Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

The hymn Amazing Grace was first sung on New Year's Day, 1773.

In this classic Breakpoint commentary, Chuck Colson tells the story.

At the end of December 1772, an Anglican priest in the poor parish of Olney

worked by candlelight on his New Year's Day sermon. He would preach on the text of First Chronicle

17 verses 16 and 17. That passage was David's response to God after Nathan informed him

that his descendants would be enthroned forever as kings of Israel.

David, the once poor shepherd boy, the man who had repented of adultery and murder,

responded to the news by saying,

Who am I, O Lord God?

And what is my family that you have brought me thus far?

That pastor was John Newton, and those words struck a deep cord in his heart.

In those last days of 1772, Newton found himself running out of empty pages in his journal,

a bound book of 300 pages holding 16 years' worth of entries. As he came to finish that journal and

start another, his mind was drawn to the pages of his past. The story of his life from his days as an unregenerate slave traitor to becoming a child of God. Newton would have remembered when his rebellious spirit got him thrown off numerous ships, publicly flogged, and ousted from his Majesty's Navy. He would have remembered the shipwrecks and the mutinies, and then the transformation of his heart by the power of the gospel. As Newton considered those days gone by, he would have asked, as David did,

Who am I, O Lord, that you brought me this far? As was his habit, Newton set to work,

composing a hymn to illustrate his New Year's Day sermon. In that hymn, he would tell his

poor congregation of lace makers and low-paid artisans about

the dangers and snares he had faced. He would reflect on the Amazing Grace that had saved

a wretch like him. Those now famous words of Amazing Grace first sung in the small parish of

Olney on New Year's Day 1773 lingered in obscurity for many years. Even as Newton counseled the young

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