SONG STUDIES: BIBLE STUDIES BASED ON HYMNS AND SONGS

                                                                            SONG STUDY 19 JESUS LOVES ME                    June 28 2022                                                                           Anna B. Warner            1.           Jesus loves me! This I know,            For the Bible tells me so;           Little ones to Him belong,        ...

STUDY  (10) THE CHURCH’S ONE FOUNDATION Th e author,  Samuel John Stone , was born in Staffordshire UK in 1839.   In 1874, he succeeded his father as vicar of St. Paul's, Haggerston. In 1890 he became rector of All Hallows-on-the-Wall in London.  St. Paul's Haggerston was in a poor section of London.   S tone would open the  church at 6:30 in the morning so that  commuters, frequently poor working girls, arriving  early could have a brief service and prayer, then have  time to rest, to read or to sew. He built numerous  churches; his belief was that poor people deserved  beautiful churches in which to worship. His  thoughtfulness earned him the title of "the poor  man's pastor". Source: " The Center for Church Music. " Samuel Wesley , composer of the tune Aurelia, to which the hymn is usually sung. Famous in his lifetime as one of his country's leading organists and choirmasters, he composed almost exclusive...

SONG STUDY (9) AMAZING GRACE! John Newton         John Newton Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see. 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved; How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believed! Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home. When we've been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We've no less days to sing God's praise Than when we first begun.   This is one of the best known hymns in the English language. Although there are other  tunes which fit the words, the one nearly always used is called "New Britain". John Newton appears to have written the words in 1772 (first published in 1779) whereas the melody  was coupled with the words in 1847.  A great deal has been wri...

STUDY (8) WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS J                   Charles Converse (Melody)      Joseph Scriven (Lyrics) Joseph Scriven grad­u­at­ed from Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Dublin.   A ft­er his fi­an­cée drowned the night be­fore they were to mar­ry, he moved to Can­a­da in 1846. There he taught in Wood­stock and Brant­ford, On­tar­io, and was a tu­tor for the Pen­gel­ly fam­i­ly near Bewd­ley. It was there he met and be­came en­gaged to Eliza Roche, a rel­a­tive of the Pen­gel­lys. In what seems too amaz­ing to be co­in­ci­dence, Eliza died short­ly before their we d­ding. Following the death of his second fi­an­cée, Scriven joined the Plym­outh Breth­ren, help­ing the aged members of the community.                                           Scriven wrote this hymn in 1855 to comfort his mother, who was across...

SONG STUDY (7) GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS Thomas O Chisholm This hymn was written in the early twentieth century with words by T.O. Chisholm and music by W.M. Runyan. The major passage of Scripture which the author had in mind is Lamentations 3: 19 - 33, where the writer (Jeremiah?) is working through the anguish of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the loss of all that he held dear.  G reat is Thy faithfulness, O God                                  my Father,                T here is no shadow of turning with  Thee;               Thou changest not, Thy compassions                         they fail not,                 As...

Fanny Crosby 1820-1915 Song Study (4) BLESSED ASSURANCE! This great 19th century hymn, written by the blind hymn writer Fanny Crosby, is still sung frequently wherever Christians gather together to proclaim their faith in Christ. Words: Fanny Crosby , 1873: My friend, Mrs. Joseph F. Knapp, composed a melody and played it over to me two or three times on the piano. She then asked what it said. I replied, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!” Music: Phoebe P. Knapp , 1873 This hymn was sung in the 1985 Academy Award winning movie, “Trip to Bountiful.” “During the recent war in the Transvaal,” said a gentleman at my meeting in Exeter Hall, London, in 1900, “when the soldiers going to the front were passing another body of soldiers whom they recognized, their greetings used to be, ‘Four-nine-four, boys; four-nine-four;’ and the salute would invariably be answered with ‘Six further on, boys; six further on.’ The significance of this was that, in ‘Sacred S...