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[birds chirping]
[gentle music]
[gentle music continues]
♪ We sing our hymn, amen. ♪
- Man, I love the energy.
- When the vocals start to layer,
particularly on that last chorus, I think that's like,
- Those guys are the hit machine singer songwriters,
Chris Tomlin and Ben Fielding.
And that's not just any song they're working on.
They're rearranging the oldest Christian hymn
ever discovered, complete with a nearly 2000 year old
lyric and melody.
It's ancient, it's in Greek,
and it's been buried in Egypt a long time.
Our plan is to bring it back to life.
[uplifting music]
We're on a historical and musical journey
from the sands of Egypt to America's music capital,
from Australian creative spaces to English thinking spaces.
With the help of people who know what they're talking about,
we'll be exploring sacred songs and modern hits,
ancient history and contemporary markets.
We'll learn from time-honoured traditions
and state of the art production.
Our goal is to give back to the world
a song the church hasn't sung for almost two millennia.
This is The First Hymn project.
My name's John Dickson.
Now I'm a professor specialising in the history of Christianity.
But before I was a nerd, I was a wannabe musician,
touring and recording full-time with my best mates
in a very 90s rock band.
You don't need the details.
All that to say, I have both an academic
and a personal interest
in seeing this ancient hymn resurrected.
[Arabic music]
Our story begins in one of the most
ancient cities in the world.
Cairo is the modern-day capital of Egypt.
It was officially founded just a thousand years ago,
but at its edges are the ruins of Memphis,
Egypt's ancient capital.
That part of the city goes back 4,000 years
to the days of the pharaohs.
I love an old cafe and this one takes the cake.
This is El-Fishawy in Cairo,
and it's been managed by the same family since 1773.
That's when America was still a British colony.
It's a small reminder of just how old this country is.
The region has been strategic for centuries,
partly because it's at the juncture of the Nile Valley
and the Nile Delta.
That's upper Egypt in the south
and lower Egypt in the north,
where the mighty Nile River
concludes its 4,000 mile journey
at the Mediterranean Sea.
People have flocked here for centuries, and they still do.
More than 20 million people
live in the Cairo metro area today,
making it the Middle East's demographic centre for Islam.
This is the Great Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha,
a governor appointed by the Ottoman Empire
to rule Egypt in the early 19th century.
It's also called the Alabaster Mosque, for obvious reasons.
Egypt has a long and varied religious history,
but nowadays 90% of the country is Muslim,
100 million worshippers.
But the country is also home to one of the oldest
branches of Christianity.
Only about 10% of Egyptians are Christians,
and most of them belong to the very ancient Coptic Church.
St Mark's Cathedral is named for St Mark the Evangelist,
the author of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament.
He was a companion of both the Apostles Peter and Paul.
Church tradition says Mark arrived in Alexandria from Rome
around the year 60 during the reign of Emperor Nero,
who was no fan of Christianity.
The oldest Christian school or university that we know of
was established at least as early as the year 180.
We even know the names and still have some of the writings
of the heads of this school; Pantanous, Clement and Origen.
These were all highly trained philosophers
who converted to Christianity,
and in the face of staunch opposition
from Roman authorities,
tried to demonstrate that Jesus Christ
was the fulfilment of everything
Greco-Roman culture was longing for.
They had mixed success.
Roman authorities found Christians in
this period really annoying,
not just because Christianity was rapidly expanding,
but because Christians refused to worship
the local Greek and Roman gods,
and so they were seen as culturally
subversive, even disloyal.
And sometimes this annoyance spilled over
into actual violence.
We know of one major riot here in Egypt
that resulted in the clubbing to death of many Christians,
including the local bishop named George.
They grabbed George out of his church,
strapped him to a camel and beat him to a pulp.
And then they set him on fire, along with the camel.
Stories of early Christian persecution and martyrdom
have sometimes been exaggerated,
but all historians agree things reached a fever pitch
between Emperor Decius in the year 250
and Emperor Diocletian in 303.
Many Christians, both leaders and laypeople,
were executed in this period, including here in Egypt.
One of Emperor Diocletian's decrees targeted what he thought
was the key to Christian growth: their writings,
"All Christian books", he said,
"were to be seized and destroyed".
This is an ancient Christian codex,
the precursor to the book.
It's basically papyrus leaves cut to
shape, sewn together,
and then bound in something sturdy, like
these leather book covers.
The interesting thing is we know that Christians
were the first to popularise the book form
over the scrolls we normally associate
with the ancient world.
And the reason for this is that books
were far more transportable than a box of scrolls.
And one thing we know about Christians in this period,
they were constantly on the move,
trying to transport their faith and their
books to further lands.
And on one piece of papyrus from this period,
we have a Christian hymn, complete with musical notation.
We not only know what Christians were
teaching in these early centuries,
we know what they were singing.
But for this, we have to travel south.
[Arabic music]
Our destination is Oxyrhynchus,
about another 100 or so kilometres from here.
And I don't deny, I'm pretty excited.
For years, I've been reading about this place
and the stuff they've found there, and now I get to go.
It was a thriving metropolis in Roman times,
but I'm preparing myself for nothing but sun-baked ruins
and ancient rubbish dumps,
which I still quite like.
[dramatic music]
Oxyrhynchus has a long history,
stretching back to the 20th Pharaonic dynasty
of the New Kingdom period, roughly 1100 BC.
The town was originally known as Per-Medjed
At first, it was a kind of military station
designed to protect vital caravan routes.
- [John] Dr. Esther Pons is the head of the
Department of Egyptian Antiquities
and the Near East at Spain's National Archaeological Museum.
Archaeologically speaking, she's the boss here
and a wonderful host.
Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BC.
It was a cultural turning point,
transforming Egypt and cities like this one
into thoroughly Hellenistic or Greek domains.
Local Greek speakers call this place Oxyrhynchopolis,
the city or polis of the sharp-nosed fish,
the Oxyrhynchus.
And you can just make out the little guy here.
Now, locals actually worship this fish as a god,
and there are some bizarre ancient myths
about what he got up to.
But it's not exactly family-friendly,
so I'll leave you to Google that.
The original city went about two kilometres this way
and another two kilometres that way.
Over 50,000 people once lived here,
making it the second-largest city in Egypt at the time.
The population enjoyed a fusion of
Greek language and learning,
combined with Egyptian funeral rites and deities.
Sometime in the second century,
Christians arrived here with their strange notions,
not only that there's just one god,
but that this god had entered the world in a concrete way
in the life of a man from Nazareth, 400 miles north.
And it remains one of the mysteries of ancient history
that Christians without any power or armies or wealth
were able to persuade so many people
to abandon the traditional gods,
Serapis, Osiris, the long-nosed fish,
and worship Jesus Christ.
- [John] In the late Roman Empire,
the so-called Byzantine period,
a number of monasteries for monks and nuns
were built outside the city walls,
making Oxyrhynchus a significant Christian centre.
All of that changed with the Muslim conquest of Egypt
in the 640s AD.
It brought to an end seven centuries of Roman rule.
Oxyrhynchus began to shrink,
and by the Middle Ages, it was little more than a ruin.
The British conquered Egypt in 1882,
partly motivated by protecting their interests
in the shipping lanes of the Suez Canal.
British control paved the way for British
academics to research, some would say to plunder,
Egypt's hidden treasures.
In 1897, two Oxford scholars,
Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt,
decided to mount an expedition to the
once great city of Oxyrhynchus.
Grenfell and Hunt were particularly interested
in finding papyri, the basic writing material
of the Roman world.
So, the locals brought them out here to the edge of town,
to the rubbish dumps.
Grenfell wasn't super impressed.
In fact, he wrote in his diary,
"My first impressions on examining the site
were not very favourable.
"The rubbish mounds were nothing but rubbish mounds."
He soon realised, though, that he had chanced upon
the greatest discovery of ancient texts ever.
Those first few scraps of papyrus quickly revealed
an entire discarded ancient archive.
"The flow of papyri soon became a torrent," Grenfell wrote.
"Merely turning up the soil with one's boot
would frequently disclose a layer".
[dramatic music]
Hey, Siri, what's the high today?
"The high temperature will be 36 degrees Celsius today".
And it feels it.
This was the key to the discovery of these documents.
Paper dies in the damp, but it thrives in the
hot, dry conditions of Egypt.
I'm no fan of 100 degrees Fahrenheit,
but papyrus loves it.
Grenfell and Hunt employed locals to
carefully store the papyri,
but they could hardly keep pace with the rate of discovery,
and they were running out of containers.
In the end, they uncovered more than
half a million scraps of papyri,
spanning the Greek, Roman and Islamic periods.
This historical gold mine included letters, contracts,
official records, plays, poetry and philosophy,
as well as pages of the New Testament.
It's impossible to overstate
how much the Oxyrhynchus papyri
have helped us understand the ancient world.
Our focus is on just one scrap of papyrus,
uncovered here in 1918.
It's not even a page, really,
it's just 30 centimetres by 5 centimetres,
but it provides amazing early evidence,
not only of the beliefs and spread of Christianity,
but also of its music.
Oxyrhynchus is the home of what we've
come to call The First Hymn,
the earliest Christian song with musical notation.
Its Greek words and melody sound strange
to our 21st century ear,
but the song must have been popular
amongst Egypt's early Christians.
It might have been sung in people's
houses, in marketplaces and, of course,
in churches like this giant basilica,
built to hold 1,000 people.
The song hasn't been heard around here for many centuries.
I thought I'd have a go at bringing it home.
[Singing in Ancient Greek]
At the time, Grenfell and Hunt
had little idea of what they'd uncovered.
The fragment was catalogued - number 1786 -
packed in a biscuit tin alongside other papyri
and sent here to the University of Oxford.
The University of Oxford is one of the
oldest in the world.
It's been educating English speakers
and Latin speakers before that
for over 900 years.
These lovely doorways were once the actual entrances
to the various subjects taught here at Oxford.
This, of course, is the School of Logic.
And next door is the School of Astronomy and Rhetoric,
which is a very weird combination of subjects.
I love this guy's face right here.
This is now the Bodleian gift shop next time you're here.
And over here is the Schola Musicae, the School of Music.
Now, Oxford's medieval setting is our doorway
to something much, much older,
to the first Christian hymn with musical notation.
Scholars call it Papyrus Oxyrhynchus,
catalog number 1786, P. Oxy 1786.
Along with literally thousands of other bits of paper
from the ancient world, our P. Oxy 1786
is stored safely here at the Sackler Library,
or more precisely, up in the papyrology rooms of Level 1.
This is home to the world's most
extensive collection of ancient Greek papyri.
Although they recently changed the name
to the Bodleian Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library,
because of the billionaire Sackler
family's association with the opioid crisis in the US.
The official custodian of the papyri
is the Egypt Exploration Society,
and their collections manager is Dr. Stephanie Boonstra.
- The fragments range from about the late first century BC
up until the seventh century AD,
and we have information about ancient cities,
about the people, what they were doing,
but also of things like their religion,
and it was a monastic city,
so we have this Christian evidence as well.
- And I think I recognize this one.
- Yes, yeah, this is one that you'll probably know
a lot about as well as your viewers.
So here we have a few fragments of
New Testament fragments.
So here we have one that was most recently published,
and it's a fragment from the Gospel of Mark.
- It's the opening paragraph, isn't it?
- Yes, yeah, it's Mark 1.
- Pretty much a couple of paragraphs.
- Yeah, and so it's gotten a lot of buzz in recent years.
It's one of the earliest examples of a fragment
from the Gospel of Mark.
- [John] The New Testament texts themselves,
some of which are among the Oxyrhynchus papyri,
regularly refer to the singing of songs.
The Gospels say Jesus and the Apostles sang hymns together.
The letters of Paul to the churches
urged the faithful to keep singing and making music.
The words of P. Oxy 1786 provide a unique window
into the content of ancient Christian singing.
And it wasn't all happy clappy.
This song is actually a bit nerdy.
And what do we sing?
Patera, Huion, Hagion, Pneuma,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Now, scholars often say this line is of some interest,
and what they mean is it's amazing.
This is the doctrine of the Trinity,
the Christian idea that the one God
is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And you sometimes hear that that idea
was only invented much later,
say in 325 at the Council of Nicaea
when Emperor Constantine forced this
doctrine on the church.
But the thing is, here's the idea in a song
from the previous century.
- [Rev. Sonderegger] Eventually as the church received
Israel's witness and Scripture,
and reflected profoundly on the significance
of Jesus Christ, his dying and rising,
his presence among us,
and the Spirit poured out on all flesh,
they came to see that this
was the life of Trinity
turned toward the world.
- [John] Katherine Sonderegger was educated
at Yale and Brown Universities,
and is now one of the most celebrated names
in that strange field known as Theology.
Okay, let's talk about Trinity.
Can you give me the dummies guide to what is the Trinity?
- Trinity is eternally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
even if there were no cosmos,
a God would be the living God
who offers himself in the Word
and receives that Word back in the Spirit.
That would be true of God's life regardless.
- Wouldn't it have been simpler for the early Christians
just to go down the Greco-Roman path
and say that the Trinity is really three different gods,
or maybe three manifestations of the one God?
- It would be possible to look at the relation
between the emperor and the junior emperors,
and get an idea that there is a high God, the Father,
and then these subordinate Caesars,
but only a doctrine that
saw all of these elements
as one and as fully God actually captured
what it means to say God is the living God.
- [Dr. Mccaulley] The New Testament didn't begin
with an abstract concept of deity,
or even the Greco-Roman deity,
and say Jesus is like that.
What they actually did
is say Jesus was like
the one God of Israel.
- [John] Esau McCaulley says the first Jewish Christians
didn't see Jesus as another God,
but somehow as the God of Israel in person.
- And so what you see then is not the Jewish Christians
saying, "Oh, Jesus is like Zeus."
They're saying that somehow within the one divine identity,
you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
I can give you an example.
There's this passage in 1 Corinthians 8, verse 6,
where it has the Shema.
Shema is one of the most holy passages for the Israelites.
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one."
And you should worship the Lord your God only.
And so, one God, that was it.
But when Paul quotes it, he says,
"You might have many gods, but for us,
there's one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ."
- [John] It's clear Christians were
reflecting on the Trinity and singing about it
long before the concepts were formalized in
the famous Nicene Creed.
Here's how the hymn in part puts it,
"Let all be silent, shining stars not sound,
as we sing our hymn to the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
the only giver of all good gifts. Amen."
But what adds to the interest in P.Oxy 1786
is that it contains more than words.
You can see these little squiggles above the words.
That's ancient Greek musical notation.
It tells us the melody of the hymn.
And what's so fun about this
is that the tune isn't the stodgy stuff
we often associate with chanting monks.
It's pop music.
It's the kind of melody you'd expect to hear
at an ancient Greek pub or at some theater performance.
Whoever composed this song was trying to take
serious Christian ideas and give them to the masses.
This is not just theology,
it's public Christianity.
[Singing in Ancient Greek]
- [Prof. D'Angour] As far as we know,
there was music everywhere,
just as there is in today's world.
The main musical fragments that have survived
relate to such things
as music in theater,
so music of tragedy.
There's something called a skolion,
which is a drinking song
with an epicurean theme, "Live Now Because We All Die."
There's music from
performances that might have taken place
in large-scale open-air theaters,
but also stuff that might have
been sung in smaller venues.
- [John] Armand D'Angour is a world authority
on the music, text, and culture of ancient Greece.
Now you've had a chance to look at our P.Oxy 1786.
How does it compare melodically
to other bits and pieces of music we've found?
- Interestingly, I think it shows very clearly
the influence of Greek musical tradition
going back all the way to the earliest
document that we have.
And the Christian hymn
is a remarkable discovery
because it's the only Christian piece of music
using the ancient pagan notation.
More recently, scholars have recognized that
it isn't really any different from that earlier music
in terms of the way it uses the melodic structures.
- [John] The writer of this first hymn seems to have had
one eye on pagan, that's Greco-Roman,
religion and culture.
One of the lines contains not just a
straightforward piece of Christian teaching,
but what looks like a bold comparison
between Greek gods and the Holy Trinity.
My favourite bit is here at the end.
We sort of lose the words over here,
so it's a bit of guesswork knowing what was there.
And then we can just make out the top of the words
to "the only giver of all good gifts",
Panton Agathon.
God is described as the great gift giver.
And with that theme, the hymn ends in
good Christian fashion with the words, "Amen, amen".
Which is a way of saying, "we really believe this".
Experts have pointed out the expression "giver of gifts"
was a stock description of a god like Zeus,
the chief of the gods whom
the Romans called Jupiter.
Our Christian hymn calls this into question.
The one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit
is said to be the only giver of all good gifts.
It's confident, even a little cheeky.
Love it or hate it,
Jews and Christians have always said
there's one God and he's Lord of everywhere and everyone.
P.Oxy 1786 is a musical rendition of this same idea.
So we've set ourselves a challenge.
As interesting as the history is,
our hope is to go beyond the ancient,
to see if we can replicate here and now
what those early Christians were trying to achieve
through this song.
Well, if architecture is for admiring,
food and wine for tasting,
songs are for singing.
We've talked to the ancient experts about P.Oxy 1786,
but if we wanna resurrect this hymn for a new audience,
we've gotta talk to a couple of my friends,
some of the most accomplished Christian songwriters
in the world today.
[upbeat music]
Our first stop is my hometown of Sydney.
I managed to grab some time with friend
and musician, Ben Fielding.
Ben and his co-writer, Brooke Ligertwood,
won a Grammy for their 2018 song
What a Beautiful Name.
If you've ventured into a church in the last few years,
there's a pretty good chance you've heard it.
Then there's the gold record making song, This I Believe,
where Ben took The Apostles' Creed,
an ancient statement of Christian belief,
and turned it into a cracking song.
Last time I checked, it had more than 130 million plays
just on Spotify.
Ben didn't need much convincing to help us bring
the first hymn back to life.
I fired off the lyrics
and some of my singing to inspire him.
Hopefully.
[happy greeting]
It seems Ben was sold on the project
without my powers of persuasion.
- Mate, this is such an exciting project.
Anybody that I mention it to,
they're fascinated by this idea that,
that firstly, the hymn's been discovered,
and then the idea of bringing it back to life.
I think, of course, everybody always says,
"What happens if the song's no good?"
I can't get away from that. That's every single person.
But I think that there's still just something
in the journey of bringing this back to life.
- [John] Ben's been thinking his way
through the original melody.
He reckons songwriters, whether ancient or modern,
face similar challenges.
- [Ben] The melody range is quite narrow.
Rhythmically, it's not too complicated or complex.
You can imagine a lot of people.
- What about the little trills over the Amen's, though?
- Well, those are cool. - They are so cool.
- Yeah.
- But I imagine ancient congregations
trying to pull that off, because you wouldn't
have that kind of trill in a modern hymn.
Have you ever put a trill like that?
- I haven't. I know that there's some
more elaborate melodies that,
and sometimes you gotta be careful that you don't dumb down
a melody too much,
and you just assume no one can sing it,
because I think if it's well-structured
and it is memorable, people go along to a
concert from their favorite artist
and sing along to stuff that's quite complex.
And I think if it's memorable,
that you can get away with a lot.
- [John] Thankfully, Ben's already brimming with ideas.
♪ Let everything that has breath ♪
♪ Come and praise Him ♪
♪ Praise Him ♪
♪ Praise to the Father ♪
♪ To the Son and the Spirit ♪
♪ Let everything ♪
- And then you could kind of build off something like that.
