Turn in your Bibles to the end of Hebrews, the 13th chapter of Hebrews, and we'll read a few verses. Let's read Hebrews 13, 15 through the end of the chapter. Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that gives thanks to his name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things, and I urge you all the more to do this so that I may be restored to you the sooner." And let's go ahead and read the next couple of verses also. Now, the God of peace who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will according, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the privilege of meeting together to look into your word. And thank you especially for this topic of worship and for the worship of your people gathered together corporately to offer you praise and honor, the honor and praise that you are due. We thank you, Father, that we read in the book of Revelation, worthy is the Lamb. And we thank you that you are worthy of all praise and honor and worship. We thank you that as this is the case, that you call us together for this very purpose. And as we're together now and entertain another A facet of the topic of worship, we pray that you'd be pleased to bless and strengthen us. Give us your grace, we ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen. I want to particularly zero in on verse 15. Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name." Now, you'll notice in this particular text that two things are put together by the writer to the Hebrews. the sacrifice of praise to God, which is defined for us, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And so as you see, the writer to the Hebrews is making this comparison between the sacrifice of praise and the fruit of lips, or defining, if you will, the idea of sacrifice of praise as the fruit of lips, you might suspect that the writer to the Hebrews has an Old Testament sacrifice in mind as he speaks the words or writes the words, sacrifice of praise. And that, in fact, is the case. The writer to the Hebrews looks back often to the Old Testament economy and indicates how the Lord Jesus Christ has fulfilled the Old Testament economy and and as he looks back at the at this Old Testament economy. And so he's continually making these kinds of comparisons. And in this particular text, he's making a comparison with regard to sacrifice. And you'll notice again that the the whole matter of praise is put in terms of the Old Testament sacrificial language, the sacrifice of thanksgiving or the sacrifice of praise. Now, I've got the New American Standard Version, which reads the sacrifice of praise. Do any of you have their sacrifice of thanksgiving? I don't know. What does the ESV say, Bill? Sacrifice of praise? So this is this is the general translation. It could be translated the sacrifice of thanksgiving, which is or that is the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. So let's let's look back at an Old Testament text here to this idea of the sacrifice of praise or the sacrifice of thanksgiving. And what I'd like you to do is turn back to Leviticus and it'll be the seventh chapter. Leviticus chapter seven. And at the beginning of Leviticus, Moses is outlining different sacrifices that are to be accomplished in the ceremonial law. And the beginning of Leviticus 7 has to do with the guilt offering. And if you look down to verse 11, You'll see the subject changes there a little bit. And Moses says, Now this is the law of the sacrifice of the peace offerings which shall be presented to the Lord. If he offers it by way of thanksgiving, then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with oil and unleavened wafers spread out with oil and cakes of well-stirred fine flour mixed with oil. With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving, he shall present his offering with cakes of leavened bread." Of this he shall present one of every offering as a contribution to the Lord. It shall belong to the priests who sprinkle the blood of the peace offerings. Now, as for the flesh of the sacrifice of the thanksgiving peace offerings, it shall be eaten on the day of his offering. He shall not leave any of it over until morning. But if the sacrifice of his offering is a votive or a freewill offering, It shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice. And on the next day, what is left of it may be eaten. Now, this is long ago and far away, isn't it? And pretty foreign to our thinking. But the writer to the Hebrews is going back to this idea of actually the peace offering. And if you followed along in the text, verse 11 says, now, this is the law of the sacrifice of the peace offerings. And there were actually three types of peace offerings. There was a thank offering, a votive offering and a free will offering. And these were offerings that were brought by the people to indicate special thanks for the fulfillment of a vow, or they felt that they wanted to freely bring a special offering to the Lord. This was the idea of the free will offering. It wasn't one that was necessarily specifically directed by the Lord, but one that the people would like to bring. So there was a peace offering, and underneath the peace offering, there were three types. The thank offering, the vote of offering, and the free will offering. Now, look at verses 11 and 12 again. Now, this is the law of the sacrifice of the peace offerings which shall be presented to the Lord. If he offers it by way of thanksgiving, then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, he shall offer unleavened cakes, etc. This is the very specific language that the writer to the Hebrews is picking up in Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 15. Keep your finger there in Leviticus and go back to Hebrews now and look at Hebrews 13, 15. Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God or a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. Now, if you do a little analysis of this, I think most of you realize this, that the New Testament is originally written in Greek and the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. But there is also a Greek translation of the Hebrew text. And if you go back and you look at the Septuagint, in Leviticus 17 and the words sacrifice of thanksgiving in the Septuagint, in the Greek Old Testament, they're exactly the same words that the writer to the Hebrews is using in Hebrews 13.15. In other words, the writer to the Hebrews is reaching back to the temple service and specifically to the thank offering and connecting it to New Testament worship. So we're back to this temple church analogy again, you see, that we talked about before lunch, that the New Testament church is the dwelling place of God, is the new temple, and here we're seeing another connection, that the sacrifice of thanksgiving is brought into the New Testament. And the language again is very specific in Hebrews. Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. So what's the writer to the Hebrews doing? The writer to the Hebrews is changing the thank offering in the Old Testament, which was a peace offering. The writer to the Hebrews is changing the thank offering of the Old Testament into a different kind of sacrifice, which is a sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips. And what the writer to the Hebrews is doing is not only changing the Old Testament sacrifice into this New Testament sacrifice, the sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips. But he's also showing us that there's this connection with the Old Testament here, with the Old Testament temple. And I think, again, this is a very vital connection. Why? Well, let me just talk to you for a moment about what went on in the temple. The sacrifices were carried on in the temple. Now, we're talking not the tabernacle, which was built earlier, but during the time of the temple. And Solomon's reign and after that period of time, the sacrifices were carried on. But at the same time, there were Levitical choirs that were brought in to the court of the temple and they stood next to the altar. And during the time the sacrifices were being offered on the altar, they would sing and chant psalms before the Lord. And this was a regular part of the sacrificial ceremony. And we read, for example, during the Passover service, that the people would bring their Passover lambs into the temple courtyard, and the priests would sacrifice the Passover lambs. And while the priests were sacrificing the Passover lambs, the Levitical choirs would sing what has been called the Egyptian Hallel, which is a series of the Psalms. And they would sing those Psalms over the sacrifice. And since there were a lot of lambs that had to be sacrificed, they'd sing this series of Psalms over and over and over again. The Psalms that were traditionally sung at the Passover season. And when you read in the New Testament that at the last celebration of the Passover by our Lord, that the disciples went out and sang a hymn in connection with the Passover service, this hymn actually was part of the Psalter. And at this point, it may very well have been Psalm 115, Psalm 116, Psalm 117, Psalm 118 in that area of the Psalter. And so this hymn that they sang was actually, because it was part of the Passover service, this series of Psalms. You see, now the writer to the Hebrews is picking this up from the temple service. that these psalms were sung during the sacrifices which were taking place. And now, since there was such a close association of the singing of these psalms in the temple service with the sacrifice, when the writer to the Hebrews thinks about writing to those who will read his letters, he says, through him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. He says he's thinking about the Old Testament thank offering. And then he says, no, it's not that same offering. It's a little different now, you see. It's the fruit of lips. It's not an animal sacrifice now. It's actually the fruit of lips. which give thanks to his name. And so the new thank offering is praise to God. I mentioned in the earlier session that we had that some of the elements of our worship come from the temple and some of our elements of worship come from the synagogue. And here what we're seeing is that the element of praise in worship really comes from the temple service. It's a carryover from the temple service, and this is in part what the writer to the Hebrews is indicating to us. All right. Now, let me give you another interesting feature or a couple of other interesting features, I think, about this temple service. Moses had designated a couple of trumpets to be blown over the sacrifices. You read about this in the book of Numbers. And these trumpets were announcements, announcements with regard to the sacrifice. And interestingly enough, the older expositors liken those trumpet calls which were made over the sacrifices. And you have to realize that those Old Testament sacrifices pointed to Christ, correct? They pointed to the sacrifice of Christ. So those Old Testament trumpets are often likened by the older expositors as the proclamation of the gospel over the sacrifice. They're likened to that