The Sound of Doctrine

Category: worship

  • Music In the Church

    – 1. Introduction

    – Review

    1. Singing accompanies salvation.

    1. Why?
      1. Because such a glorious reality as redemption and the truths about God oftentimes can only be sung as there is expression in singing that is unmatched in simple dialogue.
        1. This singing is not done haphazardly or in a maniacal manner. 
          1. Singing itself is a medium that must match the content of the song.
            1. The style of music is meant to convey the words of the song as well.
            2. The words of the song must reflect biblical truth and teaching.
      2. Therefore, when we sing in the church it must be that we are doing so as a result of deep understanding and humiliation brought about by the Word of God.
        1. Gratitude must accompany our song.
        2. Fear of the Lord must accompany our song.
        3. Praise must accompany our song.
        4. Further instruction must accompany our song.
      3. Because of the differences between what God is doing in Israel and what God is doing in the church, a Temple no longer exists in which the Levitical singers can lead in instrumental pieces in order to promote contemplation and praise.
        1. Rather, the church takes the same components that were to motivate Temple services of worship, thanksgiving, praise, and teaching, and we also respond in song with instruments.
        2. Thus, the church continues the praise begun with the angels at creation.
        3. Further, the song will continue into the eternal state, as we will see.
      4. With full access to the Father personally, every believer can now join the heavenly chorus of living beings, saints, and angels, in the vocal, and even instrumental, proclamation of the excellencies of YHWH. He is worthy of that excellence in song!!!
      5. As we finish today, here is what we will see:
      1. Singing in the church is motivated by:
      1. Thanksgiving
      1. Teaching
      1. Praise
      1. These components must be accompanied by skillfully played instruments.
        1. We will structure our thinking around these three components.
    •  

      1. Components of song in the church:

      1. Thanksgiving – 1 Corinthians 14:14-19
        • V. 14 “For if I might pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.”
      2. What does this mean?
        1. Praying in another language might be necessary in a context where others from another country are present.
        2. However, since he does not know that language, he cannot understand, and learn from, what he prays.
        3. The goal is a fruitful mind.
      3. The obvious indication is that it is better to have the mind fruitful than the “spirit.”

    V. 15 “What then is it? I will pray by the spirit, but also I will pray by my mind; I will sing by the spirit, but also I will sing by the mind.”

    1. Beginning the sentence with interrogative: “What?”
      1. He is concerned with the outcome of the circumstances of V. 14.
        1. There is a resolve to pray by the spirit, his interest and will, but also to pray by his mind.
          1. The real intention by Paul is that people understand so that their minds are learning something.
          2. This is why he says that when he prays, which must refer to corporate prayer, he will do so with his mind.
        2. There is also a resolve to sing by the spirit, his will and emotion. But also a commitment to singing with his mind.
          1. His singing is purposeful, clear, edifying, and according to a sound mind.
          2. This indicates the kind of singing that Paul would instruct every church to conduct.
            1. Singing must be done with a controlled, sound, mind.
            2. Singing in the church is not to be out of control or filled with emotion. It must be sound and, since the context is edification, filled with doctrine.
          3. Otherwise, when praying or singing, when an unbeliever enters the church, he cannot be convicted by the praying or singing if it is emotional only.

    V. 16 “Since if you might bless by the spirit, the one in the place of the unlearned, how will he answer the “Amen” upon your thanksgiving since he does not know what you say?”

    1. If we continue the thought here, the idea of “the thanksgiving” must be in reference to prayer and singing.
      1. Thanksgiving is certainly in prayer. However, the Psalms are full of songs of thanksgiving as well. Thus, it would seem most natural that the singing that occurred in the church consisted of Psalms of thanksgiving as well as prayers of thanks to God.
        1. Notice Paul’s reference to “the Amen” in V. 16.
        1. See Deuteronomy 27:15–26; 1 Chr. 16:36; Neh. 5:13; 8:6; ; Jer. 11:5; 28:6; Rev 5:14; 7:12.
      • Psalm 106:48
        48     Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
        From everlasting even to everlasting.
        And let all the people say, “Amen.”
        Praise the Lord!

