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THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER VOLUME 6, NUMBER 10, MARCH 12, 2006 IS SINGING WORSHIP? Bible students recognize and appreciate the fact that God has commanded His people to worship Him with music. While we are no longer under the Old Testament as a source of authority for those things we do of a religious nature, we can turn there to establish that from ancient times the people of God have praised Him with song. Consider Psalm 30:4, where David wrote, “Sing praise to the Lord, you His godly ones, and give thanks to His holy name.” If we turn to 2 Chronicles 29, we find that under the Law of Moses, Jehovah, by His prophets, commanded Israel to accompany their songs with instruments of music. As they offered burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar in the temple, the assembly worshipped, the singers sang in the worship, and the trumpeters sounded. Let’s read verses 25-28, “He then stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with harps, and with lyres, according to the command of David and of Gad the king’s seer, and of Nathan the prophet; for the command was from the Lord through His prophets. And the Levites stood with the musical instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets. Then Hezekiah gave the order to offer the burnt offering on the altar. When the burnt offering began, the song to the Lord also began with the trumpets, accompanied by the instruments of David, king of Israel. While the whole assembly worshiped, the singers also sang and the trumpets sounded; all this continued until the burnt offering was finished.” Perhaps the most well-known passage of the Old Testament related to the worship of God with music is Psalm 150. It simply says, “Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty expanse. Praise Him for His mighty deeds; praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with trumpet sound; praise Him with harp and lyre. Praise Him with timbrel and dancing; praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe. Praise Him with loud cymbals; praise Him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!” When we move into the New Testament we find that God’s people are still commanded to worship Him with music. However, Christians are commanded to offer God vocal music, as Ephesians 5:19 tells us, “singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” When faithful churches of Christ worship, that is just exactly what they do – singing as authorized by God in the New Testament. “According to Ephesians 5:19, the instrument for making melody to God is the heart. The heart of man involves his ability to think, reason, understand, and believe, as well as his ability to trust, hope, love, and rejoice. When we sing the praises of God and accompany that praise by the instrument ordained of God for the worship of His church, our service to Him can be acceptable. The human heart is an instrument for everyone. The Lord has provided for every child of His to make his journey to heaven by singing and striking the strings of his own heart. When a Christian does that, he has worshipped God in the way that God desires of all men,” at least as far as music is concerned. There is an aspect of our singing in worship that needs to be addressed and properly understood. When we sing it is true that we are “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Eph. 5:19) and that we are “teaching and admonishing one another” (Col. 3:16), but let us never forget that when we sing together in our worship of God, our singing is first unto the Lord. Colossians 3:16 concludes with “singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God” and Ephesians 5:19 concludes with “singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” God desires us to give unto Him our full devotion and allegiance. He wants us to sing of Him and to Him. He doesn’t judge the singing the same way man does. Man tends to judge it on the basis of whether it is good or bad, whether we can carry a tune or not. God judges it on the basis of if it is wholehearted and offered as an act of homage and reverence to Him. Indeed, I believe that our singing in worship to God is a sacrifice to Him, the savor of which rises to the heavens. Hebrews 13:15 tells us, “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.” One of the basic ideas behind the word “praise” is to cause to shine. Praise means to laud, to extol, to commend. When praises are sung, describing the glory of God, that glory will shine. Is it possible for singing in a worship service to be done without enthusiasm? Yes, of course it is. Is it possible that some won’t think of the meaning of the words but just recite them by memory? Certainly. Is it possible that some will actually be singing to impress those nearest to them with their beautiful voice? I suppose so. But when we sing with the right attitude, with God as our focus, it is a wonderful and joyously uplifting thing. And one of the really neat things about this aspect of worship as God has set it up is that even if everybody else isn’t focused, I can be! Let’s bring this short article on singing as worship to a close with Psalm 95:1-7a. “O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth; the peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it; and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.”
Beautiful, isn’t it!
Greg Litmer
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