Music

We’ve been tiptoeing through the mine-field of Sunday morning worship and music. Have I stepped on any mines yet? I’m sure I have. But this is a discussion the church needs to have. “Cultural creep” is incessant and subtle; and when it comes to the most holy of all earthly exercises—the worship of the One Who is the “blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, Who alone is immortal and Who lives in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:15-16)—we have to be vigilant.

Regarding music, a case has been made for Psalm singing and for hymns (Part 13 and 14). Generally speaking, however, Psalms and hymns have gone the way of albums, eight-tracks, and cassettes; a phase-out to something newer. And the “newer” is the phenomena known as the “praise song.”

The “Jesus-people” of the 60’s and 70’s are probably most responsible. With new-found sobriety, old-friend guitar, and a saving faith in Jesus; they went to work writing songs of love and devotion to the One Who saved them. They were kind of anti-establishment, anyway, so doing something musically different in worship was no stretch at all. Before long, a genre was born (praise songs/choruses) and so was an industry (Contemporary Christian Music).

Psalms were penned by Holy Spirit inspired men. Hymns (generally speaking) were penned by older theologians and pastors. Choruses (generally speaking) were being penned by younger musicians. “BOOM!” some are saying right now, “He just stepped on another mine.” Maybe, but I stand by it. Psalms aside, I’m speaking generally and there are plenty of exceptions, I know, concerning the age and vocation of hymn and chorus composers.

But grant the generalization for it is illustrative of our situation. The Psalms are always safe to sing—for God wrote them. Hymns and choruses, on the other hand, need to be evaluated and screened biblically for content and appropriateness. Watts and Newton and Toplady and the Wesley boys’ hymns have got that “psalm paraphrase model” going for them (see Part 14) and bleed Bible and awe; Fanny Crosby, not always so, poetic sentimentalism sometimes gets the best of her. So we must evaluate all the hymns we sing. Is there biblical content? Is it theologically correct? And so on.

And if we must do so with the hymns, all the more reason to do so with the choruses. How many of us actually have sung “Kumbaya” in church or swayed to “Alleluia” over and over again?—too many. To the credit of the chorus industry, there seems to be a movement away from the simply-stated verse with the word “repeat” at the end. Substantive music is starting to be more of the norm.

There is no reason the “new song” (Psalm 33:3; 40:3; 144:9; 149:1) we are instructed to sing and modeled in Revelation 4 and 5 cannot be composed and sung today. But let’s rigorously evaluate them for what they say and their appropriateness for worship.

After quoting Hebrews 12:28-29 (“…worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire.’”), Doug Wilson writes: “Let those words, reverence and awe, roll around in the mind and heart while singing “Spring Up O Well,” with all the splish-splashy hand motions. The difficulty is not the music, but the incongruity of the music and what the Bible says the occasion of formal worship should be like. The music itself, that song itself, would be perfectly fine at a birthday party for someone’s kindergarten class. In the worship of the God of Abraham, it is a wretched insult.”

And that is the impetus of this series; that in an age of “Some Choruses, a Pep-talk, and an Offering,” there seems to be little evaluation going on at all.

We need to sing psalms in worship (see previous blog, “Multi-versed for a Reason,” part 13). Some have even concluded that is all the people of God should sing on Sunday morning; our hymnal restricted to the 150 Psalms. A very strong case can be made, however, that the Bible does not limit us to the Psalter.

It may be as easy as citing Ephesians 5:19 or Colossians 3:16; where we are instructed to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”. Some scholars believe those words to be synonyms that reference three kinds of psalms; but psalms none the less. So let’s grant them that and look elsewhere to substantiate that we are not limited to the Psalter on Sunday morning.

