Musical Worship - GracEmail - Edward Fudge Edward Fudge GracEmail: When people are told that God commanded instrumental music for worship it is difficult to undo the untold damage. Many honest and well meaning preachers really believe that GOD COMMANDED INSTRUMENTS to be used in Jewish worship. Because He has not changed His law, God permits us multiple choice on how we worship Him. That is a false conclusion based upon false evidence. Most, however, don't have Scriptural basis for what they believe.
Commands Examples and Necessary Inferences
Over and over in the Bible and historic 'scholarship' A Church of Christ is said to be Apostolic if it is built upon (educated by) the Prophets and Apostles. The Spirit OF (preposition) Christ spoke through the Prophets (only) in a spiritual sense and Jesus of Nazareth made these prophecies more certain.
2 Peter 1 denies that these certified prophecies are to be private interpreted which means "futher expounded." Since the direct command is for the elders to teach that which has been taught and the command of Christ from the wilderness onward is in a simple state:
Acts 15:21 For Moses of old time2 Peter 2 defines false teachers who do NOT teach that which is "left for our memories" by eye and ear witnesses. This chapter also defines the instrumental Music which marks the corruption which is imposed when people tamper with the Word.
hath in every city them that preach him,
being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
Alexander Campbell Christian Baptist: DAVID the king and prophet foretold that when Messiah the Lord would ascend to his throne, he would bestow gifts upon men. This passage of Psalms, lxviii. 18. Paul (Eph. iv. 8.) applies to our Lord. When he ascended he says, "he gave," and by spiritual gifts qualified "some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers."
Psalms 68:18 Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive:
thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also,
that the LORD God might dwell among them.Ephesians 4:7 But unto every one of us is given grace
according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Ephesians 4:8 Wherefore he saith,
When he ascended up on high,
he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
Ephesians 4:9 (Now that he ascended,
what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
Ephesians 4:10 He that descended is the same also that ascended
up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)
Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some,
prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;Peter also, on the day of Pentecost, ascribed all the stupendous gifts vouchsafed on that day to the Lord Jesus.
"Therefore," says he, (Acts ii. 33.) "being exalted by the right hand of God,
and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father,
He hath poured out that which you now see and hear."These "distributions of the Holy Spirit," as Macknight renders Heb. ii. 4. issued in the perfect qualification of apostles with "the word of wisdom;" prophets with the "word of knowledge;" evangelists with "tongues and miracles;" pastors with an immediate possession of all the requisites to feeding the flock, and teachers with the means necessary to instructing the novices in all the christian doctrine.
Hebrews 2:1 Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed
to the things which we have heard,
lest at any time we should let them slip.
Hebrews 2:2 For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast,
and every transgression and disobedience
received a just recompence of reward;
Hebrews 2:3 How shall we escape,
if we neglect so great salvation;
which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord,
and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;
Hebrews 2:4 God also bearing them witness,
both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles,
and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?Edward is still fudging the Bible and history trying to remove hell
Edward Fudge No Everlasting Punishment
Edward thinks that hell annihialates the sinner: if so, why is there so much text about God punishing the evil for EVER AND EVER? Couldn't God have been as smart as we and just said: "The Evil will die like Rover."
Edward Fudge says that sinners are cast into the lak of fire THEN they are Executed: doesn't that insult God's grace? Cast into the Lake of Fire IS THE SECOND DEATH but the Spirit says they will suffer for ever and ever: Aions and Aions.
Secondly, PERISHING is not the same as being cast into hell as Lake of Fire.
Matthew 5:29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee:
for it is profitable for thee that
one of thy members should perish,
and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
Pĕr-ĕo I. To pass away, come to nothing; to vanish, disappear, be lost:
II. To pass away, to be destroyed, to perish
1. To perish, lose one's life, die (class.): non intellego, quamobrem, si vivere honeste non possunt, perire turpiter velint;
Apollu_mi or apol-uō destroy utterly, kill, in Hom. mostly of death in battle, cease to exist, opp. gignesthai
The Fire That Consumes The Fire starter or Musical Minister(ess) for Apollo, Abaddon, Apollyon: "Hell" was just outside of Jerusalem: maybe coming to a church near you.
Malachi 3 defines music as marks of Sorcerers when Messiah came.
Malachi 4 defines the "baptism" of Spirit (Wind) and Fire for this Viper Race.
See that Psallo is never a musical word: it just means pluck with your fingers NEVER with a plectrum.
See Psalmos: did the effeminate beat Jesus black and blue with their FLUTE?
See the Logos versus Mythos or Straiight Versus Homosexual sects.