      Nehemiah 5:13

      13     I also shook out the front of my garment and said, “Thus may God shake out every man from his house and from his possessions who does not fulfill this promise; even thus may he be shaken out and emptied.” And all the assembly said, “Amen!” And they praised the Lord. Then the people did according to this promise.

      1. See Revelation 5:11-14
      • Revelation 19:4
        4     And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sits on the throne saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!”
      1. The point is, the target of such singing and praying is the mind.
    • 1. What I want us to see is:
      1. There was a public “giving of thanks” in the assembly of the church.
        1. Paul’s reference to singing and instruments indicates the use of such in the meeting of the church.
          1. The word for “sing” is the specific word for singing accompanied by instruments = “psalm.” (ψαλῶ – I sing [usually accompanied by instruments]).
          2. Paul makes reference to instruments in V. 7.
        2. This giving of thanks to God was meant as a tool for expressing to God a rehearsal of His work in the world (for redemption) and to teach that work to the church such that it would produce more contrition and gratitude, even in those who would attend and do not know Christ.

    Psalm 33:1–5

    1     Sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones;

    Praise is becoming to the upright.

    2     Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;

    Sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings.

    3     Sing to Him a new song;

    Play skillfully with a shout of joy.

    4     For the word of the Lord is upright,

    And all His work is done in faithfulness.

    5     He loves righteousness and justice;

    The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord.

    Psalm 147:1

    Praise for Jerusalem’s Restoration and Prosperity.

    1     Praise the Lord!

    For it is good to sing praises to our God;

    For it is pleasant and praise is becoming.

    Psalm 147:7

    7     Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving;

    Sing praises to our God on the lyre,

    Psalm 107:1–3 (see also vv. 8, 15, 21, 31)

    1     Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,

    For His lovingkindness is everlasting.

    2     Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,

    Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary

    3     And gathered from the lands,

    From the east and from the west,

    From the north and from the south.

    1. Teaching – Ephesians 5:19 & Colossians 3:16.

    1. V. 16 “(Be) Redeeming out for yourselves ones the season because the days are evil ones.”

    1. This is a description of the kind of person a Christian must be.
      1. Buy back from the market.
        1. Take it into your possession.
          1. This is a reference to righteousness.
            1. The season.
              1. What season?
                1. The season of the evil day
                2. This is repeated in Ephesians 6:13
                3. This season is now-the days in which Christ has come, the devil is not bound, and the anticipation of the end is near for the Devil and his angels.
              2. How?
                1. The indication is that the context tells us what this redeeming looks like:
                  1. V. 6 = do not be deceived by false teaching.
                    1. Do not partake in their teaching.
                    2. Be learning what is pleasing to the Lord.
                  2. V. 11 = Do not participate in the deeds of darkness.
                    1. Expose them by means of the light of truth.
                    2. Call the sleeper to awake by exposing their sins.
                  3. V. 15 = walk carefully, wisely.
                    1. Redeem the times from the evil ones.
                    2. The days are evil as has been said.
                  4. V. 17 = Do not be foolish.
                    1. Understand the will of the Lord (Ephesians 1:5,11).
                    2. Put away getting drunk (1 Corinthians 11:21).
                    3. Fill yourself, instead, with the Holy Spirit.
                      1. The product of that will be speaking, singing, making (melody), giving thanks, submitting.
                      2. The filling up is in comparison to the filling up with wine that creates drunkenness. That is not to say that you drink the Spirit. However, it is to say that you learn, study, memorize, the Word of God as the whole argument began in V. 6, do not believe false teaching.
                2. Therefore, in order to redeem the season, we must fill ourselves (church-wide and corporately) with the Word of God (sound doctrine).

        2. V. 17 “because of this, do not become unthinking. But rather comprehend what the will of the Lord is.”

        1. “Because of this…”
          1. It is precisely because the days are evil that we must wise up.
            1. The believer must, the church must, understand, comprehend the will of the Lord.
              1. This is in reference to Ephesians 1:5, 11.
              2. In Ephesians 2:15-23 Paul prays also for the believers there that they would comprehend the will of God (i.e. the gospel). 
            2. The church must learn and comprehend what God’s eternal will is.
              1. Abbott-Smith = “To know by perception, to join the perception with the thing perceived.” p, 429.
              2. See Ephesians 1:1, 5, 9, 11; 2:3; 5:17; 6:6.
                1. The idea of “will” in Ephesians is not the personal will for a person in the sense of what God wants from his life.
                2. It is the will of God, as evidenced in the preponderance of usage in that regard.
          2. The thing that combats the foolishness of ignorance is to learn-learn the will of God.

