Is Psalm Singing a Jewish, Presbyterian, or Christian Thing?

When the Apostle Paul—in the heart of two inspired letters to churches—says to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs—many modern believers just can’t imagine singing the psalms. We easily skim over the concept. Why? Because sometimes our experience speaks more loudly—it is not something we have done, and it seems Jewish, Presbyterian, or at least old-fashioned.

But the verses in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 were written to New Testament Christians—in a Gentile culture. When the church was born, the Jewish core of leadership had been singing the psalms from their youth. No doubt, when the Holy Spirit came in Acts 2 and the church was “born,” they did not instantly stop singing the psalms. They continued to sing the psalms, and so Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 would not have been jarring.

However, as they began to see the Old Testament through New Testament eyes, they would have fresh understanding of the Psalms. As they realized Messianic passages in the Psalms applied to Jesus of Nazareth, they likely sang the Psalms with new illumination, and possibly “Christianized” the words.

Everything we do is cultural to an extent, and sometimes we cannot get beyond the provincial limitations of our culture. But may we let the scripture speak more loudly than our culture—even our Christian culture. Today there are excellent, modernized, understandable versions of the Psalms to sing. And the singing of God’s Word is self-authenticating to those who experience it.