It is good that many of you in our sister churches are taking great interest in the Free Church’s own version of ‘worship wars’, as we discuss supplementing our traditional practice of acapella psalm singing.

We value your prayers at this time as we try to reflect upon what we do, in the light of Scripture and of Christ being the head of the church. I am sure that you will remember us before the Throne of Grace, as we go through this process.

However the reason I am writing you this open letter is to ask you to reconsider your own practice – as we are re-considering ours. I realise that many of you have a wide variety of practices, and we would certainly not want to argue for a uniformity across the board. However there is one issue that really puzzles me – why do more of you not sing psalms?

I was at a large evangelical leaders conference recently which was excellent in every way – the only problem I had was that in the conference booklet the worship section had over 100 songs, and yet as far as I could see, there was not one psalm.

I have worshipped and preached in many different churches throughout Scotland, the UK, Europe and the US, and it has surprised me how many evangelical and even Reformed churches, make such little use of the psalms.

Why use the Psalms? The main, and only reason, we need is simply that the Bible commands us to do so. The scripture tell us that we are to use ‘psalms, hymns and spiritual songs’ (Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16). Personally I think it is wrong and exegetically unsound to regard that as ‘psalms, psalms and psalms’, but it is even worse to regard it as ‘song, songs and songs’ or ‘hymns, hymns and hymns’.

The Psalms are the song and prayer book of the Bible – they are designed, not just for the people of ancient Israel to sing, but also the Lord’s people today. Whilst the case for exclusive psalmody is very weak, the case for inclusive psalmody is compellingly strong – and the case for excluding psalms altogether is biblical nonsense.

There are of course other reasons why we would encourage you to sing psalms.

1) The Psalms are Personal – Deeply so. Emotionally so. They express our emotions in a way that very few hymns and songs would dare do. Because they are the inspired Word of God they allow us to approach him with a boldness of expression that I doubt we would do if it were merely human inspiration.

In this respect I would like to encourage every Christian to have the practice of knowing and using the psalms every day. There has hardly been a day in the past 25 years when I have not read, sung or prayed one of the psalms. They are the lifeblood of our piety.

2) The Psalms are Ecumenical – they do not come from Scotland. They are not Presbyterian. They are not ‘ours’ or indeed any one particular church in one particular era. They belong to the whole Church of Christ throughout the whole world and throughout the whole of it’s history.

I love the fact that I am singing words Paul, Augustine, Calvin, Knox and many others have sung. Above all I love the fact that these are the songs that Jesus sang – that he learned as a little boy and that he memorised – even being able to cite them as he died on the cross. Read Bonhoeffer’s wonderful little book on the Psalms and you will see what I mean.

3) The Psalms are theological – although they express our human emotions better than anything I know, they also reveal to us the depth and the awesomeness of the character of the Triune God. As we sing them we are not only praising Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but we are also learning of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I realise that a case can be made that the psalms are not enough. And it is largely a case I would agree with. The early church did sing ‘hymns to Christ as God’. As in much of the Old Testament, there is a foreshadowing of Christ, which becomes clearer and more explicit in the New Testament.

We no longer live in the shadows. So we must sing the ‘new song’ as well. However we should no more ditch the psalms than we would ditch the rest of the Old Testament.

Ironically those who claim to be New Testament Christians or a New Testament Church, prove that is not the case when they ignore the Old Testament. A New Testament Christian takes on board the whole of the Old Testament – including the Psalms.

So let me return to my plea. As we consider broadening our sung praise to include biblical songs which reflect the whole of Scripture, can you not consider using the book of praise and prayer that God has given us?

The Free Church has produced an excellent modern English versified translation from the Hebrew – why not use it? It is one thing we are more than happy to share with the wider church. You will find it to be a rich source of food for your soul and an endless source of help as you seek to cry out to, and worship, the living God.

David Robertson is a minister in the Free Church of Scotland. He is currently serving as the pastor of St. Peter’s Church, Dundee (a pulpit once filled by Robert Murray M’Cheyne. He serves as editor for the Free Church of Scotland Monthly magazine, as well as being chaplain to international students for the University of Dundee Football Club. http://www.stpeters-dundee.org.uk