    • 1. V. 18 “And do not make yourselves drunk (with/by) wine, in which it is reckless debauchery. But rather, fill yourselves up in spirit/by the Spirit.”

      1. Sentence begins with “kai.” Why?
        1. Main command: V. 1 “Therefore, be imitators of God…”
          1. What that looks like:
            1. Walk in love.
              1. Let no one deceive you.
              2. Do not participate in deeds of darkness.
              3. Do not get drunk with wine.
            2. The thought has been taken from the main exhortation.
          2. “Stop continuing to make yourselves drunk with wine…”
            1. With the negation and a present imperative, it has the idea of an action that is continuing on a linear scale, or that has already occurred, that needs to stop.
            2. The potential assumption is that this church, like Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:21; see Jude 12), had some participating in drunkenness at some point.
            3. Thus, as you look at the rest of the exhortations in Ephesians, we realize that the church in Ephesus actually had many problems.
              1. Ephesians 1-3 = introduction/prologue.
              2. Ephesians 4-6 = admonition and instruction.
            4. This passage falls into the writing that admonishes and instructs.
              1. Some were drinking.
              2. Some were still getting drunk.
              3. This is not unusual in that town.
          3. “in which is reckless debauchery…”
            1. Getting drunk = reckless debauchery.
            2. Paul teaches and explains here.

          4. “but rather, fill yourselves up in spirit/with the Spirit.”

          1. Might be best to see the parallelism here between μεθύσκεσθε  & πληροῦσθε .
            1. One is being drunk with wine.
              1. The other is being filled with the Spirit of God.
            2. The passive sense in which the filling occurs is that which occurs by means of the Word of God.
              1. This filling is in reference to having a repository of the Word of God in your heart which is the same as being filled with the Holy Spirit?
                1. How?
                2. Because the Word of God is from the Spirit.
                  1. John 6:63
          • 63     “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
            1. John 6:68
          • 68     Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.
    1. 2 Peter 1:19–21
    • 19     So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.
      20     But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
      21     for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
      1. 1 Peter 2:1–3
      1     Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander,
      2     like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation,
      3     if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
    1. The correlation is that the nature of the Word of God is such that it is
      1. Eternal, and thus of the Spirit of God.
        1. From God.
        2. Has the properties of Spirit.
      2. Thus, the church corporately, is supposed to fill itself up with the Word of God – i.e. preaching, teaching, admonishing.
      1. V. 19 “While speaking to one another in/with Psalms and Hymns, and spiritual songs; while singing and psalming to the Lord, with your heart.”
      1. This is, overall, a corporate undertaking.
        1. Notice the plural “yourselves.”
          1. Notice plural “of yours.”
        2. The effect of the filling of the church with sound doctrine is that it takes that doctrine and arranges it into psalms (usually accompanied by instruments), hymns (doctrinal songs), and spiritual songs (songs teaching and reflecting upon the Word and work of God).
          1. Psalms = songs accompanied by instruments.
    • “ψάλλω perhaps meant orig. “to touch” (etym.6 akin to ψηλαφάω), then “to pluck” the string, to cause it to spring, of the string of a bow,”1

     

     

    “1. Hymns = songs of praise.

    • 2. ὑμνέω means first “to sing a song” of praise,”2

     

     

    1. “Spiritual songs = songs of Jesus Christ or of the redemption of God.
    • The λόγος τοῦ Χριστοῦ means that ᾠδαὶ πνευματικαί are mostly songs about Christ, or about the saving acts of God enacted in Him. An example may be seen in 1 Tm. 3:16.”3

     

