“Musings about Biblical Musicology”

According to 2Chron 29:25, “He (King Hezekiah) then stationed
the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, with harps and with lyres, according to the command of David and of Gad
the king’s seer, and of Nathan the prophet; for the command was from the
LORD through His prophets.” Worshipping God through music was therefore
not done at the whim of David, although he was quite an accomplished musician
and known for his passionate worship; nor was the music of Israel sung at the
will of the prophets, though they were the spiritual leaders of Israel. God’s people
are called to worship Him through music because God commanded that His people worship Him through singing songs that
give Him glory.
The Book of Psalms, songs of praise written to music, is
God’s inspired songbook. He gave it to His people for them to use to worship
Him. In the NT, the Apostle Paul describes Christians filled with the Holy
Spirit as “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord,” Eph 5:19. His
reference to Psalms in that verse is to the Psalms of the OT. “It may indeed be
said that the purpose of the psalms is to turn the soul into a sort of burning
bush, …” – Jaki, Praying the Psalms (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 2001), 27. They seem to have been written to encourage the
Israelites to walk with God and to worship Him while they awaited the Messiah—the
coming Son of David—Jesus.
We know that the Psalms
were played to music. Instruments are named and several of the musical
notations are its texts (Ps 4:0; 6:0; 12:0; 150:3). However, only the words of the Psalms have been
preserved by the Holy Spirit—not their musical scores. That’s important.
Biblical worship through music is driven by the words and not by the
beat or the cultural style of the music. In saying this, I fully affirm that
music in and of itself is a cultural language. It is a language without words that
in its known cultural context can communicate. It can soothe, inspire, sensualize
etc. Hence the language of the music is not neutral. It will either complement
or contradict the message of its song’s lyrics. And since the language of music
is discerned through cultural awareness, its message can be hidden from those
who do not understand its language. On the other hand, a listener raised under
the cultural influence of a given genre of music, may so blindly accept it as
his/her preferred style of music that s/he loses sight of dangers that others
outside of that music’s cultural influence clearly and easily see.
Acceptable songs then, are first
and foremost songs with God-honoring words, not simply songs that are played
excellently and have a good hook or a catchy tune. It was said of the great
theologian Augustine that he approved of
putting the psalms to music, but whenever he found “the singing itself more
moving than the truth which it conveys, … [he] preferred not to hear the
singer.” – Stanley L. Jaki, Praying the Psalms, 5. There is an important
lesson in Augustine’s conviction for us today. Without compromising excellence
(for the singers and musicians in the Bible are called skillful [1 Chron 15:22; 25:7; Ps 33:3; 47:7; Isa 23:16]) we must
teach ourselves, our children, and our churches that words make the song and
not the music. If we don’t embrace this truth then our great enemy, Satan, will
fill our hearts and minds with skillfully played music that he invents with
powerful melodies laced with poisonous words that will ruin a heart for true
worship.
The Bible’s collection of divinely inspired songs are
inscripturated to inspire us to worship God, to teach us how to worship God,
and to model how to safeguard and preserve true worship of God. Music is given
as a gift from God to us to do many things and to serve us in many occasions, but
we must not forget that its primary purpose is to ignite our hearts to
passionately worship God and not to enflame the passions of our flesh. Knowing
this, upload songs to your iPods that have lyrics that honor God.
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