Video
Audio
Show Notes
Songs
I John 1:7: Walk in the Light (Immanuel Worship)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WT-GBfcboc
I John 1:7: Stepping in the Light (Eliza Hewitt, William Kirkpatrick)
Lyrics: https://hymnary.org/text/trying_to_walk_in_the_steps_of_the_savio
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3DFGP0bBI (Gaither)
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bd2vQw_VH4 (Mylon Hayes Family)
I John 1:7: There Is Power in the Blood (Lewis E. Jones)
Lyrics: https://hymnary.org/text/would_you_be_free_from_the_burden_jones
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO2khaezlb8
I John 1:7: Nothing but the Blood (Robert Lowry)
Lyrics: https://hymnary.org/text/what_can_wash_away_my_sin
I John 1:7: Behold the Lamb (Communion Hymn) (Keith & Kristyn Getty/Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, Stuart Townend)
Lyrics: https://store.gettymusic.com/us/song/behold-the-lamb-communion-hymn/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGKGI-kCCIM
I John 1:7: Walk in the Light (Asa Hull, Geo. C Hugg)
Lyrics: https://hymnary.org/text/walk_in_the_light_the_lord_hath_given
I John 1:7: If We Walk in the Light (Eliza Hewitt)
Lyrics: https://hymnary.org/text/in_calvarys_fountain_deep_and_wide
I John 1:9: Faithful to Forgive (New Scottish Hymns Band/Greg de Blieck)
Lyrics: https://newscottishhymns.com/song/faithful-to-forgive/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbsN_VG5U-U
Chad Berry
Book link: https://store.bookbaby.com/book/communing-with-god
Transcript
Lightly edited for clarity.
Daniel J. Mount:
Welcome to the Expository Songs podcast. We discuss songs where the main idea of a passage of scripture is the main idea of the song. My name is Daniel Mount, and today we’re doing something new. We’re looking at songs from a chapter of the Bible, I John 1. I am joined today by the pastor of my home church, New Liberty Baptist Church in Lexington, Ohio, Pastor Chad Berry, welcome.
Chad Berry:
Thank you brother, it’s good to be with you again.
Daniel J. Mount:
Thank you! Glad to have you here. So we’ve each picked what we think are five strong songs from I John 1. We haven’t compared notes, so we don’t know if our lists have any overlap.
Before we jump into going through the songs, I thought it might be helpful if we took a minute and talked through what was our thought process looking through these songs. What criteria did we have in mind?
And I can say for my part, I was thinking first, congregationally, is this song something that we can use in congregational worship? But also [I was] certainly considering songs that might be too musically complex, but have value for edification the rest of the week. As I’ve been working ahead the rest of the book, there are definitely several songs I’ve picked for other chapters that just don’t make sense in a congregational context, but have value and are a thoughtful engagement with the lyric. Although I do think that all five of the songs I have in mind for this chapter work pretty well congregationally.
Screening the songs themselves, I really just started with lyrics. does this song lyrically come from 1 John 1 and does it engage with the lyrics thoughtfully? Within the songs that cleared that threshold, I was definitely looking for musical excellence. Singability.
Pastor Chad, what thoughts did you have in mind as you were looking through songs from this chapter?
Chad Berry:
When I initially started going through the list, it was kind of a holistic approach I was thinking about. Was a pleasing melody? How well did the lyrics actually fit and explain the words of the Scriptures? Singability, congregational-friendly. So I kind of whittled it down initially that way.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Chad Berry:
And then once I got it whittled down to about 10, I had to be a little bit more choosy. and focus specifically on one aspect. You know, there were two in particular that I remember going back and forth. It’s like, okay, these two songs are kind of communicating the same idea, but I just like this one better. And so to actually get down to the list of five, I did have to use just some preferential decision-making as well. But mostly I tried to stay with a holistic approach, communication of the text, singability. congregational friendly, melodically pleasing, all of those kinds of things.
Daniel J. Mount:
And there’s nothing wrong with pulling preferences in, I definitely did too. It’s really almost inevitable to factor in preferences as we pick songs for an actual worship service or in a more theoretical context like this one. It’s, it’s partly the worship leaders’ preferences; does the worship leader think this song is musically excellent? And then the congregations preferences come into play. You can hear from does a congregation really sing out when they sing it after they’ve sung it a few times? Is the song resonating? So yeah, there’s definitely a place for that in fact during that. So I think that’s valid.
Would you like to kick us off or go second?
Chad Berry:
I’d love to start us off. I’d be happy to do that.
Daniel J. Mount:
Go for it!
Chad Berry:
So I’ll just—
Daniel J. Mount:
Sorry—i’ll just explain we’re both starting with our fifth song, working our way up to our favorite song, as we count backwards from 5 up to 1. Okay, sorry, go for it.
