Not long after I started writing and singing gospel songs, an artist I knew said to me, “I learn everything I need to know about God from gospel songs.” Though I was a new singer and gospel song writer, I wasn’t a new listener of gospel music or a new Christian. I recognized immediately the danger in this statement.
   I knew, as a Christian, I needed to rely on the Bible, sound Biblical preachers/teachers and the Holy Spirit to teach me what I need to know about God. I also knew I needed to be in the Word daily and that was especially true if I were to fulfill my call as a gospel song writer. We need a solid grounding in the Word so we can have a Biblical standard against which to compare everything else.
   There are many good things one can learn about God through gospel music, but there are also fallacies and inaccuracies in some of it that can taint one’s Scriptural knowledge. Though one might understand how some of this might have occurred in much older hymns penned in times when access to the Scriptures was limited and reference materials were not readily available for research, it is hardly excusable in this day and age with all we have available to us.

   Here I could make a list of Biblical inaccuracies I have noted in hymns and gospel songs over the years but I will mention only a couple for brevity’s sake. Sadly, these are areas where we allow the world and human emotion to influence our thinking. When we die we do not become angels or sprout beautiful wings. Angels are separate beings from man, though both were created by God. Psalm 8:4 & 5 tell us:

4 What is man that You are mindful of him,And the son of man that You visit him?
5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

   Just as the Saved of God do not become angels when they die, neither do our mothers. These women, though precious to us and we love them dearly, are not accorded any special privileges in heaven because they were/are our mothers. They will be rewarded, as will be all of the faithful:

16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17 and if children, then heirs— heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him,
that we may also be glorified together.

Romans 8:16 -17

   These two quick examples illustrate how fallacies in gospel music can infiltrate our hearts and cause us to err in sound Biblical thinking. Those writing gospel songs need to be firmly rooted in the Word of God so they will not pass on to others error as Biblical truth.  I, as do many other gospel song writers I know, write with not only a blank piece of paper or a computer screen before me, but I have my trusted Biblical resources at hand too, so I can check my facts. To this end, I must share with you a little story...