The questions our church often receives from those looking for a church home suggest that the music a church uses matters to people.  More importantly, the many Scriptures on music demonstrate that it matters to God.  The Old and New Testaments show that the worship life of God's people includes singing.  God, not man, designed it that way.  Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress reflects this timeless reality: every time Pilgrim enjoys a victory as the Lord rescues him out of some danger, he goes on his way singing.  The classic allegory is highlighted with songs, some of which appear in our hymnbooks today.

Despite the importance of music among God's people, confusion abounds today regarding it's place and purpose.  This confusion is not a root problem.  It is a symptom of the more basic failure to apply what the Scriptures reveal.  The Bible doesn't just leave to our imagination how to incorporate music into the life of the church.  Nor does it abdicate to whatever long-held practices we consider comfortable.  It has a surprising amount of instruction on music in the life of the people of God.  We have divine authority to heed.

Many attempts to resolve or even just to clarify this issue seem to go off course.  The common claim that music in the church is purely a matter of taste and style reflects today's popular culture rather than the Word of God.  People think truth is relative and that individual expression is good so long as it's sincere.  If you are a Christian trying to live your life by the Bible, you are hard-pressed to be satisfied with such a self-directed approach.  We have a revealed religion that belongs at the core of our lives and then flows out to every facet of our lives-including our music.

The music issue has become mired in debating about what is traditional and what is contemporary.  This false dichotomy actually obscures finding solutions.  There is good and there is bad traditional music.  There is good and there is bad contemporary music.  The issue is not traditional versus contemporary, it's good versus bad.  Perhaps we should even say it this way: there is biblical versus unbiblical, because that's what defines good and bad.  Old is not necessarily good.  Romanism is old!  But it's heretical.  The devil himself is "that old serpent."

Neither is new necessarily bad.  A piece of music that is new, and in that sense, contemporary, may in fact be excellent.  Music, like language, undergoes changes in style and in idiom.  Our music today is different from the Jewish and Greek cultures of the first century.  Hebrew songs seem more like chants to us.  The music styles are different because the cultures are different.  The faith is the old faith, but it's still ever new.  Every person that comes to know the Lord becomes a new creation in Christ.  He learns a new way of looking at life.  Our faith is not culture bound, and it's not time bound.  It is eternal, because God is eternal, and He's the source of it.  There should be a constant stream of new songs expressing fresh experiences of God's gracious work and blessing.  Christianity didn't die in the 1700's or in the 1800's or in the 1940's.  Christianity is Christ.  And Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.  Today His mercies are new.  We have what we need from Him today, and our songs ought to reflect that reality.  They shouldn't merely take us down memory lane.

So why all the confusion?  In the place of biblical authority, many views on music today are driven by money, by tradition, and by personal taste.  Church music is largely dominated by whatever is the philosophy of the group to which you're aligned.  We have to get beyond "this is just what fundamentalists do."  We have to find better reasons than "this is what I've been taught--this is just what the churches I associate with do."  We must root our thinking down deeper into "this is what the Scriptures demand."  Let the Bible speak.  In the words of I Corinthians 10:5: "cast down imaginations [reasonings, logic] and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."  And the Word of the Lord will correct our thinking and our practice in more than just whether our church music is worldly and sensual.  It will cut in all directions.  It corrects everything that is out of line with the truth.  Do you realize you can compromise the truth in more directions that just worldliness?  The greatest enemies of Christ in His day adhered to many standards and yet had abandoned their loyalty to the word of God, and had left their love of God.  Growing in Christ demands repeatedly bringing our thinking and practice under the authoritative direction of the Word of God.  That's what our music needs, too.  For me, searching the Scriptures has both elevated the significance of music in the ministry and has clarified its purpose.

Before we consider the passages that refer directly to music, we need to see where music fits overall.  I Peter 4:10-11will help define that role.  As one of the simplest passages on spiritual gifts, it divides all the gifts into two major groups.  "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister [the verb form of deacon, meaning to serve, like a table waiter] the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold [varied] grace of God.  If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.  If any man minister [the same word as before, but this time clearly in a contrast to the man who's speaking], let him do it as the ability [or the strength] that God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, unto whom be praise and dominion forever and ever Amen."  Here are two major categories of gifts: speaking or verbal gifts, and serving, or manual gifts.  Music fits primarily into the first category.  It's a communicating gift!

The Bible bears this fact out.  The Old Testament associates music with prophecy, both new revelation and previously recorded revelation.  II Kings 3:14-15: "Elisha said, . . .bring me a minstrel.  And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him."  Then he begins to prophesy.  Note the association of music with the Spirit's empowering a man to give a message from God.

