Not long ago a friend of mine emailed me an article titled I Don’t Worship God by Singing: I Connect With Him Elsewhere. My friend even said something to the effect that he thought we should stop singing in church. I’m not sure what his motivation was; frankly, I haven’t raised the subject with him, and I’m not sure I will.
The article was written by a man named Donald Miller. It was actually a “blog” (short for “web log”, if you didn’t know). It seems that lots of people have blogs these days. Apparently they feel that the world has an urgent need to know what they think about every little thing, or a compelling interest in every little thing they do. The motto for bloggers seems to be: “I believe everybody is entitled to my opinion.” We’re going to have to change the old saying to: “Blogs are like belly buttons: everybody’s got one.”
Anyway, in his blog, Mr. Miller went on at length about how during a recent worship service he attended, in his words: “I wasn’t feeling much of anything.” (And that, after all, is the purpose of church, right? To make us feel something? Or is that the movies? I get confused, listening to people these days.)
Mr. Miller said a number of things in his blog that made me feel frustration (so perhaps his blog was a success? If the goal is to make us feel something, perhaps we should all stay home and just read blogs.). But allow me to focus on his main point, that he didn’t really connect with God by singing. Or my friend’s suggestion that we should stop singing in church.
My honest reaction to statements like that is bafflement. I always have a moment where I wait for them to say: “Ha! Gotcha! I was kidding!” And when they don’t, then I think, “How can you say that, given everything that is said in the Bible about music and singing?” It seems to me this kind of thinking betrays an astonishing ignorance of Scripture, as well as church history. And maybe even a preoccupation with one’s own feelings.
Ironically, about the time I was emailed the link to this blog, I had just finished reading the section in 1 Chronicles, where King David organized an entire division of the tribe of Levi to do nothing but provide music and singing in the Temple that was to be built by his son, Solomon. Here’s the passage:
1 Chronicles 6:31–32 – These are the men whom David put in charge of the service of song in the house of the LORD after the ark rested there. They ministered with song before the tabernacle of the tent of meeting until Solomon built the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they performed their service according to their order.
Or how about this one:
1 Chronicles 15:16 – David also commanded the chiefs of the Levites to appoint their brothers as the singers who should play loudly on musical instruments, on harps and lyres and cymbals, to raise sounds of joy.
Or:
1 Chronicles 15:19–22 – The singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, were to sound bronze cymbals; [a bunch of guys with really hard-to-pronounce names] were to play harps according to Alamoth; 21 but [another bunch of guys with some more really hard-to-pronounce names] were to lead with lyres according to the Sheminith. Chenaniah, leader of the Levites in music, should direct the music, for he understood it.
(I’ve always found it to be a good thing when churches have people in charge of the music who understand it. I’ve visited churches where that wasn’t the case, and I usually don’t want to go back.)
The Psalms are full of references to singing and making music to God:
Psalm 33:1–3 – Shout for joy in the LORD, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the LORD with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
Psalm 81:1–2 – Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob! Raise a song; sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp.
Psalm 92:1–3 – It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre.
Psalm 95:1–2 – Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
And the Book of Psalms ends with Psalm 150. After listing various kinds of instruments to be used in praising God, the psalmist crescendoes to a finish with these words:
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!
The first Christians did not consider themselves divorced from the worship of the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus changed everything: temple worship and sacrifices were no longer required, because Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) And yet, when believers in Jesus gathered together to worship the Savior, they looked to the Scriptures to guide their practices. And so they sang.
The Apostle Paul told the church at Ephesus: “What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.” (1 Corintians 14:15)
And he gave these instructions, in almost the same words, to the believers in Ephesus and Colosse:
“ … be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,…” (Ephesians 5:18–19)
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Colossians 3:16)
And the writer of Hebrews applies Psalm 22:22 to the Lord Jesus: saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” (Hebrews 2:12)
Worshipers of God, whether under the Old Covenant or the New, sang and made music to God when they gathered together.
Even the earliest accounts of Christian meetings affirm this fact. Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia. In 112 AD, he wrote to the Emperor Trajan to ask his advice on how to deal with Christians. In one part of his letter Pliny described Christian worship. In part, he said: “…they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god…”. Even the pagans took note of Christians singing in worship.
Now at this point, I want to say something carefully, with all glory to God alone: lately, in our morning worship services, the congregation has been singing…really singing! Maybe not on every hymn, not on every song, but on a lot of them. There have been moments where our congregation has been joined together in singing a song of praise to God, and it has palpably affected the feel of the service. Sometimes,after the singing, the worship team & I will exchange glances, as if to say: “Wow! That was great!” It feels like riding a great wave of voices and hearts joined in the worship of God.
This is an elusive thing. When it has happened, I’ve thought: “O Lord, do that again!” I’ve felt like I was cupping my hands around a candle flame in the wind, trying to protect it…but that’s the wrong way to think about it. This isn’t something we can produce or preserve; it’s what happens when we worship God in spirit and in truth, with all our hearts and souls and mind and strength. It’s what happens when we lift our focus from us and our feelings, and focus instead on God and His greatness, His worthiness of our praise and worship.
Psalm 22:3 says, “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.” Literally it means that God inhabits or dwells in the praises of His people. That’s what we sense in our services when we really sing to God: His Presence.
May God unite our hearts to worship His Name…with singing! (Psalm 86:11)
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor David