The Bible and Music

For tomorrow’s class, we were asked to find hymns and contemporary Christian songs that use specific words or imagery drawn from The Bible. The first step I took in this process was solely finding songs that I listen to frequently that draw from The Bible. One of my favorite Christian songs is written by Zach Williams and titled, “Chain Breaker.” This song mentions “prison-breaking Savior” and the breaking of chains through coming to Christ multiple times. I referenced this back to scripture in Mark 5:8 when Jesus restores a demon-possessed man that is physically in chains. Although Zach Williams intent to write this song was not directly correlated to this verse, I thought it was interesting to form a connection between the song and The Bible. Another song that I found a connection to was “How Great is Our God.” This work can be considered a hymn and even a contemporary song, but it has several biblical allusions. One of the references is to the Trinity, which is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The song references this by saying, “The Godhead Three in One / Father Spirit Son.” Another image formed in this song is the lyrics, “The Lion and the Lamb.” This is going back to the verse in Isaiah 11:6 when talking about the joy that will come when the Lion and the Lamb lie down together. The last hymn that I chose to draw specific imagery from The Bible was “Great is thy Faithfulness.” This hymn is extremely familiar to me because I grew up in a Methodist church and this seemed to be a reoccurring hymn that we sang throughout different services. I never looked into the multiple meanings or connections with this song until now. One instance of the specific imagery revealed in this hymn can go back to God’s faithfulness with Abraham and Sarah when he gives them a baby song. This was seen with great trust in God because these married couple was nearly 100 years in age and doubted God’s work to do this deed. There is several other connection from this song to the bible like in Psalm 36:5 that reads, “God’s faithfulness is unlimited.” This hymn also was one of my favorites, however after further analyzing it I have a deeper connection to it.