Please note that due to the software used, not everything recorded in this transcript will be accurate.

Concert Hymn

John Dickson (Studio)

Hey friends, before the next season of Undeceptions gets going, I wanted to share with you a really special moment I had in Texas near the end of 2024. I am sure if you are a regular listener, you will have heard over and over again of the little documentary we have produced about the earliest known Christian hymn with music and lyrics Intact, mostly intact. It’s called the First Hymn. Well, that’s what we called it. Anyway, in it, the stellar musicians, Chris Tomlin and Ben Fielding, work to resurrect and eventually release that piece of music as a modern worship song. It was always my dream to give the song Back to the World at a major concert, so I spoke to Chris and Ben about the idea, and they were totally on board, and Chris knew exactly where he wanted to do it. Chris Tomlin began his musical career decades ago in the Lone Star State, Texas. He’d gone through his own personal spiritual journey with the first hymn. And he wanted to finish the journey back home. So we met him at Fort Worth, Texas, in a stadium packed with more than 10,000 people to see what would happen. I’ll be honest, I was a little nervous. I mean, I believed totally in the project and the beauty of the song that Chris and Ben had created. But would the rest of the world agree? Well. What you’re about to hear is what came next. You won’t see this in the documentary, by the way. This is just for you, our Undeceptions audience. It’s a kind of fireside chat that Chris had with the audience before playing the newly resurrected song. I was there with my daughter, Josie, actually right in the front and to the side of the stage, and I might have got a tear in my eye, or maybe it was just dust. Anyway, I hope you enjoy being able to have that ringside seat for this special moment.

Chris Tomlin

What a night, everybody. What a night. Whew. I’m, I’m gonna give out. It’s the altitude. Oh what a special place. I just, man, you, you don’t even know what’s in my heart tonight. Just, uh, I’m just kinda shaking all night, just. Just feeling the journey of all these, all these years and being back kind of where it all started. And, um, I said that we’re gonna do something special tonight and this is gonna be a special, special, holy moment. And, um, I want, I wanna introduce you, introduce you to a friend of mine. Would you guys welcome my friend Ben Fielding? Ben, would you, would you come here for a second? Ben. Ben is, uh, many of you know that name. Many of you probably have, uh, know his songs. If you don’t, I’ll just, uh, uh, just, I don’t know what key you’re in, so just one, one second. Um. If you don’t know his songs, or I’ll just tell you this, this is, these are some of his songs. Um, oh My Life You Have Been Facing. That’s good. That’s a pretty good one. Um, what a beautiful name it What a beautiful name. Not bad. Anybody remember this savior? He can move the mountains by. God is mighty to save. He is my, I mean, it’s your concert, Ben. Good. And everybody, uh uh. So, but Ben, um, Ben called me, uh, just um. Gosh, about a year ago, I guess, and said, Hey man, there’s this project that I’d love to connect with you on and says there’s this been, there’s been this discovery of this old piece of paper that was found in Egypt and it’s discovery of the first Christian hymn with any kind of musical notation to it. And it’s from the two hundreds. Um. That’s a long time ago, eight, 1800 years ago, this scrap of paper found, and it’s got musical notes above it. It’s in Greek, and he said there’s, they’re making a documentary on this piece of music because it is the first hymn outside of the Bible discovered the earliest known Psalm. It was found in Egypt. It was found. Um, and it comes from the, the two hundreds. Okay. This was the most persecuted time, probably of the faith ever. This is when the Roman Empire was destroying, destroying the Christians and killing Christians. And, um, and this was a song they were singing and they want to, we wanna bring this back. And they wanna bring this back. And he said, you, uh, he goes, would you like to write this with me, right. And write some, um, write some write to bring, try to bring a new melody to this, that, that musical notation is like, not the, you know, not kind of the music we sing today. So it’s like, could we bring this, this back? And there was 35 words that were, that were found in this piece of paper. So here we are. And, um. We, we did that, we did the best we can. Right. Um, um, yeah, is there anything you’d like to say with it?

Ben Fielding

Well, firstly, man, I just want to thank you for, for jumping on board. Um, you know, it, it’s obviously a project that’s really dead in my heart. I mean, to think that 1800 years ago, believers just like us here, uh, were singing the truth of who Jesus is. One of the crazy things about this hymn that we’re about to sing, um, and you’ll see the words of the original hymn, is it sings of the Trinity of God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and they’re singing these statements of belief before the creeds, before Constantine. And to think that after all these centuries, the millennia, that message has stood the test of time. And we can sing the same thing today here as his church in unity with one another and with unity with the generations that are gone before us.

Chris Tomlin

This is the translation. Let it all be silent. This is what was on that piece of paper. Imagine this 1800 years ago. Let all be silent. The shining stars not sound forth. All rushing rivers still as we sing our hymn to the Father, son, and Holy Spirit, as all powers cry out and answer. Amen. Amen. Might praise and glory forever to our God, the only giver of all good gifts. Amen. Amen. In this documentary, I wanna leave that up there, if you would leave that up there in this documentary of the, the friend who was here, um, by the way, um. If you, if you can’t tell Ben is not Texan. And, um, but, but, uh, flew in from Sydney, Australia, just for this and just to be here. And the people, the people that are making the documentary on this are here with us and he was telling me. That in those days, the worship of the pagan gods, especially the worship of Zeus, was so massive around the world. And it says every time they would go to praise Zeus, they would say the giver of all good gifts to the giver of all good gifts. That would be their worship statement. And I love, don’t you love that these little Christians. In the middle of the mi of the middle of that kind of world, said to the only giver of all good gifts. Amen. Amen. I love that. And so tonight, here’s, here’s why this is special. I thought they said, we wanna make a documentary of this and we wanna record this, we want to capture this somewhere. And I thought. I’m going back to Texas. Um, there’s no place I would rather capture this moment for the very first time from. The last time it was sung was probably 1800 years ago, and we will sing it tonight for the very first time. This will be recorded for the very first time. This will, this will be the version that goes out to the world this spring when the documentary releases. It’ll be right here from Fort Worth, Texas. So this is gonna be so special. And so all I’m saying is I told my friends, I was like, well, here’s what I know. I know Texas will bring it and I know they’ll represent for this. So this is all of us together, we’re gonna teach you the chorus, and when we’re gonna sing this together, it is gonna be. The most beautiful sound of praise tonight.

John Dickson (Studio)

Now that was a special moment and we’ve got some even better ones coming up. Next week is the beginning of season 16 of Undeceptions, but I’ve got something pretty special to tell you that we’ve been working on for a long time. For all of our American listeners, the First Hymn film is opening in US theatres around the country on March 24 and March 26, just a couple of months away. Now, these are crucial dates because if we get a good turnout around the country, then theatres are gonna continue to run sessions for the coming weeks. So it would be great to see my US mates buying early, and by doing so driving the availability of the film for their American friends. And tickets are on sale at a theatre near you now. Go to the first hymn movie.com to get yours. And if that wasn’t enough good news, the soundtrack for The First Hymn film is gonna be released on March 16th, but you can pre-order the album right now today. Yep, the first hymn theme, plus all of the awesome coral and orchestral music in English and Greek that was recorded for the film. So make sure you check all of that out in the show notes. See ya.