Instrumental Music in Worship: Part 2

I. Introduction: This morning we looked at the historical background of the use of instrumental music in worship and attempts to justify its introduction using the Old Testament or the book of Revelation. Tonight we will continue to examine arguments that have been used to justify its use.

II. It is an aid to singing like a tuning fork or pitch pipe.

A. To compare a piano, organ, or band to a pitch pipe is comparing apples to oranges.

B. Funk and Wagnall’s dictionary defines music as the combination of notes to form a melody or harmony. A musical instrument must form a combination of rhythmic notes to make a melody or harmony. Neither the pitch pipe or the tuning fork can do this. Tuning forks and pitch pipes never accompany instrumental or vocal groups in the secular world.

C. A pitch pipe or tuning fork gives the starting note, then ceases to be used when the song begins.

III. It is an aid like songbooks.

A. We have songbooks in order to carry out the command to sing.

B. In order to fulfill the command to sing, we must have some song to sing.

C. We could uses the book of Psalms and sing to an agreed upon melody. We could sing from memory. We can purchase songbooks that have songs to allow us to fulfill the command to sing.

D. The musical instrument is not parallel with songbooks.

E. Songbooks are not another type of music. The musical instrument creates another type of music.

F. Parallel Argument: The Lord’s Supper.

G. We are commanded to partake of the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week. We must have containers to serve the bread and fruit of the vine. The containers, like the songbooks, are not an addition to the command, but are aids to allow us to carry out the command. We are not free to substitute Coca-Cola for the fruit of the vine nor can we substitute instruments for singing. We cannot add food, such as pretzels, to the fruit of the vine and the unleavened bread nor can we add instrumental music to vocal music.

IV. The word Psallo can also mean “to play.”

A. The word is translated “make melody” in Ephesians 5:19.

B. Greek experts tell us that it used to mean “to pluck, to twang as a bowstring, an instrument or a carpenter’s chalk.”

C. By the New Testament time, the word came to mean sing.

D. Words change meaning over time: “gay” is an example in our culture of a word that used to mean one thing but its current meaning is quite different.“Prevent” in 1 Thessalonians 4:15 (KJV) meant to “precede,” in our current language it means to “stop” or “not allow.”

E. Sophocles defines it as singing.

F. Sophocles was a native Greek who came to America and was the professor of Greek at Harvard University for nearly 40 years. He published a Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine periods. In his examination of Greek literature from 146 BC to 1100 AD he did not find a single instance where psallo was used to mean “sing with instrumental accompaniment.”

G. Henry Thayer, in his Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament says, “In the New Testament, to sing a hymn, to celebrate the praises of God in song is the meaning of psallo.”

H. E. Vine, in the Expository Dictionary of New Testament words says “it denotes, in the New Testament, to sing a hymn, sing praise.”

I. The nearly 160 translators of the ASV and NKJV translate it as sing or make melody and nearly all of the translators were members of churches using instrumental music.

J. The Greek Catholic church, as a whole, never has used instrumental music. When it was first introduced, the Grecian segment of the church strongly opposed its usage. The Greeks, if anyone, know what psallo means.

K. So the Greek authorities tell us that it used to mean “to pluck, to twang” but in the New Testament times that it meant only to sing.

L. If, for the sake of argument, we grant that the word psallo authorizes the use of instruments, there are certain conclusions that one must make.

M. Only stringed instruments that can be plucked or twanged could be used.

N. No wind instruments such as horns could be used. No drum could be used. No electronic synthesizer could be used. If psallo meant to play, then you must play an instrument in worship and you cannot sing without one! If psallo meant to play, then everyone must play and sing for the command in Ephesians 5:19 is for everyone to do (“speaking to one another…”).

O. If we assume that psallo meant to pluck, we would have to realize that it is the verb and the direct object would define what is plucked or twanged.

P. For example “throw” is a verb, but the direct object tells what is thrown. The word, in its ancient use before the New Testament, could be used of an archer plucking a bowstring or a carpenter plucking a chalk line. Even in its ancient use it did not demand the plucking of an instrument. If we assume that psallo means to pluck, then the direct object is the heart. The heart would be the instrument that is played when we sing.

V. We like it, we want it, so we are going to have it.

A. It is not an attempt at a scriptural argument so it really can’t be answered.

B. However, we know that only those who do the Father’s will can go to heaven, Matthew 7:21.

C. If we are determined to worship according to our own wills, and to appeal to our own tastes, we have left God and His authority behind already.

VI. It is interesting to note the views of Biblical scholars on this subject:

A. Thomas Aquinas (13th Century Catholic Scholar) ” Our church does not use musical instruments, as harps and psalteries, to praise God withal, that she may not seem to Judaize.”

B. John Wesley (Methodist) ” I have no objection to the organs in our chapels provided they are neither seen nor heard.”

C. Alexander Campbell (Christian) “…to all spiritually minded Christians, such aids would be as a cowbell in a concert.”

D. Charles Spurgeon (Baptist) ” I would as soon pray to God with machinery as to sing to God with machinery.”

E. Benedict (Baptist Historian) ” In my earliest intercourse among this people, congregational singing generally prevailed among them. This instrument [organ-rfd], which from time immemorial has been associated with cathedral pomp and prelatical power, and has always been the peculiar favorite of the national churches, at length found its way into Baptist sanctuaries… Staunch old Baptists in former times would as soon tolerated the Pope of Rome in their pulpits as an organ in their galleries, and yet the instrument has gradually found its way among them.

F. Joseph Bingham (Anglican) ” Music in churches is as ancient as the apostles, but instrumental music is not so.”

G. Martin Luther (Lutheran) ” The organ in the worship is an insignia of Baal.”

H. Erasmus (16th Century Theologian)” We have brought into our churches certain operatic and theatrical music; such a confused, disorderly chattering of some words as I hardly think was ever in any of the Grecian or Roman theatres. The church rings with the noise of trumpets, pipes, and dulcimers; and human voices strive to bear their part with them. Men run to church as to a theatre, to have their ears tickled. And for this end organ makers are hired with great salaries, and a company of boys, who waste all their time learning these whining tones.

VII. Summary: Why do we not use instrumental music in our worship.

A. We are commanded to sing and the specific command excludes playing musical instruments.

B. The ancient churches did not use musical instruments though they could be found in the Jewish temple worship and the pagan society.

C. Although it was used in the Old Testament, and it is used as a symbol in the book of Revelation, there is no New Testament authority for its use in the worship of Christ.

D. Musical instruments are not an aid to singing, but another type of music to be added. It would be like adding hot wings to the Lord’s Supper.

E. The Greek words used in the commands to sing do not authorize the use of musical instruments. If they did, they would require everyone to play instruments.

F. We do not worship to please ourselves, we worship to please God and so we do things in the way that He commanded.