Prayer, Chorus, and Thought for the Day

Prayer for the Day

Lord I want to thank you for making a place for me in your kingdom where I am able to minister musically for you.  Lord, if I know my heart, I have presented my life to you as a living sacrifice.  I am not asking for my rights, my way or my will when it comes to my ability to music.  Lord, I am Yours and that commitment includes the ability to be a musicer.  Lord it I all Yours.  What I mean is Lord, I am giving not just a part but all of my musicing to you as a living sacrifice.  Please help me to present to you all of my musical offerings “in righteousness”.  Help them to be holy and acceptable offerings in your sight.  This I pray.  Amen.

Chorus for the Day  Your Love compels Me by Doug Holck

Thought for the Day

As a Christian musician that is alive to God, I want to be dead to sin. Romans 6:1-2, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”

 

Dead Sacrifices vs. Living Sacrifices Part 2

Dead Sacrifices vs. Living Sacrifices Part 2

Romans 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

The dead Christian musician doesn’t have to be a worship leader; give voice, trumpet, or piano lessons; direct a choir or orchestra, or direct a Christmas musical production because it is too busy being dead...  You see it majors on doing what a dead sacrifice does—nothing!  The dead sacrifice is too busy being dead to have time to be a minister of music, teach in a Christian school or a bible College.

The Christian musician who is busy being dead has all his or her attention on the long list of things that a dead musician does not do.  The Christian musician who is preoccupied being dead knows a least reasons why he or she is not qualified to do anything of a musical nature for God.  The dead Christian musician has cloaked himself or herself with the robe of righteousness so tightly that it would put a mummy to shame.

Let me make myself very clear.  I am saying that the Christian musician should be dead to sin and alive to God’s kingdom at the very same time.  The Christian musician not only has things that he or she does not do but also things that he or she DOES DO!  I believe in relationship to Jesus Christ.  I believe that the Christian musician should take time to be holy.  However, Gods word as expressed in Romans 12:1 is begging (beseeching) the Christian musician to present God a living, working, ministering, sharing body.

 

Prayer, Song, and Thought for the Day

 Prayer for the Day

I want to thank You Lord for suffering and dying on the cross for my sins and the sin of the whole world.  I do not profess to completely understand this great and wonderful mystery of grace, but I believe it with all my heart because I have experienced your saving and sanctifying grace in my heart.  I am forgiven and I am grateful.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Please accept my humble and inadequate thanks today as I pray in Your wonderful name!  Amen.

Song for the Day And Can It Be by Charles Wesley 

Thought for the Day  

Although some twentieth century Christian musicians are reticent to sing about blood , I choose to sing about Jesus’ blood being shed for sin because Hebrews 9:22 warns that,  “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission”.

 

 

Dead Sacrifices vs. Living Sacrifices Part 1

Dead Sacrifices vs. Living Sacrifices Part 1

Romans 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

            I have often referred to this Scripture in my philosophical writings since it is so germane to a Christian musician’s walk with Christ. Under the imperfect covenant, sacrifices consisted of offering the bodies of animals for atonement for sin.  But praise be unto our Lord Jesus Christ, His death on the cross became our sacrifice for sin. Hebrews 9:11 explains, “But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.  For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”  The sacrifice for atonement for sin required the shedding of blood which resulted in the death of the animal which was being sacrificed.  When Christ made the perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world, He suffered and died on the cross.

 Christian musicians understand the concept of dead sacrifices, but sometimes they do not grasp the concept of living sacrifices.   Christian musicians need to be reminded that one of the requirements of being a follower of Christ is the presentation of the musician’s body as not a dead but a living sacrifice.  What does this mean to Christian musicians?  It means that a holy and acceptable sacrifice of a Christian musician requires much more than being dead to sin.  It requires being a living sacrifice.  A dead sacrifice doesn’t have to do anything.  It cannot do anything because it is dead!

 

Thought for the Day

Thought for the Day 

Although ancient accounts of worshiping God include instrumental music in worship, I have no quarrel with those who exclude instruments as a part of worship as long as they do so as a matter of preference rather than biblical mandate.



 

Ancient Instrumental Music in Public Worship Part 2

Ancient Instrumental Music in Public Worship Part 2

Although Hiram Bingham may have dismissed the matter of instrumental music as a part of public worship precipitately, the Old Testament accounts of music record the use for instrumental music in worship repeatedly.  Although in the New Testament music is not mentioned nearly as much as in the Old Testament, it is mentioned.  Although writers argue about the meaning of Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16, I Corinthians 14:26, James 5:13 as well as the mention of singing psalms, the meaning of words like psalmos (5568) and Psallo (5567) have strong meaning of both vocal and instrumental music.  

