Bach's Inscription: Soli Deo Gloria

When Johann Sebastian Bach sat down to compose — whether a grand cantata for Leipzig's St. Thomas Church or a simple exercise for his children — he inscribed three Latin letters at the top of every manuscript page: J.J., standing for Jesu Juva, "Jesus, help me." At the bottom of every finished work came three more: S.D.G. — Soli Deo Gloria, "To God alone be the glory."

Bach knew grief intimately. He buried his first wife and ten of his twenty children. He spent years in a cramped, noisy Leipzig household, laboring for church authorities who often undervalued his gifts. Yet the manuscripts kept coming — over 1,100 compositions, each one bracketed by that same prayer and that same doxology.

In 1723, Bach accepted the post of Cantor at St. Thomas Church, a position his contemporaries considered beneath his abilities. He took it anyway. The work was for God, not for men. Whether composing for royalty or leading a congregation of ordinary tradesmen through Leipzig's liturgical calendar, the audience was always the same One.

This is the pulse of Psalm 100. "It is He who made us, and we are His." The psalmist doesn't wait for circumstances to improve before calling the whole earth to shout for joy. He starts with identity — we belong to God — and lets that truth generate its own music. Bach didn't merely illustrate this conviction. He spent a lifetime living it, two Latin abbreviations at a time.