Main Menu Home Just So You Know Logical Fallacies About Us A Brief Word On In-Depth Studies Study Links Study Topic Menu Foundations and Hermeneutics Redemption Dispensationalism Bible Cosmology The Church Ethic Liberty in Christ End Times (Eschatology) End Times: The Rapture Global Conspiracy (and Freemasonry) Calvinism and Free Will (Arminianism) Once Saved Always Saved Preterism Baptisms The Trinity Science, the Bible, and Creation Premillennialism Hebrew Roots & Sabbath Atheism vs. Theism Bible Translations Charismatic Doctrines Spiritual Warfare Roman Catholicism Why Christianity?

The Importance of Music in Worship In the modern church worship has become synonymous with music and song. This is also true of the term praise. As a result, music and singing have been elevated to a place of prominence in church meetings and services as well as in our personal lives as believers. In fact, the term "worship service" is used to describe a congregational gathering comprised largely of music and song. Although, we do concur wholeheartedly that the New Testament directs us to include singing praise as a part of our Christian walk we do have serious concern over the inappropriately disproportionate amount of emphasis placed upon this activity in both corporate gathering and personal development. In many circles the role of musical worship and praise has become equivalent in importance to the role of the Word of God. In many, many church gatherings, worship and praise in the form singing and musical accompaniment can occupy up to half of the service. This practice is even more evident in the personal devotion times of many believers, most of whom would find it easier to quote you the lyrics to their favorite worship songs than to tell you just where in the New Testament such practices are given credence. Our position on this matter can be easily supported by a survey of the New Testament's use and instruction with regard to this issue. We will begin with a study of the New Testament's discussion of worship. There are 13 Greek words used in the New Testament to refer to worship or some derivative thereof (worships, worshipping, worshipper, worshipped, etc.) These words together appear a total of 80 times in the New Testament. It may come as a surprise to most churchgoers that none of these 13 words invoke any reference to or for musical accompaniment or singing. (Below is a listing of these Greek words, their Strong's reference number, and their meanings.) proskuneo - 4352 - used 60 times, a physical gesture or posture of homage sebomai - 4576 - used 6 times, to revere doxa - 1391 - used 1 time, glory or splender latreuo - 3000 - used 4 times, to serve or service eusebeo - 2151 - used 1 time, a show of piety or reverence ethelothreskeia - 1479 - used 1 time, voluntary or arbitrary worship therapeuo - 2323 - used 1 time, to serve or do service sebazomai - 4573 - used 1 time, to fear or to honor religiously sebasma - 4574 - used 1 time, an object of religious worship or honor theosebes - 2318 - used 1 time, worshipping God or pious neokoros - 3511 - used 1 time, worshipper or temple servant proskunetes - 4353 - used 1 time, a worshipper threskeia - 2356 - used 1 time, religious worship Similarly, we can do a word study on praise and its derivatives (praises, praised, praiseth, praising, etc.) In this case we would find that there are a total of 9 words used in the New Testament that refer to praise or one of these derivatives. These 9 words appear a total of 33 times. (They are listed below, with an analysis following.) ainos - 136 - used 2 times, a saying or proverb or laudatory phrase, praise aineo - 134 - used 9 times, (the verb tense of 136) extol, sing praises to God, promise or vow doxa - 1391 - used 4 times, glory or splender epainos - 1868 - used 11 times, approbation or commendation epaineo - 1867 - used 3 times, to approve humneo - 5214 - used 1 time, to sing the praise of or sing hymns to ainesis - 133 - used 1 time, a thank offering eulogeo - 2127* - used 1 time, bless or celebrate or consecrate with solemn prayer arete - 703 - used 1 time, a virtuous course of thought, feeling and action * Eulogeo is translated 1 times as praise and 43 times as bless. A quick survey of these 9 Greek words reveals that 7 invoke no reference to musical accompaniment or singing. (One of these words doxa, is redundant from the list for worship.) The other 2 words do reference singing, but not music. These 2 words account for 10 of the 33 occurrences of praise (or a derivative thereof) in the New Testament. Of these 10 verses only 2 are instructional in nature, meaning that they set forth an instruction regarding practice. The other 8 are narrative in nature, meaning they simply recount an activity of someone in the Bible without providing instruction regarding that behavior. These 2 verses dealing with praise involving singing in an instructional setting are among 12 total verses in the New Testament mentioning singing specifically. Of these 12 occurrences, 7 are in a narrative setting and only 5 are in an instructional setting (including the 2 verses mentioning praise.) These verses are listed below. 1 Corinthians 14:15 What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. 1 Corinthians 14:26 How is it then, brethren? when ye 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. Ephesians 5:19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; 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, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. James 5:13 Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Based on the above survey the following can be concluded: 1. Of the 113 references in the New Testament to praise or worship (or any derivative thereof) there are only 2, which mention singing. There is NO mention of music or musical accompaniment in these verses. 