Topic
Spiritual Songs
4 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- Ephesians 5:19ISBE
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
- Colossians 3:16ISBE
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
- Revelation 5:9ISBE
And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
- Revelation 14:3ISBE
And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 5 references
(odai pneumatikai): ode, English "ode," is the general, and generic word for "song," of which "psalms and hymns" are specific varieties (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16). It includes all lyric poetry, but is limited by the word "spiritual" to songs inspired by the Holy Spirit and employed in the joyful and devotional expression of the spiritual life. While songs, like psalms and hymns, were used in public worship and praise, they were more intended for, and suited to, personal and private and social use; as, e.g. in family worship, at meals, in the agapai ("love-feasts"), in meetings for prayer and religious intercourse from house to house. The passages above cited give apostolic authority for the use of other than the Old Testament psalms in public praise, and rebuke the narrowness and unbelief that would forever limit the operations of the Holy Spirit and the hymnology of the church to the narrow compass of the Davidic era and the Davidic school of poetry and song.
The "new song" of Re 5:9; 14:3, and "the song of Moses and of the Lamb" (15:3), indicate that spiritual songs are to be perpetuated in the eternal melodies of the redeemed.
Dwight M. Pratt
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.