Welcome back this afternoon and sorry to throw things off.
Y'all have rearranged things to listen to me again.
What were you thinking? But what I want to do is talk
about seeing this afternoon is specifically Take a look at what
the early church did. Why do we practice what?
We do kind of, it will take a look at internal evidence
external evidence of what the church did for singing, you
know, God he is blessed us with the gift of song, and we've been
blessed to be able to sing just in general, but we've done it
today and are worshipped and unto him when we come to
singing. There are some that are better
at it at others, but it's still a gift.
It's a gift from God. And as such, we've been singing
through the years about all kinds of things.
We've been singing when we've been happy, we've been singing
when we've been sad, singing, tell story.
And it expresses joy to express his sorrow and expresses love.
Expresses praise as we've done today.
And so with this blessing of song, God wants to church, to
use it for his glory and praise and our worship unto him.
And so the purpose of our How do you this afternoon is to examine
how the church use singing in worship.
And as we begin our study of this afternoon, I want to talk
about these new testament scriptures that actually mention
singing and music in the in the New Testament was actually used
on several different occasions. It was a, it was used for
funerals. It was also used for pleasure,
and it was also used for worship depending on Where you read it
with in the scriptures when the New Testament, specifically,
mentions music with instruments, it is actually used 44 times in
the scriptures and ever. And when it's used, 44 times
when referring to instruments, it's either Under the Umbrella
of it being used as it at a funeral or it was used for
pleasure or like a celebration of when instruments were used
when singing. In the New Testament scriptures.
So, for example, you have here in Matthew chapter 9 and verses
18, through 23, there's this, there's this ruler whose
daughter had died and he approached Jesus because he had
faith that Jesus would be able to bring his his daughter back
to life. And so, Jesus went and verse 23,
says, here, when Jesus came into the rulers house and saw the
flute players and The noisy crowd wailing.
And so, we have an example of Music in the New Testament
scriptures. But with instrumental music here
in a setting of being a funeral, there is another example of
music that's used for a joyous occasion told by Jesus.
When he out when he taught the prodigal son, how he came back
home and what happened after that?
Prodigal son came back home, Luke 15. 25 says that there was
music, there was dancing. There was a celebration because
the son came back home and changed his mind for the better.
There are allusions to Heavenly music.
In the New Testament scripture and I'm a little behind but
there's music that allusions to heavily music when it comes to
the New Testament, writing about things.
Like for example, The Book of Revelation there's a trumpet
that is used as a means to kind of signal something within the
book. There are also seven angels and
their seven trumpets. If you're writing notes, write
down Revelation, chapter 8 and verse number 6 and they
successively blue on them again, Revelations, 8, and 9, and 10,
and also chapter 11, but in Revelations, 5, and verse number
8, John sees these 24 elders. And they're falling down before
the Lord and they're each holding a harp.
And along with these seven, bowls of incense.
And we find this in Revelation, 14, beginning of verse, number
2, and I Heard a Voice from heaven, like the voice of many
Waters and like the voice of loud thunder.
And I heard the sound of harpists playing their Harps.
They sing as it were a new song Before the Throne before the
four living creatures and the elders and one could learn that
song and no man could learn that song except the 144,000 who were
redeemed from. The Earth.
And so we have this picture of this kind of music in heaven as
John season it and as he writes about.
But what I want us to understand it it when we see these
references in the Book of Revelation regarding music and
using instruments, they do not in those references in the Book
of Revelations provide any command or any example or any
necessary inference about. About the church coming together
for worship. We have to understand that key
idea, when we see passages like this, even in the Book of
Revelation. And so, having said that, this
kind of provides a good transition now for us to
consider music specifically what it comes when the church
assembles together for worship and how it is to be used in the
church assembly and don't worry about writing all these down.
Because we're going to look at every single one of these
passages. And every single one, these are
pretty much all I believe in nine references that the New
Testament consists of when it specifically mentions music in a
congregation setting. So, let's begin with the first
one Acts chapter 16. And verse number 25.
So for this, this is a looking at Paul and Silas were at, but
at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God
in the prisoners were listening to them.
Now, I will say this, these are two Christians being together.
This is not a worship assembly. But they were in prison.
Yet there found to be singing, hymns to God.
And we have no way of knowing what hems they were singing or
what words, but we do know that their hymns and they're singing
that they were directed to God. We do know that he was the
object of their singing, and they're praying on that night.
