How to appreciate a song (pointers from the Bible)
Photo by Mink Mingle on Unsplash In 2020, I listened to 955 artists. My top song, which is 8 minutes 15 seconds long (Josh Yeoh's Here in the Waiting ), was streamed 86 times, making for 709 minutes 30 seconds streaming this song alone, or nearly half a day. And that's just one song by one artist, out of the 955 others. A few weeks ago I came across the idea of studying songs in the Bible, producing what we'd call a biblical theology of song . I hate how academic that sounds, because enjoying a song is usually a natural, fluid, emotional process. But I realised that by surveying songs in the Bible—asking why, and in what circumstances, they are sung—I learned a lot about how to appreciate a song. Songs have been sung from ancient times, for much richer purposes than solely entertainment. #1 Expressing beliefs and emotions Songs in the Bible are sung to express beliefs and emotions in a way that prose can't. Some of the most well-known songs in the...