The Standard

Why this page is called The Standard

Canon means measuring stick. The word comes from kanōn, Greek for a straight rod. A builder used one to check whether a wall was straight (Merriam-Webster). So calling the Bible the canon says what it is for. You measure by it.

That is all we do here. We do not measure a song against taste, or against other songs, or against how it makes you feel. We put its words next to the Bible text and show you what matches.

The Bible tells you to check things this way:

• “examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true” Acts 17:11, BSB
• “but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21, BSB
• “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.” Isaiah 8:20, BSB

The Bereans checked an apostle's preaching against the text, and scripture calls them noble for it. A song is easier to check than a sermon. You will also remember it longer.

What we check, and what we don't

This site does one thing: we put a song's lyrics next to the Bible passage behind them, and show where they line up and where they don't. We are not reviewing the music, and we are not ranking artists.

Three questions do the work, and every proof on this site answers them in order:

1. Do the words match the text? Word for word, in a translation you can name and open.
2. If not, do they still carry the meaning? A paraphrase can be honest. The message, the tone and the sense of the passage can survive a rewording, or they can quietly shift.
3. What does the song leave you believing about God? A song you sing until you know it by heart teaches you something about him, whether or not it quotes a verse. It can leave you understanding him better, or worse.

"Christian" here describes the content, not the artist. The label on the shelf tells you where a song was sold. It does not tell you what the words do with the text. A song can carry the Christian label and still depart from the passage it leans on, or hold God's name cheaply. A song from outside that market can carry a passage whole and get it right. Both are on this site.

So the question is never who recorded it. We check a song from outside the Christian market only when it quotes scripture or is sung in church, and never when it contains profanity, because every page here sends you to the recording.

The four criteria

The first three are quotation criteria: they apply when a song presents words as scripture, and are marked "not graded" when it doesn't. The fourth, reverent treatment, applies to every song. A song can quote nothing at all and still hold God's name cheaply or say something untrue of Him, so we always ask it.

“Every word. In order. Translation named.”

Is it safe to dwell on?

The four criteria ask whether a song is accurate. This asks something the others cannot: is it safe to repeat. A worship song is not read once and set down. It is sung until it is memorized, looped in the car, and carried in your head for years. What you repeat, you come to believe, consciously and not. So a full check has to ask what a song plants.

Scripture treats this as weightier than taste. Paul ties it to song by name: “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you… as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16, BSB). The blessed man “meditates day and night” on God's word (Psalm 1:2); we are told to think on what is true and pure (Philippians 4:8) and to “guard your heart” (Proverbs 4:23), because what fills it flows out into a life.

The line we hold: we will say what a song plants and whether it forms you toward God or toward self, because that is provable from the words. We will not grade a song "too simple" or "too repetitive" or "not deep enough." Those are taste. A short, repeated, true song can be the healthiest thing you sing all week.

What the badges mean

Read the badges narrowly. A failed criterion means the words do not match the text the song points to. It does not say the artist is a false teacher, that the song is heresy, or that you are wrong to like it. We grade songs, and only against what each one does with the text.

How songs depart from the text

What this site will not do

Limits we hold ourselves to, so you can tell what kind of site this is before you trust a word of it.

• We will not call anyone a false teacher. That verdict is not ours to give, and it is not what checking a lyric can prove.
• We will not quote-mine. Every proof shows the passage in full, with its context, next to what the song does with it. If we have to crop the text to make our point, we do not have a point.
• We will not build guilt by association. A song is graded on its own words, not on who published it, who sang it, or who else is on the label.
• We will not grade taste as doctrine. Repetition, style, volume, and genre are preferences. We do not dress them up as faithfulness.
• We will not run on outrage. No pile-ons, no drama coverage, no scoring points off an artist's worst week.
• We will not give a number. A song is not an 8.5. Composite scores end up replacing the argument they were meant to summarize, so we publish criteria that pass or fail and tell you which.

The posture

We critique songs, not souls. Most drift is craft pressure (syllables have to fit, rhymes have to land), not deception. We assume good intentions, we say "the lyric departs from the text here" (provable), never "they're deceiving you" (not provable), and when a song claims word-for-word falsely, we grade the claim with receipts on the page. Scripture shown on this site is quoted from public-domain translations (WEB, KJV) or the freely-usable BSB, and the translation is always named, the same standard we hold everyone else to.