There are several times in the Psalms we are directed to sing a “new song” (33:3; 40:3; 144:9; 149:1) to the Lord. When the Apostle John is given a glimpse of heaven and its worship in the book of Revelation, he records what he hears being sung to Jesus. Interestingly, he says they were singing a “new song” (Revelation 5:9). He then reports the lyrics in vv. 9-10: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because You were slain, and with Your blood You purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”

What this “new song” acknowledges is Christ’s redemptive work. For sure, there are many prophetic verses in the Psalms; but this side of the cross, we get to join the heavenly host in singing songs celebrating that Jesus fulfilled them. The Old Testament (Psalms included) pointed to Jesus; it certainly makes sense that New Testament believers would now sing of the One they pointed to. That is what John heard the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders doing in Revelation 5.

And this was the understanding of early hymn writers; they wrote Christological “new songs” based on the Psalms—calling them “psalm paraphrases.” Isaac Watts said he wanted to “Christianize” the psalms when he paraphrased them into hymns. Watts even took the liberty in most of his psalm paraphrases (hymns) to reference Jesus by name.

Martin Luther looked to the Psalms but also the other books of the Bible for his hymn-writing inspiration; declaring his composing goal was to put the “Word of God into song.” J.S. Bach agreed and it is why he has been called the “fifth Evangelist”; receiving that label because he employed so much Scripture from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in his music.

So biblically and doctrinally rich hymns, modeled after the psalms, is something the church has sung for centuries. Philippians 2:6-11 suggests they already were singing them in the first century.

Further reason to include them on Sundays is that they are composed to be sung corporately; that is, they are typically written for high voices, low voices, and voices in between. I believe that is called harmony. Isn’t that easier for the congregation to sing than a song with a single melodic line taken off the radio originally written for solo performance—one with big swelling emotional crescendos? I like TobyMac but I sure can’t sing like him.

“But,” you ask, “Do ‘new songs’ have to be ‘dusty-old’ and only sung to tunes from the 16^th or the 17^th century; by definition, can’t a ‘new song’ be written today for corporate worship?” If that’s your question, we are going to talk about that next time when we continue our series on “Some Choruses, a Pep-talk, and an Offering.”

Is this fair? Most Sunday morning music sung today is catchy, entertaining, and likeable—a reflection of pop-culture. But generally speaking, it lacks content, depth, and musical complexity; it really is a Christianized version of pop-music. “So what?” someone may say. Well, does the Scripture tell us what to sing?

It is hard (impossible?) to argue that we shouldn’t be singing psalms. Psalm-singing is commanded as part of New Testament worship (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). The actual language is to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”. There is debate whether this is referencing three different kinds or types of songs. Some believe, however, they are just synonyms or interchangeable words for canonical psalms (the inspired 150 in our Bibles). No matter one’s take on those two texts, though, it is unarguable; we are commanded to sing, at the very least, some psalms.

Some get around this by saying: “We do. Most of the choruses we sing are taken directly from the Psalms.” This is probably true, but it generally is just a verse or two. Paul Jones comments: “It is insufficient to sing a chorus based on a psalm verse and ignore the reasons the psalm gives for worshiping God. Such reasons should be recalled…to be properly contextualized and purposeful.”

It’s like going to the local “Fork and Pork” buffet place; ignoring the salad and entrée lines and heading straight for the dessert. Most praise songs head for the “sugar”. “As the Deer” is a good example. Many of us have sung it for years. “As the deer panteth for the water, So my soul longeth after You”. That’s taken directly from Psalm 42:1. But if we stop there (as the chorus does), we neglect the reason behind that opening verse. For deeper in the psalm, we discover why the psalmist “panteth” and “longeth”: His “tears have been my food day and night” (verse 3); He “used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God” (verse 4)—implying he does not anymore; His “soul is downcast within me” (verse 6); He says “all Your [God’s] waves and breakers have swept over me” (verse 6).

In other words, the psalmist is not doing well—he’s really struggling. But it is that very point that makes his cry to God in verse 1 all the more impressive and instructive. “The psalmist goes to God,” we note to ourselves, “that’s what he does when his world is crashing in, maybe we should, too?” But you would never know he was struggling, if all you sing is the first verse, which in isolation gives the impression he is a spiritual “five-point buck” who just wants to spend more time with God. When in reality, though, his chest is heaving and his mouth is paste; for he fears God has “forgotten me” (verse 9).

The point being that the psalms are multi-versed for a reason. And we lose some of their weightiness when we pick and choose a verse here and there. Why not just sing the whole thing? Which gets back to the original point; we would do well to sing psalms on Sunday morning What about hymns? And are all choruses (praise songs) so simple and void of content they don’t belong? That’s our tease for next time.

The premise is that Sunday morning worship music should fit what we have gathered to do; to worship the King of kings and Lord of lords. So what kind of music does God like? Does He have a preference? Those two questions should be the kinds of questions we should be asking, don’t you think?

And He is a musical God, by the way, after all He sings (Zephaniah 3:17) and very early in biblical history He was gifting men to create music (Genesis 4:21). Not suggesting that we know whether God likes country over pop or that He winces at hip-hop; but we do know He likes whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). We also can glean His musical tastes from the Psalms—the Bible’s inspired song book.

What do we learn about worship music from the Psalms? On one end of the spectrum there are psalms of praise; at the other end there are psalms of lament—and in between these two extremes is a full range of emotion expressing man’s relationship with God. There always is a content or reason, however, expressed which lies behind the praise, or in the other case, the lament. In psalms of praise, God is lauded for His acts, His attributes, and His supremacy; and in psalms of lament, He is beseeched and pleaded to rescue and relieve us from distress. No matter the type of psalm, however, it is always one of content; that is, reasons are given to praise and reasons are given to lament.

And therein lays the critique and criticism of what passes off as worship music today—there is so little content to it. Many of the “praise songs” (as they are called) are in the form of a secular love song to Jesus; repetitious songs of so little content that if we strike the Son of God’s name from it and insert “Betty’s,” the song still makes sense. Betty might blush but God is not hallowed. They are often written from the feminine point of view, as well; Gene Vieth calling them “Jesus-is-my-boyfriend” songs. If the switching out of Jesus’ name now qualifies it to be on “Love Songs with Delilah”—we probably ought not to be singing it.

Here is another “content test” to consider: Can a Muslim or a Hindu or some cult sing this worship song to their deity? If they can, it probably doesn’t have enough content to warrant its use in Christian worship.

The point being that the One True God in Whom we worship is so worthy of our songs of praise and our cries of lament, they should be bursting and heavy laden with reasons why we do so. Not sure they always are, however, in an age where worship is too easily characterized as little more than “Some Choruses, a Pep-talk, and an Offering.”

I know it’s potentially divisive, but we need to keep talking about worship music. Similar to food and art, music has a certain subjective quality to it; especially when it comes to style. Somebody likes jazz, someone else likes rap—and so on. And it’s in the car where we most often reveal our musical taste. What music plays when we push your radio pre-sets?

But we are not in the car for Sunday morning worship. We are gathering with the people of God—a very diverse group; young and old, black and white, some with an MD after their name and some just hoping for a GED some day. What an eclectic display of music if we all hauled our CD’s into the sanctuary and gave everyone their turn.

So maybe we shouldn’t choose based on taste? How should we choose, then? How about choosing music that best fits what we are about to do?

When we go to Red Robin for a burger, we expect the music loud, fun, and hip. And it is. When we go to a dress-up place for a steak where someone parks our car, we are not surprised that a piano is playing somewhere in the background. In other words, the music fits the environment. It would be weird to hear Wolfgang Mozart at Denny’s; it would be just as weird to hear Wolfman Jack spinning his “rock-n-roll” at Ruth’s Chris.

So what music best fits the worship of God? By asking that question, we may still disagree here and there but at least we’ve probably narrowed the divide. After all, we want to hallow His name, don’t we? “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire’” (Hebrews 12:28-29).

But if the template continues to be a worship service designed for me; the music will continue to reflect personal taste and not necessarily what music is best suited for the worship of God. Worship services are even labeled “contemporary” or “traditional” based upon the music played and sung. In other words, “They play my music at nine; they play yours at eleven.” But when is God’s music played? Not sure in an age of “Some Choruses, a Pep-talk, and an Offering” that question is even being asked.