- [John] It often happens with writers,
whether composers or authors,
a passing thought suddenly leaps out.
I'd love to find an Egyptian singer.
- Yeah.
- Can you imagine if we can find an Egyptian singer
who can do, like maybe, a little, amen at
different points through.
It could be really haunting.
- Well, and to get that trill sounding authentic.
- [John] We'll come back to that idea.
For now, we need a collaborator.
[phone ringing]
Ben put me in touch with
American singer-songwriter, Chris Tomlin.
I was excited.
Chris has sold over 12 million records,
and he has over 7 billion streams to his name.
He's a Grammy winner with over 30 top 10 hits.
It's estimated that 30 million people
sing Chris's music in churches every week.
Time magazine described him as,
"potentially the most often sung artist in the world".
I love the idea that you might wanna be involved
with this, Chris.
I love it. - Oh yeah.
- I mean, Ben, you know, I've known Ben a while,
and I just, I really trust his writing,
and I trust his heart.
And when he mentioned your name,
and then I remembered all the songs you've written,
I thought, oh my goodness,
this could be very, very special.
- Yeah, what a moment. What an opportunity.
- [laughing] - Just incredible.
I am so honored to be brought into this.
Thank you, Ben, for reaching out.
Thank you, John, for saying, "okay, let's do this",
because I love it.
- If we can somehow,
sorry, let me correct myself.
If you guys can somehow bring a beautiful melody
that honors this ancient melody,
and honors, obviously, the words,
you know, some anonymous theologian put together,
what a gift this will be to the church to sing this again.
- And that's kind of what we're trying to do,
is go like, could the people of God today
join the people of God back in the, you know,
the second, third century,
in these really early formative stages of the church?
Could we sing that same hymn?
- [John] I'd already sent Chris an image of P. Oxy 1786,
with my translation of the hymn. He had questions.
- Is that the whole of the song,
or is that just a piece that was found?
- It's all we've got, that's all we've got,
because, you know,
I sent you a photo of the manuscript, right?
That is literally all we've got.
Yeah, so sadly, there's no more.
I mean, in terms of songwriting,
you guys have to honor these words,
but come up with some other ones.
We can't just slap an English translation
onto an ancient Greek tune.
With all due respect to the original composer,
the melody is a little weird to the modern ear.
We have to find a fresh way forward.
- John, is your vision that
we try to stay right there with that,
so we're really singing like we were 1800 years ago,
I don't know.
- No way, no, I wanna hear a song that's like,
the kind of anthemic song you both have written,
that's got a pop sensibility
with a hymnic gravitas.
It's a balancing act, a creative puzzle,
and we need both these musical brains to make it happen.
- I'm really open to messing with whatever,
like I'll send you what I've got,
and then we can start again.
Yeah, send me what you got.
I just think there's anything in there.
I mean, I was like looking around,
I was kind of writing some things today,
as I was thinking about this, just some thoughts down,
so I look forward to like maybe hearing what you have
and see if it is kind of matching what I was thinking.
It'd be interesting.
I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go.
Ben, send that to me. I'm ready, I'm ready to go.
- Cool.
[dramatic music]
- [John] Ben and Chris have their work cut out for them.
We'll leave them to it. We have other puzzles to solve.
[choir sings]
Musically, the first hymn isn't what
we've come to expect from sacred music.
Christian hymns like this one have been sung
for a mere 280 years.
Do we know how far back Christians were singing
and writing songs?
- Well, that's probably one of
the easiest questions to answer
because we actually have songs,
to Jesus in the New Testament.
We have Philippians chapter 2, verses 6-11, which is a hymn.
There's another one in Colossians 1:15 - 20,
another hymn to Jesus.
And so the easiest way to answer that question is,
we know there's a lot of hymns that the Christians sung
because they're hymns in the Bible,
the Christian that we have as a part of our ongoing record.
- Sadly, the musical notation
didn't also get passed down with the manuscript.
- Exactly. Anytime you have a poem
or anything that's translated
into English, some of the rhythm and the things
that mark it out as poetry and as music are lost.
But it's pretty clear to anyone who takes a close look
at those passages and maybe 1 Corinthians 13,
it was poetic about love.
You have this reality,
the early Christians were creating art
related to the person of Jesus in particular,
and a praise and worship of him
that speaks a lot about his divinity.
- The first Christians were all Jews,
and we know Jews were monotheists.
- They believed in just one God. - Yes
- So my question is, were the Christians departing
from their Jewish roots in saying that
Jesus was somehow also God?
- Well, I don't think so. One of the things that
often you can discover in a text
are the things that people fought about.
And so you can tell by reading the text of
the New Testament, there's a lot of fights about the law.
Christians were trying to figure out,
should I keep the Torah or should I not keep the Torah?
There was a lot of fights about the place of the Gentiles,
how the Gentiles and Jews lived together.
There's a lot of fights, a lot of discussion about ethics,
how do we live together as Christians?
You know what you don't see them fighting about
a lot in the New Testament? The divinity of Jesus.
It actually seemed to be something that, in other words,
you never hear Paul having to argue Jesus is actually divine.
He usually assumes it for most cases throughout his letters.
You see the exact same thing by the time you get
to the Gospel of John, they're not fighting about it.
You see it narrated in the synoptics.
And so it seems to be the case that pretty early on,
the Christians began to think about Jesus
and the Spirit as divine.
- [John] So it shouldn't surprise us that the Christians
behind P. Oxy 1786 would sing about God
as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
It seems from the beginning, the most important ideas
weren't just proclaimed and written down, they were sung.
[choir singing]
Our modern idea of the Christian hymn has more to do
with early modern Europe than the ancient Roman Empire.
During the 16th century, the so-called Protestants,
who got their name from protesting what they saw
as certain church excesses, split from the Catholic church.
Whatever else we might make of the tumultuous events
of this Reformation period,
it resulted in a lot of new songs.
Some groups, and I won't name names,
said we should only sing the very words of scripture,
particularly the Old Testament book of Psalms,
which was kind of the ancient Israelite songbook.
Anything else they said was unbiblical and unacceptable.
Other groups were a little more relaxed and creative.
They said, so long as our words reflect
the general truth of the Bible,
we're free to explore the joys of melody and creativity.
And the result was an explosion of Christian hymns.
[choir singing]
- [Dr. Noll] Wherever the Christian faith is gone,
people are singing.
There's an organization called
Wycliffe Bible Translators
that has emphasized
in recent years,
ethno-musicology, and have found that
when the Bible is translated into a new language
that perhaps it had not even been written before,
there is some interest, some enthusiasm, some excitement.
