I’ve just been in a long and very useful email discussion about the use of instruments in church meetings.
I’ve had a number of emails about this in the past, and I’m glad that I have the opportunity to give the subject a bit more airtime. The last discussion involved a sentence that I used in my article in the August issue of EN (page 20) on emotional manipulation through music, where I stated: ‘God has given us music that moves our hearts not just to remember truths, but to respond emotionally to them’. I then quoted Psalm 92.4 (‘…at the works of your hands I sing for joy’, ESV). I’m sorry for any confusion, especially to the writer of the email I got in response, who picked me up on my use of the word ‘music’ in regards to that verse. The writer was concerned that I was saying that an instrumental accompaniment of a song was needed to help us respond emotionally to the truths of God. What I should have said is that ‘God has given us the gift of singing, which moves our hearts…’.
Musical chairs?
I certainly don’t believe that instruments are essential, as there are many church traditions and cultures that have no instrumental accompaniment and, of course, their singing can often be even more heartfelt than traditions that use many instruments. From verse 3 of Psalm 92, however (where the lute, the harp and lyre are mentioned in the context of singing God’s praise), it’s clear that instrumental accompaniment certainly shouldn’t be discouraged. I say this even though this is an Old Testament passage and no mention is made of instruments in the New Testament (except for the harps mentioned in Revelation 14 and 15). At the same time, there is certainly nothing in the New Testament that deems the use of instruments obsolete. Neither does the New Testament affirm or deny the use of (e.g.) chairs in church meetings. This doesn’t make it unbiblical to sit on a chair.
Here’s a quote from Queries and Answers by David Lipscomb (1899), someone who wouldn’t (I assume) have sat down on a chair in a church meeting: ‘It seems there cannot be doubt but that the use of instrumental music in connection with the worship of God, whether used as a part of the worship or as an attraction accompaniment, is unauthorised by God and violates the oft-repeated prohibition to add nothing to, take nothing from, the commandments of the Lord. It destroys the difference between the clean and the unclean, the holy and unholy, counts the blood of the Son of God unclean, and tramples under foot the authority of the Son of God. They have not been authorised by God or sanctified with the blood of his Son’.
This quote is from Ben Franklin, editor of American Christian Review, 1860: ‘Instrumental music is permissible for a church under the following conditions: 1. When a church never had or has lost the Spirit of Christ; 2. If a church has a preacher who never had or has lost the Spirit of Christ, who has become a dry, prosing and lifeless preacher; 3. If a church only intends being a fashionable society, a mere place of amusements and secular entertainment and abandoning the idea of religion and worship; 4. If a church has within it a large number of dishonest and corrupt men; 5. If a church has given up all idea of trying to convert the world’.
God’s gifts
I presume from their dates that these men were talking mainly about the organ!
From what I understand, the New Testament is gloriously silent about the details of the church meeting. However, what the New Testament always stipulates is that our Creator God has given us good gifts to build up his people. It also says that everyone is always and only sinful and will constantly want to worship the created things rather than the Creator (Romans 1.25), so idolatry is just around the corner, whatever our thoughts on music or tradition. We can take comfort that men with such austere views as the above are just as sinful and disobedient as the rest of us who struggle daily with idolatry.
What to conclude? Keep singing the truths of God, and whatever your thoughts on instruments, keep yourselves from idols.
(Many thanks to Dave Bignell for digging those quotes out.)
Richard Simpkin is Director of Music at St. Helen’s Church, Bishopsgate, London.
