226. O Father, from Your Glorious Riches

Text Information
First Line: O Father, from your glorious riches
Title: O Father, from Your Glorious Riches
Versifier: Trudy Vander Veen (1984)
Meter: 98 98
Language: English
Publication Date: 1987
Scripture: ;
Topic: Love: God's Love to Us; Refuge; Trinity
Copyright: Text and music © 1987, CRC Publications
Tune Information
Name: DENVER
Composer: Roy Hopp (1985)
Meter: 98 98
Key: F Major
Copyright: Text and music © 1987, CRC Publications


Text Information:

Scripture References:
st. 1 = Eph. 3: 16-17
st. 2 = Eph. 3:18-19
st. 3 = Eph. 3:20
st. 4 = Eph. 3:21

Ephesians 3: 14-21 is a prayer uttered by the apostle Paul for the Ephesian church; its two key words are power and love. Christ possesses the power and love Paul talks about, but these can also be ours if Christ's Spirit dwells in us. Paul concludes his prayer with words of confidence and a doxology. Trudy Vander Veen (nee Van Der Hyde; b. Long Island, NY, 1929) paraphrased this text in 1984 (originally using first-person pronouns with the title "My Prayer") after teaching a Bible class for one season on Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

Vander Veen is a member of the Third Christian Reformed Church, Denver, Colorado, where she has been a leader in a neighborhood Bible studies and a church school teacher in a local Cambodian church. For many years she was a secretary at the Bethesda Pastoral Counseling Center in Denver. Vander Veen wrote the lyrics for a musical based on the book of Ruth and has published a number of articles in periodicals such as Discipleship.

Liturgical Use:
This sung prayer is best used as part of communal prayers or as a dismissal prayer, ending as it does with a doxology.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

Tune Information:

Roy Hopp (PHH 11) initially composed the tune for Daniel Meeter's versification of the Ten Commandments, “The LORD Is God, There Is No Other,” published in Rejoice in the Lord (1985). He named the tune DENVER after he learned it was being considered for publication in the Psalter Hymnal as a setting for Vander Veen's text. He had been living in Denver, Colorado, when he composed the tune, and he knew Vander Veen, who lived next door to his parents-in-law there. Hopp's distinctive cadences carry the energy from one line of DENVER to the next. Keep the organ registration bright on this unison tune but not necessarily loud, except at the doxological end of stanza 4.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook


Media
MIDI file: MIDI Preview
(Faith Alive Christian Resources)

Suggestions or corrections? Contact us