Chad Berry:
Oh no, you’re fine. So the song that I put in at five—and I love this song, and so I’ll explain why it’s fifth. I put it in at fifth mainly because it communicates more thematically than necessarily actually exegeting the text of I John 1. And that’s “Behold the Lamb” or “The Communion Song” by the Gettys. I also will just confess, I’m a little bit of a Getty fanboy. I love Keith and Kristin Getty. I’ve never seen them live, but just their spirit that they have when I listen to them and their music is just top shelf.
That whole song is good, and I’m not going to really offer any comments about any one particular part of it. But the main reason why I chose that one was because… The language at the beginning of 1 John 1 where John writes and he says, “That which we have seen, that which we have heard, that we have touched with our hands,” he’s appealing to his authority based on the close connection that he had with Jesus. And that if people are like, well, Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, or Jesus wasn’t this, or Jesus wasn’t that, John is able to say, listen, I was there. I saw him. I touched him. I heard him. I was in the same room as him.
So that the appeal to that eyewitness account, well, we as 21st century Christians, we don’t have that privilege. But the closest thing that we get is coming to the Lord’s Table. And so Daniel, as you know, at our church, I open every service by saying, you know, “Welcome to New Liberty Baptist Church, where we gather every Lord’s Day to pray the Word, to read the Word, to sing the Word and to preach the Word.” Now, confession for any of the listeners who may already know this, I am sure a lot of other pastors, especially in reformed circles, do that. But I stole that from Wigan Duncan. He was the first person that I heard do it. And I was like, yeah, I’m stealing that bullet for sure.
But I’ve also heard, and I can’t remember who I heard it from, but the concept, I think it might’ve been Matt Merker, picked up on the concept of seeing the word. That when we come to corporate worship, we pray, read, sing, and preach the word. But when we come to the Lord’s table, we also get to see the word. we see and have a reminder of the broken body of Jesus and the shed blood of Jesus. And so I couldn’t help but put that song in the list because of its close connection to that eyewitness idea.
I have grown up in Southern Baptist circles and I think so many Southern Baptists in so many Southern Baptist circles, maybe this isn’t a fair critique, but miss the beauty of communion. Whether it be because it’s taken so infrequently or whatever the case may be. But the privilege that we have to come to the Lord’s Table and see our Savior. And so I couldn’t help but stick that one in there.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes, I’m going to just jump totally off topic of songs here for a minute because I like what you’re bringing out and highlighting in these opening verses of the chapter. And just spoiler alert, but I don’t have any songs that I put in a top five that are like from the first few verses so I wouldn’t have another opportunity to get into this. From everything we understand, the ideas that would eventually develop into the heresy of Gnosticism were already starting to creep into the church by the end of John’s life, which is roughly—he wrote this epistle near the end of his life, probably in the vicinity of 90 AD, give or take a few years, from everything we can understand historically. The ideas of Gnosticism, which in part didn’t fully accept the humanity of Jesus and wasn’t really solid as divinity either—as they were starting to creep into the church, God gave John a long life, I think, so he could say those verses as much as anything else up there with Revelation. He was there to see it, but he could also say, 50 years ago, I saw Him with my eyes, I touched Him with my hands, He was real.
Chad Berry:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
And to have that testimony from one of the, perhaps even the apostle who was closest to Jesus, is really special.
Chad Berry:
Yeah, I agree. A hundred percent. And we may touch on this later. And we were talking earlier before we started about some areas of this particular chapter where there’s not a lot of music written. And that opening section is one
Daniel J. Mount:
Definitely.
Chad Berry:
where there’s just not much that speaks about, you know, that which I have seen. And a lot of it is probably because people are thinking, well, how can I write a song about that because I haven’t seen Jesus. But that’s what I love about what the Getty’s have done is they’ve picked up on the element where we get the closest, and coming to the Lord’s Table.
And yeah, you’re right. I mean, the battle against Gnosticism, and thinking about how long it lasted into the early church, you know, that was the primary heresy that many of the early church fathers, you know, combated against and debated against and warred against for a couple centuries.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah.
Chad Berry:
And, you know, it’s, it might not go by the same name, but the idea of Gnosticism—of, well, Jesus wasn’t actually God, or Jesus wasn’t actually a man—It’s alive and well today. It just doesn’t go by the same name.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes that’s where it’s wonderful to have John’s testimony to fall back on because the next best thing to having a first-person testimony in your presence is having it written in your presence
Chad Berry:
Absolutely.
Daniel J. Mount:
So at number five i have a pretty familiar hymn. There’s Power in the Blood, Lewis Jones.
