We just had a weekend full of music. Our friends Emily and Kelly Thompson came to do a concert for my wife’s music students last Saturday night. Then they stayed with us and came to our church the next day. I was thrilled when they offered to play and sing Be Thou My Vision in the service Sunday morning. Emily Ann Thompson is an accomplished Celtic fiddler who performs accompanied by her husband Kelly on guitar. As they were warming up before the service, I couldn’t help but grin at the sounds they were making together. I told them, “I’m going to hide your car keys so you have to be here every Sunday!” And I loved how they played and sang the hymn.
Be Thou My Vision may just be my favorite hymn of all. It’s over 800 years old, and when it’s played and sung in the traditional Celtic way, it does something down deep to my soul. When I hear it, or play it myself, I want to laugh, cry and shout for joy all at the same time. (I blame it on my Irish ancestors.) Music is powerful.
Music is important in Christianity. It always has been. As much as we joke about off-key singers and prima donna soloists, and say things like “When Satan fell, he landed in the choir loft!”, nevertheless it is still true that music has always been a key component of Biblical religion.
Listen to this quote from Martin Luther:
“Besides Theology, music is the only art capable of affording peace and joy of the heart like that induced by the science of Divinity. The proof of this is that the Devil, the originator of sorrowful anxieties and restless troubles, flees before the sound of music almost as much as he does before the Word of God. This is why the prophets preferred music before all the other arts, proclaiming the Word in psalms and hymns. My heart, which is full of overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.”
In the Old Testament, Israel’s first king, Saul, had begun to turn his heart away from God. As a result, Saul began to experience God’s discipline in the form of “a harmful spirit from the LORD” which tormented him. To help counteract this, Saul’s servants made this suggestion: “Let our lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well.” (1 Samuel 16:16) So they found young David, the son of Jesse, “who is skillful in playing” (1 Samuel 16:18), and brought him into the service of the king. The Bible says, “And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.” (1 Samuel 16:23) Music is powerful.
The book of Psalms repeatedly says things like this: “Sing to Him a new song” (Psalm 33:3a). The Apostle Paul instructed Christians to be “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Ephesians 5:19).
And even in the terrible persecutions unleashed on the Christians by the Roman Empire, believers in Christ would still find places to gather in secret to worship Christ on Sunday, the Lord’s Day. And when they gathered in someone’s home, or in the woods, or in the catacombs beneath Rome, they would still quietly sing hymns of praise to Christ as God (as described in Pliny’s letter to the Emperor Trajan, written in 112 A.D.).
Music is powerful. Music is a gift from God. Like anything else, the world takes this good gift and uses it to sing and celebrate everything that is against God and His righteousness. But music is still a wonderful, powerful gift in the life of the believer. Music can move your emotions, build up your soul, and encourage you when you’re down. Thank God for music! I think I’ll go listen to some now.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor David