Music is a controversial issue, and I could get into why, but for now, let’s look at one of the two major texts in the NT on the issue and glean some points about it. Go to Ephesians 5:19, which says, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”

First, “Speaking.” “Speaking” is not the normal word for talking, the Greek word laleo here, and this word could include more generally the sound made with the human voice or musical instruments. The Greek word itself has a sound that someone would make when singing a tune without words. Next, “to yourselves.” “To yourselves” does not represent someone who talks to himself. Not that talking to one’s self is bad, but this should be understood as “among yourselves.” This is talking about singing or playing in the church, congregational or special, which would be understood only by fellow believers. Unbelievers should not merit consideration with church music. The word “new” is used to characterize our song more than any other feature of our salvation–new as in “different.” When someone receives Christ and his life changes, His song changes. Only other believers can really understand it. Churches should not alter their music to fit the taste of the world. I want to say only one thing about “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” Why don’t churches sing psalms today? “Singing and making melody” divides “speaking” into two categories: vocal and instrumental. The Greek word for “singing” means “to sing with the voice.” The word translated “making melody” means “to pluck on a stringed instrument.” Both the words and the tune come into consideration with these two words. God wants instrumental music too (read Psalm 150).

I believe the most important qualification for music is it’s direction: “to the Lord.” Worship is recognizing Who God is and giving Him what He wants. When we understand Who God is by studying His Word, we will give Him what He wants. The direction of vocal and instrumental music in Scripture is always “to the Lord.” The greatest consideration for worship music is what is the kind of music that God wants. Music should not be a matter of our taste or our feelings, but for God’s pleasure. Some might think or say that we cannot know what God wants to hear. We determine what He wants by Scriptural principles. This is how we worship Him “in truth” (John 4:23, 24). We allow Scripture to regulate the kind of music we use in church. That eliminates most kinds of music that were invented for self-gratification–fleshly, lustful, unresolved, angry, rhythm dominated music. We are interested in music for God that will represent Who He is, not what we like to hear. Certainly, a kind of music that might be permissible between a man and a woman in the bedroom is not what we offer God in the church. This little presentation in no way covers everything, but it will get you on the right path to determining whether your music checks.

The temple takes a prominent place in history. We have the tabernacle in the wilderness, replaced by Solomon’s temple (957BC), destroyed in 587BC, Zerubbabel’s temple (520BC), destroyed in 19BC, and then Herod’s temple (19BC), destroyed in AD70. In the future, the Antichrist will build a temple in the tribulation period, which will be desecrated by him (Revelation 11:1, 2) and destroyed along with almost everything else, and finally the Lord Jesus Christ Himself will superintend the building of the Millennial Kingdom temple (Ezekiel 40-47). When you think about all this, you see this big chunk of time where the temple essentially existed 957BC to AD70. We have to see the continuity between the tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple, making this an even longer period of time (c. 1440BC to AD70). And then in the future, two temples will measure over another one thousand years of history.

What is the temple exactly? Let’s think of two points: (1) The place of the presence of God, and (2) the place of the worship of God. The temple is a place where God comes to dwell on earth with His people. God prescribed congregational worship with the temple as the center. He regulated the worship with specific prescriptions in His Law. We can see that a large gap appears in the temple history after AD70 and before the tribulation period. Is there a temple in this period?

The temple today is the church, local and visible, just like Old Testament Israel. This temple replaced the one in Jerusalem. God ended OT temple worship when He rent the veil of Herod’s temple in Jerusalem at the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ prophesied (Matthew 24:1, 2) the end of that temple with the destruction by Titus in AD70. Paul tells the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” In that text we point blank find that the church, local, is the temple of God. It makes sense when you consider John 1:14. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” “Dwelt” here is literally, “tabernacled.” The place of the presence of Christ is the new tabernacle or temple. The Lord Jesus Christ gathered an assembly of men around Him, dwelling among them. The church (local only) is the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27). He dwelt in His temple with His physical presence and He gave His Spirit to that small congregation around Him in John 20:22. When He ascended to heaven, that small group was still indwelt by the Holy Spirit, Himself God, until the Holy Spirit was outpoured on all those who believed on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2).

Worship in the day in which we live is where both the Holy Spirit dwells (1 Cor. 3:16) and where Christ Himself dwells (Rev. 1:19-2:1). That is only the local church. Of course, every believer is also the temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20), but corporately, that place is the church. God has prescribed the place of God’s presence and the place of worship, His Temple, and it is the church, the one where God’s people congregate.

Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19 both mention a direct result of Spirit-filling and letting the Word of Christ dwell in us richly: Singing Psalms. Before the late 19th century, most New Testament churches sang psalms, some exclusively. Were they doing something that we are missing?

