was trying to keep his arm from trembling and she was feeling guilty that she didn’t dare reach up and help him balance the hymnal!

      It also doesn’t help when your fiance is eight inches taller than you are! It seems then the hymnal is either at your nose level or at his belly button!

      1. It is awkward. Those hymnals are heavy, and in order to share one, you have to hold it out at this weird distance where you can’t quite use your body to support your arm. I’m not a guy, but every so often I would end up standing next to some girl who refused to share the hymnal. I was always irritated because it’s uncomfortable to hold the hymnal for two people.

        I also always felt awkward when a strange guy ended up holding a hymnal for me because of the hymnal/seat ratio. It always made things feel weirdly intimate. I guess that’s just another example of how the “OMG THERE ARE TWO SEXES OF HUMANS” rules make everything a bigger deal than it would otherwise be.

        1. Great point. The over-sexualized and highly carnal nature of many IFB contexts is not only unchristian, it is baffling to me.

    3. Clearly, we of an earlier generation were much better at keeping our carnal impulses under control than those lust filled youngsters of today. 😉

  12. This is slightly off-topic, but I love the memory, so you will have to bear with me, or just skim by.

    My first date with my late husband was for Wednesday night church at FBC Hammond. As a HAC faculty member, it was suggested I be “visible” at church (sigh) so we were downstairs, not too far from the front. My new date held the hymn book (Yes, Soul-Stirring) for both of us, and when the singing began, I became angry with him, because of the mocking way he was singing this great old hymn. In fact, I frowned, and determined then and there that this was the first and last date. He noticed the frown, and said, “Don’t you like this hymn? It is one of my favorites!” Turns out, he really was just that awful of a singer. He was plenty good at other things, though. 😉 😳

  13. I never thought of the “holding a hymnal” as a way of keeping peoples’ hands out of the air, but now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense.

    Also: “finger hanky-panky”…only in Fundyism. 😀

  14. oh precious memories. once when my then 15 or 16 year old was song leading on Wednesday night (must have been week of pastor school, they were probably scraping the bottom of the barrel), and I could never get this child to improve his handwriting, and he was up there and couldn’t read his own note, and didn’t know which song was up. He had to consult the piano player. aaah, moments that make motherhood worth while. 😀

  15. there really are rules for holding hymnals and bibles? nobody ever tells me anything. are you serious?

      1. The one we always got pointed to was somewhere where it says, “It is not good that a man should touch a woman…” I don’t know if that is really in there, but I sure did hear it a lot.

      2. You’ll find these doctrines in the Inspired Hymns, carefully encoded in the third verse of each song. This is the reason why lay-persons in the church are not aloud to sing, and thus learn, these verses. Only the man-o-gawd can properly understand them, and he doesn’t want his sheeple to become confused. I suspect that that is actually where the “Independent Baptist Book of Everlasting Rules and Requirements” is originally found. 😉

        1. My husband says the reason for skipping the third verse is that most people during the golden age of hymnody were not dispensationalists and the third verse tends to be where the covenant theology shows up.

  16. Ah, stories about hymnbooks. 🙂 Thanks Dar-El!

    Point of order:”And they shall lift of their voices to sing on the one and four for in such doth the Lord delight.” If this was in reference to good/bad rhythms it should be 1-3; 2-4 is the bad one and, verily, this 1-4 beat doth have the appearance of compromise. It is neither cold nor hot and thus shalt be spewn out 😉

  17. When my hubby and I were dating at BJU, we went to a very small church on Sunday evenings. Small enough that nobody else sat in the pew with us, and polite enough that nobody sat directly behind us. And thus did we get away with both of us holding the hymnbook and our hands touching from time to time, yea verily, his hand was occasionally directly covering mine. And it was very good. And also kind of pathetic.

  18. Very funny post. Y’all really have a hymnal called Soul-Stirring Hymns? I will have to look that one up.

  19. I am pretty sure this is the funniest one yet. I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to sit in the back for the rest of my classes today because the random laughter attacks just won’t stop. Can these be collected in one group on the site so any time I have a bad day I know where to go? If not, I might have to do it myself and put it in my e-reader for constant access. 😆

    1. I’d buy a Kindle copy of Independent Baptist Book of Everlasting Rules and Requirements if it also contained the latest edition of Fundy Rules.

  20. Pure. Brilliance.

    But what about using the Hymnal as a way of separating young people of the opposite sex? One Hymnal between each kid.

    I want to know what comes on page 666 of the IBBERR.

    1. But how do you place the hymnal? Hymnal flat on its back, on on it’s binding? Landscape or portrait?

      1. In all 3 IBF churchs (and Christian Day Schools) I was part of growing up it was always on its back. Six inches was the commandment for that. Staff members would even walk around with one in their hand so as to make sure the mrasurement was exact.

        2. That is how I remember it. Laying on its back longways between the couple. Also could use a Schofield Bible, but not one of those small ones, only the full sized one.

        3. I was always getting in trouble, because I thought it was funny when staff did that between myself and girls that I wasn’t interested in. If they were looking for sin there they probably weren’t guessing what the real sin was. The real sin was that I was (gasp!) dating public school girls. OK, I had to sneak around some, but I didn’t have to worry about all of those silly rules. And if anyone is thinking bad about those public school girls, let me assure you that they were all fine Christian young ladies (just not IBF).

    2. There isn’t a page 666; if and when it gets that big they will either skip the pages, or they’ll split it into sections, and restart each section at page 1: there will be a 1-13, 1-14,… 1-123 followed by 2-1, 2-2…

      🙂

  21. We had “Great Hymns of the Faith” in the GARB church I grew up in. I was shocked when I started to attend a United Methodist church, and we sang all the verses, didn’t have someone up front swirling their arms around like a Dutch windmill, and we always stood. We even sang an a-men at the end of each hymn. They took them out of the newest hymnal.

    Here are some rules that I think make more sense. They are still in the front of the United Methodist Hymnal.

    John Wesley’s Rules for Singing

    •Learn these tunes before you learn any others; afterwards learn as many as you please.
    •Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.
    •Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing.
    •Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard, than when you sung the songs of Satan.
    •Sing modestly. Do not bawl, so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy harmony, but strive to unite your voices together, so as to make one clear melodious sound.
    •Sing in time. Whatever time is sung be sure to keep with it. Do not run before nor stay behind it; but attend close to the leading voices, and move therewith as exactly as you can; and take care not to sing too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.
    •Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.
    From John Wesley’s Select Hymns, 1761

    1. I love that “Sing lustily and with a good courage.”

      I find it very discouraging when a congregation seems afraid of its own voices.

    2. I like the rules, but “Sing lustily and with a good courage” seems to contradict the “Sing modestly”

    3. Love these encouragements to sing from the soul. I remember the description in one of Eric Liddell’s biographies of his family singing in church with great energy and not always in tune. Always good to the ears to have both music skill and heartiness to the singing if possible, but don’t let lack of skill inhibit you.

    4. Oh heaven forfend! “let not your heart be carried away with the sound”, don’t enjoy the music now… you don’t want to miss out on your reward… Yuck. 😐

  22. My favorite use of a hymnal to this day is during long boring sermons – go through and add the phrase “in the bathtub” to the end of song titles.

    That tip came while I was in high school from my fundie youth pastor, believe it or not…

      1. Yeah, the only downside of it is that when you get to pages in the hymnal like “He Was Wounded For Our Transgressions” it’s really really hard to laugh quietly…

    2. We did the same gag, except we added “between the sheets” to each hymn title.

      Another one was seeing how many hymn lyrics you can sing to pop tunes like, for example, “House of the Rising Sun” (a lot of them, actually).

      Classic adolescent silliness …

      1. I really like Amazing Grace to that tune. Sydney Anglicans did it a lot, the awful worldly creatures the were (I mention Sydney in conjunction with anglicans, because they are completely different to every other anglican synod in Australia).

