Categories
HOLY SCRIPTURES SDA HYMNAL (1985)

SDAH 277: For Your Holy Book We Thank You

HOLY SCRIPTURES

SDAH 277

For Your holy book we thank You,
And for all who served You well,
Writing, guarding, and translating,
That its pages might forth tell

Text
Text

1
For Your holy book we thank You,
And for all who served You well,
Writing, guarding, and translating,
That its pages might forth tell
Your strong love and tender care
For Your people everywhere.

2
For Your holy book we thank You,
And for those who work today,
That the people of all nations,
Reading it and following may
Know Your love and tender care
For Your people everywhere.

3
For Your holy book we thank You,
May its message be our guide,
May we understand the wisdom
Of the laws it will provide:
And Your love and tender care
For Your people everywhere.

4
For Your holy book we thank You,
May its message in our hearts
Lead us now to see in Jesus
All the grace Your word imparts:
All Your love and tender care
For Your people everywhere.

Hymn Info
Hymn Info


Biblical Reference
(a) 1 Tim 5:17; 1 Pet 5:7

Author
Ruth Carter (1900-1982)

Year Published
1932

Copyright
Words copyright Mrs. Betty Carter. London, 1950. Music copyright 1984 by Blythe Owen.

Hymn Tune
HOLY BOOK

Metrical Number
8.7.8.7.7.7.

Composer
Blythe Owen (1898-2000)

Year Composed
1984

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.

As we approach the last days of earth’s history, we need more than ever to study and live according to God’s Word. Only Scripture can provide us with an authoritative explanation of the world we live in. After all, Scripture tells the story of the great controversy between good and evil, and thus reveals that human history will close with the obliteration of evil and the establishment of God’s eternal kingdom. The more we study the Scriptures, the better we can understand the contemporary situation of the world and our place in it, as well as our reasons for hope amid a world that offers none. (Lesson 10, 1st Quarter 2020 – Sunday, Centrality of God’s Word, 3/1/2020)

As Christians, we accept and believe that the Bible is the only standard of our faith and practice. We may ask for the Holy Spirit to make us understand and believe what God wants to teach us. (Lesson 10, 1st Quarter 2021 -Tuesday, Who Has Believed, 3/2/2021)

This is the only hymn text written by Ruth Carter. In a Congregational Sunday school where she was a leader, a course of lessons was given on “How we got the Bible,” about 1932. At the end of the course she could find no hymn to sum up the points that arose, and so she wrote these words to fulfill that need. It was used occasionally for the next five years. Carter thought that it might be shared with other groups of children ages 8 to 11 and sent it to the Graded School Advisor at the National Sunday School Union; it appeared in the Graded Schools Intermediate Quarterly in 1937. From that magazine it was picked up by hymnals in many countries. The words “Thee” and “Thy” in the original version were changed to “You” and “Your” in the Australian Songs of Worship, 1968. Carter graciously agreed to take into her hymn stanza 4 as proposed by the committee working in the Australian Hymn Book, 1977, where the full hymn is printed with the old German tune, ALL SAINTS.

      Ruth Carter was born August 22, 1900, at Upper, Clapton, London, and educated at a small private school  at Buckhurst Hill, Essex, where her family moved when she was 9. After attendance at a Methodist boarding school in Kent, she became active member of the Buckhurst Hill United Reformed Church, and made her home there. For 20 years until retirement in 1975, she made a career of remedial teaching of boys and girls at her home.

     The SDAH Committee, wishing a new tune for this fine text on the Bible, sent the poem to some 30 SDA composers.  From those submitted, HOLY BOOK was chosen.

      Blythe Owen was born December 26, 1898, at Bruce, Minnesota, into a musical family. Her mother was the “town musician,” singing and playing the organ. Young Blythe started music lessons on a pump organ. When she was 8, a piano was added to the family treasures – to her great delight. Living for a while in North Dakota, the family had no SDA church privileges and attended Baptist and Methodist Sunday schools. At the age of 18 she graduated from a music conservatory and spent some 30 years in Chicago, Illinois, as a performer, teacher, and composer. She taught at Cosmopolitan School of Music, Chicago Teachers College, Northwestern University, and Roosevelt University. For six summers she studied at Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, studying composition with Howard Hanson. In 1949 a session at Ecole des Americaina at Fontainebleau, France, brought her into contact with teachers Nadia Boulanger and Francis Poulenc. As a teacher at Walla Walla College in 1961, she was president of the  Music Teachers’ Association, played cello in the Walla Walla Symphony, and by commission wrote a work performed by that orchestra. A world traveler, in 1968, Owen toured the Orient, giving recitals and master classes at Japan, Taipei, Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, and India. The winter quarter of 1972 found her teaching at Avondale College, Australia. In 1981 she was guest professor at the University of Montemorelos, Mexico, appearing there twice in the concert series. Her final post before retirement was a professor of music, teaching composition at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, where she received an honorary doctorate in 1979.

      A prolific composer, her compositions have won numerous local, national, and international awards, and have had many performances at festivals, universities, churches, and over the radio. A great variety of compositions have come from her pen, including works for orchestra, chamber groups, individual instruments and piano, organ, chorus, band, and solo voice, a number of which were published by major music publisher. She has written several hymn tunes, and writes, “I am very pleased that one of my hymns has been accepted [for SDAH], for this is the way I reach the church people, and this is my offering to the Lord and the church.” Owens lives in retirement near Andrews University.

Explore more hymns:

Finding things here useful?

If you find any joy and value in this site, please consider becoming a Recurring Patron with a sustaining monthly donation of your choosing. Hymns for Worship remains free (and ad-free), but it takes a lot of love labor to sustain this online ministry. Your support really matters. Please consider donating!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Shares
Share
Email