But when that same text, the Bible translated
into a new language, is set to music,
there is much greater resonance and much deeper appreciation.
And that worldwide phenomenon has been true in the West.
So Western Christian history is at the same time
a history of music and a history of hymnody.
- There's such a back catalog of hymns through the centuries.
Do we need any more?
The answer is definitely yes, with a couple of qualifications.
Hymns are designed to express truths,
but also to ground those truths in emotions,
to make them memorable.
If there are not new hymns being written
that reflect the needs, the desires, the outlook,
the standpoint of the present, then the churches
will be antiquarian and will have nothing
to say to the world around them.
- [John] Chris and Ben have been hard at work
creating a new first hymn
from the building blocks of the original.
From these small beginnings,
Chris and Ben went into their own creative wonderland.
[music playing]
Meanwhile, we've come to Chicago
to talk to someone I've admired ever since
I first came across P. Oxy 1786.
- The first hymn uses a kind of music
that is very familiar to Westerners.
It's diatonic music.
And all that means is it's made out of the whole steps
and the half steps that our music is made of.
When you go to a piano, if you play keys on the piano
in a row, you're playing whole steps and half steps.
And our scales are made out of combinations of those.
- [John] Charles Cosgrove is a kind of triple threat
of classical education,
expert linguist, historian, and musician.
And he literally wrote the book on P. Oxy 1786.
Perhaps strangely to the modern ear,
the original lyrics of the first hymn
tell all creation to be silent.
- The beginning of this is the Greek cultic concern
that when a cultic act was being performed,
someone might say an inauspicious word
that offended the god.
And so there would be a call to silence
or to watch your tongue.
And then that call to silence would start the ritual.
So silence falls, and then the ritual could begin
with prayers and maybe a hymn and so forth.
And in the hymns, it often announces
that the god is approaching the temple.
And so "Fall Silent as a God Approaches"
and then the boys choir will sing the god.
- [John] It seems our ancient Christian songwriter
knew his Greco-Roman context well.
Was he trying to make his pagan contemporaries comfortable
before offering his controversial message?
My favorite line is the last one,
that God is "the only giver of all good gifts".
Am I right that Zeus was actually
said to be the giver of good gifts?
But here the author of this song is saying that
God is the only giver of all good gifts.
So what is the songwriter doing?
Is this just copying?
Is he being critical?
Is he evangelizing or what?
- Yes, well, the hymnwriter is doing two things.
One is to speak in a neoclassical way
by taking up the language of a venerable tradition
and dignifying the hymn and God with this language.
At the same time, the hymnwriter is asserting
that Christian idea that only one God
gives all the good things, not many gods.
- [John] Ben and Chris have been hard at work,
and the first hymn project has made its way to Nashville.
[upbeat music]
Nashville is the mecca of Christian music
to mix my religions.
It's home to a baffling number of
Christian music publishing houses,
record labels and production companies.
This is where big names in the Christian music industry,
like Amy Grant, Michael W Smith, got their break.
But it's also the home of more recent artists
like Lauren Daigle and Anne Wilson.
And Nashville is the home of the Dove Awards.
They're not quite the Grammys,
but in the US, a very big deal.
So this feels like the perfect place to
try and revive P. Oxy 1786.
Chris Tomlin invited us to The Barn,
his writing and rehearsal space just outside Nashville.
The plan was to lock these guys in a room for a few days
and let them hash out their best ideas
for the new first hymn.
- John! - I like this. Can I have one?
Can I have one? - You can.
- Hey, buddy.
Wow, nice to meet you in the flesh.
- I know. Good to see you. - And my friend. Wow.
- Good to see you.
- So this is happening?
- Yeah, it's happening. - It's on.
- Right.
- [John] Some pleasantries,
admiring their awesome writing space,
and then it's down to business.
How do you feel it's been going?
- You should probably ask Chris.
I feel like it's been going well,
but Chris might be seething in the background.
- How did I get into this? - [all laughing]
No, absolutely. It's been really beautiful.
I love working with Ben.
We've worked a little bit together over the years.
And so, you know, going back and forth
through from Australia to Tennessee, it's been wonderful.
I really enjoyed it because we'll just how about this idea
and send it and then I'll wait for him to
wake up eight hours later.
And then by the time I'm asleep,
I wake up and there's something else,
you know, because the time changes.
And so it's just been beautiful.
OK. And then it gives it's been an interesting process
because it just kind of gives me the day
to think through it and then.
- And to delete anything you don't like.
I shouldn't have said that. - Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And then I and then I send back to him
and just us just talking about how do we really capture this
in the best way we can.
These beautiful, beautiful words and these ancient words.
And it's just such a I feel such responsibility too.
- [John] Yeah - Massive.
I mean, this there's this is not just another lyric.
This is so special.
And so I've really, really loved it.
- What's the difficulty involved?
Like, what have you found hard about it?
- The only thing I've found hard is
I just second guess myself.
Is this good enough? Is this good enough?
- [Ben] Yeah, that's a huge part of it.
- You know, because it's your.
- But is that the same with every song you write?
- No, but this feels different because it's
like you're just you're holding something that's
it's already been.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- It's already been sung. It's already been.
And you're like, I know you want to.
But obviously you want to bring it into
this this time period and this this generation.
And so you're like, am I do are we doing are we
holding this the right way? - And the responsibility to
try to capture what it was that
unified the church way back then
and to be able to take those elements,
but try to modernize them
and thinking about, well, what would a chorus be like?
You know, would that ancient hymn have even had a chorus?.
But I think in the modern version of the hymn, it would.
So trying to work out where to put emphasis in the song.
- Yes - All of that
is just kind of like it -
it's the challenge of taking something that was
and making it something that is now.
But I couldn't think of anybody I prefer to
be doing this with than Chris.
And when you got involved, just the enthusiasm that just
got breathed into this was just fantastic.
And so I was blown away.
Chris is like firing messages. I'm trying to keep up
and like fire back.
It's like it was a really sweet kind of
part of the process.
To kind of wake up and find like,
you know, three or four different kind of verses
and just keep that creativity going on the song.
I think I think it's been really special.
- [John] Now, you need to understand that I had
no idea just how much these guys had been
working together online.
So nothing prepared me for what came next.
The question is, how long 'till you think
you've got a full song?
- OK - A complete song.
So we got we got a little bit of a surprise for you.
And that is we think we finished the song.
- What?!
- [Chris] Yeah, it happened so fast.
- How did that happen?
- I don't know. I mean, I've written lots of songs,
Ben's written lots of songs and rarely
do they just...
