In our last blog we discovered that music has a powerful impact on people. God created music and it is good. It seems so sad that this wonderful creation of God has caused so much division in his church.
When I became Worship Ministry Director for our church about twelve years ago I discovered that music is a subject near and dear to people’s hearts. And through study I’ve discovered it’s something near and dear to God’s heart as well. Music is mentioned over 800 times in the Bible. The Psalms teach us that music was used to praise and worship God and other passages show it was used for other purposes as well. Here we have a few famous songs from the Bible.
- Exodus 15:1-2: Moses’ song of victory and praise after God led Israel out of Egypt and saved them by parting the Red Sea; Miriam joined in the singing too
- Numbers 21:17: Israel’s song of praise to God for giving them water in the desert
- Deuteronomy 32:1-43: Moses’ song of Israel’s history with thanksgiving and praise as the Hebrews were about to enter the Promised Land
- Judges 5:2-31: Deborah and Barak’s song of praise thanking God for Israel’s victory over King Jabin’s army at Mount Tabor
- 2 Samuel 22:2-51: David’s song of thanks and praise to God for rescuing him from Saul and his other enemies
- Song of Solomon 1-8: Solomon’s song of love celebrating the union of husband and wife
- Isaiah 26:1: Isaiah’s prophetic song about how the redeemed will sing in the New Jerusalem
- Ezra 3:11: Israel’s song of praise at the completion of the temple’s foundation
- Luke 1:46-55: Mary’s song of praise to God for the conception of Jesus
- Luke 1:68-79: Zechariah’s song of praise for the promise of a son
- Acts 16:25: Paul and Silas sang hymns in prison
- Revelation 5:9-10: The “new song” of the 24 elders acclaiming Christ as worthy to break the seven seals of God’s scroll
- Revelation 14:3: The song of the 144,000 redeemed from the earth
- Revelation 15:3-4: The song of all the redeemed in praise of the Lamb who redeemed them
In biblical times music didn’t seem to be controversial with God’s people. Unfortunately that has not been true throughout church history, nor is it true today. People have definite opinions about what they like and don’t like about music – and most seem to have the delusion of thinking their opinions are God’s opinions. What we prefer, we think God prefers. We’ll take a closer look at this in our next few blogs.
