Church Music (eBook)

CHAPTER 2

You Shall Have a Song

The Lord gives us a song to sing. Throughout the Scriptures, God’s people are inspired to sing as they express their joy at God’s saving acts. The Holy Spirit inspires the word of God, so these songs are also inspired. Also contained in holy writ is an entire hymnal—the book of Psalms—in which God’s people are equipped to sing of their salvation, put their trust in God’s promises, pour forth their laments, confess their sin, and rejoice in the steadfast love of the Lord.

These songs formed the corpus of worship in Old Testament times and were so closely identified with God’s presence that they were often referred to as “the Lord’s song.” From the Song of Moses and Miriam (Exod 15:1–18, 21) to the Song of Habakkuk (Hab 3), the songs of prophets and psalmists by whom God spoke were considered to be the holy song of Israel. Isaiah identified the Lord himself with this holy singing, proclaiming, “The LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation” (Isa 12:2), and the prophet Zephaniah proclaimed that the Lord who is in our midst sings himself (Zeph 3:14–20).

These songs were meant to be sung. They were not only described; they were commanded. In the Old Testament, there are thirty-eight prescriptions to God’s people to sing. An entire tribe, the Levites, was set aside to perform priestly functions that included leading the people in song—most richly described at the dedication of the temple (2 Chr 5:12–14). There is little doubt as to what God wanted his people to sing about, as the Scriptures tell us what was sung. In singing the Lord’s song, the Lord himself physically inhabits his people as lungs, larynx, and mouth are dynamically engaged and the whole body resonates with the word. In this way, the Lord inhabits the praises of his people (see Ps 22:3)—a presence just as real as when the ark of the covenant was brought into Solomon’s temple and the divine glory filled the house of God.

The psalms also let us know that the Lord’s song is given for our benefit, both individually and corporately. God doesn’t need our song—we even anger him when we think our songs are some sort of meritorious sacrifice (Amos 5:23). While the Lord’s song sung in faith certainly pleases him, just as a child’s voice pleases her parents, it is really intended for our neighbors. Those who hear the Lord’s song are strengthened (Ps 42:8) and comforted (Ps 77:6), and we ourselves are blessed as we sing (Ps 71). God’s great goodness moves us to joyfully remember his mighty deeds “with all [our] might” (1 Chr 13:8). In psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, we give thanks and are filled with joy (Isa 51:3).

To paraphrase our Lord in John 14:27, the song he gives is not the world’s song, but his own, that as we sing it, our hearts would not be troubled and we might not be afraid.

The Lord’s song also is a means by which the Holy Spirit carries the good news of salvation into all the world. Those who do not yet believe can be convicted by the Lord’s song (“Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD,” Ps 40:3). The Irish composer of modern hymns Keith Getty is fond of pointing out how the song of Christians is “a radical witness” to the world.2 It is truly a unique witness. As comedian, writer, and banjo player Steve Martin sang on a recording he made with the Steep Canyon Rangers, “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs.” Martin’s song had such appeal when it appeared in 2010 precisely because it is true: there is no tradition of Buddhist or Hindu congregational song. And while Muslims do have chanted prayers and melodious calls to prayer from the minarets, the assembled do not sing a corporate song of Allah.

From the beginning, however, the people of Yahweh have sung, and they will not be kept from singing. The Christian’s faith will not keep silent; we sing of his salvation, and the astonishing richness and range of Christian music testifies to the creative character of God himself, in whom “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

We sing to teach the next generation the story of God’s love—and we nurture one another in that story as the word dwells in us richly through holy song. We get few explicit instructions in worship in the New Testament, yet twice Paul exhorts us to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Col 3:16; Eph 5:19). The word dwelling in us richly through the art of music blesses and encourages us, attracts listeners, and gives convincing witness of God and his loving, mighty deeds. It creates meaningful memories for both singers and hearers as it uses relationships of sound to connect and interpret concepts and bind them into our memories.

It shouldn’t surprise us that music has such power. After all, music was God’s idea. The Lord reminded Job of this when he rebuked him from the whirlwind, saying, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?… when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4–7). Music accompanied creation and will accompany the new creation (Rev 19).

I find it interesting that the Job passage cited above, as well as Psalm 19, talks about the measuring of creation. God asked Job, “Who determined its measurements?” (Job 38:5), and Psalm 19:4 talks of the measuring “line” going out through all the earth, pitching a tent for the sun as the heavens declare the glory of God. The idea of measurable relationships ordained by God in his physical creation brings to my mind the measurable acoustic relationships one finds in music. The ancient Greeks were profoundly aware of the mathematics of such relationships and so placed music alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy in the curriculum.3

This may seem strange to us in our STEM era. Today, with rare exceptions, academia places music firmly in the arts and humanities, but the logic of the ancients’ choice of placement is simple and profound. Karl Paulnack, director of the music division at Boston Conservatory, summarizes the placement well: “Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects; music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects.”4 Though many today just think music is a matter of taste, musicians themselves readily understand its objective qualities. Tuning, harmonic progressions, proportional phrasing, and the like are central to our craft—and explain why musicians appreciate quality in diverse genres of music. The art of music has unique power to fix the mind where God wants it: on what is true, honorable, just, pure, and lovely (Phil 4:8).

It is no real surprise, then, that the Scriptures contain a lot of music in them, commend the songs therein to God’s people, and extol their singing. And, as is the way of the word, the Spirit bestows blessing to and through those who sing the Lord’s song, and they in turn confirm his steadfast love and faithfulness in their lives. I don’t know if I’ve met a fellow Christian who does not have some personal testimony that includes music. This blessing is probably why so many in our congregations have strong opinions about church music and are not hesitant to voice them. Such sentiments can be frustrating sometimes, especially when not spoken in love, but we have these feelings because we care. The church’s song—the Lord’s song—means so much to us that, by faith, we desire to share that song. It’s an intrinsic part of Christian witness.

Let me share a couple of particularly powerful moments during which the Holy Spirit kindled blessing in my heart through holy song. The first was a personal awakening, the second a joyful realization of the power of music to bless others.

The personal awakening happened when I was thirteen years old. Though I had been baptized at a Greek Orthodox church as a child, I was not raised in the faith. After taking me to a Methodist Sunday school for a short time in elementary school, my parents stopped attending church. I did visit a couple of churches with friends as I got older, watched some religious television, and sometimes read the Bible my Baptist grandmother gave me, but I had little understanding of what my baptism meant.

When my family moved to Texas, however, some neighbors invited me to their Lutheran church. I primarily attended for the youth group, but since my neighbors picked me up each Sunday, I also went to worship. A few months into that school year, on the Sunday after Christmas, the congregation sang a classic Lutheran chorale, “Let All Together Praise Our God.” It is a hymn that teaches about the great exchange, wherein Christ pays the price for the sins of all people while granting us the reward we do not deserve. While I have always loved music, I never realized the importance of hymns until this point, viewing them almost as filler material. But that morning my heart was filled with joy as I began to understand and take hold of the unsurpassable gift we have in Christ:

Within an earth-born form He hides

His all-creating light;

To serve us all He humbly cloaks

the splendor of His might.

He undertakes a great exchange, puts on

our human frame,

And in return gives us His realm,

His glory, and His name.

He is a servant, I a lord: how great a mystery!

How strong the tender Christ Child’s

love! No truer friend than He.5

Paul wrote, “I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing with the understanding also” (1 Cor 14:15...