sort of thing. This is part of the symbolism or the typology that the older expositors saw. And so we have the idea of gospel preaching over the sacrifice, which is Christ. And you have the choirs singing praise to God at the time of the sacrifice. So that there's a close association of this singing with the sacrifice. So what happens in the New Testament? Well, what do we do? We come together. to proclaim the gospel of Christ, the great sacrifice, and we come together to sing praises to God with regard to the gospel, the great sacrifice. And all of this is portrayed in the Old Testament, in the temple economy. And the writer to the Hebrews is picking all this symbolism up. as he speaks in Hebrews 13.15, through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. Let me direct your attention to Psalm 50 and a couple of references in Psalm 50. where there is similar language utilized. Notice verse 14 in Psalm 50. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. Now, when you read a verse like this, What do you automatically think of? You probably think of singing, right? You probably think of offering up praise to God as the fruit of lips. And in the New Testament economy, this is exactly what it is, because this is exactly what the writer to the Hebrews is telling us. But if you look at the language closely, offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the most high. You see, in the Old Testament, this was the peace offering. And two types of peace offering are mentioned here, the thank offering and the votive offering. And you should be familiar with the votive offering because the votive offering has to do with the offering made at the completion of a vow. And this is exactly what Paul did. You remember the Apostle Paul said, I need to go back to Jerusalem because I need to pay my vow. And so the idea was for him to go back to the temple and to offer the peace offering or his votive offering before the Lord. This is what he was doing. And this is what verse 14 is saying. You see the same kind of language in verse 23. He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me, and to him who orders his way aright, I shall show the salvation of God. He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving. This is the Old Testament sacrifice, which would have been one of the peace offerings. But but it's translated now into the New Testament as the fruit of lips to give praise to God. So there's a connection, you see here again with the with the temple. OK, so far so good. I'll let you poke at me with some questions here momentarily. Now, the question would be, you see, with this kind of connection with the Old Testament and with this kind of connection between the singing that the writer to the Hebrews is talking about and the Psalms which were sung in connection with the sacrifices, you have to keep this in mind when you look at other texts. For example, let's look at Colossians 3.16. Colossians 3.16. Let the word of Christ richly dwell with you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thanksgiving in your hearts to God." Now, I've read from the New American Standard Version, and you can pick up a couple of things here from the translation. The command is, Let the words or the word of Christ dwell within you. Now, when you look at the text, Paul is giving two ways for us to let the Word of Christ dwell within us. How do we do this? One, what does he say? Teaching and admonishing one another. Correct? You can see that all right? Teaching. And then Paul gives a second way to let the word of Christ dwell richly within you. Teaching and admonishing, we should probably put that here. And what's the other way? Well, we're looking at these ING words then, aren't we? Singing, isn't it? Singing. That's right. Singing. So the two principal ways that Paul is saying that you let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly is through teaching and admonishing one another and through singing. Let's get the corporate aspect of this again. Look at the beginning of Colossians 3. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. The you there is second person plural. In other words, Paul is speaking to the church at Colossae. It's second person plural. Set your mind on things above. Second person plural. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Second person plural again. Paul has the church in mind here as he's speaking. When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Church. Church, realize this. You also. It's second-person plural. Paul has the church in mind here. And all through this passage, it's second-person plural. The you. So, you have to begin to think corporately here. How is it that you let the word of Christ dwell within you richly? Church! Church! In your teaching and admonishing one another, and in your singing. Is singing important? Absolutely. In fact, These two are equally ultimate, equally important, according to Paul. And I think that's terribly significant because often, and see, this is the pastor now that comes out, right? Well, the preaching of the Word is central. Or the Sabbath school teacher, well, the teaching of the Word is central. Yes, the teaching and the preaching of the Word is important, but no less important is our singing, you see. And this is why the writer to the Hebrews gives the command he gives in Hebrews 13.15. What are we to do? Let us continually offer up Our sacrifices of thanksgiving, that is the fruit of lips. Giving praise to him. So I'm anxious to point this out to you, that singing is just as important. Your singing