{"id":1279,"date":"2020-05-19T00:26:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T23:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/?p=1279"},"modified":"2020-05-19T21:28:09","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T20:28:09","slug":"the-king-and-not-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/2020\/05\/19\/the-king-and-not-i\/","title":{"rendered":"The King and (not) I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Many hymns and songs we sing together in church are about our praising to God &#8211; we praise God for who he is and how much we have been blessed. <strong><em>O Worship the King, How Glorious Above<\/em><\/strong>, is such. A tune usually used for this hymn is Lyons. Together it gives a tremendously strong start to a worship service. It declares who God is. It sets us on the right agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This hymn recalls Psalm 104. Interestingly, this is a hymn that has so little about &#8220;I&#8221; or &#8220;we&#8221;. Whether singing the hymn, or reading the Psalm, the feeling is the same &#8211; it is all about God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/nature-3373196_640.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-108\" width=\"293\" height=\"195\" srcset=\"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/nature-3373196_640.jpg 640w, https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/nature-3373196_640-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 293px) 100vw, 293px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>There is an early invitation in the way we sing praises to God, &#8220;gratefully&#8221;, in the first stanza: &#8220;<em>O gratefully sing<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One line comes closest to why we are praising God our King &#8211; &#8220;<em>Our Shield and Defender<\/em>&#8221; in the first stanza. This comes closest to the idea of &#8220;The King and I&#8221;. The rest of the hymn, across the full 6 stanzas, this is far less declaration of &#8220;The King and I&#8221;, the words are all about &#8220;The King&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Who is the King?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>List all the descriptions of the King. In the first stanzas, the King is glorious. He is all-powerful but also full of love. He is with God at the beginning, full of heavenly splendour but protects us who are his creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the second stanza, his all-powerful nature is also full of grace, generosity and truth. What else does the hymn speak about our King?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-cover has-background-dim\" style=\"background-image:url(https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/image-from-rawpixel-id-931639-jpeg-scaled.jpg)\"><div class=\"wp-block-cover__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-cover-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-text-align-center has-pale-cyan-blue-color\"><strong>O measureless Might,<br>Ineffable Love,<br>While angels delight<br>To hymn thee above,<br>Thy humbler creation,<br>Though feeble their lays,<br>With true adoration<br>Shall sing to thy praise.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Closing stanza)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many hymns and songs we sing together in church are about our praising to God &#8211; we praise God for who he is and how much we have been blessed. O Worship the King, How Glorious Above, is such. A tune usually used for this hymn is Lyons. Together it gives a tremendously strong start [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1279","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hymn-song-a-z","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1283,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions\/1283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elts.org.uk\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}