It’s not a word-for-word match from verse 7, but it is a thematic match. Again, I’d say I stuck also with thematic at the first spot here. Closing words of verse 7, “the blood of Jesus Christ, His son cleanses us from all sin.” This song, of course, speaks into the power of the blood to cleanse us from our sin. And there aren’t other passages that are markedly closer to the wording. This is probably the passage closest to the wording of the idea of the song, even though it’s more of a thematic connection.
And I have it here because some of the biggest considerations I talked about a few minutes ago as I was looking through songs here were how good of a song is it? how much does it reflect the passage? But there is a third criteria which you can’t help but consider when you’re actually planning songs for a real life service which is, does our congregation know it?
Chad Berry:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
Because in most congregations it’s not practical to introduce a new song every week. So sometimes the best way, sometimes if we’ve introduced a new song the week before, sometimes the only way to realistically use Scripture in our songs in a service is to take a song like this one, which might only pull from a phrase, and it’s more of a concept alignment, but it’s something that the church, or at least many in the church, already knows. And so because I’m in a context that would already know this song, If we were teaching through First John, I think this would be a pretty clear-cut song that we’d include in the service.
Chad Berry:
I have to say that was one that didn’t make my list, but it almost did.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah.
Chad Berry:
And I felt a little bit heretical when I crossed it off. I, I was like, I’m actually drawing a line through “There’s Power in the Blood.” I don’t know that, uh, I don’t know that I can actually get away with that. Uh, yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
It’s okay to have runners-up. I have a few runners-up I can mention at the end. Feel free to mention some of yours too if you have them handy. Five is just an arbitrary number. A church that’s preaching through first John is probably going to do it chapter one and at least two messages, maybe three. So there’s at least a dozen songs to pick, if not more. Maybe 20 depending on the church. So five is an arbitrary number, but picking a top 10, could be a really long episode more, than most people want to listen to.
Chad Berry:
That’s true.
Daniel J. Mount:
So what do you have at number four?
Chad Berry:
So at number four, this is actually a new song for me. I didn’t know it, but I read the lyrics and I just, I couldn’t bring myself to not include it. It’s “Walk in the Light” by Asa Hall.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay.
Chad Berry:
And the primary verse, so song number four goes close with song number three. I’ll explain why when I get to song number three. But this song just communicates such a sweetness and obedience, which I think is really, really heavy in that theme, when John tells us to walk in the light as He is in the light.
But verse four of that song is what really stuck out to me, where the lyric is this: It says:
“Walk in the light and thou shall know
The love of God to thee,
The fellowship so sweet below,
In heaven will sweeter be.”
You know, in Christian and non-Christian circles, the confusion about obedience, where people talk about the binding nature of the law and, “oh, well, Christianity is just a drudgery and fulfilling all these laws and obeying all these commands.” But there is such a sweet intimacy.
In some ways, it does kind of connect back to the first section—where, how do we fellowship with God and how do we have fellowship with one another? Well, by walking in the light, by obeying God’s commands, by displaying to Him and showing Him that we love Him. Jesus even says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commands.” A big element of that is walking in the light and living transparently.
But we know as Christians that that sweet, intimate fellowship that we have through obedience and walking in the light will one day give way to perfect fellowship. That’s why I love that fourth verse. You know, “the fellowship so sweet below in heaven will sweeter be.”
My pastor at the church where I grew up, at Lincoln Heights in Mansfield, his name’s Mike Wilson, he used to always make the comment that the more of the joy of obedience that we taste, the more we crave it. And the seasons in life where we are often not craving obedience is because we’re not tasting it. And when we taste the sweetness of obedience that we have a desire for it. And I feel like the lyrics to this song really communicate how walking in the light is such a sweet, sweet reality.
And you know, some people might even go as far as to say, I’ll pick up on this later with another song that has to do with that same concept is, you know, some people are anxiety-ridden. when they think about walking in the light. Or I can’t tell anybody about, you know, the secret parts of my life, but there is such a rich peace that comes from being in the light. So number four was “Walk in the Light” by Asa Hull.
Daniel J. Mount:
I love that observation the more we… bad paraphrase, the more we walk in the light, the more we crave to walk in the light.
Chad Berry:
Yeah, yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
That’s a good insight. I really considered that song also for my top five, and really the only reason I didn’t have it on my top five was I didn’t think its melody was as strong as a couple other hymns from this passage that I do have in the top five. But that’s fixable.
Chad Berry:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
It can be sung to a different melody. Somebody can write a new melody to it.
Chad Berry:
Someone like yourself. Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
Could be! We’ll see. But I actually did consider that as well. And I had several songs from this passage in my top five and I really just kind of in the end kind of made a final cut on melody. But definitely, that is a great lyric.
