What Are Your Songs?

Today we are zipping ahead briefly to the NT so that we can see God's command to sing the psalms. If I merely present the psalms as "You are blessed if you learn and sing these," you may say "That's a blessing I'm happy to forego." But there is more to it than that. God does not put forward the psalter and tell you to take it or leave it. He tells you to take it. That's the message of Colossians 3:16. You must let the word of Christ dwell in you richly by singing the Psalms. That's not optional. That is a command from God. All of us have songs that we enjoy that are not psalms. My playlist and your playlist are not 100% Psalms. But Paul, in the name of Christ, commands us to make sure that our playlists are not 0% Psalms either. He doesn't say "Sing nothing but psalms." But he most emphatically does say "Sing psalms," as indeed the psalter itself says over and over. Yes, you should sing psalms in order to receive the blessing that is contained in them — the blessing of knowing Christ better. But you should also sing psalms because God says to. This is a command, a requirement for the Christian life and especially for the Christian church. Instead of the world's banal earworms, let the Psalms run in your head by singing them to each other and to the Lord.