I think it was the lyric was so much there that
just several times back and forth,
like this feels really, really special.
So we'd love to play it for you.
- Oh, man.
- Yeah. - OK.
Now I've got shivers.
♪ Let all be silent ♪
♪ The shining stars not sound ♪
♪ The rushing rivers still ♪
♪ Let the mountains bow down ♪
♪ In awe and wonder ♪
♪ In reverence we come ♪
♪ Who is worthy of all worship? ♪
♪ Who is seated on the throne? ♪
♪ All powers cry out in answer ♪
♪ All glory and praise forever ♪
♪ To our God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ We sing, Amen ♪
♪ Let all be silent ♪
- [John] I was stunned.
Not just because they secretly finished the song,
but because even in its raw form,
I could hear how masterfully
they'd revived the message
and the mood of the first hymn.
Wow, that is a gorgeous tune.
And the lyrics are virtually the definition of classic.
But what makes a good worship song?
A song designed to be sung by millions of people
around the world in church?
I suppose it has to be singable by regular humans.
And it also has to capture the head and the heart.
But what would I know?
I wanted to find out more about how this
mysterious world of contemporary Christian music works.
- [Mark] A great worship song is one that
articulates the heart of every worshipper
and directs their attention to God.
- [John] In 2024, Christian contemporary music
was the fourth fastest growing genre in the world,
up 60 percent over the last five years.
Labels like Capital CMG, Centricity,
Hillsong Worship and Integrity
preside over a market that now accounts
for more internet streams than jazz
and classical music combined.
- [Mark] The thing about a song is that,
especially one you enter into, it's one that you're
giving yourself over to and you're participating in
the song and what the song says.
And so the context of the song and in the
direction that it takes your heart
and your mind is really important.
And so to have an accurate theology,
a good understanding of who God is, of the work of
Jesus on the cross, all of these things,
they actually actually do matter.
- Do you think Christian music has anything
to offer people who don't know what to make of Christianity?
To the wider world? - It certainly should.
But part of the issue, the historic issue with
why it doesn't often is that it isn't always believable.
We only tend to write in like superlative and hyperbole
about God answering all of my
you know, answering all my prayer, meeting all my needs.
And it's and that's a really foreign concept
to somebody who isn't a person of faith
or raised within the church.
- [John] The first hymn was lost to the world for centuries
and rediscovered 100 years ago.
Experts have studied its musical and
historical significance for decades.
For the last two years, we've been
working to give it back to the world.
I don't know what the original composer
would think of what we're doing,
but it's time to lay this thing down again for posterity.
Dark Horse Studios, nestled in the countryside outside
beautiful Franklin, Tennessee.
This is where songs by Hunter Hayes,
Keith Urban and Taylor Swift were recorded.
Now it's the first hymn's turn.
- Hey! It's been a long time.
And this is where we meet Jonathan Smith,
the two time Grammy multi Dove Award winning
songwriter and producer.
He'll be shepherding us through this
crucial stage of reviving the first hymn.
- [Ben] And then we don't have to be bound by that.
- Yeah.
- [John] Here. We. Go.
♪ To the only giver of all good gifts ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only one who forgives our sins ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only God to the risen king ♪
♪ To the one who died and rose again ♪
♪ Amen. We sing Amen ♪
♪ All powers cry out in answer ♪
♪ All glory and praise forever ♪
♪ To our God ♪
♪ The Father, Son and Holy Spirit ♪
♪ Amen, we sing Amen ♪
- So that's it. Job done.
Save file, send to Spotify.
Not really.
The first hymn project was never about
just resurrecting an ancient song.
It's about giving that song back to
a new generation of believers and doubters.
And for that, we need a lot more help.
Greek speaking Egyptians first composed and sang this tribute
to the only giver of all good gifts.
So it only seems right to ask
a descendant of these ancient people to help us put the
finishing touches on the hymn.
This is Music City Walk of Fame.
It's pretty cool, but it's not where
we're going to find what I'm looking for.
From the beginning of this project,
I had the crazy idea of bringing the song full
circle by including an Egyptian singer,
someone who can capture the feel of the place
where this hymn was first sung
and then lost and then found again.
And you know what?
Nashville has given us that as well.
The Coptic Orthodox Church in America is
a branch of one of the oldest continuously
existing churches in the world.
The first Copts, as they're called,
arrived in the US in the 1940s.
They were foreign students who brought
their ancient ways with them.
Today, there are several hundred churches here
and all of them are committed to preserving their heritage,
including their music.
Katy Fayck Eskander is a native Egyptian
and the choir director
at St Mary's Coptic Church in Nashville.
She's recorded five studio albums and 25 singles.
And every week she helps keep alive her ancient tradition.
- Hey, I'm John. - Nice to meet you.
- We are thrilled to have you on board.
- Thank you so much.
- [John] We've come to speak with Katy on the morning of her
recording session for the new first hymn.
I'm nervous. I don't know how she's feeling.
What drew you to sing worship songs,
not just performance music?
- The first part was the genetic part from my mom.
She has amazing voice.
And the second part was my dad.
When I was three years old, he kept teaching me Coptic music
and Coptic songs and recorded it.
Then he let me listen to my voice.
"This is your voice. You have a good voice. Keep doing it".
The magic word here is the relationship
between you and God.
I feel like
this is a gift from God. My voice is a gift from God.
And the only person deserves it is Him.
So if I like to enjoy that, the amazing gift,
I would enjoy it with him.
So I feel like I'm praying in my way.
[coptic singing]
- [Ben] Jonathan, how are you? - I'm good. How's Australia?
- It's beautiful. It's always beautiful.
- [John] Chris and Ben have already given Jonathan
a good idea of what they hope Katy can bring to the song.
- So what are you thinking?
I know we've talked about maybe having
that sort of at the top of the song.
Like, how are you hearing it?
I think starting the song with that motif,
with her singing it is what's going to
really set the tone that this song isn't
like any normal song, right?
Like it's not, it's going to instantly
sort of give it an ancient feel.
Western music usually operates with just 12 notes.
C, C sharp, D, D sharp, E, F and so on.
Middle Eastern music, Arabic, Coptic and so on,
has 24 notes made up of microtones.
Very subtle pitches between the
traditional Western notes.
The result is a melodic wonderland rich in emotion.
[singing]
It doesn't take long before Katy
transports us to another time and another place
to centuries ago in Egypt.
- Wow. - Yes, fantastic.
That "all powers cry out in answer."
The line you do there is like, wow.