I Chronicles 25:1: "And moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service, [that is the service of worship] of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals."  II Chron. 29:30: "Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David, [here's previously recorded revelation] and of Asaph, the seer."  Seer is one of the terms for a prophet, as one that sees spiritual realities.  God has revealed truth to him, and he in turn shares that truth with other people.  Note here that Asaph is a seer, and he's a musician!  He writes church music, or temple music.  In fact, the Scriptures include a number of his psalms.

Music's place is a gift, and it's nature is communication.  In the New Testament we find the same phenomenon as in the Old.  Colossians 3:16 indicates that music is both a result and a means of teaching and admonishing: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing [teaching is the positive instruction, admonishing is the correction] one another in songs and hymns and spiritual songs."  It is also associated with being controlled by the Spirit.  Ephesians 5:18b-19: "Be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."  Sometimes we get so bogged down with defining what psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs are that we don't see the main activity here: we're supposed to be speaking to one another with these things.  Music's place is a gift, but it is a communicating gift to teach and preach the word of God.

John Calvin gives some insight into why God would have designed it this way.  Why does God have us marry these truths to tunes?  Why does He have us used music to get the Word into people?  Calvin puts it this way: "We know by experience that music has a secret and almost incredible power to move our hearts" (Works, VI).  A teacher of God's Word must face the reality that Biblical knowledge by itself can be very dangerous.  If it fails to possess the heart and flow out to the life, it just puffs up (1 Corinthians 8).  It makes people self-righteous, unteachable, and uncaring.  Music helps make truth a matter of the heart and thus, of the life, rather than just of the head.  Luther says, "Whether you wish to comfort the sad, to terrify the happy, to encourage the despairing, to humble the proud, to calm the passionate, to appease those full of hate, and who could number all these matters of the human heart, namely the emotions, inclinations and affections, that impel men to evil or good, what more effective means than music could you find?" (Quoted by Frederick Blume, Protestant Church Music, 10.)

Music can preach truth, or it can preach falsehood.  It is a powerful tool for good or for evil.  Calvin Johansen notes that the "individuals in the arts have become the prophets of modern culture." (Discipling Music Ministry: Twenty-first Century Directions, p. 23)  "Artists are image makers, they change the way we perceive the world, they impart values, beliefs, and perceptions" (p. 22).  "They shape our world more than any other aspect of culture: movies, magazines, radio, television, records, newspaper, video, literature, all kinds of music, they have a leverage second to none." (It's no wonder that Plato in the ancient world says, "Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."  Look at the state of our national government right now.  Look at the tragedies in the schools.  Look at the prevalence of communicable disease.  hese problems are ultimately rooted in the music of the 60's.  The rock culture of the 1960's has become mainstream American culture.  We're reaping a bitter harvest from a nation that thinks people can do anything they want to do with no accountability to anybody.

Some people argue that the music itself doesn't matter so long as the words that go with it are good.  The power of communication, however, involves more than just words.  The music itself is communicating.  Otherwise, why not just get up and read the words?  Preaching in a monotone is not effective.  At least not if I want to to get the truth deeper than the intellect-not if I want to engage the heart and to help transform the life.  Voice inflection, facial expression, and gestures all communicate.  In fact, we're usually more strongly affected by non-verbal communication than by verbal.  In his book on Biblical Preaching, Haddon Robinson recounts that Actor George Arliss, advised the author of the play Disraeli to take out two pages, with the explanation, "I can say that with a look."  And the author asked, "what look?"  The pages came out, because the actor demonstrated he could non-verbally communicate what it took two pages to communicate with words.  Robinson quotes psychologist Albert Moravian on the power of non-verbal communication: "Only seven percent of the impact from a speaker's message comes from through his words. 38 percent from his voice, 55 percent from facial expression."  I don't know how they measure that kind of thing, but the point is that without the voice inflections and the facial expressions, words loose their impact.  In fact you can totally negate the words.  When your wife says, "I love you honey," you can answer, "I love you, too," in a way that tells her that you, in fact, do not love her.  The same thing happens when the music of my song contradicts the words of it.  The message of the music will generally override the message of the words.  Seductive music, for instance, doesn't belong with sacred words.  Such music mocks the words.  It amounts to blasphemy.

Music is a form of non-verbal communication.  As such, it cannot be relegated to the state of mere neutrality.  Anything that communicates-verbal or non-verbal-can be moral, neutral, or immoral. Take the area of literature.  Are letters moral or immoral?  Neither.  Even many words communicate neither good nor evil.  They are right in the middle.  They're neutral.  But as soon as I put them into phrases and clauses, and sentences, as soon as I'm communicating with those letters or words, then they can be moral, it can be immoral, or it can be neutral.  It's the same with visual arts.  Art uses line and color and texture and form and value (light to dark).  Every piece of art you see is a combination of those things or some elements of those things.  A person can take those elements and create pornography.  Or he can take those elements and create something very uplifting with positive spiritual impact.

A musical note or a chord is not likely to communicate anything.  But as soon as these building blocks are put into a musical form, they take on communication power.  I can take the elements of melody, harmony and rhythm within a culture and put them together so that they communicate something.  Some will argue that music is neutral unless it's in a culture.  Well, who's not living in a culture?  That's a moot point!  We live in a culture.  The whole point of music is to communicate something.  We need to make sure what we're communicating ought to be communicated.

So music communicates.  It's a gift, it's place, its nature is communication, what is its purpose then?  What is the point of the communication?  I Corinthians 14:26: "How is it then brethren, when you come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation, let all things be done unto edifying."  Edify means to build up.  And that's what every gift we have is for, and music is to fulfill this gift, and you notice that even psalm is mentioned there.

What does building up the church mean in practical terms?  Well, it's not talking about bricks and mortar.  And it's not even talking about increasing the attendance.  Ephesians 4 provides one of the best explanations of what we're trying to accomplish in the church, a real understanding of what we're doing in ministry.  Ephesians 4:11 talks about the gifts that Christ has given to the church to accomplish what God wants: "He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers."  Now all of these are what kind of men?  What is their job?  They're all involved in communicating God's Word to people.  Why?  Verse 12: "For the perfecting [or equipping; the word is used in secular settings for a doctor setting a bone or a fisherman mending nets; it carries the idea of putting things in the right place.] the saints for [unto] the perfecting of the saints [unto] the work of the ministry [serving]."  The passage goes on: "for the edifying, [the building up] of the body of Christ."  Now in verse 13 we're going to find out what edifying means: "Till we all come into the unity of the faith [see Ephesians 4:1-6] and of the knowledge, [the full knowledge of the Son of God] unto the perfect {mature] man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."  So we're building up people to have Christ-like maturity.  The verses that follow teach us that mature Christians are not going to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, not confused by false teaching, because they're grounded in the faith, they're mature in Christ and they're speaking the truth in love.  Because the whole body, verse 16, is joined together, God supplies the gifts to the individual Christian to flow out to everyone else, so that we all grow up together in Christ-like maturity. The church isn't about just having a religious institution or a place to worship.  The church is a living, vital organism!  Christ is the head, and He supplies the spiritual needs of His people through us!  Isn't it an astounding thing that God chose human be ings to give out the gospel?  Isn't it an astounding thing that he chooses fallible human beings to preach the Word of God?  He uses fallible human beings in the church to do everything that needs to be done.  Why does He use weakness that way?  That the power may be known to be of Him, that He might receive glory for it, because these supernatural things are happening in people and flowing to other people, and I'm growing up more Christ-like and more mature because of what God is doing through everybody else.  Music fits in that setting.

So music's purpose is edification: building up the church to Christ like maturity.  Music is not mainly for pleasure.  It's not for satisfying good or bad music tastes.  We ought to approve things that are excellent, but that is a means to a greater goal.  And if I loose sight of the greater goal, that what I'm trying to do is build people up in the faith unto Christ-like maturity, if I loose sight of that goal, my music becomes an end in itself, I'm misusing music.  It's not for entertainment, not even good entertainment.  If people go out and live their lives just the way they did before, we've failed!  Music is not for enshrining our cultural history.  It's not music for music's sake.  It's to advance the mission of the church in building itself up in Christ-like maturity. What is Christ-like maturity?  Love, unity, unity in the faith, in the spirit, discernment, and experiential full knowledge of Christ.

So music essentially has a prophetic role-not in the sense of predicting the future, but in the sense of forthtelling the Word of God.  It's place is a gift; it's nature is communication; and it's purpose is edification.  As such it is the handmaiden to theology.  It is to build people up by the Word of God into Christlike maturity.  There is, however, an ultimate goal even beyond that.  Note 1 Peter 4:10-11 again: "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.  If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God: if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth."  Here is the ultimate goal-"that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever."

There is a reason that we are teaching and admonishing to build people up to Christlike maturity, and that is to glorify God.  It glorifies God for people to be transformed by the grace of God through the Word of God by the means He has established.  Ultimately this is what we are trying to achieve.  We are part of God's plan, used as God's instruments just as Paul called himself a "co-laborer with God."  We are made ambassadors for Christ-laboring to restore man to his created purpose to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

(Note: This is an abridged version of the first message in a series on Biblical Church Music. Other messages cover Church Music as Teaching, Church Music as Worship, and Church Music as Evangelism. All these areas are areas that preaching and thus, music, should address.)