together on the Lord's Day is just as important as the preacher standing up there behind the pulpit and droning on for 30 or 40 minutes. Not every preacher likes to hear that, but this is certainly the case. This is the way the Apostle Paul is putting it. Now we have to deal with three little words that are in Colossians 3.16. Well, let me go back because I want to add one other thing here. Look at Colossians 1.28. Look at Colossians 128. Notice what Paul says here, we proclaim him admonishing every man. And teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ. Do you notice the similarity at all between Colossians 128 and Colossians 316? We proclaim Him admonishing every man and teaching every man. In other words, we preach. We preach Christ. How do we preach Christ? What does our preaching include? Admonishing every man and teaching every man. Right? This is what our preaching involves. This is what our proclamation involves. And what does Paul say? Look again at Colossians 3.16. Let the Word of Christ dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. Teaching and admonishing one another. So what is this? According to the Apostle Paul, this is preaching. This is the proclamation of Christ. He uses exactly the same language. This is, in other words, this is the corporate setting that Paul has in mind here. I would submit to you once again. OK, now let's deal with these three little words. Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom. Teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. OK, who's got does does anyone have the new international version? No. OK, don't be afraid to raise your hand. All right. I want you to listen. to read Colossians 316 and listen, listen to Colossians 316. OK. Notice what's happening in this version. I think the ESV is similar. You've got ESV? I have his version. I have his ESV, so that makes me really happy. OK, you've got ESV there? OK, read ESV. Let the word of Christ, well and richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. OK, now listen, listen to the difference. What do you folks have here? A new American standard. New King James. OK, the way it's put in the New American Standard is let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. In other words, in the New American Standard version, psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is attached to teaching. Right. You see that in the text, but in the NIV and in the English Standard Version, Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs is attached to singing, right? Isn't this what's happening? Read ESV again. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Now, the question is, why the difference? You would automatically ask, why the difference? Well, here's the reason. Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs are nestled in the middle of the text. And because those words are nestled in the original language in the middle of the text, some translators connect them with teaching and admonishing. And some translators connect them with singing. All right. You follow me? So that's the difference. Now you ask the question, which would be more logical? Which connection would be more logical? I would say the connection that the NIV and the English Standard Version is actually more logical, so that what you have is singing psalms, hymns, and songs, and actually the way it works out is that all three are spiritual. because grammatically the adjective actually applies to all three. So that the idea here is, let the Word of Christ dwell within you richly, how? Teaching and admonishing one another, which is sitting under the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, and singing psalms, hymns, and songs, spiritual, okay? And from this perspective, I really do think the NIV and the English Standard version are more correct. So now, this leads us to a further question of analysis. What's going on here? Also, what's going on here with the preaching and the teaching? You see, all of a sudden, what's happening here, if our analysis is correct, what's happening here is that the Apostle Paul is defining our singing more closely than he's defining our preaching and our teaching. In other words, I think we'd all agree with this. Maybe I can throw some more here. We'd all agree with this, that this teaching and admonishing needs to be scriptural. Right? Every one of us would maintain that vigorously, that our teaching needs to be scriptural. But what is Paul doing here? Paul is saying a little bit more than our singing has to be scriptural. He's at least saying that Our singing needs to involve Scripture. And then we have to ask the question, does he have specific Scripture in mind? And what do we have to do to answer that question? We would always say our principle of interpretation would be, we have to get into Paul's mind to determine what's going on here, correct? Isn't this our obligation? We have to get into Paul's mind. We don't want to impute to Scripture a thought that we have that might be applicable in our day. We have to get into Paul's mind. What does Paul mean? See, I was trying to say the same thing here with regard to Hebrews. 