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The Scripture Hymnal: A Songbook of 100+ Bible Verses Set to Music for Congregational, Family, and Personal Worship
320 pages, Hardcover
Published October 21, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 13, 2025
The Rabbit Room sent me a copy of "The Scripture Hymnal" by Randall Goodgame in exchange for an honest review.
There are a plethora of songbooks currently available to God's people. There are psalters (the 150 psalms set to music), hymnals (a collection of uninspired songs), and psalter hymnals (a combination of the former two). The Scripture Hymnal (henceforth TSH) meets a unique niche, one that doesn't exist so far as I know. These songs are inspired, but most aren't psalms (only 22 psalm fragments, to be precise). This makes TSH a unique product well worth investigating.
As usual, Rabbit Room knocks the aesthetics out of the park. The pages are wonderfully laid out, with little images interspersed throughout. The cover is pleasing to the eye, and I'm not sure how exactly the cover is made, but it's VERY pleasant to the touch.
The content itself is overall good. Each song has a series of recommended Scripture readings. The songs are clearly divided into three categories: traditional, contemporary, traditional/family. Some songs are difficult to learn, but on the whole the product is excellent.
TSH is clearly designed to be adaptable to most contexts, including public worship. I personally don't think it should be used in public worship. It seems to me that this is best used in family worship and instruction of children. The website helps make all of these songs accessible, even to families that aren't musically inclined. In short, I highly recommend this book, particularly if you plan to use it in the correct context.
There are a plethora of songbooks currently available to God's people. There are psalters (the 150 psalms set to music), hymnals (a collection of uninspired songs), and psalter hymnals (a combination of the former two). The Scripture Hymnal (henceforth TSH) meets a unique niche, one that doesn't exist so far as I know. These songs are inspired, but most aren't psalms (only 22 psalm fragments, to be precise). This makes TSH a unique product well worth investigating.
As usual, Rabbit Room knocks the aesthetics out of the park. The pages are wonderfully laid out, with little images interspersed throughout. The cover is pleasing to the eye, and I'm not sure how exactly the cover is made, but it's VERY pleasant to the touch.
The content itself is overall good. Each song has a series of recommended Scripture readings. The songs are clearly divided into three categories: traditional, contemporary, traditional/family. Some songs are difficult to learn, but on the whole the product is excellent.
TSH is clearly designed to be adaptable to most contexts, including public worship. I personally don't think it should be used in public worship. It seems to me that this is best used in family worship and instruction of children. The website helps make all of these songs accessible, even to families that aren't musically inclined. In short, I highly recommend this book, particularly if you plan to use it in the correct context.
August 3, 2025
4.5 - This is a beautiful book, probably one of the prettiest new books we've ever owned. From the embossed cloth cover outside to the pleasing typeface and readable staff music inside, it's just, wow, someone did good.
I played through all of the songs at the piano and found a number that felt singable and stuck with me afterwards. Quite a number of them also did not feel very singable, and just would not stay in my head afterward. Of course, the lyrics being straight Scripture, there's nothing to rate about them, they're automatically good. It's a challenge to make non-metric Scripture text into a tune people can sing, and it's a worthy effort that we can all applaud. I think this book team did their best and hardest to contribute a good gift to the church, and where they're lacking, I think it's an invitation for other gifted people to take up their instruments and contribute to the effort. If I walk away from this book with 3 new Scripture songs that stick with me, even if 23 or more didn't click, it was worthwhile.
I didn't expect such a large number of Scripture reading selections at the back- which means there are fewer songs than the size of the book suggests. I wasn't a huge fan of the mixed translations (though it was understandable that they used a combination of translations in writing lyrics that could fit the tunes) and the cut and paste feeling of some of the texts kind of put me off, since I prefer Scripture readings in broader contexts. I thought their idea of how to use these Scripture readings with the songs was interesting, but it seems like you'd have a big liturgical learning curve to do that.
All in all, it's a book I'm happy to have as a beautiful and useful resource.
I played through all of the songs at the piano and found a number that felt singable and stuck with me afterwards. Quite a number of them also did not feel very singable, and just would not stay in my head afterward. Of course, the lyrics being straight Scripture, there's nothing to rate about them, they're automatically good. It's a challenge to make non-metric Scripture text into a tune people can sing, and it's a worthy effort that we can all applaud. I think this book team did their best and hardest to contribute a good gift to the church, and where they're lacking, I think it's an invitation for other gifted people to take up their instruments and contribute to the effort. If I walk away from this book with 3 new Scripture songs that stick with me, even if 23 or more didn't click, it was worthwhile.
I didn't expect such a large number of Scripture reading selections at the back- which means there are fewer songs than the size of the book suggests. I wasn't a huge fan of the mixed translations (though it was understandable that they used a combination of translations in writing lyrics that could fit the tunes) and the cut and paste feeling of some of the texts kind of put me off, since I prefer Scripture readings in broader contexts. I thought their idea of how to use these Scripture readings with the songs was interesting, but it seems like you'd have a big liturgical learning curve to do that.
All in all, it's a book I'm happy to have as a beautiful and useful resource.
December 4, 2024
Beautiful, rich music to capture your mind, heart and soul and worship the Great Creator.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews