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On Repetitive Worship Songs · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Pastor John. As you well know, contemporary worship songs get criticized for their
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  repetition, so a lot of them do repeat refrains over and over. So
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  I think the overall critique is fair and should be addressed. But then,
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  as we read along together in the Navigator's Bible Reading Plan, we open our
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  bibles to Psalm one thirty six today this morning for me, and it's loaded
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  with repetition. Psalm one thirty six is unlike any other chapter in the whole
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  Bible, echoing the very same phrase twenty six times, for his steadfast love
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  is forever, for his steadfast love is forever, on and on and on.
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  The psalm has never appeared in over two thousand EPJ episodes, so it's
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  overdue, I guess, to talk about. But what is the point of
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  Psalm one thirty six, Why so much repetition, and what does it mean
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  for our debates over repetition in our worship songs? Today? I really enjoyed
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  thinking about this song. We've read this antifinally at church many times, with
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  the congregation doing that refrain and the leader doing the narrative. But before I
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  give you the substance, a few style observations and about worship songs. First,
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  this peculiar psalm is really there. Let's just say that it's there.
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  It's in the Bible. He's got twenty six repetitions of the English phrase for
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  his steadfast love endures forever, or sometimes translated for his mercy endurers forever,
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  or his loving kindness endures forever. So it sounds like this, give thanks
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  to the Lord for he is good, for his deadfast love endures forever.
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  Give thanks to the God of Gods for his deadfst love endures forever. Give
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  thanks to the Lord of Lords for his deadfest love endures forever, to him
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  who alone does great wonders for his deadfast love enduers forever, and onward for
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  twenty six repetitions. Second observation, it's rare, there are a lot of
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  these. Every psalm reads like this. There's nothing like it. Again,
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  it's the rarity of it that gives it such force. If all the psalms
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  did this, we would be worn out. And something unusual is happening here.
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  Stylistically, it's so unusual for the psalms in fact, that we're driven,
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  which is what you ask, why why is he doing this? Third?
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  Observation. The English refrain for His steadfast Love and doers Forever has ten
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  syllables in it. The Hebrew has only six. Kila o'lamhasdeau. That's a
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  cumulative difference or increase of one hundred and four syllables in English in the psalm
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  as a whole. That might make it a slightly different experience. We just
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  need to keep that in mind. It might have been a little easier to
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  have the refrain quilo I'm hostile, quilo ol I'm hostile, rather than for
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  his steadfast Love and doors forever. It's a significant sound difference. Number four.
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  Repetition by itself is not the problem with contemporary worship songs. That's not
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  the problem. Old great hymns use repetition like and can it be right five
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  times amazing Love? How can it be that, Oh my God should die
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  for me five times one, two, three, four or five. The
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  issues not repetition per se, but whether there is enough substance, enough rich
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  content of truth about God woven into the repetitions to justify them, to warrant
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  them. That's the issue. There's a difference between repetitions that are called forth
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  by the repeated crescendo of new glorious truth and repetitions that serve as a kind
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  of mantra without sufficient truth that is simply used to sustain or intensify a mood.
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  Moods in worship should be awakened and sustained primarily by truth, assisted by
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  music, not primarily by music with a little truth thrown in to justify the
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  singing. So what strikes us about PSOne thirty six is not just that for
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  his steadfast love endures forever occurs twenty six times, but that these twenty six
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  statements are woven into a truth. Leyden narrative of the history of Israel.
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  Give thanks. He's God over all gods. He created everything in the universe.
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  He struck down the Egyptians and delivered Israel. He struck down kings of
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  the Emirates and gave Israel the land. He picked them up from distress and
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  delivered their foes. He gives them food, and that, in fact,
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  he gives food to all flash verse twenty five. Give thanks. He's the
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  God of heaven. So there's the main impression you get. The steadfast love
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  of God relates to everything from the highest heaven of heavens to the knitt degree
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  feeding of the birds and the animals, from wilderness wanderings to the destruction of
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  kings. Everything relates to the steadfast love of God. That can't be missed
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  if you're paying attention. But here's here's what I had not thought of before
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  that I think is so significant. He could have simplified the Psalmist could have
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  simplified the refrain by saying his steadfast love duers forever, his steadfast love and
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  doers forever. That's not what he said. In every single one of the
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  twenty six repetitions. He says, because his deadfast love and doers forever,
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  Because his deadfast love and doers forever. Because his deadfast love and doers forever.
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  He made the logic explicit twenty six times. That's cumbersome, it really
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  is when you use a four or because I see that often in contemporary worship
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  songs where the logic seems belabored, and I said, just take that out
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  and make it simpler. It would flow better. The Hebrew word key because
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  or four is thrust forward number one in every phrase, every time, twenty
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  six times. In other words, all of creation, all of God's superiority
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  over other pretending gods. All of his destruction in Egypt, all of his
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  patients in the wilderness, all of his victory overcame things, all of his
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  mercies in distress, all of his food provisions for creatures. All of it
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  is not just vaguely related to the steadfast love of God. It is because
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  of the steadfast love of God. In other words, the Psalmist made the
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  refrain more cumbersome with the word because in order not to short circuit the theological
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  depth that was being driven home, namely, everything God does in creation and
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  history and redemption and consummation is flowing ultimately from his free goodness and mercy and
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  love toward his people. And what makes this especially striking is that this includes
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  his punitive justice against the enemies in Egypt and against the kings of the Emirates.
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  According to this Psalm, even when God is bringing destructive justice against his
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  enemies, he has not ceased to act from his steadfast love. So here's
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  the way Edwards put it in his comment on this Psalm. He just has
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  one brief comment in his notes on Scripture. The Psalm confirms to me that
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  an ultimate end of the creation of the world and of all God's works is
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  his goodness, or the communication of his good to his creatures. For this
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  psalm sufficiently teaches that all God's works, from the beginning of the world to
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  the end of it, are works of mercy to his people. Yeay,
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  even the works of his vindictive justice and wrath, as appears in the tenth,
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  fifteenth, and seventeenth to the twenty second verses close quote. So I
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  conclude that the substance here in this Psalm is so profound as to warrant twenty
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  six repetitions to force us, as it were, to dwell on the logic,
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  on the fact that everything God does is because because his steadfast love endoers
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  forever. Yeah, very good moods in worship should be awakened and sustained primarily
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  by truth, assisted by music. That's a good word. Think to bestor
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  John and I'm going to take a stab here in this outro in something that
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  I see in our inbox. We often get worship song questions like this one
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  today from listeners who are trying to find a good church. Maybe that's why
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  you're listening to this episode. You're in a church now and the worship music
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  is too repetitive and you may in fact be thinking of leaving that church because
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  of the music choices. If that's you, as you make this important decision
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  on what local church is right for you, consider a bunch of other important
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  factors to consider that we have talked about on APJA episodes in the past in
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  our archive. This decision has a lot involved with it, and I tried
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  to take all of those episodes on how to find a local church, how
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  to choose the right local church. I assembled all of that into one digest
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  in the Aspasto John book. Specifically, that section that I titled on Joining,
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  Leaving and finding a Church's on pages four seventeen to four to twenty eight
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  of that book. If that applies to you well. From Christian Worship in
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  America, we transition to talking about North Africa and a question from a young
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  Christian woman who lives in a family and a nation dominated by Islam. Will
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  God condemn Muslims for being born into a Muslim country. It's a huge question
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  faced by our brothers and sisters around the world. This up next time,
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  Antonio Ranky, We'll see you on Monday,