1315. There's a connection with the Old Testament sacrifices. There's a connection with the Old Testament sacrifices and the Psalms that were sung in connection with the Old Testament sacrifices. The writer to the Hebrews has that whole situation in mind when he says that were to offer continually sacrifices of thanksgiving Unto God, through Christ, that is the fruit of our lips. He has those Old Testament sacrifices in mind. Well, what do you have to say with regard to the Apostle Paul? Paul also has the Old Testament in mind here. Undoubtedly, you see, I think you have to say that this is the case. And it happens, you see, that when you do the analysis of psalms and hymns and songs, that these are actually the psalms of the Old Testament. This is what's happening. Now, how do we say that? Well, let me just give you a couple of examples here. Look, look at Psalm 72. I think this is correct. The very end of Psalm 72. You notice in your Bibles, the 20th verse is, the prayers of David, the son of Jesse are ended. The Greek version of the Old Testament reads, the hymns of David, the son of Jesse are ended. The hymns of David, the son of Jesse are ended. In other words, these psalms are called what? Hymns. Hymns. When I do my class at the seminary, I give my class a couple of sheets where I go through the titles of several of the Psalms from the Greek Old Testament and show the men that many of these titles, which are actually part of the inspired text, you read this in the Hebrew, the title is the first verse of the inspired text. In many of these titles you'll find a song, a hymn of Jesse. A song. In other words, one psalm is called a song, a hymn, and a psalm. This is how the Greek Old Testament has it. It's very striking that it comes out in Psalm 73 in verse 20. Go back to, let's see, go back to Psalm 65 and look at what your Bible says. For the choir director, a psalm of David, a song. There's the title. Psalm 66 for the choir director, a song, a song. Psalm 67 for the choir director with stringed instruments, a song, a song. For the choir, 68 for the choir director, a Psalm of David, a song. And so it goes for different songs, in other words, I think we can properly maintain that when Paul thinks of the word Psalms, hymns and songs, what is he thinking about? He's actually thinking about the Psalms of the Old Testament. It seems to me this is the case. Yes. OK. Am I suggesting what? No, no, I'm just. Yeah, I'm just simply calling attention to the fact that many of these songs are actually called what hymns. Hymns. What he's talking about, what you're talking about, the Psalms are divided into divisions. All they are simply saying there is before you get into the Psalms, hymns and spiritual psalms of Korah, this is where primarily the David's and Psalms, hymns and Psalms. Yeah, that happens to be the end of one of the books in the Psalter. And I think that's why we find that there. OK, I'm simply suggesting that The word hymns then in Paul's thinking. Well, let me go back a step. It's also quite significant, I think, that if you were to ask Paul, what is your Bible? What version are you using? Very often he would say the Greek. because he quotes so frequently from the Greek Old Testament. And I think generally this is understood. In fact, I would say that the Greek Old Testament was for Paul like the King James Version used to be for a lot of people. This doesn't mean he didn't understand Hebrew. He read the Hebrew. He understood the Hebrew. But the Greek Bible was Uh, the language of. Yeah, it was the language of the time, wasn't it? And this is in part why the, uh, the, uh, uh, New Testament is written in Greek. So let me just pursue it a little bit more and then I'll, I'll give you a chance. Okay. Uh, so I would maintain, see, you have to get into the mind of Paul. What is Paul thinking? when he gives us these terms. Now, let me show you one other thing. Where am I going to write this on the board? I need a step ladder. That's right. Let me do it. Let me do it this way. I'll just put it here. Psalms and hymns and songs and It happens that grammatically, when you tie three similar words together with and like this, grammatically, this is one thing. This is the grammar of it. And you can look this up. The figure of speech is called hen diatris, which means one through three. So grammatically, what this is, is one thing with three words. This is how it works out. And there are a lot of these kind of constructions. I am the way and the truth and the life. It's one thing. I am the true and living way, Jesus is saying. He's not saying three different things. It's one thing. A similar construction is, you must worship the Father in spirit and truth. This would be in Hen Diodus 1-2. You must worship the Father in a truly spiritual way. It's not two different things. It's not spirit over here and truth over here. It's one thing. And these are actually very common figures. You see this in... Ephesians 519, this figure. And so this is Paul actually has one thing in mind here when he's speaking of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. And I think what he has in mind then is the psalms of the Old Testament. Now, then the other thing that you have to deal with is the word spiritual. And in the English versions, it's psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And a lot of people like to pick up on that. But grammatically, again, because the original language, spiritual, comes last. It's psalms, hymns, songs, spiritual. The adjective applies to all three. This is the common understanding of the grammar. And so we're talking about spiritual songs, spiritual hymns and spiritual songs. So, again, this is what's taking place. I'm not trying to trick you here. I'm really not. I have a question for you. I'm trying to use, just looking at Elijah, I would use three different words, and I'm not asking for an answer I have. But a hymn, for example, let's look at the Lord's Prayer song, that scripture. Now, is that unscriptural to sing in a congregation? OK. And another thing, that's one thing. Backing up to teaching, separating it from singing. Singing is one of the best ways to teach children. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, let me let me let me address these. Time is fleeting, but let me let me just say one other thing and let me get to your question. See, this word spiritual, I think, then has to do with the fact that one, these are songs that are fit for the spiritual realm. Now, why do I say that? One reason I say that is that in the resurrection, what does Christ give us? What kind of bodies? What does Paul say? Spiritual bodies. Bodies that are preeminently suited for the spiritual realm. So these are songs that are preeminently suited for the spiritual realm. And what would make them suitable for the spiritual realm. They would be inspired. They would come from the spirit. That's part of what would make them preeminently suited for the spiritual realm. OK, now let me let me go to this this other, because I opened the door on it over here. There's no question that this is the case. You see, what I'm saying here is that Paul actually is circumscribing singing more closely than he's circumscribing teaching. It seems to me from the grammar, this is quite clear that this is the case, that he's directing us as to the content of our singing. And here, he's not directing us as closely with regard to the content of our preaching, although what is he interested in? The Word of Christ. How do you let the Word of Christ dwell richly within you? By the teaching and by your singing. And this is absolutely correct. One of the best ways to inculcate doctrine is through singing. In fact, You go back and read the history of hymnody and there have often been conscious efforts to redirect the doctrine of individuals through the singing of the church. That's right. That's right. And so there we are. And the other thing is here. Calvin, interestingly enough, and I'll mention just a couple of other things about Calvin. Calvin says in his introduction to the Psalms that the Psalms are, how does he put it? Now the words evade me. Help me, Bill. An anatomy of the soul. set forth an anatomy of the soul. In other words, the Psalter guides us properly in all the expressions of our emotions. That's right. He knows us better than we do. And so he can direct us in the outpouring of our emotions. And actually, I think Calvin gets this from Athanasius. But at any rate, and so Calvin in the Reformation instituted or reinstituted the singing of Psalms. And historically, Colossians 3.16 and Ephesians 5.19 were two of the texts that the Reformers went back to repeatedly to undergird the whole idea of psalmody in the church. Now, the question does arise, what about other scripture? I think that's a proper question. And Calvin did sing in his day the Magnificat and some other selected pieces of scripture. But the burden of what took place was the Psalter, and generally, The Psalter, at least in Reformed circles, has come to be known as the hymn book of the church. And as I've said in other contexts, I'll take a divine guide to the expression of my emotions any day of the week over some other guide. I'll take the divine guide. And so this is in part, you see, why this isn't the whole story, but this is in part why in the Reformed Presbyterian Church, we sing songs. Yeah. And actually, there are no extant fragments of any ancient hymns. There are none. I have in my library a book by a New Testament scholar, I think that this is correct, who is no friend of psalmody. But he says when Paul and Silas were in the jail together, What would they do? They would sing that which was familiar to them. And there's little doubt that the hymns that they sang and the the word in the the book of Acts is hymning because it's a verb. He says there is no doubt that the hymns that they sang were the songs of the Old Testament. And in a couple of other places, he makes comments like this. So go back now to Hebrews and the text that we looked at earlier. And let me just tie that together with the Hebrews text, Hebrews 13, 15. There 15 through him, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips giving thanks to his name. We've already said. The Psalms were sung with the sacrifices, and the writer to the Hebrews is now coming along and saying, now, what is your sacrifice? What is your? Offering of Thanksgiving, it's the fruit of lips and with this connection, say Old Testament connection with the Old Testament and the Psalms with the sacrifices. I think Paul is coming along with this same idea. That singing is just as important as a teaching and grammatically, it seems to me that he is. circumscribing our singing more closely than he is our teaching, which to me is phenomenal. And the reason he's doing that is because of the importance of how this singing inculcates the truth into our hearts. So it's very important that it be sound singing, eminently important that it be sound singing. And your singing, therefore, is just important as what you hear because you're digesting the truth of God and praise God that this is the case. And so what we have here is just a little piece of the argumentation for the use of Psalms in our worship today. All right, let's have a word of prayer. Father, thank you for Your word. Thank you for your care. We pray now that you'll be pleased to bless us and help us to work through this material and to understand it so that we may do your will. That's the desire of all of our hearts. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.