Another observation about this particular circumstance that
Paul and Silas were in was that it is ok to sing God outside of
public assembly for worship is absolutely okay.
In fact I greatly encouraged Is that?
With every one of us, you can sing praises to God while you're
driving along in the car, you can sing.
While you're gathered with your family, you can sing.
While you're carrying about at your day, you could kind of do
like me and can break out and and karaoke Tourette's at work.
And have to apologize later on, but it's a you talk about a mood
booster. It really brightens your day
especially when you could sing a spiritual song or praise to God
during your day. It does something for you and I
can imagine it was helping Paul and Silas as they were being
held in prison that night. And so, that's what we know from
acts 16 and verse 25, when it comes to Christians singing,
let's move on to another passage.
And this is found a Romans chapter 15.
And verse number 9, it says, and that the Gentiles might glorify
God for his Mercy as it is written.
For this reason, I will confess to you.
Among the Gentiles and seeing to your name.
So, in the context that were polish writing or yeah, Paul,
he's expressing that now, there's something major that's
changed now, Jews. And Gentiles have received the
Grace from God and have the ability to sing praises
together. They could do that together.
And so, he actually quotes David here.
But there's this idea of these two groups, Really multiple
people at once singing together. And he actually quote, some
David from Psalm 18 and 49 regarding singing to the name of
God and specifically talking about now, the Gentiles could
join in that action, where before it was only the Jews.
Now, Gentiles had that same privilege of doing just that And
so that's our observation from Romans 15 and verse 9 when it
comes to Christians singing, There's a singing with others.
We now move on to 1st Corinthians chapter 14 of
singing with Christians. And in 1st Corinthians chapter
14, Paul here was discussing what was to be done in the
church assembly so that there would be attic edification
within the church assembly and absolutely no chaos.
Ever. And so he says this in verse
number 15, he said I will sing with the spirit and I, and I
will also sing with the understanding there's another
thing that he writes later on, in verse number 26, how was it,
then Brethren whenever you come together, each of you has a
song, has a teaching, has a tongue.
Has a revelation has an interpretation but then he says,
let all things be done. Or edification.
I want to notice here that singing involves understanding
what we're singing. That's the first observation
that we see from this passage. So we concentrate on the words
we concentrate on the meaning of the song As we sing it.
Sometimes it's a bit difficult when trying to pick up the words
of the meaning of the song when the song is kind of new.
Because at that time, we're kind of learning how the song goes
notes. Wise, a Melody wise But later
on, naturally will begin to understand the words and the
meaning of the word of that song as we learn more of it.
But at other times, it is possible to sing a song and
completely miss the meaning of what you just saying.
And so music in itself is not enough to glorify God.
But it's the meaning of that song.
That's just as important, there's another thing here
that's mentioned by Paul as We Gather here and that is he Lucid
the fact that the church comes together for worship And as one
congregation, they have the teaching from God's word, they
pray together but they also sing together as a congregation there
at the scriptures. You will never find The Soloist,
you'll never find choirs in a setting of a church assembly
gathered for worship. You won't find that.
Well, that's all we really see from this passage here in 1st
Corinthians, chapter 14, moving on to a couple more versus use
in scripture regarding Christian singing and that is found in
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 19.
And then we'll consider Colossians 3:16.
I'm going to kind of group these because the kind of have a
similar meaning and we're going to gather some insights from
these two passages Ephesians 95. 15 519 says speaking to one
another in Psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs singing and
making melody in your heart, to the Lord.
And then Colossians, 3:16 let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing.
One, another in Psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, then
he says singing with Grace, in your hearts to the Lord.
There is the one thing I want to Mentor our kind of notice or
Draw from these two passages is that we are commanded to sing as
a church. church or as a congregation, we are commanded
to sing There's a and there's no out with that.
The passage in Colossians tells us that singing, well, that's a
form of teaching, and it's also a form of admonition.
And so we are to deduce from this that we are not just merely
making musical sounds. When we see a person could no
more be spiritually. Edified by just musical notes
than he can buy. Just the words of a language
that he doesn't understand. And so Paul dealt with this,
actually already, as we've already seen in 1st Corinthians
chapter 14, but Paul said, our music should be such to kind of
create an understanding. On the part of those who are
involved in. So this implies words, not just
sounds within music. And the second thing that I want
to notice here is that we can't just sing anything that we want
to and me and worship. It is limited to what we could
see. Paul mentions weird to sing
Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Now, I looked at all kinds of Scholars and commentators about
if there's a difference between a Psalm and a him, and his
spiritual Psalm some say yes, same some say, no, It would, if
you say yes, if there is a difference, I guess today we
would liken it to in, are some books that we sing from, we have
hymns and then we have songs of the southern gospel kind of
Nature. And we also have songs of like a
contemporary nature kind of those differences.
