I have a little hymn book, dark blue cloth bound on decent quality book-board, that I use in my daily devotions. It was published in 1940 by the Marion Davis Company of Fayette, Alabama. It was edited by Foy 
E. Wallace, Jr., and Marion Davis. It is called the Complete Christian Hymnal. It is not my favorite Hymnal. I like the one we use, Praise for the Lord, a great deal. I learned to lead singing from the once ubiquitous Great Songs of the Church. I grew up with Ellis Crum’s crimson colored Sacred Selections with the gilt oil-lamp stamped on the cover. We used to refer to it (with some little bit of affection) as Scarred Selections because Crum had changed the lyrics of well-known songs to “correct” their theology. Thus “When We All Get to Heaven” became “When the Saved Get to Heaven;” “for such a worm as I,” became “for such a one as I;” and for some odd reason, the opening line of “Beulah Land” went from “I’ve reached the land of love divine,” to “I’ve reached the land of corn and wine.” I like the bass lines in Crum’s hymnal, though, and still sing them despite what is written in other hymn books, the way I still quote from memory the King James Version of my childhood.
The reason I sing through this plain (a less polite person might have used the word drab) little hymnal is that it contains many of the old songs not collected anymore, and I don’t want to forget them, but mostly for the title: Complete Christian Hymnal. That is a daring, absolute claim. It is intentionally so. The opening line of the preface states: This book is intended to be just what the title suggests – A Complete Christian Hymnal.
The editors do admit that they have left out the “jazzy convention type” of hymn. But every hymn that meets the criteria of being the “richest, sweetest, truest, and best,” and that survived brother Wallace’s theological scrutiny is included. Any other hymn is extraneous. All the hymns a church will ever need are to be found between #1 “Peace, Perfect Peace,” and #324 “O Come All Ye Faithful.” And so the Complete Christian Hymnal is complete in the way Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery is: “If you can’t get it at Ralph’s, you can probably do with out it.”My Dad had a co-worker once who, in a moment of regret over his wicked ways, went out and bought a Bible. He bought the best he could find – only the most elaborate and well-equipped model could meet the challenges of his sinful habits. The title page was what sold him on the Bible he bought. It stated: All the words of Jesus in Red. He showed his new Bible to my dad with pride. “This is no ordinary Bible,” he said, “It has all the words of Jesus in it.” My dad tried to explain to him that what was claimed was that all the words of Jesus recorded in scripture were in red, not all the words he ever spoke, but nothing would convince the man – not John 21.23-24, not the absence of phrases like “Hi mom, what’s for dinner” – nothing.
As John 21.24 states, such a book – one containing all the words of Jesus – would be impossible to assemble. It would be a great thing to have though. Wouldn’t it be nice to have more of his life between his birth and his 30th birthday than the one incident and two verses that we do have? Wouldn’t it be nice to have more of the intimate things, the funny things, the comforting things, the observant things he said, day by day, to the disciples?
And yet what we have is complete, or rather, makes us complete. Not in the way the Complete Christian Hymnal is, or Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery – but just as God intended it to be.
All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. II Timothy 3.16-17
