Ephesians 5:19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;

Psalms 150:1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.
Psalms 150:2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.
Psalms 150:3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Psalms 150:4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
Psalms 150:5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.
Psalms 150:6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

I am excited that the Body of Christ is beginning to value depth and cogency in music again. Music that expresses our earthly and brotherly love for Christ is Cainish in its offering. I understand personal songs can be personal expressions of How God is dealing with us and I have no problems with that unless we begin to bring them into worship as a corporate and church sense, this is not where our person should be expressed but His Person.

A musical perspective has to change when the doctrines of sovereignty have taken their appropriate place again from our pulpits. We are no longer expressing ourselves to God (as if we have something good to offer Him) instead we are built up and encouraged by what He is delivering to us. We are longer singing about our faithfulness but His. I am encouraged that many churches are beginning to value singing about Theology not just preaching it. I found this by Martin Luther and it made me laugh…

Foreword to Georg Rhau’s Collection, “Symphoniae iucundae”.

“I, Doctor Martin Luther, wish all lovers of the unshackled art of music grace and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ!

I truly desire that all Christians would love and regard as worthy the lovely gift of music, which is a precious, worthy, and costly treasure given to mankind by God.

The riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to discuss and describe them…. In summa, next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits…

Our dear fathers and prophets did not desire without reason that music be always used in the churches. Hence, we have so many songs and psalms.

This precious gift has been given to man alone that he might thereby remind himself that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and extolling God.

However, when man’s natural musical ability is whetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is, after all, His product and His gift; we marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance, where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress and embrace.

A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”

- Martin Luther

Georg Rhau. 1488 – 1548

Just some morning thoughts

Able