the danger of music as ‘worship’
By PETER JENSEN
At the moment there seems to be a lot of emphasis on experiencing God through music. I am all in favour of music and I particularly love congregational singing. Sometimes I am caught up in the expression of our faith and my emotions are heightened to the point of tears of joy.
But what I need to remember is that music and singing in themselves may be of no spiritual value and indeed may be harmful if they lead me off in the wrong direction. I am sure that the prophets of Baal were pretty good at singing songs to their fierce and false lord. They may even have been beautiful and appealing songs.
So far I have not heard the equivalent of Baal worship in any of our churches and I am not expecting to! But I have heard singing which, while addressed to Jesus, falls very far short of a piety which is shaped by the Bible. In particular there is a sentimentality which poses no challenge to us at a spiritual level, and seems to serve only to give the singers a private emotional high.
That is why we must remain Bible people. Our minds need to be captured by the word of God and our spiritual lives need to be understood through the teaching of the word if we are to grasp what God is doing, and save ourselves from counterfeit experience.
At the moment there seems to be a lot of emphasis on experiencing God through music. I am all in favour of music and I particularly love congregational singing. Sometimes I am caught up in the expression of our faith and my emotions are heightened to the point of tears of joy.
But what I need to remember is that music and singing in themselves may be of no spiritual value and indeed may be harmful if they lead me off in the wrong direction. I am sure that the prophets of Baal were pretty good at singing songs to their fierce and false lord. They may even have been beautiful and appealing songs.
So far I have not heard the equivalent of Baal worship in any of our churches and I am not expecting to! But I have heard singing which, while addressed to Jesus, falls very far short of a piety which is shaped by the Bible. In particular there is a sentimentality which poses no challenge to us at a spiritual level, and seems to serve only to give the singers a private emotional high.
That is why we must remain Bible people. Our minds need to be captured by the word of God and our spiritual lives need to be understood through the teaching of the word if we are to grasp what God is doing, and save ourselves from counterfeit experience.
posted by Pingu at 9/05/2006 01:12:00 am
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