JBJ 3 Reformation Worship

 Do this and report bak. Could use Ps. 117 (Hebrew, Hebrew Cadence) and Song of Whole Bible. But do this and report back.

His GREAT book 'Through New Eyes' is FREE at http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks. I also recommend Theopolis Institute both websit and Facebook. Also check out in Africa Elisha Nehemiah (
Facebook) and Adullam.

The Reformers were great guys, but they were guys after all and they lived when they lived. They were all bookmen and they produced churches oriented towards literate people, upper middle class people, like you and me. People who lived in towns and who made money, so much money that they could actually buy a personal family Bible and even a family singing psalter!! Not the kind of people God was concerned about in the Bible, people who learned through hearing not by reading. 

     We live in modern times. The Authorized Version (King James) of the Bible was made at the turn of these times. So one of the concerns of the translators was that it be cadential for reading aloud. The original Hebrew was clearly written in such a way -- the stories are not in paragraphs but in lines: and ... and ... and... and. If our Bibles were set out in this way, we would all feel the music of the text more easily. But when the AV was printed, paper and ink were dear, so it saved a lot of space to put everything into one verse and leave out some of the "ands" to make for "smoother English."

     The Reformers, except for the English, made the horrible decision to substitute metrical hymns for the Divine psalms. Many of these early collections of metrical psalms are wonderful and exciting, but they are not and cannot be (to any sane person) substitutes for God's word. The English wound up setting the psalms to Anglican Chant, which sadly entails harmonization and is largely impossible for whole churches to do. 

     Now, I strongly recommend churches set up quarterly or monthly Psalm Roars [Amos 1:2] using the Genevan Psalter. Invite others to come. Do not allow Scottish psalms or the Trinity Hymnal or Book of Psalms for Singing of anything else to creep in. You will eventually wind up with a Psalm Meow instead of a Roar. Stick with the tough stuff, the Roars. Your kids will thank you. Here again Psalm Roars are for literate people, and that is only 50% of the American populace.

     So what do we need to do and what should the Reformers have done? We need to stop thinking of liturgy as prayerbook worship and think of it as dictated worship. Call and response. That is how it must have been in Bible times. At the Temple of course the psalms would have been sung so often, all day long daily, that they would have become memorized in a quick amount of time; only by one group of the total Levites, that is.  Likely also Levite singers were among the people trained to read.

     Out in the hills and farmlands, however, things were different. There was no need for book learning there; only knowledge of the symbols and marks needed for one's profession. The only way people learned the stories in Genesis, Exodus and Numbers, Joshua and Judges, and later in Samuel and early Kings, was from local Levites who met with groups of people locally from time to time and read from rare parchments and scrolls, or else just taught from memory. These Levites, we hope, would have taught a few psalms to their local groups, obviously by dictating them by singing them line by line and having the people sing after, until they had them memorized.

     Happily, we live after the industrial revolution and both paper and ink are no longer as dear as once they were. Books are possible, and the Reformation became overly bookish without thinking about it. Reformation churches assume people who read paragraphs, daily newspapers or occasional magazines, and who can come to church and read a hymnal and a bulletin.

    But the fact is that a lot of people are not like this at all. When you take your automobile in for repair, you see a book with 50,00 pages on the shelf, but what is in that book is not paragraphs but diagrams and pictures, arrows and directions to other pages. You can't read it, unless you learn this foreign language.  Lots of people get off work and do not go home and read a novel; they watch television or meet friends for a card game or drink! Visit their home and you do not see a bookshelf in the living room lined with Stephen King or anybody else. 

     These are half the population of any society. They have been ignored by the Reformation churches. That needs to stop. And now.

     What could we do? Well, dictate worship instead of having people read it. Let's assume you will not have a bulletin at all. Nope. You are now crippled. No prayer-book. No bulletin. What do you do? {shake, tremble} Let's see. Worship begins with Confession of Sin. You read a line and then the congregation prays it after you:

Let us pray:

Almighty God

  Almighty God

I, a poor sinner, 

  I, a poor sinner, 

Confess to You that I have grievously sinned against You 

  Confess to You that I have grievously sinned against You 

In word and deed,

   In word and deed,

And in thought and attitude.

Not only in outward transgressions, 

But also in secret thoughts and desires

That I am not able to understand, 

But which are all known to You. 

I am in need of salvation from my sin

And deliverance from Your enemies. 

For this reason I flee for safety to Your infinite mercy, 

Seeking and imploring your forgiveness and deliverance, 

Through my Lord, Jesus Christ, Your Anointed Ruler. Amen.

     And after this you're going to have a psalm or three and you or a cantor will sing a line and have the congregation repeat the line after. Imagine how quickly the psalms will get into the bones of your people when they work through them this way. Yes, they'll get them memorized pretty quick, but you have to keep the worship friendly to new people that God is bringing in, so you have to keep dictating the psalms. 

  Well, that's enough for starters. Worship should be short and direct, not fluffy, not with a variety of leaders. Prayers should be short and concentrated, and using high-speech, not colloquial-speech. The same is true of Scripture reading, intoned in phrases (hear that, Jim Jordan??).