And my number four song pulls from the same passage And I’m wondering if it’s the other song you’re referring to, but either way, my number four song is “Stepping in the Light” by Eliza Hewitt and William Kirkpatrick. It takes the exhortation of I John [1:]7 to walk in the light as He is in the light and turns it into an exultation. It’s just a meditation on the blessings of walking in the light. I don’t think we’ve sung it in my time at New Liberty, but it’s a fairly well-known hymn that I think enough of our senior saints would have sung at one church or another. then it would be one that wouldn’t come in foreign. It would be something we could probably hit the ground running with. So yeah, I have “Stepping in the Light” at number four.
Chad Berry:
Is “Stepping in the Light” and “If We Walk in the Light” by Eliza Hewitt, the same song. I think those are two different songs, right?
Daniel J. Mount:
Those are two different songs.
Chad Berry:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
And, spoiler alert, they’re both in my top five!
Chad Berry:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
Anyhow, what do you have at number three?
Chad Berry:
So I, I’ll mention, real quick: The Gaither rendition of “Stepping in the Light” is infectious. It’s really good.
Daniel J. Mount:
It is.
Chad Berry:
So for the listeners, if you don’t know “Stepping in the Light,” go look up the Gaither rendition of it. And to the young people, if you snub your nose up at the Gaithers, just, you’ll, you’ll be pleased.
Daniel J. Mount:
And I’ll throw in one more rendition. I love that rendition. One other one is a family group called the Mylon Hayes family—M-Y-L-O-N Hayes family—had a version of rendition of “Stepping in the Light.” And I’ve heard them do it live a time or two when I lived down south. They’re based in North Carolina, so they do a lot of their touring, more southern states. Family group, parents, two sons and a daughter. And their harmonies in that are just really sweet, but it’s also a really powerful live. So there are several really good versions. If you don’t know this song, I’d say look up both of them. I’ll try to find and drop both links in the show notes. There’s some really good versions of this song out there.
Chad Berry:
Yeah, and the melody’s just fun.
Daniel J. Mount:
It is!
Chad Berry:
It’s fun, yeah. At number three, and this is so, you had mentioned “There’s Power in the Blood.” The two old hymns that I came down in between was “Nothing But the Blood,” which is what my number three song is by Robert Lowry. And I was down between, “Nothing But the Blood” and “There’s Power in the Blood.” And I went with “Nothing But the Blood” simply because I just… preference. I just like that song better.
And I deliberately put “Nothing but the Blood” up next to “Walk in the Light” by Asa Hull because the practical application of having experienced the atonement and having our sins forgiven is walking in the light. So in many ways, the theological foundation that lays underneath Asa Hull’s song, of walking in the light, is the fact of the singular salvation that we have through the atoning blood of Jesus that’s communicated so clearly in Robert Lowry’s song, “Nothing But the Blood.”
And I really, really like kind of answer-back type songs. I’m sure everybody knows “Nothing But the Blood.” It’s a very, very common hymn, but you know:
“What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
And those songs are easy to learn when people don’t know them because they always remember that answer-back line. And so that’s one, it just in very simple and poetic ways really, really lays out very clearly the beauty and the depth of the atonement and that it’s only through the blood of Christ. The blood of Jesus is not a way to be forgiven. It is the only way to be forgiven. So that’s why I popped that one in at number three.
Daniel J. Mount:
much like you, I was kind of down to I’m going to do one of these two and it was for me it was almost flip a coin. I went with “There’s power in the Blood,” and that’s great, because that way they’re both represented in our top ten. So just as well—between us we got them both covered.
Chad Berry:
There we go.
Daniel J. Mount:
So at number three I have “Walk in the Light” from Immanuel Worship. Again, third song in a row for me, but it comes from 1 John 1 7, pulling primarily from the first half: “But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.”
I hadn’t been familiar with them prior to listening to their music for this Expository Songs project, and this song is really catchy. And sometimes a song is really catchy and hard for a congregation to pick up on, hard for a congregation to sing. I feel like most congregations could pick up and sing this one pretty easily. Many congregations will do one older hymn in a service perhaps, but wouldn’t necessarily want to do a whole service full of older hymns. Given our congregation’s demographic, we could get away with that. Many congregations wouldn’t want to, so I really wanted to have some more modern song representation in this list also. And for those songs that have a more contemporary, maybe even a praise band, whether or not you do, this is definitely a more modern song that’s a good representation of the passage, I’d say.
Chad Berry:
Yeah, I liked that one as well. I have, I was not familiar with them until I worked through the list. And that was a good one.