        1. Once you have heard Amazing Grace to the Gilligan’s Island theme, you have a hard time hearing it any other way.

  24. I read this while listening to Stevie Nicks. Think any of her songs would be in those hymnals? 😈

  25. If the 3rd verse is always going to be skipped, then shouldn’t every 3rd verse from the Bible be skipped?

  26. I remember in high school touching fingers with my boyfriend under the hymbook. (And I remember feeling SO GUILTY for doing it.) We also touched fingers on purpose when we passed the offering plate and the communion trays. And just look at how bad I turned out. So that proves something. 😐

    1. SMH. Poor Sims. This site is all about grace, Dear. You have done very well, despite your nefarious past. 😉

  27. I remember one hymnal from a funday church that had a list of the favorite hymns of famous mog’s. Man-centered worship much?

      1. Was it Rescue the Perishing? Or Higher Ground? I remember there used to be a whole hymnal that was called “Jack Hyles favorite Hymns.” Or maybe now I am just delusional.

        1. It was “Blessed Assurance,” and was listed as his favorite in S-Ss&H. 🙄 But he sure quoted “Higher Ground” a lot. RGL’s was “Behold, He Comes,” and Wendell made us sing it over and over or his visit, our frehman year. I do not recall a hymn book for JH, but it could be. To this day, I wish I could FORGET hos favorite candy bar…. Grrrr. 👿

        3. I have done both, lo these many decades since, but wish he did not spring to the mind like some vile whiff from a sewer… 👿

      1. You rock, Dar-El! I messed up on RGL. It WAS “Majestic…”. And Wendell madevus sing both. I guess he wanted to hear the impressive HAC student body sing ” Behold.”. Whatever. How weird they list those men in a hymn book, further glorifying them.. What a list! 😯 🙄

  28. Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Especially the line about waving hands in the air like we just don’t care…I’m still LOLing.

  30. I remember the Soul-Stirring Hymns and Songs for the controversy; it was published by Sword of the Lord (SOTL), and Curtis Hudson had rewritten many (if not all) of the songs that had “repent” or “repentance”h in them. When people complained, he promised to restore in in the next edition. A former church purchased the next edition, and surprise! The songs still left out “repent” and “repentance”

    This was, I believe, the song book that listed favorite hymns of various Christian leaders.

  32. I’ve been lurking here for a few weeks, but I have a story that proves the evils of projectors so I feel compelled to post.

    I used to lead music at an independent Christian church that used powerpoint. I was in charge of making all the slides and apparently George was helping me one week because when we came to the chorus of one famous hymn we all “probed Jesus o’er and o’er”.

  33. When I was growing up my dad was the song leader and I was proud of him standing up there waving his hands around. Now looking back (way back) why does the song leader get to do that and we can’t?

  34. Anyone see or use the latest Majesty hymnal, Rejoice? It incorporates recent UK contemporary hymns from Stuart Townend and Keith & Kristyn Getty. At least six such hymnns. Amen.

    1. I went to a Stuart Townend concert a year ago! Love his music!! Best concert ever! But his songs are included in a Majesty hymnal? Oh, my! Isn’t that from BJU? If they’d gone to the same concert I attended they wouldn’t have them in there. Stuart’s shirt wasn’t tucked in, he wasn’t wearing a tie, and he was wearing a billed cap. Obviously, by those standards, his music must be worldly. I have Stuart Townend Collection songbook. I wonder if What Love Has Captured Me? is in the hymnal. It starts out with 4 measures of “Doo doo doo doo doo”. 😆

      1. Majesty Music publishes “Rejoice Hymns” w/ Townend & Getty hymns. I recommend it. This is the Majesty Music under Ron Hamilton’s leadership. This is not a BJU press published hymnal though some BJU grads like Matt Whitcomb influenced the hymn selection. You can see the editorial contributors about pg 5.
        See http://www.majestymusic.com/p-1506-rejoice-hymns-navy-quantity-orders-must-include-church-name-and-address.aspx
        I also recommend Mr. Fred Coleman’s “Hymns: Modern & Ancient” w/ similar UK contemporary hymns.

        1. While I do recommend Coleman’s and frequently use it, I cannot recommend either of the Majesty’s, and is has nothing to do with my extreme distaste for Hamilton and his music (well, maybe not nothing….) From a purely musical standpoint, the 4-part writing in those volumes is less than stellar (I’m quite sure Mounty could further elaborate,) and he changed some of the keys of the most popular sung hymns; while this isn’t a travesty, you have some very peeved church pianists over this small manner. They’re also not organized very well. But then, I’m a hymnology nerd a bit…

  35. A pox on your house. Now I’m going to have Never Grow Old or whatever that song is called stuck in my head all afternoon!