So if you were to say those are three different things, I guess
you could relate it to that but they all share one thing.
And that one thing is that the songs bring our minds to
spiritual things, like God, and Jesus, and heaven, and love for
one another and the church and you could go on and on, in fact,
we are told to sing to the Lord Within These two passages here.
And so from that, it eliminates secular music We can't just sing
anything we want. Another third thing I want to
notice about these verses is that they indicate the entire
congregation is to participate in the singing.
You have this term one for another or One Another Part Of
Me in both of these passages and it's a reciprocal, meaning main
meaning that it represents kind of an inner exchange between me
and you as we sing together. Either, that's, that's what it
means. There's another and forth thing
that to notice about this in this is about the term for
making our meta make Melody. It is from the Greek word of
solemn and there is a history to this word and sometimes a
meaning of a word could change throughout time.
And that's exactly what happens with the word psallo.
We had to understand what this word means.
At the time of, when Paul wrote it, it was sometime between the
year about 900. Of maybe 330 BC somewhere in
that range. Saul.
Oh the word, psallo carry the basic meaning of to touch
sharply or to move by touching or to pull or to Twitch.
And so saw low was used of twitching the Carpenters line as
to kind of leave a mark. Like you're like, you got a
chalk line and you pull that line and you have left a mark,
it could mean something like that.
But Saul could also be used to convey the sense of plucking,
the strings of an instrument. So that's what it meant before
the cross between 900 and 330, BC, fast forward through time
now, till after the cross. And you arrive at the time when
the New Testament was being written and Scholars,
acknowledge that the fact that the meaning of solow had
actually changed, and let me give you a few references
regarding this. They are says about this word,
psallo, he says, and I quote, in the New Testament solow
signifies to seeing a him to celebrate the Praises of God, in
psalm, Let me reference, someone else dubbing evine, another
great scholar own words said this.
He said the word psallo originally meant to play
stringed instrument with the fingers or to sing with the
accompaniment of heart of a harp later.
However, and in the New Testament, it came to signify
simply to praise without the accompaniment of an instruments.
In the exit exegetical dictionary of the New Testament
Alton snipe Snyder says this. They write in the New Testament
saw low. Always refers to a song of
praise to God. Now, seeing those references, we
understand the term had changed over the years.
And if solid did retain some Association of plucking, while
Paul was writing this letter to these Brethren the instrument
would have to be identified by the text.
Would it not wouldn't you think? So based upon that another
author FF Bruce says, he made this observation that The Melody
of which Paul is principally concerned is The Melody of the
heart. Which accompanies the vocal
singing. So the hearts will, that's the
spiritual instrument of this context.
There is no mechanical instrument implied.
Impulse teaching, And as we've seen so far with Christians or
would church assembly, we don't see this type of of music of
instrumental music and we're going to progress our study and
then we'll come to the conclusion at the end of this
and that's all I really going to say about instrumental music in
our study. I want to kind of keep it down
to what did the church do as we progress on.
We have Hebrews 2:12, which comes to our our next passage
when it comes to Christians and music.
And he says here, Hebrews 2 verse 12 saying, I will declare
your name to my brother and in the midst of the assembly, I
will sing praise to you. Now the writer of Hebrews when
he writes this, he's actually quoting from David.
And the passage is from Psalm 22 and verse number 22.
Now, the speaker In this passage with, if you look at the context
of Psalm, 22 was talking about the Messiah.
So this passage is the Lord about the met, the Messiah and
prophecy. And so, because of that
understanding some of argued that this was actually
fulfilled, this passage or the prophecy when Jesus, when he
some that him, what the disciples there at the Passover
feast the very night where he would be betrayed that, they
sung that him after that Passover feast just actually
before he instituted the Lord's Supper.
So most agree. This is this is that and that's
pretty much all we know about this.
So this has nothing to do with with the Assembly of the church
but yet it is a reference to singing in the New Testament.
Scriptures, Hebrews 13 and 15. We find this therefore by him,
let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God.
That is the fruit of our lips giving, thanks to his name.
This giving of thanks from the fruit of our lips that's in
reference to us doing that through our voice in singing.
