Matt Boswell & Matt Papa
2 songs checked against the passages they lean on. Each one was graded on its own, against what that song does with the text.
How the 2 checks landed
- NOT A QUOTE 2
This is a count, not a verdict. We grade songs, one at a time, against what each one does with the text. A tally of those checks describes a catalogue. It is not a judgment of the people who wrote or sang it, and no number here puts anyone on or off The List. Most drift is craft pressure, not deception. Read the proofs, not the arithmetic.
The songs
NOT A QUOTE
“Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery”
Matt Boswell & Matt Papa
Sing it. Nothing is quoting, and the four stanzas walk the gospel in order: incarnation, obedient life, cross, resurrection. Paul's joining word, firstfruits, is not in it.✓ Walks the gospel in order across four stanzas: incarnation, obedient life, cross, resurrection. Few congregational songs give Christ's obedient life a stanza of its own, and most go from manger to cross
⚠ Paul's joining word is firstfruits, and it appears nowhere in the hymn. The closing line makes the singers' future a likeness to the risen Christ, where verses 20 and 23 make it a harvest He has already begun
NOT A QUOTE
“His Mercy Is More”
Matt Boswell & Matt Papa
Sing it. It never says it is quoting. What it says of God, Micah 7:18-19 says first: pardon, mercy delighted in, sins thrown where they cannot be retrieved. And it never says “sea of forgetfulness,” because no Bible does.✓ Every verse is a question about who God is, which is Micah 7:18's own move and the prophet's own name
⚠ No reference or translation is given, so a listener has nothing in the song to check the sea image against