Edward Fudge ganged up with the AntiPatsPats (Anti-Patternists Patternists) in New Wineskins. None of them grasp that the church is not a TUTU made up of lots of pieces: it is a one-piece pattern defined inclusively and exclusively as the synagogue or church in the wilderness.
Jesus warns about the WOLVES and that connects to the OLD WINESKIN religion which the Israelites practiced in Egypt and to which they were abandoned after the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai. This patternism continued as Zeus and Dionysus worship as the abomination of desolation in the temple. They tried to get Jesus to bow: he said that as MEN they were like CHILDREN piping trying to force others to sing or lament and dance the Dionysus "initiation."
I have collected proof that the OLD WINESKIN was practiced at the Temple from which the AntiPatPats get their old patternism. It isn't pretty but it fits the patternism of all recorded persona of religious musicians including the Levites.
While there are judgmental people on both sides of the music issue, our approach is to look at Biblical and Historical facts. We have no God-like urge to pronounce either side able to go to heaven because of what they do on that one hour out of 168. However, those who try to soften up the "underbelly" and promote musical worship as acceptable in non-musical churches automatically denounce as wrong those who reject musical attempts to transport the worshipers into the presence of God.
When people are told that God commanded instrumental music for worship it is difficult to undo the untold damage. If He commanded music under the law then His claimed silence for Christian worship gives most people the authority to go right ahead and divide the church. Contrary to the widening claim, the Bible is filled with warnings that any form of loud vocal or instrumental music is both a cause and a symptom that people were not listening to the "voice of a whispered silence" from God. Secular and church history makes this clear.
We remember with fondness Edward' Fudge's father and mother and the red clay still sticks to the heels of our soul.
Read the following GracEmail from Edward Fudge to set the stage for our comments offered with fear and trembling:
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN WORSHIP by Edward Fudge A visitor to my local church recently asked, "Why do Churches of Christ not use instrumental music but other Christian churches do?"
Edward Fudge: "God expressly commands instruments in the Old Testament," I told him, " but the New Testament does not specifically command them for Christian use.
Some Christians therefore think it obvious that God still wants accompanied praise today, since he didn't say that he has changed his mind. Others think it obvious that God has changed his mind, since he didn't repeat the command in the New Testament. Both, of course, are reasoning from silence.
Not on your life: Instruments were used for the plague stopping animal sacrifices, for dedicatory or purification rituals connected with the like the nations temple. The "congregation" never worshiped with congregational singing and instrumental accompaniment! Instruments are connected with ignorance of God's Word at least four times (Isaiah 5, Ezekiel 33, Amos 5, 6, 8 and Job 21) Click for clear evidence.
Christ in the prophets say that God did not command any of the sacrificial system.
Stephen was murdered because he debunked the temple and whole system: it was the result of God abandoning the nation:
Acts 7:41 And they made a calf in those days,
and offered sacrifice unto the idol,
and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
Euphrainō , Ep. euphr-, fut. Att.155.12, Pi.I.7(6).3
II. Pass., make merry, enjoy oneself, Xen. Sym. 7.5
ai. mēkhanēn, in the theatre, Antiph.191.15; so “epi tas mēkhanas katapheugousi theous
4. take up and bear, as a burden, “moron” A.Pers.547; “athlon” S.Tr.80; “algos” A.R.4.65.
2. raise by words, hence, praise, extol, E.Heracl.322, etc.; ai. logō to exaggerate, D.21.71.
Mēkha^n-ē “panta sophismata kai pasas m. epepoiēkee es autous Dareios” Hdt. 3.152; mēkhanais Dios by the arts of Zeus, “sophistōn m.” Pl.Lg.908d
If you teach that the Spirit taught something He did not:
Jer 23:17 They say still unto them that despise me,Blasphemy is not redeemable: that is why the musical discorders will not--can not--ever repent.
The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace;
and they say unto every one that walketh
after the imagination of his own heart,
No evil shall come upon you.
Despise tthe Word of God of God and using your own words is:
Blasphēm-eō , pf.A. “beblasphēmēka” D.18.10:—speak profanely of sacred things, “eis theous” Pl.R.381e; offer rash prayers, Id.Alc.2.149c; b. kata tinosutter imprecations against, Aeschin.1.180.2. speak ill or to the prejudice of one, slander, “peri tēs emēs diatribēs” Isoc.15.2, cf. D.l.c., ib.82; “b. kata tinos” Isoc.12.65, cf. Arist.Fr.44; “hosa eis hēmas eblasphēmēsan” D.51.3; “b. tina” Babr.71.6, Ev.Luc.23.39, etc.: abs., Phld.Lib.p.8 O.:—Pass., to have evil spoken of one, “beblasphēmēmenous” Id.Vit.p.12 J., cf. 1 Ep.Cor.10.30.3. speak impiously or irreverently of God, blaspheme, “eis ton Kurion” LXX Da.3.29(96); “eis to pneuma to hagion” Ev.Marc.3.29; eis ta theia Vett. Val.58.12; “tous theous” Id.67.20: abs., LXX 2 Ma.10.34, al., Ev.Matt.9.3.