That can involve that way. And so, that's another passage.
We find another passage here in James 5, and verse 13 regarding,
Christian singing, where it says that 81 cheerful, let him sing
Psalms And again, we find that filling the certain way.
In this case, he's saying if you're in a good mood, sing Sing
about God's goodness. Sing about heaven, sing about
the love of Christ saying. Burst forth and song, and that
was a quick little run down that we that we made in observation
of all those and to kind of bring everything together when
it went. Well, what we seen from these
passages, we've examined regarding Christians in the
church, singing of that there to do, just that there to sing and
to sing together as a congregation when the church
assembles for worship and our song.
Um, should take our minds to spiritual things so that we can
lift each other up and praise and honor the Lord while we do
so. And that is the gist of our
conclusion of all these passages that we've seen regarding music
or singing and Christians. Now, in addition, now to the
inspired word, There are historical references that speak
to the practice of the how the early church saying as they
assembled for worship. I want to say this as a
disclaimer before we move on. When we reference external
evidences and even in our study we do not Place those opinions
of man or observations any higher or at any level than what
we've seen in the Holy scriptures.
All I'm doing is referencing what other men have observed the
early church doing. And seeing if they did, what was
what we've seen with in the scriptures.
And so, having stated that the first description of Christians
coming together, that's actually outside of the New Testament
scriptures that actually comes from a Roman Governor whose name
was planning the younger. And he observed the practice of
the other church and wrote it in about the year 110, And this is
his observation and you'll notice he is very doubtful, this
man to Christian because of his language and his observation.
But he says affirmed. However, the whole of their
guilt or there are was that they were in the habit of meeting on
a certain fixed day before. It was light, when they sang, an
alternate versus a him to Christ as to a God and bound themselves
by solemn oath. oh, What we see is that he sees a group of
people coming together. And they're seeing and these
alternate versus it could kind of be where you have a leader.
Maybe before there were some books, back in the day, you
would have a leader who would sing a phrase?
And then the congregation will repeat that phrase.
And you would have this reciprocal kind of thing going
on during the song and that seemed to have been a style of
singing Back Then. And so that's one thing that we
notice from Pliny, the Younger regarding them coming together.
You have another in his commentary on Psalm 65.
You have used to use of BS. Who says this about the church,
he says, throughout the world and cities and Villages and in
the country, in all the Churches of God, the people of Christ who
have been chosen out of all the nations, send up, not to the
native Gods, nor two demons. But to the one God, God spoken
of by the prophets. He says, hymns and samedi with a
loud voice so that the sound of those singing can be heard by
those standing outside. And how can that be done a Tokyo
be done with a large group of people or what the group of
people singing together, and that's what we see from his
observation. It takes my mind back to My mom
and dad would take us to these to the soul from eating.
If you've never been there, they've got this Tabernacle just
out out in the open and around there, just surrounding
neighborhood. And when you have hundreds of
people gathered there for worship and singing together,
all the neighbors could hear. I imagine he would be able to
make that same observation with the church coming together to
hear that sound of those singing together.
And so that's what we know his or about the the church.
Would they assemble for worship and how they sing together as a
congregation. And I'm just kind of, kind of,
leave it at. Just those two observations from
external sources, but singing in the church is a wonderful thing.
There's a reason why God commanded for the church to
worship Him and song. If I were to brainstorm, I would
say singing brings people together, doesn't it?
Singing. Unites us.
Singing creates emotions within us.
Singing touches Our Hearts singing creates an opportunity
for us to praise him. It doesn't matter if you're good
at it or not. Just sing.
And sing from your heart. And sing, praise to him.
That's really all that matters to God is when you do that.
What a wonderful privilege. We have to be able to do that.
Every time we come to worship, don't lie?
It's not because the leaders of the congregation have decided.
Well this we've had to tradition of always singing.
So people like singing. So this is what we're going to
do know. But God blessed us with the gift
of song and he says, I want you to praise me in that.
And it's a beautiful thing. And so I hope that what we've
seen in the New Testament scriptures were in regards to
Christians and the church coming together to sing.
This is a maybe give you some ammunition of why don't you guys
use answer them instrumental music.
Well, Let's go to the scriptures and find out.
We're just trying to follow the pattern of the early church so
that we could be well, pleasing to God.
So I leave these with you again. I hope you've been edified in
our study this afternoon and again that God has been
glorified through the teaching of his word.
We thank you for listening to our podcast, put on by the
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