2. Of the 12 references to singing (or its derivatives) in the New Testament only 5 appear in an instructional setting (2 of which are the 2 verses mentioned above from praise). 3. There are NO references to music or musical accompaniment in an instructional setting, with the single possible exception of James 5:13 (this is 1 of the 5 above). In contrast to these 5 verses instructing us with regard to singing, we offer the surpassing component of the New Testament, which is devoted to the proclamation, teaching, and understanding of sound doctrine. We note as well the plethora of direct and indirect commands regarding the importance and centrality of the Word of God to the life and growth of the believer. This comparison, should clearly and conclusively demonstrate the imbalance in emphasis that the modern church has placed on singing and music as a central focus of not only our meeting together, but also our personal development and devotion as well. As would be expected we have heard many objections to our view that music is inappropriately emphasized in the worship practices of the modern church. We will deal with the three most common of them below. The first argument that is often heard is based upon the Levitical practice of leading God's people in worship in the Old Testament. The basis of this objection is twofold with regard to its relevance to our current discussion. One, that music was an important aspect of Old Testament, Levitical worship duties. Two, that as such we should preserve the importance of music in our worship of God in the New Covenant. At this point two critical issues become obvious with these claims. First, although worship is an inarguably essential part of a believer's walk with God in both the Old and New Covenants, it does not follow that music is an essential aspect of this worship. Even if it can be biblically demonstrated that music was an essential aspect of worship under the Old Covenant it does not follow that because something was divinely mandated under the Old Covenant that it is divinely mandated under the New Covenant. One would have to then search the New Testament scripture to see the prominence accorded to the role of music and song in worship for those under the New Covenant. This we have sufficiently examined above. In addition, given the ending of the Levitical order of priests that took place when the New Testament was ushered in, why would we assume that any or all components of their duties should automatically be carried over into the New Covenant? A second argument that is often used to refute our position is that the longest book in the entire Bible, the Book of Psalms, is entirely composed of worshipful writings which were accompanied by music. The argument is then constructed that because Psalms is such a large book and since it contains songs or musical works of worship that music is an essential aspect of worship. To defuse this claim one only need ask the following question. What has God preserved for us in the Psalms, the words or the music? The obvious answer is the words. Evidently the musical accompaniment to these writings was not important enough for God to preserve and pass down to us. What was important was His Word, which he inspired the writers of the Psalms to pen and then preserved for us who would come afterwards. This brings us to the final objection to our position. Some proponents of music as an essential aspect of worship might finally agree that music is not essential to worship, but that it is a useful and effective aid in assisting believers in sincerely worshipping God. On this point we would question whether or not music is an aid to sincere worship or a distraction from it. To anyone who would dispute our claim that music is more often a distraction from sincere worship than an aid to achieving it we propose the following experiment. Have a congregation participate in praise and worship completely devoid of musical accompaniment and singing and completely without predetermined, memorized words. Do this in place of your normal musical worship during service time each week for a month or more and for the same length of time that would usually be devoted to music. The results of this experiment will readily become apparent. If music is not, in fact, a distraction then the worship time will continue as lively as ever. Church members will be as eager to participate and just as stirred during the worship time as they were when it was accompanied by music. However, if excitement, participation and attendance drops simply because music has been removed then music has become a distraction sustaining the practice of worship without true sentiment or reflection by the participants. We predict that the later scenario will be more common than the former. Most, if not all, participants in such a study will find it very difficult to generate or sustain sincere praise and worship beyond a few minutes without these superficial props (of music and singing) and will soon become distracted. If you don't believe us try it. Perhaps you will prove us wrong. But perhaps you will find that worshipping and praising God without music and with your own words is more fulfilling than the alternative and that music has been inappropriately elevated to a place of prominence in worship by the modern church without biblical mandate. Back to the top. Home | Just So You Know | About Us | A Brief Word On | In-Depth Studies