Did the early church sing uninspired (merely written by men) songs in their public worship together? Many claim that they did, and as proof they point to supposed hymns or fragments quoted by the Apostles. Here are some excerpts from The Psalms in Worship, edited by John McNaughter, that help clarify:
IV. Are there traces of hymns in the Epistles? It is affirmed with much positiveness that there are fragments of hymns found in the Epistles, and that these must have been in use in the Apostolic Church...
...[but] in all the historical records that have been consulted there is not a hint that this text [i.e., any text in any Epistle] is the fragment of a Christian hymn. Assertions by interpreters there are in plenty; of historical evidence there is none.
The chief, if not the only, proof adduced in support of the view that it [any supposed hymn text in the Epistles] is the fragment of a “Christian hymn” is its poetical structure. It has the parallelism that distinguishes Hebrew poetry. Accordingly, the American Revision prints it as verse. Is the plea well founded? [Consider the truth that] all intense thought, whether of writing or public speech, falls into rhythm. This is true of the best writing of uninspired men; it is preeminently true of the penmen of Scripture. There is often a measured beat in the sentences that the reader feels, can almost hear.
There are many such rhythmical passages in the Epistles... [Mr.] Winer furnishes thirteen instances of poetical parallelism, 1 Timothy 3:16 being one of the thirteen. Green’s Handbook, the second, gives seven more. Thus, in all, we have twenty such rhythmical texts in the Epistles. If we include the whole body of New Testament Scripture, the number will exceed thirty. These all have the poetical structure of 1 Timothy 3:16. Are they all “fragments of Christian hymns?”
1 Timothy 3:16 does not by any means stand alone as to poetical structure; it is only one of many passages of the like form. Therefore no weight can attach to its parallelism as proof of its being a "Christian hymn." The argument breaks down totally because it proves too much. If such exegesis should prevail, then no limit scarcely can be fixed to the hymnal fragments of the New Testament; the Book abounds with them.
[One] passage must be briefly noted—2 Timothy 2:11-13: "Faithful is the saying: for if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we shall also reign with Him; if we shall deny Him, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He abideth faithful, for He cannot deny Himself" (RV). This great sentence has rhythmical arrangement; its parts balance each other as in genuine parallelism; it is as poetical in its structure as 1 Timothy 3:16. But yet it is not the fragment of a hymn, nor a brief creed, nor yet a liturgical fragment, although it has been called all these. The words, "faithful is the saying" seem to denote a quotation, but in the other places where they occur they cannot be thus understood (1 Timothy 1:15; 1 Timothy 3:1; 1 Timothy 4:9).
All these 'sayings' of Paul in the Pastoral Epistles belong to a time of extreme danger and persecution. These Letters were written in martyr times. Nero’s persecution of Christians began in AD 64; it lasted till 68—four years of indescribable torture and suffering for the people of God. 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus were written almost certainly after Nero’s atrocities had begun. The peril was that Christians would quail before the dreadful trial, that they would deny Christ. Hence Paul writes to these young ministers of the Gospel to be steadfast, faithful, true even in death.
Read in the light of martyr fires, his sayings glow with intensity of feeling, with the pathos and the entreaty of one who himself faces death as a witness for Christ. His words ring like a battle shout, like the sharp, abrupt orders of the commander on the field:—"Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life" (1 Timothy 6:12); "watch thou in all things, endure afflictions" (2 Timothy 4:5); "hold fast the form of sound words" (2 Timothy 1:13); "great is the mystery of godliness" (1 Timothy 3:16); "if we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us" (2 Timothy 2:12). Every one of these texts, and many more like them, have something of cadence; they ring like sharp steel, and there is a rhythm in their ring.
Accordingly, they are not fragments of hymns, nor short creeds, nor quotations of any sort. They are the impassioned words of Christ’s servant who appeals to his fellow-saints by the Spirit of God to hold fast, to fight bravely, and to hope to the end.
There are fourteen songs in the Book of Revelation: Revelation 4:8,11; Revelation 5:9-10,12-13; Revelation 7:10,12; Revelation 11:8,17-18; Revelation 12:10-12; Revelation 15:3-4; Revelation 19:1,2,5-8. The American Revision of the Bible marks these songs [sets them apart typographically] as distinct and different from the rest of the Book. Sometimes these songs are cited as a justification for the use of other songs than the Psalms in God’s worship. Let the following points be noted as a reply to the assertion referred to:
1. These songs are all inspired by the Spirit of God. More than any other Book of the New Testament Canon, the Revelation insists on its being from God, that in it God unveils His purpose touching the future of this world, of His people, of their enemies, and of His Kingdom. Therefore these inspired songs can afford no ground whatever for the use of uninspired compositions in the worship of God.
2. They are sung almost exclusively by angels and glorified saints. The only apparent exception is Revelation 5:13—the song of creation. But even this does not contradict our statement. The voices of angels and saints are joined by the voice of creation, animate and inanimate, now made vocal in its praise to the Lamb. The tuneful utterances of the glorified and of angels before the Throne hardly belong to sinful mortals on earth.
3. They are sung in heaven. Hence, they do not pertain to this world.
4. There is not a shadow of a hint that these and the like songs in the New Testament are divinely authorized to be employed in the worship of Christ’s Church.
5. They are an essential part in the structure of the Apocalypse; they move within the circle of those mighty events which mark the winding up of the world’s affairs, which characterize the final struggle between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. Hence, in the judgment of some of the most earnest students of the Book, they do not pertain to this dispensation.
