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JESUS CHRIST SDA HYMNAL (1985)

SDAH 224: Seek Ye First the Kingdom

JESUS CHRIST >> KINGDOM & REIGN

SDAH 224

Seek ye first the kingdom,
‘Tis your Father’s will.
So the voice of Jesus bids us follow still.
Saviour, we would hear Thee,

Text
Text

1
Seek ye first the kingdom,
‘Tis your Father’s will.
So the voice of Jesus bids us follow still.
Saviour, we would hear Thee,
Follow, find, and see;
And in life’s adventure Thy disciples be.

2
As for hidden treasure,
Or for matchless pearl,
When at last discovered,
some will sell their all;
So, when breaks the vision of that
kingdom fair,
Ours shall be its riches And its beauty rare.

3
As the silent leaven works its secret way,
Or as grows the seed grain
through the night and day;
Lord, so be the increase, peaceable but sure,
Of Thy word within us,
And Thy kingdom’s power.

4
As the tender seedling grows up
tall and strong,
And the birds of heaven to its
branches throng; So shall all God’s children,
from the east and west,
Gather to His kingdom, In its shadow rest.

5
Humblest shall be greatest,
poor in spirit reign;
Home shall come the childlike,
born through Thee again;
Eager hearts arrive there on the
pilgrim’s road,
Hail! The kingdom glorious of the living God!

Hymn Info
Hymn Info


Biblical Reference
(a) Matt 6:33 (b) Matt 13:44-46 (c) Matt 13:33; Mark 4:27 (d) Matt 13:32; 8:11 (e) 1 Pet 5:6; Matt 5:3, 18:3

Author
Norman Elliott (1893-1973)

Year Published
1951

Copyright
Words copyright United Reformed Church

Hymn Tune
CRANHAM

Metrical Number
11.11.11.11.

Composer
Gustav Holst (1874-1934)

Alternate Tune
CUDDESON SDAH 360

Theme
KINGDOM & REIGN

Hymn Score

Piano Accompaniment


Notes

Get to know the hymns a little deeper with the SDA Hymnal Companion. Use our song leader’s notes to engage your congregation in singing with understanding. Even better, involve kids in learning this hymn with our homeschooling materials.

We must perseveringly seek first the Kingdom of God though all others prioritize having a good life in this world. It is only when we consent to let go of this priority that we can make eternal life, which was given to us at such great price, our own. (Lesson 7, 1st Quarter 2023, Managing for the Master – Sunday, The Rich Young Ruler  2/14/2023) 

When the English hymnbook Congregational Praise, 1953, was in preparation, this poem was submitted to the committee and include in that book. This is the first appearance of this hymn in America. Born October 11, 1893, in Adlington, Lancashire, England, Norman Elliot received his Congregational ministry. After a time as chaplain under the United Army and Navy Board, he pastored churches in Liverpool, Marple Bridge in Derbyshire, and beginning in 1947 was pastor David Thomas Memorial Church in Bristol. He died there on June 13, 1973. CRANHAM was probably named after the composer’s birthplace, Cranham Woods, a beautiful spot near Cheltenham, England. Holst wrote the tune especially for Christiana Rossetti’s poem “In the Bleak Midwinter” (SDAH 126), and it first appeared in the English Hymnal, 1906. SDAH has made some slight changes in the note values to make the tune fit this regular meter text. Erik Routley calls this a “pure folk song.”

Born September 21, 1874, at Cheltenham, Gustavus Theodore Holst’s was English, his Father Swedish. He studied music at the Royal College of Music, at first heading for a career as a pianist, but he changed and at age 17 became organist at Wyck Rissington in Gloucestershire. For five years he played trombone on the Scottish orchestra and in the Carl Rosa Opera Company, gaining valuable experience that helped him later in composed for orchestra. In 1903 he began teaching music in girls’ school in Reading and London, then in 1919 at the Royal College of Music. As an organizer of music, he worked for the YMCA in Salonica, Constantinople, and Asia Minor.

 He visited America twice, in 1923 to conduct at the Ann Arbor, Michigan, Festival, and to give lectures at Harvard in 1932. He died at Ealing, Middlesex, May 25, 1934, but his ashes lie in Chichester Cathedral. His compositions include a large sacred work, Hymn of Jesus; Ode to Death (Walt Whitman’s text); an Ave Maria for women’s voice; Hymn to the Unknown, the orchestral suite mentioned above; The Planets; five operas; song; and hymn tunes. His tunes THAXTED is at SDAH 648.

-from Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White

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