The Accidental Hymn

Did you know that “Joy to the World” was not written as a Christmas carol? In its original form, it had nothing to do with Christmas. It wasn’t even written to be a song. Isaac Watts was one of the great hymn writers in church history, and nothing shows that better than the fact that he wrote one of his most famous hymns entirely by accident. In 1719, Watts published a book of poems in which each poem was based on a psalm. One of those poems was an adaptation of Psalm 98, wh...