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Calvin's Genevan Psalter: Evaluation of it and some Proposals for Hymns in Korean Presbyterian Churches in 21st Century

Calvin's Genevan Psalter was the fruit of one of the spirits of Reformation, namely sola scriptura, in which Calvin emphasized the right attitude and spirit of worship. He said, by having changed visible worship of Roman Catholic church to audible one, that singing psalms in public worship was to exalt our hearts, to offer hymns and prayers and to give thanks to God. Calvin thought psalms had to be translated into people's language in order that everyone could learn and sing hymns easily. We can find several Calvin's spirits of public hymns in Genevan Psalter. Firstly, Calvin understood hymns in public worship as prayer. Secondly, Psalms were inspired by the Spirit of God, which is said to be sacred songs, to teach us the right means and attitude to give sacrifices of hymns and therefore to be the best way to sing the glory of God. According to Calvin, Psalms were to sing in unison without accompanying any other musical instruments in order that people might sing spiritually. Calvin emphasized texts of the songs rather than tunes in order to concentrate our minds on the biblical text itself. After Calvin, Genevan Psalter began to be sung widely in everywhere by every reformers. For more than four hundred years Genevan Psalter has been identified with the hymn of the Reformed Church. Calvin reformed church even in the area of singing songs. He even limited to psalms in singing hymns in public worship. He excluded any other songs made by human beings, which were considered to be frivolous and apt to accept heretic elements into the church hymns to ignore the Chritological hymns in the New Testament. And also he understood hymns from the perspective of prayer, so that he could not help excluding the musical elements in singing psalms. Nevertheless, we must praise Calvin, who restored the spirit of worship, which is to focus our hearts on God rather than on human beings. We, members of presbyterian churches, must identify ourselves to be the followers of reformers, especially of John Calvin, by singing psalms in public worship as well as in our daily lives.