The servants of God are baptized

Nick Needham’s hymn is published here for the first time and (like 634) included in the 2004 CH. It was written originally in the singular as ‘The servant of God is baptized’, a formula from the Eastern Orthodox baptismal liturgy in which the priest says ‘The servant of God [name] is baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’. The author prefers this to the Western mode of ‘I baptize you …’ The plural form agreed between him and the editors avoids the need for the repeated alternatives of him/her, his/hers etc. When there is only one candidate it may still be adapted accordingly if desired, but the use of the plural is a useful reminder that he/she is not after all alone. This is duly emphasized in the final stz which complements the opening one.

The tune DAVID is adapted from the aria Rendi il sereno al ciglio from G F Handel’s 1732 opera Sosarme. It was later used for an anthem based on Psalm 132, ‘Lord, remember David’; hence the name. As a hymn tune it features in The Methodist Hymn Book of 1933 (though not its 1983 successor), Hymns of Faith (1964) and CH. G W Briggs and D W Dearle also composed tunes using this name.

b London 1959. Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar Sch; he was converted in 1976, and a year later read Augustine’s Confessions, which proved a life-changing experience. Edinburgh Univ 1978–87 (BD, PhD) including time at New College as student and as a teacher on Zwingli; he became the first Librarian of Edinburgh’s Rutherford House theological research centre. He taught Systematic Theology at the Scottish Baptist Coll in Glasgow for some years before moving back to N London as an Asst Baptist Pastor. From there he returned to Scotland to lecture at the Highland Theological College, Dingwall nr Inverness, and was called to pastor the Inverness Reformed Baptist Ch. He has also taught more briefly in Africa and served as an occasional consultant for Praise! His first two books were on Scottish church history; others include Thomas Erskine of Linlathen (his PhD subject, 1989), The Doctrine of the Holy Scripture in the Free Church Fathers (1990) and books on general church history, Christian experience and prayer. His major 5-volume historical work, 2000 Years of Christ’s Power, was published between 1998 and 2006. The texts in Praise! were written in London from 1995 onwards; 2 of them appear also in the 2004 edn of CH. (An earlier hymn-writing Needham was the 18th-c Baptist minister John N who also adapted the hymns of others, with a brief biography and 14 texts noted in Julian.) Nos.185, 293, 638, 802, 900.