“Abe & Liza Philip are writing worship songs & hymns that are biblically thoughtful, gospel-rich, and accessible – a rare combination in any era! I’d love to see more churches benefit from their songs & their passion for God’s glory in Jesus Christ.”— Bob Kauflin, Director of Sovereign Grace Music
Abe & Liza Philip are modern hymnwriters with a passion for lyrics that are saturated with Scripture and point to the Savior.
Humanly speaking, this ministry should never have come into existence.
Abe was born into a loving Christian family. But he struggled for years with many doubts, questioning God's existence and lacking trust in the Bible. In the mercy of God, that wasn't the end of the story. Through intense study of Scripture, theology and apologetics (especially on the resurrection and the trustworthiness of Scripture), things began to change. But more than anything else, God opened his eyes to finally see the beauty, goodness and truth of His Word and stand in wonder at the foot of the Cross. A passion to serve the Church by writing songs and hymns from this unshakable foundation was born.
Liza was also blessed to grow up in a home that loved God and His Word. She trusted Jesus in her earliest years and especially loved singing hymns about the Cross. But she often thought of the Bible as a book of rules and stories about how to be "good." She felt a deep despair when she compared herself to the perfection of God's holiness. In the kindness of God, she grew to see Jesus and His saving Cross with a clarity she never had before - that the Bible is all about Him and the righteousness He freely gives. Her passion is that through these songs and hymns, many would come to worship the Savior of the world.
Their guiding verses are Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, passages that encourage us to "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" and "Be filled with the Spirit."
How?
By singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
Abe & Liza write from all of Scripture but have a special love for the Psalms, written through mortals by the greatest songwriter of all, God Himself. The Book of Psalms (the songbook of Jesus!) is loved by so many because it brilliantly brings together divinely revealed truth and the heartfelt emotions we all experience.
Truth without the affections is cold and sterile. Emotion without truth is flimsy and shallow. But the Bible tells to have both "zeal and knowledge" (Romans 10:2) and to love God and His words with both our hearts and minds (Matthew 22:37, Deuteronomy 11:18).
That's why they have a passion for songs and hymns that bring together what is so often kept apart. Intellect and emotion. Theology and devotion. Head and heart.
Every line of their songs and hymns draw from the riches of the Holy Bible (but not always in a word-for-word approach).
Some of their most loved hymns include "O Teach My Heart to Love Your Word," "My Savior's Love is Greater Still," and "There is a Place."
They're currently in the middle of a large project working on musical settings of the Book of Psalms. Their first Psalms album was recently completed and is available here.
They live in the Chicago suburbs with their three children.
why SONGS FROM SCRIPTURE?
Writing songs and hymns with our Bibles open has been a life-changing experience for us. Here's what we hope you and your church gain from this music and the "why" behind everything we write:
Songs and hymns from Scripture help us to better know and love God by meditating on His Word. What if a pastor were to stand behind a pulpit, tell some great stories, make you laugh but never spoke from the Word of God? Should the words we sing in church be any different? Just as Word-centered preaching is so critical to the health of a church, so is Word-centered singing. Songs from Scripture help us to meditate on the life-giving Word of God and even help commit it to memory. Joshua 1:8 / Psalm 119:11 / Mark 13:31
What we sing helps shape what we truly believe about God. Songs from the Bible help us learn to think and pray with the Scriptures that have guided the people of God for over 3,000 years. God has not revealed everything there is to know in this vast universe. But in His Word, the Lord has graciously revealed everything we need to know for life and salvation. As our hearts and minds are saturated with Scripture, it comforts us, challenges us and changes everything. 2 Timothy 3:15-17 / John 15:3 / John 17:17 / Isaiah 55:11
Songs from Scripture re-center our worship of God away from trite platitudes to the surprising, refreshing and deep honesty of God’s very words. Anger. Confusion. Lament. Disappointment. These emotions are a very real part of this life and just as much a part of true worship as peaceful calm or joyful praise. The Bible welcomes rather than avoids difficult, uncomfortable questions and emotions. So should our songs and hymns. Psalm 10:1 / Lamentations 3:49-50
We treasure the hymns of past centuries for their faithful love and devotion to God's Word. But that same Word calls us, over and over, to "sing to the Lord a new song" (Psalm 33, 96, 98, 149, Isaiah 42:10). We don't often think about it, but in the end, even the greatest hymns of past centuries are valuable only as far as they are faithful to God’s Word. We believe the healthiest worship values both the ancient and modern, the old and the new, all rooted in the eternal Word that will never pass away. Matthew 13:52 / Psalm 89:1
But our ultimate focus is not on the letters filling the pages of our Bibles, though they are God’s own words [not worship of scripture]. The purpose of the written Word is to reveal the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, to whom the Bible is always pointing [worship from scripture].
The Gospel of Luke ends with Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, saying something extraordinary: that the Bible is all about Him and His finished work on the cross.
Jesus unambiguously underscores the point by saying it twice in Luke 24: "...beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself," (v.27) and "...everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures...” (vv.44-45). John 5:39-40 / Colossians 2:2-3 / John 1:14
May the Lord also open our minds, as He did with the disciples in Luke 24, to see Jesus in all the Scriptures to the praise and glory of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
And so our prayer is "O Teach My Heart to Love Your Word."