We are coming to the end of our look at the New Year’s Carol – Joy to the World. We have celebrated with Isaac Watts, the author of this wonderful carol, the joy and reason for the joy: Jesus is the Messiah and His Kingdom is coming. Christ is both Savior
Tag: Arts
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I mentioned earlier that years ago I had a “revelation” when I was singing this hymn. This was the stanza that startled me. There is an imperative here, “No more let sins and sorrows grow!” How far? “As far as the curse is found.” Here in this hymn are marching
How are we to respond to this good news? The answer is found in the second line of the stanza: “Let men their songs employ!” What does this mean? To employ is “to use as an instrument of means” (Noah Webster’s 1828). We use a saw for cutting, a pen
Let me continue to unpack the words of this incredible New Year’s carol. The second stanza reads: Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns Let men their songs employ While fields and floods Rocks, hills and plains Repeat the sounding joy Repeat the sounding joy Repeat, repeat the sounding joy
In the second line, Watts says “Let earth receive her king.” Note that the object of the first two lines has changed, from world to earth. I don’t think this was a slip of the pen or poetic variation in his writing. Watts was not only a hymn writer, he was
Now I want to look in detail at the New Year’s carol – Joy to the World. In the next installments of this blog series we will examine the significance of each stanza for our lives as we enter this New Year. As we have said, this hymn celebrates the
A few days ago, I received a letter from a friend who had just finished reading the manuscript for my latest book, LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day. He commented that the book was filled with good content, but questioned if it was readable for the average
