Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. Isaiah 12:2

The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. Psalm 118:14

So we can at least establish that the question of whether God is our song is a question of biblicat interpretation, and not just interpretation of a Third Day lyric.

Personally I like the line, and when I sing it I don’t take it to be about me or the song I’m singing. As for the word “my”, there are many levels of meaning to that word, as C.S. Lewis points out, ranging from my God to my country, my brother, my dog, my boots etc., and they are or are not about “me” to varying degrees.

Church worship is a little different to this situation, but his point that different songs are appropriate in different worship situations seems to make sense to me. I think part of a good worship leader’s job is to think wisely about the song choices, and chose not only songs that are appropriate musically for the audience (no use asking 80 year olds to worship to rock) but that also have appropriate and MEANINGFUL words that the people who sing them can sing authentically.

…or because you already sang the chorus about 8 times before you get to the bridge?

Clearly we were singing a christian song in a church that contained a metaphor about God. I remember when I was 6 my dad told me I could defeat any evil thing just by saying the words ‘jesus is lord’ and so I used to run around everywhere saying it under my breath like some kind of fearful mantra. That’s sooo not a God thing.

If you don’t know who you are worshiping because you got lost in between the bridge and the chorus, you may want to consider booking in for a memory loss prevention program. Why are we christian goldfish?

Of course I am as guilty as any.

But here’s some americans getting bogged down in music, words and theological complications:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wqVMqXelhg

Music, words, poems are all media through which we attempt to communicate any given thoughts, ideas, emotions and propositions.

When it gets poetic, Tim is most certainly right in that it comes back to individual understanding. You filter the message as you hear it through the medium. To some extent, you’d hope that we each have a choice to make the most of what we hear. But how far does that “listener’s privilege” apply?

It opens up a whole new kettle of fish. If you took the same “each to their own” concept away from song lyrics, what happens when you apply it to the Bible? That’s a communication medium just as much as a Third Day song is. Surely, while (most of the time) biblical authors indulge in poetic licence far less than Third Day, if we start saying that everybody is allowed to have a different personal flavour for understanding theological precepts when they approach a communication medium, what happens to the Word?

When does interpretation start diluting the truth to the point where anything goes?

How can you guide people to the truth when asserting your own view is bigotry and arrogance?

I don’t know the answer. Hopefully I’m making some sort of sense in poking the hole though.

P.S. Loved the cockies version of How Great Thou Art!

So what if I need to scratch my head! God made with a thinker, so I might as well use it.

I’m with Laura on the whole seeing it as a metaphor thing… and yeah the bridgy bit backs that up…

But I also can’t deny feeling a bit wierd singing it.

Since we all come from slightly different places in our heads, that means we have to understand context and choose to empathise (or not to) with the content of any given song. In big words, our worldview will determine our immediate connection, and our capacity to empathise will determine our secondary understanding.

That is the universal truth of existentialism

That should confuse even the most hardened phillosopher. But in simple terms, if we mistakenly assume that everyone misunderstands things in the same way, we risk choosing to follow only one particular brand of metaphor, and in so doing, lose the kind of diversity that might hopefully mean everyone finds at least one song, or one verse perhaps, that they understand and connect with.

So essentially our dislike of certain lyrical arrangements represents a kind of ‘my world view is best’ bigotry and selfishness. I see this attitude in everyone except myself, due entirely to my incredible ability to be perceptive, and certainly in no part to the internal bias of my own perspective.

I feel dizzy.

Paulie,

Thanks for the link through and for having a crack at the discussion. I do understand that it’s an analogy, and that it’s not trying to convey a deep theological principle. Which is why (as I mentioned) I really do LIKE the song. I think it’s a great song. And in the context of being a song that a band sings, that’s fine.

But when it’s taken out of the environment of being an artistically performed song, and into the environment of being a song that a congregation sings together, in worship of Jesus, it needs to hold up for that setting.

Most people who were singing that song on Sunday morning don’t have an experience of writing a song, so even the words of the bridge become about the song that they’re singing, and how perfect it is. Which I’m not so cool with.

And in regards to your cheap-shot at “How Great Thou Art” – this could be my closet-Anglicanism showing, but the real reason you don’t relate with wandering through forest glades is nothing to do with being an Australian. It’s more to do with being an accountant, who doesn’t see any point in attempting to use beautiful words when a perfectly ugly one will do the same job.