Zach Williams
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
“Rescue Story”
Zach Williams
Sing it. It quotes nothing and never says it is scripture, and it is one man's rescue sung to Jesus. Read 1 Timothy 1:16 beside it, where a rescue is told for other people's sake.✓ Nothing in it is presented as scripture. No book, chapter or verse is named anywhere in the song, and nothing is framed as a quotation, so there is nothing here to mis-cite
⚠ Every passage tied to this song comes from outside it. The artist-partnered plan assigns three. A blog names Psalm 40:1-3. A podcast runs through Ruth and seven more. None of them is the song's own
NOT A QUOTE
“Chain Breaker”
Zach Williams
Sing it. It quotes nothing and never says it is scripture, and what it says God does is what Psalm 107 says God does. Read the psalm beside it, where the rescue starts with a cry.✓ Everything it says God does is something scripture says God does. Broken chains and an opened prison are Psalm 107's own images, and a shaken prison is Acts 16's
⚠ Three worship catalogues list three different scripture sets behind it, and the song supplies none of them. Anything you hear about "the verse" behind this song comes from a cataloguer, not the writers