A Prescriptive Approach--Part 9

A Prescriptive Approach-Part 9
In yesterday's discussion we considered whether it was proper to music unto God with noise based music.  Many people misunderstand the OT words for great joy, great acclamatiom, shouting for joy with hamown that definitely means noise.However, the Bible does say in Ezekiel 26:13, “And I will cause the noise (hamown 1995) of thy songs to cease...” and Amos 5:23, “Take thou away from me the noise (hamown 1995) of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.”  The word hamown used in the aforementioned Scripture does not mean strength or joy or acclamation but rather NOISE.

            If God said in the Book of Amos that He would not hear the melody of their viols because of the noise then what causes a contemporary Christian musician to conclude that God will accept noise in church music today?  If God said take this musical noise “away from me”, what makes a twenty-first century church musician believe that he has changed His mind today? (See  Church Music Matters by Garen L. Wolf  chapter 11 Aesthetics and the Christian Musician)

            This discussion of Bible principles concerning music could continue here for pages and pages.  However, I will leave that discussion to those mentioned above.  If you are interested, I suggest you read my book, Music of the Bible in Christian Perspective, which treats this subject thoroughly.  We know that there are Bible principles that make a prescriptive approach to music philosophy biblically sound.  By Bible standards, church music is not all a matter of taste.  The Bible teaches that there are principles that do govern all music practice including both secular and sacred.  It only makes sense that when the Holy Spirit admonishes us in the musical discourse of Ephesians 5 to prove “what is acceptable unto the Lord”, that He would also provide from the Word of God principles that would enable us to go about the process of “proving” what is or is not acceptable unto the Lord.

            So, twenty-first century Christian musicians do not need to be “programmed” or “caught in the wheel” since they may choose to retain God in their musical knowledge and be renewed in the spirit of their mind.  Church musicians do not have to accept the world’s music matrix but rather they may elect to believe the principles set forth in the Bible and base a Christocentric music philosophy on these eternal principles.