Evangelicals Now
<< May 2006 >>

The Music Exchange

Public and private worship

As I go around doing the Worship Conference, the questions that people ask invariably give me an idea for an article. I’ve just been to Latvia (I can’t name-drop, so I might as well place-drop) and met a small but faithful group of Christians who are standing for the truth in a largely secular society. The other thing I noticed about Latvians is that they still clap when an aeroplane lands.

During one of the sessions we took time to analyse the content of some contemporary songs, and we noticed that many of them don’t even mention Jesus or God, so focussed are they on expressing individual sentiments. This gave rise to the question, ‘Is there a difference between the songs we sing on our own to Jesus in private and the songs we sing together as a body of believers?’

My own heart

The answer I’d give is, ‘Not necessarily — there are some subjective songs which encourage sentiments that we could all use to sing to Jesus. A song I sing frequently in my own heart is ‘I love you Lord, and I lift my voice…’. I know it’s an old song, but the tune has stuck in my head for years. The content of the song isn’t profound and there’s hardly any objective theology there, but it is a simple response which could be echoed by all. However, if our personal song of choice went, ‘Well ev’rybody dance, now, get in the Holy Ghost’ (yes, there is a Christian song which has this line), then there is a response which may not be able to be echoed by all.

Instead, I would argue that the songs we sing together ought to be as full of theology as possible. The reason I say this is because of the directive of Scripture itself.

Vertical and horizontal

In Ephesians 4.11-16, Paul urges God’s people to grow in maturity as we speak the truth to each other in love, having been taught the truth in the Word of God. The general pattern is that as we are taught ‘vertically’ by God in his Word, we then build each other up ‘horizontally’ through that same word. Therefore, we need to take every opportunity to sing songs which do that job, as indeed the song-writers of the Bible do.

In 1 Corinthians 14.16-17, Paul tells the immature Corinthian church that if ‘you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say ‘Amen’ to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying? For you may be giving thanks well enough, but the other person is not being built up’ (ESV).

Missing the point

On one conference I attended, the speaker turned this passage around and told us ‘not to sing too much content, otherwise you end up praying with the mind and not the spirit’.

This completely misses the point the passage is making. Paul is actually writing to correct such thinking. He is encouraging his hearers to engage their minds for the edification of others as they praise God. This means that the content of what we sing is of utmost importance. This is why I think it is important that the songs we sing congregationally are weighted on the doctrinal side rather than on the purely devotional. This isn’t swinging the pendulum too far the other way, or throwing the baby out with the bath water — in no way is Paul saying here that devotional songs should not be sung. (That would be contrary to many of the songs of Scripture.) Instead, it should be the natural response to sing with our spirit as our minds are engaged by the truth.

The problem is that most of today’s songs are written from a personal and devotional perspective, and sometimes (though not by any means in every case) these songs are not suitable to use in a congregational setting. It’s interesting to look through modern song books and see how many begin with ‘I’.

We’ll have different thoughts on which songs do a good job of fulfilling the Pauline model, but our goal should be to aim for songs which will build up the corporate church in the truth about Jesus, rather than the truth about ‘me’.

Richard Simpkin