Exclusive psalmody is the particular worship practice of some churches in using the Book of Psalms from the Bible as the only manual of songs that may be sung in their services. Psalms (Tehilim תהילים, in Hebrew) is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, and of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Bible (sometimes The Book, Good Book, Word of God, or Scripture), from Greek (τα) βιβλια, (ta) biblia, (the) books, plural of βιβλιον, biblion, book, originally a diminutive of βιβλος, biblos, which in turn is derived from βυβλος—byblos, meaning papyrus, from the ancient Phoenician city of Byblos which exported this...
Here it is claimed that it is argued in favour of the position of exclusivepsalmody that "all worship which does not consist in the verbatim quotations of Scripture is, because it is not singing only the words of the Psalms, man made worship." Let it first be noted that the statement is illogical.
Hereafter another argument is laid down, not to refute the claim made by the supporters of exclusivepsalmody, that the institution of hymn-singing is man-made and therefore sinful, but the less relevant claim that the hymns are man-made and therefore not the institution that God has made.
Whatever imperfections and dangers may be identified in the practice of exclusivepsalmody, these are all accidental to the institution itself and flow rather from the imperfections of those singing the psalms than the psalms themselves.
As one who came to the position of "exclusivepsalmody" as a student at Westminster Theological Seminary in the late 1970's, this reviewer has been grateful to God for raising up numerous other voices, often quite independently, to advocate a return to the Psalter.
Until the 1990 Psalmody Conference at Flat Rock, North Carolina, this was the last such gathering in the world; and, until fairly recent times, this volume was the last major work to deal with the subject.
The subject matter ranges from a defense of the regulative principle of worship and exclusivepsalmody, to the practicality and suitability of psalm-singing, to literary and musical considerations.
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