In worship, we direct our music to God. What does He want to hear from us? He gave us 150 psalms, so obviously psalms. Then in the NT, in the rare texts on music, He first asks for psalms. It isn’t an alphabetical order—psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. At the least, it is a prioritization. He most wants psalms. So why have psalms been almost eliminated from churches today? Could it be that we have stopped evaluating our worship from a God-centered perspective? People got tired of singing psalms, too difficult for them to consider and often accompanied by music unappealing to human flesh. Is that a suitable criterium for stopping something God expressly told us He desired from us?

How do people sing from psalms? A few good psalters still exist. They contain all 150 psalms with tunes befitting their inspiration and grandeur. The old Metropolitan Tabernacle hymnbook of Spurgeon in London contained its own psalter. That church still sings those same psalms. The Trinity Hymnbook, Baptist Edition contains its own psalter. You can purchase other psalters which are excellent renditions, versifying (putting into rhyme) every word of the Hebrew Masoretic Old Testament text into English. Often accompanying the psalms are majestic compositions of music that conform to their lofty message.

So if you or your church aren’t singing the psalms, then why not?

I’m guessing you’ve heard of parents who washed their kids’ mouths out with soap. Still in the military the enlisted approach officers with saluting respect. Children ought to talk to their mom and dad a certain way. But more than anything, we ought to talk to God like He has told us. Personally, I have often felt in need of guidance in going to God in prayer. What could we say to Him that He would want to hear, that would even respect and love Him enough? Not one of us need to guess on this. The Lord told us exactly how we are to pray in answer to a point blank request from His disciples in Luke 11: “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples” (Lk. 11:1). If you care about talking to God, and you should, then you also are interested in how God wants us to pray to Him. As clear as the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ is, I still hear very few people who follow His model. Who could know more about what the Father wants to hear, than His Son. Who could be better on this subject? Obviously, no one. Let’s think about this text together.

In v. 1, He starts: “When ye pray.” Prayer technically is asking. His model is one of asking. When He says, “When ye pray,” that means, “When ye ask.” We don’t go to God demanding, but requesting. For that reason, when I pray, I begin everything with a request. This is a way that we respect God and His sovereignty. Some might think this is a little picky, but shouldn’t we be about prayer? We require a certain manner of speaking to communicate respect. As we go to God, going with requests gives Him that respect. So even when I begin praise, I ask God to be praised. We leave it up to God whether to accept our prayers. He has promised He would, but that doesn’t mean we should try to tell Him what to do. Here’s an example of the verbiage: “Dear Father, I ask that You would be praised, glorified, lifted up to Your rightful place of power and might and wisdom and honor.”

Do you ever hear people start their prayers like this: “Dear Jesus” or even “Dear Lord”? Jesus tells His disciples, “When ye pray, say, Our Father.” The Lord Jesus tells us to direct our prayers to the Father. The Scriptural model is not talking to the Son or the Holy Spirit. Several songs published in hymnbooks contain prayers directed to the Holy Spirit. That doesn’t even please the Holy Spirit, let alone God the Father. All Scripture came from the Holy Spirit, so He told us to pray to the Father in Luke 11 as well. I couldn’t guarantee you that God hears prayers of those who direct them at the wrong Person in the Godhead. Why not regulate your personal worship of the Lord through prayer by what He said, instead of by your feelings or opinions? Direct your prayers to the Father.

If you are a parent, perhaps you don’t know much about the seven deadly sins, but you at least know about the seven deadly excuses. Let’s recite a few together: “I forgot.” “I don’t remember.” “I didn’t know that.” “I didn’t get what you meant.” Who can be wrong when no one can know what’s wrong?

Recently a former church member sent this to someone in our church: “I believe there should be room for disagreement in many of these areas just because there is so much ambiguity and problems with two people and groups seeing exactly eye-to-eye when debating these issues. I believe there are certain truths that are more clearly revealed in Scripture than others. And while no truth should be treated lightly, we still have a greater obligation to separate over, or stand for those truths that are more clearly revealed in Scripture (like the deity of Christ, inerrancy, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, etc.).” Does this sound familiar to you? You’ve heard it. Perhaps we can call it the “big and ambiguous” argument. It comes in many different forms, and I hear it mainly from unsaved people. In essence, it is a denial of the doctrine of perspecuity, Claritas Scripturae, to throw a little Latin at you. Scripture is clear. When God says He can and will judge us for His Words (John 12:48) and that we are to live by every one of them (Mt. 4:4), that means they are clear enough to understand.

