Fred Sanders Hears the Echoes

By Andrew Faris

Once again, great stuff from Fred Sanders on the use of the work of dead Christians in his church's Sunday service.

Here's the intro:

This week in church we prayed Psalm 130 together: “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sin, O Lord, who would stand?” Well, actually, we prayed together through an extended paraphrase of it written by John Owen, the 17th-century Puritan theologian who wrote a great big book on that one little psalm that was important in his conversion.

And in between passages of the Owen-paraphrased Psalm 130, we heard words from Martin Luther (16th century), sang hymns by Isaac Watts (18th century), Reginald Heber (19th century), and heard a quotation from Martin Lloyd-Jones (20th century). Furthermore, we read together a confession of sin from the Book of Common Prayer (16th century), which is itself a tour-de-force of Cranmerian biblical allusion.

You really should read the whole thing.