Every now and then a light goes on.
I discover something life-changing. The latest thing I’ve discovered? A dozen eggs for £1 from Poundland. The best and yellowest yolks I’ve had since my box of freshly-laid ones from Wilde Eggs of Brockley. Absolutely cracking.
On the music front, I’ve recently discovered that I was wrong about something. I have a lot of half-boiled ideas, but this particular thing I was wrong about only came to light as I heard someone hatch some pretty free-range teaching I wasn’t sure about. It’s a good thing not to poach the teaching of others without discernment, and we mustn’t chicken out of admitting our mistakes, so I need to, um, let the Bible do the talking instead of me. Hmmm, that last egg pun was a bit rotten.
Emotional response?
I have always said that I thought that music had two main purposes. The first: to help the Word of God dwell in believers richly. The second: to help people respond emotionally to the truth. The first, of course, I still firmly believe – don’t worry, those Poundland eggs haven’t totally scrambled my thinking. However, we’re not told exactly how singing is supposed to help the Word of God dwell in us richly – only that it does. And here’s where I have over-stated it in the past, suggesting that the way music affects us emotionally contributes to the ‘richly’ component of Colossians 3.16, but I don’t think that we can say this with absolute certainty. That’s because Scripture never specifically says that the job of singing is to bring about an emotional response. Music, of course, can and does encourage an emotional response, and has also been used to great effectiveness as an aid to mental and physical health, but the Bible never says specifically that the job of music is to trigger an emotional response to spiritual realities – and that’s presumably because emotional responses like thankfulness, sorrow and joy should be triggered by truths we learn about God.
Many of the Psalms that were set to be accompanied by music speak of a free range of emotions, but music itself is never mentioned specifically as the foundation of an emotional response. There is, of course, the incident of David playing his lyre to comfort Saul in 1 Samuel, but only a couple of chapters later Saul throws a spear at David – also when he plays the lyre, so music doesn’t seem to be commended as a way to help people respond emotionally, even though it has the power to do so in those isolated instances. Therefore, I think that I’ve been guilty of saying more than the Bible says, however well-intentioned.
Different people
This is important because, as we all know, everyone is affected by different types of music in different ways, and many are not affected at all. Are believers defective if they are not affected emotionally when they sing? Not at all, because they have fullness in Christ (Colossians 2.9-10). It is between us and our Father how we respond emotionally/ physically to the truths we know about God. He is the judge of how thankfulness, joy and sorrow should look in the heart of the believer, so let no-one seek to disqualify you for your emotional response (as if they could!). But even more, let no-one seek to disqualify you for the way you respond emotionally or physically to the truth that is accompanied by music. Yes, sung truth can provoke a more emotional response than spoken truth, but the Bible never says that singing in itself should be used to bring this response to bear in someone’s heart. Only the gospel can do that by the Spirit of God.
Singing the truth
This should free up church musicians to focus on encouraging the singing of truth faithfully rather than trying to move people emotionally through their music. Of course we want to accompany sung truth sensitively and appropriately, but thankfully it’s not our responsibility or goal to elicit any response – emotional, physical or spiritual. Let’s leave that to the Holy Spirit, who plants the Word of God in us richly.