For the unsaved person, ambiguity of Scripture excuses worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. It strikes at Authority. God can’t make Himself clear enough for me, so I get to do what I want. First, God is a horrible communicator. Second, God doesn’t have to be heeded or followed. These aren’t true. God is justified in His wrath because men can know what should be known (Rom. 1). For the professing saved, worldly “Christian,” it excuses the music, dress, associations, and really about anything else. Any standard that they don’t want to keep has reasonable arguments on the other side. Not that any of those arguments represent the grammar and history, nor the historical theology, but they exist, so now no one can be expected to keep them. If you do, you’re squelching their liberty, hindering their spontaneity, raining on their parade, preparing them for therapy, causing deep psychological damage, disrupting unity, bombarding their superego, messing with their heads, and pushing them away from meaningful dialogue. The Bible—big but accessible and requiring interpretation but clear.

During my first year of graduate school, while intern pastoring a church, I took the young people to a previously scheduled event, and the moment I walked in the door, I knew I didn’t want to be there. Then the first song sung had the lyrics, “There’s a sweet, sweet spirit in this place.” I thought, “There’s certainly a spirit in this place, but I don’t think it’s the Holy Spirit.” I’ve talked to people that “are just really, really spiritual.” Some of them “have had a deep spirituality since they were very young.” I remember smiling at those times, a sort of Mona Lisa smile, and nodding in agreement. Lots of people are spiritual. Angels are spirit beings and demons are fallen angels. You get the picture.

I have to admit that I don’t understand a lot about spirituality. These people who twist their bodies in unsightly angles, others who like needles stuck like post-it notes all over their bodies, and then all the ones who hum and explore the benefits of the crystal. I don’t plan on ever traveling anywhere to any of their retreats. However, I do know quite a bit about what the Bible says about them who are spiritual. In Romans 8 Paul contrasts the carnally minded from the spiritually minded. These constitute two states of mankind. Unconverted men have carnal minds, but the saved have spiritual ones. John Owen writes, “The minding of the spirit is the actual exercise of the mind as renewed by the Holy Ghost, as furnished with a principle of spiritual life and light in its conception of spiritual things, and the setting of its affection of them.” Being spiritually minded is perhaps the greatest distinction between the regenerate and unregenerate. The ordinary track of the spiritual mind is on things that are spiritual, that is, heavenly, holy, and Scriptural things.

Since believers in Christ have spiritual minds, they characteristically think spiritual thoughts, and, therefore, do spiritual things, again, things that please God. God is a Spirit and they who worship Him, worship Him in spirit and in truth. Those who are spiritual give God what He wants. And this will manifest itself in very specific ways—the fruit of the Spirit, boldness in evangelism, right relationships in the home and at work, thankfulness, God-honoring music, and fitting into the church as the Spirit wills. Satan would love to deceive you about the concept of spirituality, to think that something exists that is superior to what God says in His Word. He can transform himself into an angel of light and that warmth you feel is much like what insects feel before they kamikaze into the camp fire. They embrace the light alright.

Most people don’t have this verse memorized, but let’s give it a shot. “These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” You give up? OK. Exodus 32:4. It seems that it was Aaron and others that said these words after having completed the task of forming a golden calf idol. A few verses later we know that God had heard the words, because He quotes them verbatim, and He isn’t happy. One would think that this would end future references to this special quote, tucked deeply into the ashamed-of-ourselves drawer. Not so. 1 Kings 12:28. “Whereupon the king (Jeroboam) took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” Jeroboam had a verse ready to defend his two new idols at Dan and Bethel. He wanted the worship in Israel as convenient as possible, and Dan and Bethel would cut down on the commute. Worship would be much easier, you wouldn’t have to blow a day of travel to Jerusalem, and if you need some evidence, there’s even a verse. There is. It’s Exodus 32:4.

You can have a verse, but that doesn’t mean it’s what God said.

Skeptics get upset because believers get to have it both ways—if things go wrong, they were trials, and if things go right, they were blessings. Either way all things work together for good. We understand this by faith in God’s purpose to conform us to the image of His Son. Well, I get upset when pantheists get to have it both ways. Global warming results in blizzards in Europe. If the weather were unseasonably warm there, that would be global warming too. Cold, global warming, warm, global warming. No matter what the temperature, it was caused by global warming. I think all of us have a right to treat that kind of flip-flopping with skepticism.

This reminds me of all of the world’s so-called science. Darwin debunked due to monstrous gaps in the fossil record. OK, then let’s look at microscopic bacteria and watch how they alter themselves to adjust to immunity. Look, see, evolution! But they’re still bacteria! They haven’t evolved. Not unless you change the definition of evolution. Oh, that’s right, they did. All of this starts with rebellion against God, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator, and then moves downill from there. We should all be glad that Judge Jones didn’t allow intelligent design in Pennsylvania. The evidence of design would destroy faith. Oh really? They also redefine faith. Faith is substance and evidence (Heb. 11:1), not a leap in the dark. God provides evidence for faith. He doesn’t give evidence for everything He said He did and will do, but enough for us to believe.