The Highway Forums Announcements What's New on The Highway website? "The Hand of God" by Francis Schaeffer

One of the great hymns of the church is “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,” which begins like this:

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty,
Hold me with thy powerful hand.

The phrase “hold me with thy powerful hand” has been a great comfort and blessing to God’s people down through the ages. But I would raise two questions about it: First, does the word hand used this way show primitivism in the Scripture? Does it demonstrate that the Bible is, after all, an ancient book which from an evolutionary perspective should be viewed as being old-fashioned in a very basic way? Second, is it just romanticism, merely a poetic expression that gives God’s people only emotional comfort?