Hymns for a Modern Reformation

James Montgomery Boice once said of how we are to sing to God,

“When we sing we confess that the words we have heard are true, that we rejoice in those truths, and that we stand together with others who make the same confession.”

I’m delighted to stand with the late Dr. Boice in recommending this wonderful album entitled, Hymns for a Modern Reformation which is a compilation of Hymns written by this world renown preacher.  I was given this CD along with its accompanying hymnal by a good friend and I have been listening to it for the past three weeks.

The album contains 14 hymns written by Jim Boice in 1999-2000 before he went home to be with the Lord in June 15, 2000.  According to Paul Stevens, who put the hymns to music, Boice thought the idea of writing hymns to be a difficult task.  To his great surprise Boice was able to write 14 hymns in under two years!  One of the many distinctives of this hymn album is that these are not the typical Christian “worship project” albums that put old hymns to contemporary music styles.  These hymns are new and original, written by Boice himself.  These hymns come from a man who has spen 32 years preaching verse-by-verse the glorious truths of the Scriptures.  As the titles suggests, the hymns emphasize doctrines that were expounded during the 16th century reformation sparked by men like Luther and Calvin (who themselves wrote hymns).  Each hymn emphasizes one aspect of what we know as the Doctrines of Grace or the confessions of the majesterial reformers known as the Solas.  Boice, who himself was a leader in the modern reformation of the 20th century, wrote these hymns as a final bookend to his life’s work of declaring the great Doctrines of Grace.

In the coming weeks, I plan to share some of these hymns with you and how they have helped me think and worship with more clarity of our great God.