Evidently I sometimes do like my dad and just make up something totally new that rhymes. I wasn’t sure that was right.

I don’t have any problem with songs like “Mama’s Teaching Angels…” It’s a pleasant imagination … and who knows? What about “Serenaded by Angels”? No chapter and verse for that one, either. And the line in the Kingsmen/Ronnie Hinson song about “The angels spread their wings and stood prepared …” They’re figures used to convey our thoughts and feelings – especially feelings, because music is art and therefore communicates through the emotions.

I don’t believe that songs should contradict the Scripture. I’m glad that Rodney specified in “The Fourth Man” that he was only “creating an illustration.” A lot of people now-a-days aren’t very well grounded in Biblical stories and doctrines, and they sure don’t need to be confused further by their music. I’ve heard the Booth Brothers say that Mosie Lister (as I understood it) runs his songs by people in the ministry before letting them go.

Doctrines that are subversive of the Christian faith absolutely do not belong in our music. I would include such things as denying the divinity of Christ, perhaps advocating praying to the saints, or any such thing.

On the whole, I’m willing to take a song in the context of the rest of the author’s work. BF&A sing “The Father looked beyond the failures I had made; He didn’t notice all the times that I had not obeyed.” L5 sings “When He sees I can’t pay, He forgets the cost.” Not theologically true at all, but I understand what they mean, and I’d never assume that they were denying the necessity of the Atonement. They were making a specific point in those songs, and L5 also sings “Unless a Lamb was led to the slaughter, and up on the altar the Sacrifice laid; unless He saved the sons and the daughters with blood that flowed from His own veins.”

Sorry to make such a long comment!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd8M6f6X224

A Biblically correct lyric is the most important ingredient to a southern gospel song. I cringe, like Andrew in Post #9, when songs are sung or played on the radio that are not of sound Biblical theology. Songs like “His Tomb Wasn’t Empty (It Was Full Of My Sin)” or “Mama’s Teaching Angels How To Sing.” Those songs take a whole lot of poetic freedom–I doubt anyone could find chapter and verse for the basis for those songs. But, perhaps because of who performed them or who wrote them, they continue to get played.

Songwriters are story tellers.