    1. So, in order to sum up, Paul’s teaching for the church in their singing is the same as it was for that of Israel. However, since we are not Israel and we do not possess the Temple, yet we are a temple that is being built by sound doctrine, we must still sing.
      1. Psalms = instruments.
        1. Hymns = songs of praise.
        2. Spiritual songs = songs explaining the Messiah.
      2. Example of songs in the NT:
        1. Ephesians 5:14
    •           Ἔγειρε, ὁ καθεύδων,
                  καὶ ἀνάστα ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν,
                καὶ ἐπιφαύσει σοι ὁ Χριστός.
      1. Itself probably based upon other OT passages and truths:
        • Isaiah 26:19
          19     Your dead will live;
          Their corpses will rise.
          You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy,
          For your dew is as the dew of the dawn,
          And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.
      2. Thus, this would most properly be considered a spiritual song.
      2. 1 Timothy 3:16
    •           Ὃς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί,
                  ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι,
               ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις,
                ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν,
                  ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ,
               ἀνελήμφθη ἐν δόξῃ.
      1. Notice the repetition.
        1. Similar verb stems
        2. Similar noun endings.
      2. Notice the summary of ministry categories.
        1. Birth
        2. Baptism
        3. Ministry – from baptism to suffering.
        4. Ministry – Gentiles heard from Him in His ministry.
        5. Ministry – some from the world heard of Him and believed.
        6. Ascension
      3. This would be considered a hymn, and may have been accompanied with instruments. If accompanied by instruments, this would then be a psalm = a sung song with instruments.
      1. One song is a call to unbelievers to “wake up” as it were to Christ.
      2. The other is an exposition of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
        1. Ephesians 5:14 was probably a kind of song that was extant in the church and quoted by Paul as familiar to them.
        2. 1 Timothy 3:16 was probably sung by the church, made up by them, and taken by Paul from them and incorporated into Scripture.

    1. Colossians 3:16 “Allow the word of Christ to dwell in you all richly in wisdom, while teaching and admonishing each other (by means of) psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, in gratitude/grace while singing in the hearts of you all to God.”

    1. Notice “allow.”
      1. That is, do not neglect or shun Christ’s words.
        1. Receive them (James 1:21) and let them live among the church.
          1. Notice plural
            1. “You all” = everyone collectively (assumes individually).
          2. Do not, as a church, shun the Word of Christ as it is taught and talked about in the church.
        2. All the while, in love (1 Corinthians 13), teaching and admonishing one another
          1. By means of
            1. Psalms
            2. Hymns
            3. Spiritual songs
          2. In a condition of
            1. Thanks
            2. Grace
          3. Collectively singing together with gratitude in the hearts of each one collectively lifting your voices to God.
          1. Romans 15:5–6
          • 5     Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus,
            6     so that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
      1. The assembly of the redeemed must bring about our singing with hearts that demonstrate love for God and gratitude

    Hebrews 13:15–16

    15     Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.

    16     And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

     

     

     

    1. Praise –

    1. Matthew 11:25 (cf. Matthew 21:16 = praise established from God through the mouths of infants).
      1. A summary of praise in the NT:
        1. The praise of YHWH among the Gentiles.
          1. Romans 15:9
          2. Romans 15:11
        2. The praise of YHWH among the elect:
          1. Hebrews 2:12
          2. Hebrews 13:15
        3. The praise of YHWH resulting from suffering:
          1. 1 Peter 1:7
          2. 1 Peter 4:13
        4. The praise of YHWH in regards to the future:
          1. Romans 14:11
          2. Revelation 19:5
      1. Are any of these related to instruments, music, or song?
        1. Romans 15:9,11 are both related to the Psalms that speak of or relate to singing simply because of their arrangement as song by the Psalmist.
        2. Hebrews 2:12 says that that Jesus Christ will actually lead in song among His children. This may, or may not, include instruments.
        3. Given the same conditions as above, Revelation 19:1-5 and Romans 14:11 (as well as Romans 15:5-6), may all very well include instruments in order to accompany the songs of praise!
      2. In fact, it very well may be that when God speaks, His voice is actually in musical notes and tones as if a symphony of harps:
      1. Revelation 14:2!!!
        1. God’s voice sounding like the beauty and order of many harps playing in unison.
    1. Revelation 1:15
    • 15     His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters.
      1. Revelation 19:6
    • 6     Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying,
      “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.
    1. The sound must have been magnificent.
      1. Revelation 15:2-3
        1. The sound of singing heard in heaven.
        2. Appropriate because of the sound of God’s voice = many harps.

    • 1. Conclusion

    1. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 490. ↩
    2. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 490. ↩
    3. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 165. ↩