Cowden Hall’s Cornerstone Verse: Colossians 3:16
Volume 12
•
May 9, 2025
Editor
Joshua A. Waggener
Professor of Church Music at Southwestern Seminary
Editor
Joseph Crider
Dean and Professor of Church Music and Worship in the School of Church Music and Worship at Southwestern Seminary
Editor
R. Allen Lott
Professor of Music History at Southwestern Seminary
Editor
Charles T. Lewis
Associate Dean of the School of Church Music and Worship and Professor of Church Music and Worship at Southwestern Seminary
On the north side of Cowden Hall, the music building erected in 1926 on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, a verse from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossians is etched in the building’s cornerstone plaque: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16, KJV). With this verse (along with its parallel in Ephesians 5:19), the New Testament church was called to the ministry of music, overflowing from the ministry of the Word, for the horizontal purposes of “teaching and admonishing one another” along with vertical expressions of “grace” (or “giving thanks,” CSB) to the Lord.