Coming in at number two for me, I had, “If we walk in the Light” by Eliza Hewitt. This was another one that was new for me. And honestly, this is one I confess that this would be the footnote. When I was saying how I made my selections, I don’t know the melody of this song. I just read the lyrics. I couldn’t get away from the lyrics, because again, it picks up on the beauty of the connection between the salvation through the atoning blood of Christ, the joy that we have when we walk in the light. But she also picks up on the security of the soul of the believer through the blood of Jesus. The second verse and the fourth verse in particular, the second verse reads:
“A joy there is to earth unknown,
A gift from heaven above.
It’s light around my pathway shown
Through everlasting love.
And then verse four reads:
“All glory to the lamb of God”—which I love that concept of the concept of putting all glory back to the Lord. One of the only songs that might rival “It is Well With My Soul” as my favorite hymn of all time is “All Glory Be to Christ,” the song set to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne.” But verse four:
All glory to the Lamb of God
Who takes away my sins.
He sweetly sheds his love abroad
And gives me peace within.”
Just a wonderful, rich song that speaks to the depth and the breadth of the effect of the atonement.
Daniel J. Mount:
That song is also my number two.
Chad Berry:
Perfect!
Daniel J. Mount:
This song was clear-cut for me. It’s like there’s no way it’s not making my top five. Really, everything except my one and two, I had some questions on, but once I started going through songs from I John, the song I had number one, the song I had at number two, I was like, there’s no way these aren’t in my top five.
So I thought it was interesting to have two songs from not just one of the same writers but the same two co-writers, lyricist Eliza Hewitt and composer William Kirkpatrick—to have two songs from the same co-writing pair in the top five. Even though this song isn’t as well known as its sibling, it definitely is more deeply rooted in the source text. I mean, the chorus is pretty much just setting the verse to music word for word.
Chad Berry:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
“But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.” That’s almost the chorus word for word, almost the verse.
Chad Berry:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
And I do like how the first verse is really pulling in the second half of the verse and reflecting on the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus. This song also has a really good melody. It’s a good melody, good musically. I’m not set up to record it at piano and there’s no way I’d try a cappella here, without any musical help. But I can say it has a good melody. I don’t think there’s any recorded versions of it online that I could find.
Chad Berry:
I couldn’t find one.
Daniel J. Mount:
No, which is a minus. Hopefully, we can fix that somewhere along the way. But it is strong musically.
Chad Berry:
Is it public domain?
Daniel J. Mount:
It’s perfect to me. It can be recorded for free, for sure.
Chad Berry:
Then we can fix that.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah, we’ll have to get on that at some point here. So, Pastor Chad, what do you have at number one?
Chad Berry:
So coming in at number one was another new song that was new for me by a band that I was unfamiliar with, and it’s “Faithful to Forgive” by New Scottish Hymns.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay, I have to interrupt you for a minute. That’s also my number one!
Chad Berry:
Oh, great minds, great minds think alike! Similarly to Eliza Hewitt’s “If we walk in the light” and even Lowry’s “Nothing But the Blood,” there’s such a rich depth and a weight to the lyrics and the melody is, is it’s I think it would be a little bit—you know, in our context, our church is, has primarily older folks. It might take a few Sundays for them to pick up on the melody. It is a little bit more contemporary, but it suits the lyrics so well. The melody is very contemplative and gets you to think.
I could spend a long time talking about the lyrics, so I’ll try to keep my comments brief. One of the things that they did in this song, and I think they did it… I mean, it was obviously intentional, but it’s subtle and it’s really cool the way they slightly alter the last line of every refrain. So the refrain readd, at the end of the first verseL
“But he is faithful to forgive.
So let us humbly lay our sins before his cross
And crucify them all.”
And that, that part of the refrain is the same every time, but the last line is different all three times. The first one, it says, “We’ll stand accused by them no more.” The second refrain reads, “Let us be chained to them no more.” And the third refrain reads, “We stand condemned by them no more.” I love that because in some ways it picks up on the past, present, and future effect of the atonement that God has saved us justification, that God is saving us progressive sanctification. that we would be chained to our sins no more. And then glorification, where we fully realize that there is no condemnation, because not only are we in Christ Jesus, but when we get to glory, we are with the Lord. So I really love how they kind of subtly picked up on that with those slight lyric changes in the refrain. And I can’t help it, I love Scottish music.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes, this was a pretty clear, straightforward decision for my number one as well. I mean, my only question at one and two was just the order I have the one and two. But these were definitely my top two. And since my other four in my top five were all from verse seven, I was really grateful to have at least one song that I can say, “This is a song worth singing from a different verse in the chapter.