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: edencity@aol.com <edencity@aol.com>

To: Joel Brondos Sturm <edencity@aol.com>

Sent: Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 02:41:56 PM CDT

Subject: JBJ Farewell to the Reformation/Worship

The Reformers were great guys, but they were guys after all and they lived when they lived. They were all bookmen and they produced churches oriented towards literate people, upper middle class people, like you and me. People who lived in towns and who made money, so much money that they could actually buy a personal family Bible and even a family singing psalter!! Not the kind of people God was concerned about in the Bible, people who learned through hearing not by reading. 

     We live in modern times. The Authorized Version (King James) of the Bible was made at the turn of these times. So one of the concerns of the translators was that it be cadential for reading aloud. The original Hebrew was clearly written in such a way -- the stories are not in paragraphs but in lines: and ... and ... and... and. If our Bibles were set out in this way, we would all feel the music of the text more easily. But when the AV was printed, paper and ink were dear, so it saved a lot of space to put everything into one verse and leave out some of the "ands" to make for "smoother English."

     The Reformers, except for the English, made the horrible decision to substitute metrical hymns for the Divine psalms. Many of these early collections of metrical psalms are wonderful and exciting, but they are not and cannot be (to any sane person) substitutes for God's word. The English wound up setting the psalms to Anglican Chant, which sadly entails harmonization and is largely impossible for whole churches to do. 

     Now, I strongly recommend churches set up quarterly or monthly Psalm Roars [Amos 1:2] using the Genevan Psalter. Invite others to come. Do not allow Scottish psalms or the Trinity Hymnal or Book of Psalms for Singing of anything else to creep in. You will eventually wind up with a Psalm Meow instead of a Roar. Stick with the tough stuff, the Roars. Your kids will thank you. Here again Psalm Roars are for literate people, and that is only 50% of the American populace.

     So what do we need to do and what should the Reformers have done? We need to stop thinking of liturgy as prayerbook worship and think of it as dictated worship. Call and response. That is how it must have been in Bible times. At the Temple of course the psalms would have been sung so often, all day long daily, that they would have become memorized in a quick amount of time; only by one group of the total Levites, that is.  Likely also Levite singers were among the people trained to read.

     Out in the hills and farmlands, however, things were different. There was no need for book learning there; only knowledge of the symbols and marks needed for one's profession. The only way people learned the stories in Genesis, Exodus and Numbers, Joshua and Judges, and later in Samuel and early Kings, was from local Levites who met with groups of people locally from time to time and read from rare parchments and scrolls, or else just taught from memory. These Levites, we hope, would have taught a few psalms to their local groups, obviously by dictating them by singing them line by line and having the people sing after, until they had them memorized.

     Happily, we live after the industrial revolution and both paper and ink are no longer as dear as once they were. Books are possible, and the Reformation became overly bookish without thinking about it. Reformation churches assume people who read paragraphs, daily newspapers or occasional magazines, and who can come to church and read a hymnal and a bulletin.

    But the fact is that a lot of people are not like this at all. When you take your automobile in for repair, you see a book with 50,00 pages on the shelf, but what is in that book is not paragraphs but diagrams and pictures, arrows and directions to other pages. You can't read it, unless you learn this foreign language.  Lots of people get off work and do not go home and read a novel; they watch television or meet friends for a card game or drink! Visit their home and you do not see a bookshelf in the living room lined with Stephen King or anybody else. 

     These are half the population of any society. They have been ignored by the Reformation churches. That needs to stop. And now.

     What could we do? Well, dictate worship instead of having people read it. Let's assume you will not have a bulletin at all. Nope. You are now crippled. No prayer-book. No bulletin. What do you do? {shake, tremble} Let's see. Worship begins with Confession of Sin. You read a line and then the congregation prays it after you:

Let us pray:

Almighty God

  Almighty God

I, a poor sinner, 

  I, a poor sinner, 

Confess to You that I have grievously sinned against You 

  Confess to You that I have grievously sinned against You 

In word and deed,

   In word and deed,

And in thought and attitude.

Not only in outward transgressions, 

But also in secret thoughts and desires

That I am not able to understand, 

But which are all known to You. 

I am in need of salvation from my sin

And deliverance from Your enemies. 

For this reason I flee for safety to Your infinite mercy, 

Seeking and imploring your forgiveness and deliverance, 

Through my Lord, Jesus Christ, Your Anointed Ruler. Amen.

     And after this you're going to have a psalm or three and you or a cantor will sing a line and have the congregation repeat the line after. Imagine how quickly the psalms will get into the bones of your people when they work through them this way. Yes, they'll get them memorized pretty quick, but you have to keep the worship friendly to new people that God is bringing in, so you have to keep dictating the psalms. 

  Well, that's enough for starters. Worship should be short and direct, not fluffy, not with a variety of leaders. Prayers should be short and concentrated, and using high-speech, not colloquial-speech. The same is true of Scripture reading, intoned in phrases (hear that, Jim Jordan??).