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Sunday, October 11, 2026

by Joshua L. Mazur, Director of Music

Hymn 711: Seek Ye First

Some of the hymns we sing have traveled through centuries of Christian worship before reaching our hymnal. Seek Ye First took a much shorter route.

Karen Lafferty wrote the song in 1971 while involved at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California. She had left a job in entertainment to pursue music ministry and was trying to support herself by teaching guitar. By her own account, she had only three students, her savings were gone, and she was worried about how she would pay her bills.

One evening, a Bible study focused on Matthew 6:33. Lafferty went home, wrote the melody, recorded it on a tape recorder, and added the familiar Alleluia descant. She taught it at church the following week, and it quickly began to spread.

That origin gives some context to Jesus' words. Matthew 6:33 comes near the end of a passage about worry: what we will eat, what we will drink, what we will wear, and what tomorrow will bring. Jesus directs our attention first toward the Kingdom of God.

Lafferty was not setting an abstract theological idea to music. She was singing a passage of Scripture that had addressed her own immediate worries.

A Scripture Song

Seek Ye First belongs to a form of congregational music often called the Scripture song. Instead of beginning with newly written poetry, a Scripture song takes biblical words and gives them a melody simple enough to remember.

The first stanza comes from Matthew 6:33. The additional stanza in The Hymnal 1982 draws from Matthew 7:7: asking, seeking, and knocking. The hymnal identifies Lafferty as the adapter of the first stanza and lists the song's meter as 13.11.7 with Alleluias.

Unlike many hymns we have discussed in this series, there is no separate history of text and tune here. Lafferty wrote the melody with the words. The tune is simply called SEEK YE FIRST.

The Alleluias also give us an easy opportunity for singing in parts. The melody and descant fit together, allowing one part of the congregation to continue the Alleluia while another sings the biblical text. The Hymnal 1982 accordingly includes the hymn among its rounds and canons.

Seek First

This Sunday we hear Jesus tell another parable about the Kingdom of God, this time comparing it to a king who gives a wedding banquet.

That makes Seek Ye First an appropriate prayer before we hear the Gospel. The Kingdom Jesus describes is something to be sought before everything else.

The song's simplicity is part of its usefulness. There is very little to explain before we sing it. The words come from Jesus, the melody is easily learned, and the central idea can stay with us long after the service is over.

That is one of the things good congregational music can do particularly well. Scripture heard in a lesson may pass quickly. Scripture learned as a song has a way of returning to us.

What am I seeking first?