Chad Berry:
Yeah. The one thing that I would say about this song that is for me is a potential negative is the way that the phrasing is written. There’s nothing wrong with the phrases themselves but it forces you to breathe in really awkward spots. So you have to break the phrases in really interesting spots, where you’re almost breaking the main idea of the phrase in two parts. And that’s not the end of the world. People are smart. People can read along with the lyrics and understand the grammar. But, you know, in my mind, best practice is to sing the entire thought and then breathe. You know, because your breath point is your punctuation point.
You know, in singing competition, if you breathe where there’s no punctuation mark, you’re gonna you’re gonna get docked points. So and I noticed there are some places where you would breathe in this song would make it a little make it feel a little odd. Other than that, it’s a fantastic song. And if anybody doesn’t know it, I would highly recommend it.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah. As somebody who’s written songs and run into that myself, it can be a challenge because either you write faster songs or you write slower songs with shorter ideas.
Chad Berry:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
But when you write a slow song with a complex thought, sometimes you hit that.
Chad Berry:
Yeah, absolutely.
Daniel J. Mount:
You know, it’s ideal if you can write around it so there’s a natural pause point mid-phrase if you have to pause. But at the same time from the other side I can understand how hard it can be to avoid it when you’re writing a complex thought in a slower song.
Chad Berry:
Mm-hmm. Sure.
Daniel J. Mount:
I’ll just give a shout out to the writer who was Greg de Bleek from New Scottish Hymns. He’s the leader of New Scottish Hymns. And he consciously writes songs in the modern hymns tradition. So, if your church likes songs in the style of Stuart Townend, who I think he names his main influence, or Keith and Kristin Getty, Matt Baswell, Matt Papa, that style, this is definitely one you’d consider for a I John series. And at least at the moment, I think it’s fair to say this is the best song Modern Hymns has to offer for I John 1.
Best song because the Getty song you mentioned is more thematic connection to the early verses. And it was thematic enough that it didn’t make my top 5, although I love the song. And when we’re talking communion songs, yeah, that’s in my top 5.
Chad Berry:
Oh yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
I Corinthians 11, of course it’s top 5, et cetera. It was just the thematic connection was a little looser.
So I think at this moment, I think it’s the best song modern hymns has to offer for I John 1, and perhaps one of the best songs from any genre.
I’ll give an honorable mention to a couple of songs. “If We Walk in the Light” by the Maranatha Singers from the ‘60s or ‘70s is a scripture song, but it is really catchy, easy to pick up on. I could see that being a good way for congregations to memorize that verse. And I also liked the hymn “The Beautiful Light” by R. Kelso Carter and John Sweney.
So you mentioned a few that were near top five for you, like “There’s Power in the Blood.” Any other honorable mentions?
Chad Berry:
Yeah, so I was gonna mention “There’s Power in the Blood” as an honorable mention.
And then there’s another one, “In The Light.” And in particular, the dcTalk arrangement.
Daniel J. Mount:
Okay!
Chad Berry:
Loved dc Talk when I was younger. I haven’t listened to much of their stuff lately, but when I was listening to a different arrangement of that song, I was like, I can’t do it. I’ve got to go pull up the dc Talk arrangement to that song. That would definitely be an honorable mention that almost made my top five. And really, the only reason it didn’t was because I don’t know how congregational that one would be. I guess it would probably depend on what arrangement you did. You could probably do an arrangement of it pretty congregational, but that was definitely an honorable mention. If for no other reason, nostalgia. Because I mean, classic 90s Christian music was dc Talk. And, of course, that song is on their Jesus Freak album, so if anybody is familiar with the Jesus Freak album, you’d be familiar with their rendition of “In the Light.”
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes. So suppose we are actually teaching through I John, we’re doing a series, we’re going through I John 1. Of these songs or of other songs with a more thematic connection. What are some of the songs that come to your mind as songs that you’d be most likely to actually select and put in an order of service?
Chad Berry:
Oh yeah. Phew. definitely, you know, “Nothing but the blood.” “There’s power in the blood.” Those would definitely be in there, especially when you get to the faithful and just to forgive. When you get to that whole concept,”in the light,” “Stepping in the Light” and “Walking in the Light,” both of the Eliza Hewitt songs, I think would fit in that. And I think, especially for the specific context that we’re in, I think that our church would love singing “Stepping in the Light.”
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes.
Chad Berry:
We’ve got a lot of people at our church who used to sing in church choirs and can sing parts. And from being up front, I can hear people singing the parts. I don’t know how to sing parts. I’ve never figured that out, but I can tell when people are doing it. And it’s just so much fun. It’s so cool! And I know that the people in our church would love, love that song.
