I Love to Tell The Story

A hymn can feel like background noise until you learn what it cost someone to write it. Today we step back into 1800s London to trace the surprising origin of “I Love to Tell the Story,” a cornerstone of Christian hymnbooks that grew out of reform, missions, and a season of forced stillness that became creative fire.

We talk through the Clapham Sect, a community known for their work to end slavery in the British Empire and their push for prison reform, education, and missionary expansion. From that world comes Catherine Hankey, raised around faith in action, teaching Sunday school, leading Bible studies for factory girls, and developing a deep passion for foreign missions. When severe illness leaves her bedridden for a year, she writes a 100-stanza poem, “The Old Old Story,” which later gets shaped into music and eventually becomes the hymn many churches still sing today.

Then we get to the heart of why this song endures: the gospel story. Using Luke 19:10, we unpack the message that Jesus comes to seek and to save the lost, giving hope, purpose, and meaning when life feels empty. To top it off, we feature a standout modern take by Chris Rupp, who performs the hymn in beautiful four-part harmony by singing all four parts himself, blending classic Christian worship music with inventive a cappella artistry.

Here is the YouTube link to today's song
https://youtu.be/OPtzKT-JLw0?si=GRFW9pqML6y6lu7t

Transcript

A Five-Minute Morning Start

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mack. I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back, relax, and let me help you start your day right.

Music Monday Picks A Classic Hymn

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Good morning everybody. Welcome to Music Monday. And today we're going to step away from some of the modern Christian music and take a look at one of the old hymns. We haven't done that for a while, so I thought it'd be kind of fun to take a look at one of them again. Today's hymn is called I Love to Tell the Story. And how it came to be is a remarkable story in and of itself. Let me just share a little bit of it with you.

Clapham Sect And Catherine Hankey

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Back in the mid 1800s, there was a group of people who lived in an area of London called Clapham. They formed the Clapham Sect. Their purpose was to eradicate slavery from the British Empire. They also advocated prison reform and the education of children, and the expansion of missionary efforts around the world. In eighteen thirty four, Catherine Hankey was born into the Clapham area. Her father was a banker and one of the leaders of the Clapham Group. Very early in her life she worked with her father and was very involved working with the Clapham Group. As a young girl, she taught Sunday school, and when she was eighteen she organized a Bible study in one of the factories for girls in London. When she grew a little bit older, she went to Africa because her brother was sick, and she traveled there to bring him back home, and it was that trip that sparked a passion for foreign missions. And later in her life she gave all the proceeds from her writing to missionary work. It

Illness, A Poem, And A Hymn

SPEAKER_00 1:41

was during the winter of eighteen sixty five that Catherine, who was thirty at the time, became very ill. The doctors told her that she had to step away from her mission activities and remain in bed for a full year or she would die. Well, to occupy her time, she wrote a poem of one hundred stanzas. She entitled it The Old Old Story. The following year at the International Convention of the YMCA, Major General Russell ended up his powerful sermon by quoting from Kate's poem. It left the audience breathless, and in that audience was a songwriter by the name of William Doane. And he put a portion of Kate's poem to music, he called it Tell Me the Old Old Story. A few years later, William Fisher set a second portion of Kate's poem to music, and it's from this hymn that we now have I Love to Tell the Story. First published in the American hymn book in 1869 and later popularized around the world, this is one of the true foundational hymns of any of our modern hymn books.

The Gospel Story Behind The Song

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Now before I tell you about our featured singer today, let's talk about the story itself. What is the story that they love to tell? Luke chapter 19 and verse 10 said, For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. That's the story of Jesus Christ. It's God's love for us and the fact that Jesus came to find us when we feel lost, when we're struggling, when we don't know what to do, when we don't know what the answers are, when we have no hope, we have no faith, and life seems to have no meaning. Jesus Christ came to give us a purpose, to give us meaning, to give us hope, and to let us know that God is real, he is alive, he is powerful, and he wants to have a relationship with us. That's the story that the song loves to tell and remind us of.

Chris Rupp’s Four-Part Harmony

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Now the version of the song that I'm going to share with you today is also has a unique story behind it. It is sung by Chris Rupp, and he does something very unique with this song. It is sung in some beautiful four-part harmonies. And the unique thing is that Chris Rupp sings all four parts of those harmonies. Chris has a very extensive musical background. He was one of the founders of the a cappella group Home Free, whom we featured in other music in the past. And the video is really fun to watch because it features Chris in four places at the same time singing the song with himself. It's fun to watch. He sings it beautifully, and it is a powerful, wonderful song. I love to tell the story. That's the powerful story that Kathleen Hankey wrote those one hundred verses about almost two hundred years ago. Here's Chris Rupp.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

I love to tell the story.