Music provides an accompaniment for almost every activity in life— most of us would agree that music doesn’t have to be sanctified in order to make it legitimate or within God’s pleasure or God’s will. However, since we understand that whatever we do in worship is under the authority of the Scriptures we must consider the question, “what music is appropriate for worship? In view of that question I’d like to consider both the words that we sing and the tunes that accompany the words.
Clearly the words matter because they ought to convey truth as we sing. We teach and admonish each other through music with the truth of Scripture. Therefore, the words must be faithful in both context and theological truth. Much of today’s praise and worship music seems to minimize theology and doctrinal content while maximizing feelings and subjective experience. Don’t get me wrong, emotions are an important part of worship but we ought not ‘manufacture’ emotions in a manipulative way.
The tune or musical style of music is the other consideration in choosing God-centered music for worship. It’s not merely a matter of personal taste. Would you agree that some music, because of its discordant and violent style, fails to promote the dignity, reverence and seriousness that we believe should accompany worship? Music is closely tied to our desires and emotions—the tune gives emotional context to the words. The tune also identifies the text. Consider opera where an actor may be singing the virtues of another character with a serious, sincere style of music — the music reinforces the sincerity of what was being said. But the same words sung with a circus-like or whimsical tune would be interpreted as mocking or sarcastic instead of complimentary. Same words, but vastly different meanings!
In the same way, the style or tune of worship music sends messages ranging from sorrow over sin to exalting worship of a holy God. So we ought ask ourselves, “are the text and tune of the music faithful to theological truth found in Scripture?” And the follow up question, “do both the text and the tune communicate the same message?”
Sadly, contemporary church music often competes with preaching for attention when in reality, music ought to serve as an aid to the proclamation of the Word. Text and tune have the potential to become an obstacle to worship by amusing, distracting, and entertaining the people and, as a result, minimizing and trivializing the preaching of the Word of God.
There is much music that God has given us to accompany a great many activities that we do in Christian liberty outside the context of worship. When we understand the regulative principle of Christian worship it shouldn’t surprise us that not all music will be adequate or suitable for worship.