The fact that the Septuagint considered psalm singing to connote vocal and instrumental music should be ancient evidence enough that there was no question, at the time of the Greek translation by the seventy scholars, that it was proper biblically and historically to accompany singing with musical instruments. Although St. Basil the Great of Caesarea is reported to have expressly condemned instrumental music, he, along with St Gregory of Nyssa, admitted that psalm singing as recorded in the Bible included (implicated) the use of instrumental accompaniment. For a very thorough study of this topic please read several chapters on vocal and instrumental music in my book Music of the Bible in Christian Perspective.

What are the implications of the ancient writings and opinions of the Church fathers about the use of instrumental music with music worship?  To say the least, the church fathers did not agree with each other, and from the ambiguity of some of their writings, it becomes apparent that they had much difficulty interpreting the Hebrew Old Testament writings and early O.T. translations like the LXX.  It seems that perhaps their own opinions and worship traditions clouded their views of how to interpret what the O.T. actually said about the use of musical instruments with singing in worship.

 

 

Thought for the Day

Thought for the Day 

The most ancient accounts of true worship of YHVH which are extant to date included the use of musical instruments with vocal music.

 

Ancient Instrumental Music in Public Worship Part 1

Ancient Instrumental Music in Public Worship Part 1 

All of the arguments for and against the use of instruments in public worship have been considered for centuries without final resolution.  Marvin Vincent discussed the opinions of some of the church fathers on both sides of the issue.  He stated, “Some think that the verb here has its original signification of singing with an instrument.  This is the dominant sense in the Septuagint and both Basil and Gregory of Nyssa define a psalm as implying instrumental accompaniment; and Clement of Alexandria, while forbidding the use of the flute in the agape, permitted the harp.  But neither Ambrose nor Chrysostom mention it in their panegyrics upon music, mention instrumental music, and Basil expressly condemns it.  Bingham dismisses the matter summarily, and cites Justin Martyr as saying that instrumental music was not used in the Christian church.” Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament by Marvin R Vincent pp. 269-270

One can see from the opinions of the church fathers that they were of differing opinions concerning the use of instruments with vocal music.  The greatest impetus for supporting the use of instruments in worship is the fact that the worship examples in the Bible record very clearly that instrumental music was a part of ancient public worship and is therefore definitely an ancient landmark of worship.

Whether or not the church fathers supported the use of instrumental worship in worship is not the sine qua non of historical musical worship.  Although every Christian musician would be interested in what went on musically in the early church, their beliefs and policies should never be considered a higher authority than what is recorded about musical worship in the Bible.

 

Prayer for this blog in April

 Prayer for this blog in April

Lord, please allow this Music philosophy blog to be a blessing during the month of April. As I have prayed so many times, please let this blog go around the world to places where I cannot go.  Lord, thank you that you are answering my prayer by guiding people from seventy one countries find and read my blog posts. Help me as I prepare a post for each day to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.  Only you know Lord who is out there ministering musically that needs a fresh anointing for musical ministry.  Help me to know which philosophical and devotional topics are important and will be a blessing.  Lord, you know that at times I am not sure what topics to write about concerning music. Please anoint the blog and the blogger.  These things I ask in your wise and wonderful name.  Amen.

Thank you for a Great Month of March

       Thank you for a Great Month of March 

         Last month was the fifteenth month of my blog which contains devotional and philosophical thoughts for Christian musicians.  It is my sincere prayer that  my posts in 2014 will stimulate your thinking and that they will brought honor to our heavenly Father.  My posts in the month of March were mostly devotional in nature in the first half of the month.  Notable in the second half are some posts on instrumental music education.

       Since we began on January 2 of 2013 we have received a total of over 22,850 page views with about 850 views in February of 2014. Since I started this blog the page views have come from 71 different countries.  These views have come from Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Cayman Islands,  China, Congo [DRC],Croatia, Denmark, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland (Republic of),  Iran, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia,  Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Oman, Philippines, Poland, Porto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Turks & Caicos Islands, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the USA. 

        I would like to welcome the Countries of Greece and Iran which were added to our blog family during March. If you are from a country that has been omitted please email me your country’s name.  Please pray with me that God will allow this Music Philosophy Blog to continue to go places where I will never have the opportunity to minister musically in person. Please pray for me, i am in the process of writing a general music philosophy book and a devotional book for musicians.

       Again I want to thank all you busy pastors and musicians who have taken the time to view my music philosophy blog during the month of November.  Please continue to pray that God will guide each post and allow it to reach those who need encouragement to keep ministering for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

       The main reason that I started this Music Philosophy blog is that although there is much music philosophy information on the net, not very much of it is from a biblical perspective.  Please share the blog address with your friends.   If you have an area of music or fine arts philosophy that troubles you, please feel free to let me know and I will include it in our discussions.  My email address is Garenlwolf@gmail.com.