I heard a church advertising their worship gatherings on the radio. The pastor made it clear that they have the “traditional hymns.” That sounded great to this long-term, Kingdom citizen. I love hymns–especially those without the 21st century, four-line added choruses that have now become standard issue (but that is another blog post).
What troubled me was after the comment of “traditional hymns,” the pastor noted that these are the “beloved songs of Zion.” Of Zion? Really?
Let’s be honest. Most of them are probably from the 18th through the early 20th century–hardly of the Psalm 137:3-type.
Let’s keep our speech true to reality, especially when we go public.
If we are not careful, we will begin to say that our church uses the English Standard Version of the Bible because it was what John the Baptist used. “If it was good enough for the Baptist, it is good enough for us!”
Let’s be honest. Of course, we know this was not true. The Baptist used the King James Version.
Actually Zion is a word that The writer of Hebrews uses to describe the modern church. So it is a correct statement to say that it’s a beloved hymn of Zion. The writer of Hebrews was teaching that we are no longer going to the “Mt Sinai” – place of the law but rather we have all come to Mt. Zion, it is the place where Jesus dwells and it is where we should dwell. So his statement was actually correct.
““you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel.”
Hebrews 12:22-24 NLT
Excellent point, Chris! If that was his meaning, then I agree.