THE CREATION AND APPLICATION OF MUSIC

(This section is still under the heading of “Confessions of a Reformed Pragmatist”. If you haven’t read that first entry, let me encourage you to do so. It will help you to understand where we are in this discussion. Some of my research materials for this section are, “The Bible”; “Chart Watch”, published by Focus on the Family; “Why I left the contemporary Christian Music Movement by Dan Lucarine, published by Evangelical Press; The Confessions of St. Augustine; and “Living in the Spirit, a study of Ephesians 5:18-20 by Dr. John MacArthur.)

Most if not all of us grew up listening to some style of music. When I was a child we listened to country music. As I grew up I began listening to pop music. The older I got the harder the music I listened to and by the time I got saved at the age of 20 I was a rock n roll junky.

But a short time after I came to faith in Christ, I began to realize that I could no longer listen to secular music. The word "secular" means (Worldly rather than spiritual), so when I speak of "secular music", I mean any music of any style that is not clearly Christian.

Now at this point I had never been taught anything like what I'm going to share with you in the next couple of posts. But as I began to listen to the music that had been so much a part of my life just a short time before, the Holy Spirit began to convict me, and I began to realize the truth that music is not just something that you listen to. That is a truth that every person needs to understand. Music is something that gets inside you. It can control you. It can cause you to have thoughts, feelings, even physical reactions. This is not a new revelation. Men have long known this fact. John Calvin the great 16th century French reformer and theologian, in his commentary on Genesis said,

“Although music serves our enjoyment rather than our need, it ought not on that account to be judged of no value; still less should it be condemned… music can be made profitable to men if only it be free from that foolish delight by which it seduces men from better employments and occupies them in vanity… There is scarcely anything in this world which can more turn or bend hither and thither the ways of men…and in fact we know by experience that music has a secret and almost incredible power to move hearts…When melody goes with it, every bad word penetrates more deeply into the heart…Just as a funnel conveys the wine into the depths of the decanter, so venom and corruption are distilled into the very bottom of the heart by melody.”

Augustine the Bishop of Hippo, who lived only 300 years after Christ (354-430 A.D.), and who is considered by many to be the greatest theologian in the history of the post apostolic church said,

“I am inclined on the whole…to be in favor of the practice of singing in church, so that by means of the delight in hearing the weaker minds may be roused to a feeling of devotion. Nevertheless, whenever it happens to me that I am more moved by the singing than by what is sung, I confess that I am sinning grievously, and then I would prefer not to hear the music.”

How is it possible that music has such power? Lets talk about that.

Have you ever gotten a tune stuck in you head? That's a silly question because it has happened to every one of us. All you have to do is hear a few bars and it starts involuntarily buzzing around in there for hours.

Now think back to a song that was popular when you were in high school. In fact pick one that you haven't heard for years. Immediately you will be able to hear the music in your mind and it may surprise you how many of the lyrics you can recite verbatim.

And what's more, once a song gets inside of us there's no telling when or where it may pop up. I've sat waiting for a worship service to begin and found myself humming the tune to some worldly song that I had listened to years before. How many times have you found yourself humming the jingle to some beer commercial that you heard on T.V.? It's happened to most if not all of us. Who knows what sparked it, but suddenly it was there.

Music is powerful. That's why it's used to sell products, services, and ideas. When the network charges sponsors $2 million for 30 seconds of TV commercial airtime, in some cases, advertisers just use their half-minute to hook viewers with nothing more than a catchy jingle. Why? Because they know it works. Music has a way of driving a message home.

Want proof? OK. Can you repeat the slogans "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there" or “Oscar Meyer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A” without hearing the music? What about the theme song to Giligan's Island or the Beverly Hillbillies? See, the human mind has the ability to store, retain and recall an incredible amount of musically driven messages. Ask a kindergartner to recite the alphabet. (xqe "a, b, c, d, e, f, g...") Did you hear the tune in you mind? Of course you did.

Music is powerful. Why? That's the way it was designed. A lot of people seem to think that music was somehow man's invention. But it wasn't, it was God's. God invented music to glorify himself as an instrument of praise. That's how we see it used continually in scripture.

2 Samuel 22:50 "Therefore I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing praises to your name."

2 Chronicles 31:2 "Hezekiah assigned the priests and Levites to divisions‑‑each of them according to their duties as priests or Levites‑‑to offer burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, to minister, to give thanks and to sing praises at the gates of the Lord's dwelling."

Psalm 9:11 "Sing praises to the LORD, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what he has done."

Psalm 18:49 "Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O LORD; I will sing praises to your name."

Psalm 47:6 "Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises."

Romans 15:11 "And again, "Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and sing praises to him, all you peoples."

Also in the New Testament we see that music is designed to be a vital part of our worship and is to be directed to God.

Ephesians 5:19 "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord,"

Colossians. 3:16 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."

Job 38:7 tells us that while God was creating the world, before the creation of man, "the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?"

God created music and God loves music. Heaven will be filled with music. I Chronicles 23:1-5 tells us that there were 38,000 people who served in the temple and 4000 were musicians.

In Exodus 15:20 we find the first women's choir mentioned in the Bible led by Miriam the sister of Moses.

In I Samuel 10:5 we see the first men's chorus, a procession of prophets.

I Chronicles 13:8 introduces us to congregational singing.

In I Chronicles 16:4-5 God gives instruction for the organization of a choir.

In I Chronicles 23:5 we find the institution of an orchestra.

In Ezra 2 there is a 200 voice Choir. (As you read scripture you see that God likes choirs.)

In Nehemiah 12 we find antiphonal singing with two choirs separated and facing each other. One sings and then the other responds.

In the New Testament at the Lord's Table the last thing they did was sing.

Acts 4:24-30 may have been one of the early hymns of the Church. The text says, "They Said", which means they all had to know the words.

Paul and Silas were singing in prison fastened in stocks.

Rev. 14:1-5 speaks of a 144,000 voice choir with heavenly harpers.

God created music with a very specific purpose in mind. Music that is spiritual is a wonderful divinely ordained means of worship, but what about music that is not specifically designed to enhance worship? Well that’s a story for another day.

In my next post I will take you to the scripture and discuss the corruption of music.