In several ways these texts yield a respectable harvest to the student of the New Testament. I am not thinking now of the additions to our store of New Testament and other early Christian MSS. by the discovery of early Christian papyrus and parchment fragments, and ostraca, although in this direct way the value of the new documents is considerable. I mean rather the indirect value which the non-Christian, non-literary texts possess for the student of Primitive Christianity. This is of three kings:

(1) They teach us to put a right estimate philologically upon the New Testament and, with it, Primitive Christianity.

(2) They point to the right literary appreciation of the New Testament.

(3) They give us important information on points in the history of religion and culture, helping us to understand both the contact and contrast between Primitive Christianity and the ancient world.

Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East: The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World, trans. Lionel R. M. Strachan, 10.

But theology, as an historical science, has a vital interest in the discovery of the historical setting, the historical background.

The ancient world, in the widest sense of that term, forms the historical background to Primitive Christianity.

Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East: The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World, trans. Lionel R. M. Strachan, 2.

It will not do to see the Psalter as merely predictive of Christ or as messianic in a few notable cases, such as Psalm 2 or Psalm 22. Far different is the true situation. In brief, Jesus Christ is the tuning fork by which we pitch the Psalms correctly. We will find Him in them in various ways, not just in a few psalms, but in all the psalms. The believer’s union with Christ, the true David, is the key to unlocking the treasures of the Psalter. It is also the reason that these songs have a special place in the New Testament church and are so frequently quoted.

“Psalm Singing and Scripture” by Rowland S. Ward in Sing a New Song: Recovering Psalm Singing for the Twenty-First Century, Loc. 1821.

The Holy Spirit gave the Psalter as a complete collection whose strength is collective: laments not isolated from praise, imprecations not isolated from confessions of sin, but all together. The whole gospel of the whole Christ is found in the whole Psalter.

Terry Johnson, “The History of Psalm Singing in the Christian Church” in Sing a New Song: Recovering Psalm Singing for the Twenty-First Century, Loc. 1109.

From The Whole psalmes in foure partes, published by John Day . . . The admirably drawn frontispiece to the book shows us the father of a family instructing his household in singing. He is using the device of the ‘Guidonian Hand’ (dating from about A.D. 1030, and long taught to every choir-boy throughout Europe). This, the invention of Guido d’Arezzo (c. 995-c. 1050), made use of the hand as a sort of Music Map. The present Sol-fa syllables are a relic of the Guidonian hexachordal system. The particular gesture the artist has represented indicates, as near as we can put it today, ‘G = Doh’.

Percy A. Scholes, The Puritans and Music in England and New England: A Contribution to the Cultural History of Two Nations, 272.

As late as the eighteen-eighties there was an organized anti-hymn party in the Presbyterian Church in the United States and elsewhere. It issued a monthly journal with eleven editions (!), these representing pure psalm-singing churches in the United States, the British Isles, and Holland, and also the Waldensian Church.

Perry A. Scholes, The Puritans and Music in England and New England: A contribution to the Cultural History of Two Nations, 253.

Calvin felt so strongly about psalm singing that early on he introduced it into his Geneva school. Students were required at the Academy of Geneva to “exercise themselves in singing psalms” every day after the noon meal. Calvin’s goal was to enable children to sing psalms at school, church, and home so that they could help their parents learn to sing them also. Calvin wrote, “If some children, whom someone has practiced beforehand in some modest church song, sing in a loud and distinct voice, the people listening with complete attention and following in their hearts what is sung by mouth, little by little each one will become accustomed to sing with the others.”

“PSALM SINGING IN CALVIN AND THE PURITANS” BY JOEL R. BEEKE IN SING A NEW SONG: RECOVERING PSALM SINGING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, LOC. 496.

Calvin believed that there was something unique about the Psalms. He observes, “The other parts of Scripture contain the commandments which God enjoined his servants to announce to us. But here [in the Psalms] the prophets themselves, seeing they are exhibited to us as speaking to God, and laying open all their inmost thoughts and affections, call, or rather draw, each of us to [participate]….” Calvin also believed that corporate singing subdued the fallen heart and restrained wayward affections in the way of piety. Like preaching and the sacraments, psalm singing disciplines the heart’s affections in the school of faith, lifting the believer to God. It also amplifies the effect of the Word on the heart, multiplying the church’s spiritual energy. “The Psalms can stimulate us to raise our hearts to God and arouse us to an ardor in invoking as well as in exalting with praises the glory of his name,” Calvin writes. In short, with the Spirit’s guidance, psalm singing tunes believers’ hearts for glory.

“PSALM SINGING IN CALVIN AND THE PURITANS” BY JOEL R. BEEKE IN SING A NEW SONG: RECOVERING PSALM SINGING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, LOC. 496.

Most of Calvin’s sermons preached on the Lord’s Day from the Old Testament were based on the Psalms. His New Testament commentaries abound with references to the Psalms. Calvin tells us in an autobiographical note prefaced to his Commentary on Psalms that the Psalter had comforted him in a major way during years of trial (1549–1554).

“Psalm Singing in Calvin and the Puritans” by Joel R. Beeke in Sing a New Song: Recovering Psalm Singing for the Twenty-First Century, Loc. 425.

Recovering the singing of psalms in Christian worship remains one of the highest hurdles to reestablishing authentic Protestant worship in the twenty-first century.

“From Cassian to Cranmer: Singing the Psalms from Ancient Times until the Dawning of the Reformation” by Hughes Oliphant Old and Robert Cathcart in Sing a New Song: Recovering Psalm Singing for the Twenty-First Century, Loc. 106.