Beautiful Words: Amazing Grace

Today’s beautiful words coming from the hymn Amazing Grace.

When talking about emerging from life changes, John Newton’s story is truly amazing. After his mother died when he was seven, he joined his father at sea. Newton was flogged and attempted desertion. He was held by a slave trader, then captain of a slave ship. He was hardly living a christian life. After near drowning, he met a godly woman (who would become his wife). He began reading the writings of Thomas a` Kempis, and quit the slave trade to become a minister and abolitionist.

Considered one of the most beautiful and popular hymns of all time. Newton wrote Amazing Grace to coordinate with his new year’s day sermon. He taught it to his congregation on January 1, 1773.

The Museum of the Bible, in Washington DC, says, “Here is the story of how the witness-in-verse of one man’s personal redemption soared beyond his time and place to find an unending, universal life of its own. It is the journey Amazing Grace has taken from the pen of an eighteenth-century minister to being a modern pop-culture phenomenon.”

On their website, read an explanation behind every line. Also, review Newton’s sermon which accompanied the hymn, and see a timeline of the song’s cultural impact.