And even the more modern hymns, you know, that’s the thing that too, I’ve mentioned a couple times our church has primarily older folks, but they’re older folks who love music and they love good music and they love new music. We’ve introduced a lot of new stuff at our church and so I think that I would definitely put in “Faithful to Forgive” by New Scottish Hymns. I don’t know that I would pop in, um, the Getty’s hymn as a congregational piece for a set, but I would potentially do it—we take communion the first Sunday of every month. Maybe I’d start a sermon series on I John on the first Sunday of the month and maybe do that as the response hymn while communion is being passed out. I don’t know if that counts. Maybe just as how that theme kind of loosely connects, maybe that loosely counts as a congregational bit. Um, really all the ones that we’ve mentioned, I would feel comfortable putting in and many of the runners-up, there were only a handful on the list that I worked through that I would probably avoid congregationally.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yeah, same here I’d say. I’d really consider most of them and it would just be how many services we had to stretch it between, how many new songs we felt comfortable introducing. Because within songs that are well known or familiar enough that we could pick them up quickly, I think we can with hardly any practice throw in “Nothing but the Blood,” “Power In the Blood,” “Stepping in the Light.” There’s gonna be enough people who already know that song even if it’s new-ish to church if half the congregation knows that you got a running start.
Chad Berry:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
So if I felt like we only had two or three services in chapter one I think I would lean toward “Faithful to Forgive” as the new song I introduced over those two or three services. Slightly edging out “If We Walk in the Light” by Eliza Hewitt and William Kirkpatrick, but just depending on how things went I could flip that. I could see either of those be the totally new song I introduced over the course of the chapter.
Chad Berry:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
So another question I’d ask as we look at songs from this chapter is overall: How satisfied are we with the songs from this chapter? How well do we think the options from this chapter cover and communicate in song the main ideas of the chapter?
Chad Berry:
Yeah. And. I think the simplest answer that I would give to that question would be moderate satisfaction. There are enough songs that connect at least thematically with the parts of the text that are less written about.
We were talking off-screen before we got started this evening: in all the songs that I listened to and in all the lyrics I read, I could be wrong. But I don’t remember reading anything about the last couple of verses in [eight] and ten, you know, where, and that’s really where it’s that part of the verse, though it’s stated negatively, is so gripping. You know, if we say that we have no sin, you know, if we say that we’re in the light when we’re not.
Let me just read those two verses where John writes, and he says: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Verse nine has a lot written about it, but not really verse eight and not really verse 10. There’s not a whole lot on there. Verse 10 then reads: “If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”
You know, I understand in our modern age, people wanting to avoid being legalistic. But I think that too frequently, especially people who have come out of more of a legalistic background tend to swing too far the other way and avoid the clarity that if we reject these things about Jesus, yet we claim that we’re in the light, those two things don’t go together.
And that’s why I would say moderate. Because that concept I didn’t find anywhere. And it is such a straightforward concept that John wants us to understand. And of course, it’s secondarily picked up on when you talk about the atonement, because you can’t talk about the exclusivity of the atonement and the exclusivity of the gospel without saying that it’s this way or it’s no way. But John’s language makes it so gripping. And I just, I mean, correct me if I’m wrong. I feel like you’ll know much better if there’s anything out there that I’m missing.
Daniel J. Mount:
No.
Chad Berry:
But I didn’t really come across anything that picked up on that concept. And I feel like that’s such a weighty part of that passage that’s just kind of missing in musicality.
Daniel J. Mount:
No, I think you’re right. I think that is not covered well. I mean, my take on the chapter is that we have some pretty good material from I John 1:7 and I John 1:9.
Chad Berry:
Mm-hmm.
Daniel J. Mount:
And that’s about it.
Chad Berry:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
There’s plenty of great songs that refer to other parts of the chapter or have some thematic connection like the Getty communion song you mentioned at the start. But I think there’s room for a good congregational song from the opening verses, from the closing verses. And I think there’s even room to take either verse 7 or verse 9 and have a song that is on the same theme as the ones we covered, but pulls a little more from the verses around it, pulls the context in more. I think really the whole chapter needs more. I think there’s some good material to work with, but there’s definitely a need for more from each passage.
Just as we were talking here, toward the end, there’s an old Steve Green song called “We Have Seen His Glory,” that being a Steve Green song has this incredible range; I don’t think it’s a congregational song. And stylistically I love Christian music of the 80s, but it’s not what most churches are doing these days, the highly orchestrated stuff. But it shows what can be done with this idea, because if I recall, this is off the top of my head, but I think the first verse is discussing the experience of the apostles. But then it pivots into, we have seen his glory, we’ve seen God continue to work in our lives, and I think that there’s room for something, of course not ripping off that exact phrasing or concept, but that takes the first few verses, talks about the Apostles’ experience, but then as you were talking about with the Gettys’ hymn, applies it to us. So I think there’s good material from seven and nine, but the whole chapter could use a little more, I think.