[singing]
[layering vocals]
♪ And all be silent ♪
- [John] Back when music was pretty much my life,
I loved and hated the recording studio.
I mean, when you play live, little mistakes,
they don't matter so much.
A wrongly placed finger here, a slightly off note there,
and you can just call it jazz and hardly anyone notices.
But here it's different.
In the studio, your performance
over and over and over
eventually has to be perfect.
All the while trying to maintain the
sense of creative energy.
And that's why you need a good producer.
I think of producers a bit like
Michelangelo, you know, technically precise
and artistically brilliant, and they can often
see the finished product from the beginning.
I mean, a good producer can hear what
a song really wants to sound like
even better than the original composers.
- I know what moves my spirit
and what moves me.
And that's really the only
compass that I know to have.
And so I do think as you as you work
and as you get experience, your instincts get honed in
and you know what you tend to love.
You trust that there's going to be
other people out there that love it.
- [John] Producers know exactly
what each instrument can bring to a piece
and how to bring out the best in every musician.
They guide the arrangement and the performance.
And once it's all recorded, they select,
arrange and layer the
dozens and dozens of individual tracks
to fashion a coherent whole.
What did you put in there to make that happen?
- So I added that same guitar part right here.
With some effects on it like these right here.
Some pretty wide stereo reverbs and things like that.
And so that was that was what I started with
and then even added some what I would call
kind of a world sounds and rhythms
like this right here to go along with it.
Again, just to put, I want those
musicians first time they hear it to be OK, this is not,
this song did not come out of Nashville.
[laughing]
I want them to know this is a an ancient thing.
And so even these banging on a banjo and guitar.
- Huh, Yeah - Yeah.
- Oh, that's gorgeous. - Yeah. And so you play this.
And then what they're
- So they're thinking world music?
- Exactly. - Yeah.
- And you know what I'm telling them is, hey,
I want you to still do the thing that you do and do well,
but I want you to feel sort of
the heartbeat of the song and not be guessing.
Just picture it's going to sound like this,
you know, when it's all done.
So sometimes I'll start with those sort of
more stylized things first.
- [John] I'm in awe of the way a producer like Jonathan
can snatch one of those layers, move it to the front
of the soundscape and change the whole mood of the song.
Oh, yeah, no, this is this is one of my favorite bits.
- Yeah. - This was I saw this happen.
Like I remember thinking, oh, man, he's
just replicated the ancient melody.
- Yeah. So we had originally we had him playing over
the very beginning of the song.
[electric guitar playing]
Because we knew we wanted that melody, right?
And so we weren't exactly sure in the moment,
you know, is it going to be a guitar?
Is it a piano? Is it a vocal? Let's just get it all down.
And then sort of in the editing process, we will decide.
So I think this was kind of the first thing he played.
[music playing]
Kind of played through the whole song.
Just beautiful tone.
But I think the moment that it really counts would be this
section between the second chorus and the bridge.
- Yeah. - I'll solo it.
We can kind of hear what he's doing, but.
[lead guitar plays solo]
Yeah - Yeah, this is basically
the "amen, amen".
- And everything altogether comes in.
[lead guitar plays with band]
- Yeah, so that's so good.
- It's very like an arrival moment.
It's a hook we've heard from the beginning, a softer version.
And then that's more of a triumphant version.
- [John] And how are you feeling about this song?
- I feel the most excited about it.
I just cannot wait for people to hear this song.
- [John] And the final destination for all this?
Well, it'll be on Chris Tomlin's next album,
which might already be out by the time you're watching this.
But stay with us and you'll hear
all these layers come together beautifully
in a new version of the first hymn.
And while all this has been going on,
we've been getting ready for something very special.
[footsteps]
[stringed instruments tuning]
- [Dr. Wilder] You know, it's interesting.
1860, the school was founded,
started with eight faculty members.
And one of those was a professor of sacred music.
So from the very beginning,
the humble beginnings of the institution,
music at the at the heart of things,
not that surprising.
When you think about the musical
propensity of human beings,
music found in every known culture,
music ubiquitous in our world
and so important to human flourishing.
People, it turns out, want to make music.
- [John] Wheaton College was established in 1860
by abolitionist church leaders.
It was a well-known stop on the famous Underground Railway.
Its main mission today is to provide a
classic liberal arts education,
integrating science, music, history,
literature and the Christian faith.
This is also where I teach the history of Christianity
and what we can learn from the good
and the bad of the past.
The first hymn is definitely part of the good.
Why is Wheaton College involved in this first hymn project?
I mean, apart from the fact that I just wandered over
one day to your office and sprung the idea on you?
- Well, I'm sure you recall we were both
very enthused about the whole thing.
What a compelling story that we would link
with this writer of this music
so, so many years ago,
that we would join hands
with those who sang this first hymn.
And now, so many years later,
resonating with the message, the music.
- [John] When the team at the conservatory heard
about the first hymn project,
they were keen to see the song brought
back to life in multiple musical formats.
- [Dr. Wilder] I think this is such a mysterious and honourable
project and our students and faculty
have really seized this story.
- [John] Which is why these guys are here.
They're working on a classical rendition of the first hymn,
both the Tomlin/Fielding version and the original Greek one.
- [Dr. Payne] I am honoured to be a part of it.
I love surprises.
And this is a complete surprise.
So I count it a privilege.
- [John] Dr Tony Payne is the creative mind
behind the new arrangement.
- [Dr. Payne] It's really another worldly kind of
experience to reach back into hymnody
that wasn't notated like we notate
and didn't have the form and structure
like we have today in a typical hymn
or Christian song.
And so I struggled with it a bit.
It's like a gift that comes in a time capsule
and we're suddenly confronting it for the first time.
And I find it really captivating.
I had a go at singing the Greek original
in the ruins of Oxyrhynchus.
It was special, but I'm pretty sure
this is how it's really meant to sound.
[choir sings ancient Greek]
[choir continues singing]
- They say music can transport the soul.
I reckon I just visited Roman Egypt in the 200s.
How I wish we could now bring the original composer here
to watch what we're about to do to the first hymn.
♪ Let all be silent ♪
♪ The shining stars not sound ♪
♪ Rushing rivers..... ♪
- [John] Tony is the kind of musical scholar
that speaks multiple musical languages.
He tells me he just loves what Chris
and Ben's melody is saying.
- [Dr. Payne] You tend to have thirds like this.
[plays chords on piano]
- That's what our ear expects.
But in this newer language that we're enjoying
and learning about.
So there it is just hanging.
And I don't think there could be a more powerful use
of that suspended harmony as the technical term for it.
Because normally we might expect to hear this.
But that's not there.
