As with many issues, there has been much ado about music in the Church and what constitutes good music. Music was an integral part of worship in the Old Testament. In one worship service the singers did such a great job that God’s glory filled the house so strongly that the priests could not even get up to minister. (2 Chron 5) Singers sang God’s praises before a battle and God moved on the enemy and they turned against themselves so that Israel did not have to fight at all. (2 Chron 20) We know that David’s playing soothed Saul when he was being plagued by evil spirits. There will be music and songs in Heaven as well as we have seen in our study in Revelation.
But what kind of music should we sing in the Church today? I make no claim to be a musician or expert on genres, rhythm et cetera. I sing by ear. Some say I would do better if I used my mouth. I have had some basic music training but I don’t really read music. I know about All Cows Eat Grass, Every Good Boy Does Fine and even F A C E but that is equal to recognizing the alphabet but being unable to read a book. I know there are keys but how to hit a C or an A I have no clue. Whatever key or tempo I learned a song in is what I can do. Change it up and I get confused even though I was in Choir in High School and even had a lead role in a musical. I have sung in several Church choirs and will solo from time to time yet I am not a true musician. I was in a drum and bugle marching band but I was in the color guard because I wasn’t coordinated enough to play drums and couldn’t pucker my lips right to play the bugle. There are still situations where my lips won’t pucker but that is by choice and not handicap.
So how in the world can I speak to church music? Well, from Scripture of course. I can do a basic overview of what music is for and why we do it. For advanced theory or specifics, you will have to go elsewhere.
Matt 26:30 And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.
(KJV)
We know that Jesus and His disciples sang at the Last Supper. We are not told if there were any instruments there, but if cowboys can play harmonicas and guitars on the prairie I think it is safe to assume that fishermen might have some talent in that area and maybe twanged on a lyre or piped since they were common instruments of the time.
Yet, even if they were singing a cappella it is likely they sang one of the Psalms since the word for hymn in the Greek is a form of the word to celebrate. This was a happy song not a funeral dirge. The Hebrew hymn book was the Psalms so what did they sing? Might it have been Psalm 2 or 22 not knowing they were singing the Messianic promises in those Psalms? We are not told and so we can only wonder until we get there and maybe God will fill in the details for detail people like my dear wife. At least we see that a good Christian song can be one of celebration of the Trinity or the works of God and indeed our salvation and His imminent return. Those are all reasons to celebrate and there are many others so sing a hymn whenever you can even if you may not feel like it or are in a season or situation that doesn’t seem to be something to celebrate. If Jesus could sing a celebratory song on His way to the Cross I reckon we can do the same in anything we face.
Eph 5:18-19
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
I think it is an amazing coincidence that singing comes after a verse on drunkenness. Some of the biggest singers are drunks. That is why there are juke boxes and nowadays Karaoke machines in the bars. Drunks love to sing but the subject matter of the songs is far different than the ones that are filled with the Spirit.
Drunken songs are usually sung with gusto and the subject matter fits the lifestyle of the particular group be they Rednecks, Goths or Yuppies. How much more so should our spiritual songs speak to the lifestyle we are called to live? We should have more gusto in our singing than anyone.
Some debate whether this passage is speaking to public or private worship. Frankly, I do not know why there should be a difference. If something is OK in private worship then it should not be wrong in public worship unless the only private worship you do is in the shower then to appear in your “worship” garb at church would be unseemly. And if you can do something in corporate worship you should be able to downsize it to private.
I believe that this particular passage is speaking to us as we go about our daily life. We should be singing in our hearts all day to the Lord even when we cannot vocalize because we are at work or in bed near a sleeping partner. My wife wants me to sing in church more but not at home at 2 AM.
The reason some want to totally segregate this passage from public or corporate worship is due to the word psalms. The word in Greek is tied to using stringed instruments as accompaniment. Since vocal chords are somewhat like a stringed instrument we should never talk in church let along sing since we are using an instrument. ;-) Some like to say that the word changed in meaning. Well, I don’t know that is true but even so the prime rule of historical-grammatical interpretation is to determine what word meant at the time it was written not by a change earlier or later on.
Thus, there is no problem with having musical accompaniment either in public or private worship if you are able to play. The word comes from rub with connotations of twitching or twanging a stringed instrument. You know I like the twang concept. If there ain’t no twang you ain’t sang in my book. It is also translated to make melody or sing and of course, the Church has the Psalms so much of this type of singing came from them or themes derived from the Psalms. The Psalms were based upon David’s experiences with God in good and bad times so singing songs with that kind of subject matter would be fitting for this type of singing.
We already discussed hymns so that brings us to spiritual songs. The opposite of spiritual is carnal or earthly. Earthy songs would be ones that cause us to concentrate or our baser natures or areas of life without including God. Just because it mentions God doesn’t make it spiritual. The old song, “It wasn’t God who made honky-tonk angels” isn’t a spiritual song though it mentions God. A spiritual song can speak to the hardships of life and point us to faith in the God of all Comfort or to the joys of life and point to God as the Creator and giver of gifts. Songs like this help to set our affections on things above as we are enjoined in Colossians 3. They help us to take stock of ourselves and the vapor that is our life and the eternity to come. In essence they take us higher.
Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (KJV)
Finally, our songs should be filled with Word of Christ. These songs should teach us doctrine and admonish us to live holy lives. Many of the old songs are not completely Scriptural. As John pointed out recently we walk on the street of gold not streets of gold. Minor, yes but it is still wrong. What in the world is a prayer wheel anyway? Tibetan monks spin a prayer wheel. Alas, Brother Mitch, that mansion over the hilltop won’t be an antebellum Tara but possibly something more like a prayer closet where we can be “alone” with the Lord. We won’t need anything like our earthly dwelling places there. There’s no need for kitchens, baths, bedrooms, etc. And as endearing and sentimental a song as it is no one’s Momma is teaching angels how to sing. Many other songs teach false doctrine and we gloss over it because we like the tune or because it is only a phrase or two in a wonderful song. I have “rewritten” a song I like to sing because its eschatology is off but the rest of it is sound doctrine. One of my wife’s co-workers likes to turn up the radio when “Spirit In The Sky” plays because she thinks it is a Christian song. With lyrics like “I’ve never been a sinner. I’ve never sinned. I’ve got a friend in Jesus” I don’t think so! I once knew all the lyrics for all the parts in “Jesus Christ Superstar” but it is blasphemous in areas. It is not a spiritual opera though churches have used it in their services.
Some people think God quit inspiring people to write good music in the 17th century, other’s the 18th or 19th. Some say if it was written after 1930 or 40 or 50 it’s trash. Everyone knows that anything written in the 60’s and 70’s is flat carnality. And after that music died completely. God turned off the creative flow for musicians. I don’t believe that is true,
Having said that do I support all contemporary music? No. Some of it is just fluff. Some is right near a mantra and vain repetition. Doctrine is decidedly missing in some or in error in others. Yet, as I have shown it is also that way in some of the old hymns and Southern Gospel songs. Some consider those songs safe but they aren’t.
When I was in college I did a paper on Rock and Roll music. My three points were the Beat, the Brogue and the Brotherhood. I will use a synopsis to speak to the current issue. Based upon our Scriptures, if the beat is more inclined to make you get up and shake your body suggestively than to lift your spirit from the earthly to the spiritual then it is not a spiritual song. That doesn’t mean you can’t clap to it but if I come into a church where the congregation looks like I came into Saturday Night Fever instead of Sunday Morning Fervor then that music has missed its mark.
If the brogue or language is so vague that it plays as well on the Pop or Rock station as easily on a Christian station then it is not a Psalm for it lacks doctrine and it is not a hymn for the World cannot celebrate Christ or His truth for it knows neither Him nor His truth. If the doctrine is false then it is not filled with the Word of Christ and not what we should be filling our hearts with since it is false teaching and will not fill our hearts with grace and indeed may very well negate an admonition God would give us. It can’t give us real reasons to celebrate so it is neither a hymn, psalm, nor a spiritual song no matter what its genre.
Now, the Brotherhood becomes a trickier issue. In my college paper I spoke to the lifestyles of the performers and that there was nothing in them to emulate or support. That should not be a problem in Christian performers but it has been in some of them. No one is perfect and if there was sin and forsaking of the sin we don’t want to administer the coup de grace. If there is no repentance or even acknowledgement of public sin then we should not buy their music and encourage them.
Yet, if we get back to the doctrine issue we have a multitude of problems. There is at least one CCM musician that is Catholic and gives praise to Mary for his inspiration. We should not support him even if what he writes appears to fit into the definition of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs for it is confusion. If he gives Mary credit instead of Christ can the songs truly be spiritual when Catholicism teaches so much error about Mary. No.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings beautifully and sings some of the old hymns and classical songs. Yet, they teach a false gospel and another Christ that is not of the Bible. No believer’s money should go to them to support their errors.
A great many CCM and other singers are Pentecostal. One of my favorite singers, now deceased, was Pentecostal but should I have bought his music knowing the errors he was teaching? No, because even though the lyrics were often very dynamic my dollars helped to spread his teaching.
True, when it comes to food offered unto idols if it is sold in the marketplace go ahead and buy it for the meat itself is not contaminated by the idol. However, the “meat” of the music is contaminated by the author and his philosophy. They are of the wrong brotherhood.
I normally do not buy any music unless it is by people we have come here for concerts. True, while the people themselves are solid they may have to pay royalties to folks that are not. It is a difficult world that we live in and just because we come into contact with poison ivy from time to time doesn’t mean we should just roll around naked in a patch of it or because we accidentally got a drop of arsenic in our drink we should find and drink the whole bottle.
It is time that some IFBs step up to the plate and produce more godly music, books, and other materials so that we don’t have to get stuff from the wrong brotherhood and clean it up. I don’t believe that all the godly song writers are dead but in this world of confusion and spiritual amalgamation we must exercise discernment. If we just use the basics I have given tonight we can at least improve leaning towards perfection rather than leaning towards the world through apathy or laziness. The commercial asks “what’s in your wallet” Brethren, tonight what’s in your stereo?