Chad Berry:
Yeah, I think you’re right. And especially when you compare it with the rest of 1 John. I mean, cause there are other chapters in 1 John where there’s just, I mean, there is robust, really good stuff that has come out of both modern and, you know, older hymnody and other parts of the book.
Daniel J. Mount:
Little bit of a spoiler alert but as I’ve been preparing for later episodes in this series I feel like chapter 2 has some incredibly strong songs at the top of the list but also has large chunks of the chapter that aren’t covered hardly at all.
Chad Berry:
Yeah.
Daniel J. Mount:
Three and four that’s where most of the good songs are. From chapter 3 and chapter 4, I feel like there’s a lot of good songs. Probably more than a hundred in the overall database. But among ones you’d even consider, there’s dozens to go through for three and four. And then 5 was again a challenge like 1 is. There’s a few good ones from five, a few good ones from two, but three and four have a wealth, have a depth, and a breadth. where for chapter 1 and chapter 2, and I think to some extent chapter 5, there’s a depth and a few really good ones, but not as much written from these chapters.
So the last time you were on, you were right about to release a book that is now out. Could you share the title of that? I will also have the link in the show notes, but for those listening from an auditory standpoint, tell people where they can find it, and any social media accounts you’d like to mention where people can keep up with what you’re doing.
Chad Berry:
So the book is titled Communing with God: A Basic Guide to the Discipline of Prayer. I won’t try to make too much of a commercial for it.
Daniel J. Mount:
You can! I don’t mind.
Chad Berry:
But the basic idea of the book, so it’s actually a sermon series. It’s a four-part sermon series that I preached probably about 18 months ago, maybe closer to two years ago now, that was really birthed out of—so in addition to pastoring a church, I also serve as a hospice chaplain. The book was really birthed out of, and I explained this in the introduction, a lot of conversations that I was having with people who were in their 70s, 80s, even into their 90s. And when I would ask them about their prayer life, they would talk about their faith, they would talk about how much they love the Lord and how faithful they’ve been to the church. And I would ask them, well, do you pray? How often do you pray? And people would say, I don’t really pray that often. I would say, well, because you don’t feel like you have the time, because you don’t feel like you know how? And I was shocked by how many people who had been part of the Christian faith and professing Christ for decades and had been part of the local church for decades, who answered that question by saying, “I feel like I don’t know how to pray.”
And that was just mind-blowing to me and more so to pastors. as the ones who it’s our task to teach people and to teach them how to pray. You know, that was the one thing that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them, teach us how to pray. And so it’s four chapters. Why pray, how to pray, what to pray and when to pray. Each chapter examines a text or two of Scripture. And then at the end of the book, the final appendix has a handful of model prayers based on Scripture but that are arranged by topic. So an example prayer of praise, which is based off of the Magnificat in Luke [1]. Doubting. There’s a prayer that has to do with doubt and facing doubt from Romans 8. Depression or sorrow from Psalm 42. So just examples of how to pray through the Scripture. So that’s kind of the basic breakdown of the book.
I like to think that it’s very readable, but if it’s not, it’s at least short. So it comes in at less than a hundred pages. It can be found at store.bookbaby.com in the show notes.
You can find me primarily on Facebook. Our church has a Facebook page. New Liberty Baptist Church, Lexington, Ohio, you’ll find us social media-wise. For me, personally, Facebook is pretty much the only social media I do. I don’t really do anything much on social media, though. I post pictures of my baby and she’s really cute. So I guess if you need to take a break from looking at news or whatever you look at, you could go to my Facebook and look at pictures of my cute daughter, Magnolia. And then our church website. is newlibertylex.org and so you could find stuff there as well.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes. I love Facebook pages that are oases from the stress around us the rest of the time and yours definitely is one. Love it.
Chad Berry:
I share your podcast. I share when I’ve read a really good book, I’ll share a link to it. I usually share our church’s sermon audio. And then the rest of it is pictures of my family, primarily my daughter. And yeah, try not to get too controversial.
Daniel J. Mount:
Yes, there’s a time and a place to discuss controversial things, and that’s usually face to face.
Chad Berry:
That’s right.
Daniel J. Mount:
It just works so much better that way.
Chad Berry:
Yep, it does.
Daniel J. Mount:
Anyhow, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. And I would, in conclusion, say to the listeners: To hear future episodes, subscribe to this podcast on YouTube or on your favorite podcast platform. You can also find episode transcriptions and the free 50,000-song searchable Expository Songs database at danielmount.com. Thank you for listening.