What does Scripture say? I think you might be surprised. In his letter to the church at Ephesus Paul wrote,
... Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 5:18-20)You see the concept of "addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." That seems a bit strange, perhaps. I mean, how do we address one another ... with music? Paul offered the same idea in his letter to the Colossians.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col 3:16)Again we have this notion of communicating with each other with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. How does that work? Well, since he wrote it and repeated it, maybe we should take a look.
Both tests talk about interacting with each other with music. Both include the same three versions -- psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Psalms are generally accompanied by an instrument and likely come straight from the Psalms. As such, they are inspired by God. Hymns (in the biblical term) are a direct praise to God. They may incorporate Scripture and they may include instruments, but the primary thrust is singing directed toward God. Spiritual songs would be any songs with sacred subjects. They might be direct praises (hymns) or psalms or exhortations or teachings or other spiritual matters. It begs the question: how many worship leaders aim to include music in worship that are specifically these types, and how many just aim for "something that moves me"?
So we have the medium settled. Now ... what is it? Note that the first text references addressing one another and the second speaks of teaching and admonishing one another. We are commanded to use these musical mediums to do that with each other. But how? Well, in the Colossians verse it is predicated on "thankfulness in your hearts to God." Thus, God is, first and foremost, in view, and, in particular, thanksgiving is important. The Ephesians text includes that "giving thanks always for everything" as the Colossians passage did, so they're both in agreement there. Now, I think we gain some real insight from the Ephesians text. It begins with being filled with the Spirit. That's actually a continuous present tense -- "be being filled with the Spirit." So as we're being being filled with the Spirit, we're now going to communicate in song. The next thing to notice there is that it is first "making melody to the Lord with your heart." It is first an inner thing between you and God. In this version of the concept, then, we are interacting with each other when we are making melody to the Lord.
Isn't that interesting? Apparently we are communicating with each other when we worship God together. We are intended to address one another and to teach and admonish one another in our singing to the Lord. Many of us try to block others out. Even worship leaders seem prone to try to eliminate the awareness of those around in order to focus on God, and, while that seems perfectly suitable on the surface, these texts seem to say that our worshipful singing to the Lord is as much a communication with each other as it is with God. How we worship, how we participate, how grateful we are to the Lord, and how much worship is coming from the heart are all significant in this transaction, because while worship focuses on God, God intends it to speak to those around us as well. I'd suspect that, in our "worship wars" about the proper music and setting and all, very few of us consider what we're saying to God and to others in our worship.
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