But then you look at the text
and you realize it makes all the sense in the world.
Let all be silent.
Shining stars not sound.
The thought of the stars being silent is really powerful.
[choir singing] ♪ Amen we sing ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ Amen we sing ♪
♪ Amen ♪
[audience applauding]
- [John] The big day approaches.
Chris and Ben have chosen Fort Worth, Texas for the concert
that officially hands the first hymn back to the world.
We've still got a bit of time.
And there's one more person I wanted to speak to
about how this whole project relates
to the broader story of sacred music.
- [Dr. Monteiro] And I think people remember
songs more than they remember sermons.
And in that time, especially when not everybody was reading,
there were not books everywhere.
So the words of the songs would be some things
that will stay deep in their memories.
We know from my own research,
how missionaries when they arrive in different places,
new places, they were very concerned
about publishing some kind of collection of songs
because once they were gone,
until the next preacher would come around,
the community could hold on to those words
and remember what they were by singing.
- [John] From the first century to the 21st century,
Christians haven't just preached their message
about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
They've sung it, inviting everyone,
whether believer or doubter,
whether in Oxyrhynchus or Texas,
to consider singing along.
- [Dr. Monteiro] I think so. I think music is very powerful
and it moves emotions and sometimes,
I think it's interesting. We have eyelids,
but we don't have earlids.
So sometimes we may hear something,
even if you are not planning on, that's different.
We can always turn our face and not see something,
but we can sometimes not take a while for us not to listen.
And I think it's interesting. I have heard stories of people
that they were just attracted by the sound
and then they join in and then they understand,
oh, this is what they're saying.
And people that have told me in their own lives,
how they still remember
that was that one line from that song
and they didn't understand anything about doctrine,
about church, what's a Protestant, what's a Baptist,
but that message of the song spoke to me.
- [John] One reason thoughtful people are put off
by this Christian message today
is the sheer number of church brands.
With an estimated 3000
denominations worldwide, it's no surprise that
people ask the question, which version of Christianity?
That's what's so special about the first hymn.
It was composed before there were denominations.
It captures the heart of Christianity
before there was Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Protestant.
And Chris and Ben have worked really hard
to highlight that core
so that all the brands of Christianity today
can sing the new first hymn.
Well, it's now time to test that idea.
And have we got the crowd to do it.
There's over 10,000 people here tonight.
It's completely sold out.
When I was a musician, I only ever played venues
about a 10th the size of this on a good night,
but I remember the feeling backstage
as the audience filled the venue.
I wonder how Chris and Ben are feeling.
- Brings out both new and old things
out of his treasure chest.
- [John] This is the climax of an extraordinary journey.
We have traced the rediscovery of P. Oxy 1786,
uncovered the significance of the first hymn
with musical notation,
and witnessed master musicians transform it
into a stunning 21st century anthem.
After two years of work, we're ready to return the song
to its rightful place on the lips of thousands.
- The last time it was sung was probably 1,800 years ago.
And we will sing it tonight for the very first time.
- [John] And now, the resurrected first hymn in full.
[gentle music]
♪ Let all be silent ♪
♪ The shining stars not sound ♪
♪ The rushing rivers still ♪
♪ Let the mountains bow down ♪
♪ In awe and wonder ♪
♪ In reverence we come ♪
♪ Who is worthy of all worship? ♪
♪ Who is seated on the throne? ♪
♪ All powers cry out in answer ♪
♪ All glory and praise forever ♪
♪ To our God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ♪
♪ Amen, we sing amen. ♪
♪ Let all be silent ♪
♪ The shining stars not sound ♪
♪ The rushing rivers still ♪
♪ The mountains bow down ♪
♪ In awe and wonder ♪
♪ In reverence we come ♪
♪ Who is worthy of all worship? ♪
♪ Who is seated on the throne? ♪
♪ Who is worthy of all worship? ♪
♪ Who is seated on the throne? ♪
♪ All powers cry out in answer ♪
♪ All glory and praise forever ♪
♪ To our God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ♪
♪ Amen, we sing amen. ♪
♪ To the only giver of all good gifts ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only one who forgives our sins ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only God to the risen King ♪
♪ To the one who died and rose again ♪
♪ Amen, we sing amen. ♪
♪ To the only giver of all good gifts ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only one who forgives our sins ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only God to the risen King ♪
♪ To the one who died and rose again ♪
♪ Amen, we sing amen. ♪
♪ All power's cry out in answer ♪
♪ All glory and praise forever ♪
♪ To our God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ♪
♪ Amen, we sing amen ♪
♪ Amen. ♪
♪ Amen, we sing amen ♪
♪ Amen. ♪
♪ We sing our hymn, amen. ♪
- [John] At the end of all of this,
I just find myself thinking about the original composer
of the first hymn and the people who first sang it.
Here they were trying to engage a culture
that was sometimes trying to eradicate them.
They could never have imagined
what would become of their song.
They could never have predicted that their message
of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
would one day cover the globe.
Although maybe that's wrong.
Given how confident we know they were
in the only giver of all good gifts,
maybe this is exactly the sort of thing
they might have dared to imagine.
♪ To the only giver of all good gifts ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only one who forgives our sins ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only God, to the risen King ♪
♪ To the one who died and rose again ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ We sing amen. ♪
♪ To the only giver of all good gifts ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only one who forgives our sins ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only God, to the risen King ♪
♪ To the one who died and rose again ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ We sing amen. ♪
♪ All powers cry out in answer ♪
♪ All glory and praise forever ♪
♪ To our God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ We sing amen. ♪
♪ To our God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ We sing amen. ♪
[audience cheering]
[classical music plays softly]
♪ Let all be silent ♪
♪ The shining stars not sound ♪
♪ Rushing rivers still ♪
♪ let mountains bow down ♪
♪ In awe and wonder ♪
♪ with reverence we come ♪
♪ Who is worth of all worship? ♪
♪ Who is seated on the throne? ♪
♪ All powers cry out ♪
♪ in answer. ♪
♪ All glory and praise forever ♪
♪ To our God, the Father, ♪
♪ Son and Holy Spirit ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ We sing, Amen ♪
♪ To the only giver ♪
♪ of all good gifts ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only one ♪
♪ who forgives our sins ♪
♪ Amen ♪
♪ To the only God, ♪
♪ to the risen King ♪
♪ To the one who died ♪
♪ and rose again ♪
♪ Amen. We sing Amen. ♪
♪ All powers cry out in answer ♪
♪ All glory and praise forever ♪
♪ To our God, the Father, ♪
♪ Son and Holy Spirit ♪
♪ Amen. ♪
♪ We sing Amen. ♪