    “Never grow old… never grow old…”

    1. Oh, please, no pox at Dar-El’s house! But, uh, I WOULD love to know what a poxy house looks like….

  36. Another related pet peeve I have regarding singing in church, not so much the hymn books is why do we have to stand so much in a fundy church? Why can’t we ever sing sitting down? Our former fundy pastor (the hyles worshiper) would say you need to stretch your diaphragm so you need to stand up but that’s not so, your diaphragm is above your waist so you can sing just as well sitting as standing. It was just an excuse.

    In the church in Michigan we would stand for the first two songs, then later songs we could sit except for the one just before the Bible reading. And wouldn’t you know the song leader would schedule “Standing on the Promises” for the middle song instead of one of the others just so he could give us that sorry refrain about “You can’t stand on the promises while you’re sitting on the premises so stand up!” I got so disgusted with that. Then he’d make us stand up for the song we’d sing while they waited for a baptism which was so stupid because we had to sit back down again in order to watch the baptism.

    I know it seems like a small thing but it was so irksome! 👿

    1. How funny. Before I discovered a love for praise & worship songs I would occasionally deign to attend P&W services with my nieces and nephew and wonder “Why don’t they ever sit down to sing!” They stood for the whole thing!

  38. Our church got the “Soul Stirring Hymns and Songs” because someone purchased them. It doesn’t have a LOT of common songs; it doesn’t even have “How Great Thou Art.”

    1. John Reynolds, one-time big wig at SOTL, told me in 1988 it is not in there because the copyright owner was asking too much for the right to print. Shrug. It is in most other hymnbooks. It happens to be my favorite, so I am always interested in its placement. Never knew if that were the truth or not, about the copyright.

      1. Wow, I guess John Reynolds has passed away. There is actually a FB page for Soul Stirring Songs and Hymns, ❗ where JR is referred to in the past. He was a Curtis Hutson acolyte, but he treated my late husband and I very lovingly, as well as our babies.. We needed that, because Franklin Road Baptist Church was a DREADFUL place to minister. 🙄

  39. I didn’t see this yet so here goes:
    How many of you were required to substitute “Shed” for “Spilt” when singing “Grace that is Greater than all our sin” because according to the M-O-g “spilt” sounds like something that one would do accidentally, “shed” is something that is done on purpose?

    Funny how they change the “language” of the song since the current meaning of that word is taken to mean something done accidentally… but the words of the KJV N-E-V-E-R change their meaning… unless the M-O-g wants to make a point that requires them to give the KJV word a comtemporary meaning… then it’s ok.

    2. They do realize that Jesus never spoke English, don’t they? God, I hope so, but I have this sinking feeling…..

      1. I have actually heard some of these redneck puplit pretenders around here in NC, actually preach (supposed tongue-in-cheek) that if the King James was good enough for Paul then it’s good enough for them…Amen?!! 🙄

        1. Believe it or not, I recently heard a KJVonly guy state that he believed English was the language spoken before the Tower of Babel. And he was dead serious. I lol’d at him. he didn’t like that 😆

    3. That reminds me of a sermon that Jack Schaap preached some time back about how Jesus didn’t have scars, he had wounds. After that, every time we sang “O What a Saviour”, we had to change the chorus from “his hands were nail-scarred” to “his hands were nail-pierced”. All the HAC groups still make that change to that song. It seems like such a small point of doctrine to trifle over, but it makes me smile every time I hear it. 🙄

  40. I am curious as to what is on page 666 of Independent Baptist Book of Everlasting Rules and Requirements.

    Oh, is there a page 666?

  43. And if thou art videotaping thy college church’s service, thou shalt sing each hymn at twice the normal speed so that neither thy college students nor thy program’s TV viewer will not start yawning. This will also allow more time for the college ensemble in their tan sport jackets to edify the flock while serving as a low-cost commercial for thy college.

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