"Does Christian music only have one purpose?" That is a question that was asked to me recently (Ok, it was a comment on yesterday's post - HERE). So, I put together a reply to the comment yesterday, but I thought it was a great question, so I wanted to bring it to the forefront by having it be its own post - This is an incomplete answer below, so I would appreciate any additions/clarifications that "you" could provide.
The question was does Christian music only have one purpose, but I am going to change the question answered here to: What is the purpose for Christian music?
1) 1 Corinthians 10:31 "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." - Christian music should be made for the purpose of bringing glory to God.
2) Colossians 3:16 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." - Christian music should be made for the purpose of aiding in the task of letting the word of Christ dwell in you richly. It does this by having the music Teach and Admonish one another.
3) 1 Corinthians 14:26 "How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying." - Christian music should be made for the purpose of edifying one another.
Those are my thoughts (yeah, I cheated by using a Bible verse too!). Do "you" have any other thoughts?
If I could add one more thing, I think we can conclude that Christian music ought to be for His pleasure primarily, not ours.
5 comments:
Is there room for non-Christian music in the life of a Christian?
Of course there is room for non-Christian music in the life of a Christian... How else could you use an elevator?!
I would think that if a Christian is given the opportunity to listen to whatever music he wants without any restrictions (i.e., he's not at work or in a public setting where music may have restrictions), that he should choose to listen to music that is meant to glorify God.
Therefore we have now arisen the issue of Classical Music, Patriotic music (songs that don't bring glory to God - think "You're a grand ol' flag..."), love songs for your wife, etc...
Do you agree with the philosophy that music prepares the heart to receive God's word? Would that thinking be eligible using your second point (Col 3)?
Well, I think Colossians 3 speaks of the music itself teaching and admonishing and therefore assisting the person to let the word of Christ dwell in him richly.
At the same time, I agree with the philosophy that music can (clearly not all music does) prepare the heart to receive God's word.
Example: When Elisha was brought before 3 kings to enquire of the word of the Lord for them before going to battle, Elisha asked for a minstrel. And when the minstrel played, he followed with "Thus saith the Lord." 2 Kings 3:11-16. Now, it could be that the minstrel soothed his spirit (think David playing the harp for Saul), after Elisah was chewing out the king of Israel, and the minstrel simply soothed him to be able to hear the word of the Lord? But I think the philosophy is valid.
Continuing on this thought, I think the 'style' of music becomes a concern when the purpose is to prepare your heart to receive God's word. In the case of the minstrel and of David before Saul, the music would have been more of a peaceful music than a loud and joyful music (which is a valid type of music in the Bible).
hmm what about the verse that talks about the pharisees whenever they disregarded Gods law by saying that if that person has something that can help their parents if they keep it for the honor of God and not help their parents they are disregarding Gods law because he teaches honor thy mother and father but they go off basically saying not to in a way.(sorry im not taking my time to write this)so we musnt disregard his messages or did it mean commandments? anyway if we disregard his words saying that whatever you feed your spirit thats what it will be filled with,worldy music well im not saying instrumentals but bands like maroon five or breaking benjamin. so would that be considering disregarding that verse he teaches of?
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