Everyone loves music. Singing is a prominent—and favorite—part of each service in Avenue T. Many congregations dedicate a Sunday night each month to learning new songs and to sing old favorites. Annual singings can draw thousands of people. Many Christians sing daily as they go about their tasks (James 5:13).
One of the most striking differences between churches of Christ and most other religious groups is the fact that churches of Christ do not use instrumental (mechanical) music in worship. Many people are surprised to discover, upon visiting our services, that this is true. They are probably not aware of our reasons for rejecting the use of Instrumental Music in our worship to God. Sometimes even those who are members of the church of Christ do not fully understand the absence of Instrumental Music from our worship services.
Instrumental Music Is Not Authorized By The New Testament
It is always our goal to “speak where the Bible speaks.” (1 Peter 4.11.) “In reading the New Testament we find that early Christians were taught only to sing.” Music is mentioned in the New Testament in only a limited number of places. But in each of the eight New Testament references where music is mentioned, it is singing which is specified.
Note the references:
- Matthew 26.30: “And after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” (Also Mark 14.26)
- Acts 16.25: “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”
- Romans 15.9: We find a quotation from the Psalms in which there is the expression: “Sing to Thy name.”
- 1 Corinthians 14.15: “I shall sing with the spirit and I shall sing with the mind also.”
- Ephesians 5.19: “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.”
- Colossians 3.16: “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your heads to God.”
- Hebrews 2.12: “In the midst of the congregation I will sing Thy praise.”
- James 5.13: “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praises.”
These passages represent the totality of the New Testament teaching on music in worship. It is true that there are three passages in the book of Revelation where music is mentioned, but in these instances, it is obviously used in a symbolic way to stand for something else. For example, in Revelation 14.2-4 the voice John heard speaking from heaven is said to be “like the sound of harpists playing on their harps.” The argument is sometimes made that this indicates heavenly approval of instrumental music in worship. But of course, it does not! The language in this passage is obviously symbolic. This same chapter also speaks of four living creatures (beasts), celibates (virgins), Babylon, a golden crown, a sharp sickle and a wine press–all obvious symbols. The harps are used by John to suggest the sweetness of the singing which he heard just as thunder and the sound of many waters represent the volume and the swelling rhythm of that heavenly singing. Note specifically that John does not say he heard harps, but rather he heard voices that were so sweet they were “Like the sound of harpists.” (14.2.)
Each of the New Testament passages dealing with music in worship use the specific word “sing” rather than the general term “music” — that limits us to doing only what the word “sing” allows. In 1 Corinthians 4.6, Paul warns us that we must not do more than the scriptures allow: “That in us ye might learn not to go beyond the things which are written.” (ASV) “Such is the nature of our relation to God, that we cannot know what acts of worship are acceptable to Him except from revelation.” “From the very nature of the case, then, we are limited in our acts of worship to those which are authorized by the scriptures, and we sin if we go beyond them.” 2(cf. John 4.24; John 17.17.)
Instrumental Music Was Not Used by the New Testament Church
The absence of any mention of mechanical instruments being used in worship in the New Testament is easily understood when we realize that it was not the practice of the Apostolic church to use such instruments. Bible scholars and historians of all faiths agree on the entire absence of instrumental music from the New Testament church.
No Bible verse records the early Christians using instruments in worship. The phrase a cappella, which now means “without instrumental accompaniment,” originally meant “as in church.” Instruments were available and widely used in pagan worship and theaters, as well as the Jewish temple, but they were not used by the church.
When did Instrumental Music originate in Church?
If the use of mechanical instruments of music is not authorized by the New Testament, and was not permitted in the early church, where did the practice originate? In the 2nd and 3rd Centuries, the purity of the church was tarnished by gradual departures from the New Testament pattern. This departure from the truth had been predicted by the writers of the New Testament. Paul, for example, wrote: “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.” (1 Timothy 4.1-2.)
According to The American Cyclopedia: “Pope Vitalian is related to have first introduced organs into some of the churches of Western Europe, about 670, but the earliest trustworthy account is that of the one sent as a present by the Greek emperor, Constantine Copronymus, to Pepin, king of the Franks, in 755.” (Vol. 12, p. 688.)
At first, the organ was played only before and after the “liturgy” (worship service). Years later, it was moved into the service proper. Then it caused such controversy that in ad 1054 it led to a split between Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. (Orthodox Churches, with few exceptions, continue to use vocal music only to this day.)
Most Protestant churches did not use instruments until the 1800s. In the time of the Reformation, churches opposed instruments in stronger language than we would likely use today. Martin Luther, founder of the Lutheran Church, called the instrument “an ensign of Baal” (McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia, from Luther, Martin, Realencyklopadie Fur Protestantische Theologie und Kirche). John Calvin, founder of the Presbyterian Church, wrote, “Musical instruments in celebrating the praises of God would be no more suitable than the burning of incense, the lighting up of lamps, and the restoration of the other shadows of the law” (Comments on Psalm 33). John Wesley (1703–1791), founder of the Methodist Church, said: “I have no objection to instruments of music, in our chapels, provided they are neither heard nor seen” (quoted by his personal friend, Adam Clark in Clark’s Commentary, Vol. IV, p. 686). Adam Clarke (1762–1832), prominent Methodist scholar, wrote: “Music as a science, I esteem and admire: but instruments of music in the house of God I abominate and abhor” (Comments on Amos 6). Charles Spurgeon, widely-recognized as the greatest Baptist preacher, wrote in his comments on Psalm 42: “We might as well pray by machinery as praise by it” (Treasury of David, Volume 1, 272). He never allowed instruments in his ten-thousand-seat Metropolitan Tabernacle in London.
Our practice of not using instrumental music stems from our conviction that we must add nothing to the Scriptures.
In this article we wanted to express why churches of Christ do not use instruments of music in worship. We have seen that:
- Instrumental Music is not sanctioned by the New Testament;
- Instrumental Music was not used in the Early Church;
- Instrumental Music originated in the Catholic Church; and
- Instrumental Music is a source of strife and disunity.