Psalms are poems and poems tend to be poetic. Psalms are a poetic but NOT metrical version of the history of the Israelites and Jews. They were collected in five books to fit the first five books of the Bible. While they might be RECITED or spoken as Paul absolutely demands, they are for teaching and admonishing one another and not for a PATTERNISTIC praise service as one of the oldest pagan supersitions.
The main function of poetry in heroic-age society appears to be to stir the spirit of the warriors
to heroic actions by praising their exploits and those of their illustrious ancestors,
by assuring a long and glorious recollection of their fame, and by supplying them with models of ideal heroic behaviour.
One of the favorite pastimes of the nobility in heroic ages in different times and places has been to gather in banquet halls to hear heroic songs,
in praise of famous deeds sung by professional singers as well as by the warriors themselves.
Heroic songs also were often sung before a battle, and such recitations had tremendous effect on the morale of the combatants. Among the Fulani (Fulbe) people in The Sudan, for instance, whose epic poetry has been recorded, a nobleman customarily set out in quest of adventures accompanied by a singer (mabo), who also served as his shield bearer.
The singer was thus the witness of the heroic deeds of his lord, which he celebrated in an epic poem called baudi.
That is why two major PRAISE words speak of lifting up the POWER hand with the taunt songs to drive the enemy into panic or to mock the enemy when the battle was over. Remember that Jepthah's daughter got into trouble for being with the "musical greeting girls."
Edward Fudge: Less explicitly, the New Testament commands us to sing Psalms (which include commands to use instruments). It portrays instruments in heavenly worship (Revelation). And the earliest Jewish believers in Christ continued to frequent the Temple where instruments were used. These are facts which I would think deserve to be considered in determining the larger question.
Not on your life. The direct command is to SPEAK and the resource is that which is written for our learning. Both the psallo and the aeido are IN THE HEART which is a place. Both of these words speak of warfare and witchcraft.
Psallo did not include instruments in the non-pagan world. The context excludes instruments as well as does the entire history of attempting to worship God with the body. Click to look at Melody and here for Psallo. Psallo is a warfare word and not a musical word. It literally means TO PLUCK and no more and no less. You usually plucked a bow string so the word psallo OUTLAWS any form of plucking except with the fingers. You can also SHOOT FORTH hymns. You might pluck "hair" if you are a flute or harp boy in the male symposium always serving both musically and sexually.When the Bible uses the word PLAY or PLUCK it always tells you the name of the stringed instrument to be plucked only with the fingers and never with a plectrum.
Although the bow is nowadays thought of primarily as a weapon, it is not clear whether this was the original use of the device. Instead it may have started life as a musical instrument and only later used to shoot arrows. The bow is still used as a musical instrument in some cultures today. It is usually referred to as a musical bow.
That is why in both Hebrew and Greek one word serves both to describe a weapon or a musical instrument.
If I write prose it cannot be chanted like poetry or sung. If I write a "song" by definition I mean that you can read it, recite it, sing it or "sing with the melody of a harp." The Greek psalmos has this meaning before or after the time of Paul in the secular world:
- A song which can be accompanied by
- The human voice
- A harp
- Or other musical instrument.
In the Bible if we intend an instrument, we say so: Sing and make melody with a harp. Sing or Psalm by itself says nothing about an instrument. Today we sing a song with nothing implied about an instrument unless it is stated. For instance, two Old Testament uses of the word melody shows this fact:
Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered. Is.23:16
Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. Am.5:23
It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High, Psa 92:1to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, Psa 92:2
to the music of the ten-stringed lyre and the melody (murmuring) of the harp. Psa 92:3NIVNone of these are direct commands or God would command the prostitute to sing and make melody on a harp.
Edward Fudge: I am confident that God loves vocal music also (since he did command Christians to sing), and many Churches of Christ have excelled at offering that sacrifice of praise. We frequently have visitors at our congregation from other denominations which use instruments, and they often find our unaccompanied singing to be a highlight of the occasion. "Your whole church sings like a choir," they say.
Music does not appear in the KJV of the Old Testament. The NIV often translates the word "noise" as music. "To the chief musician" was not part of the original Psalms but "band directing instructions" added later."Music" is used of the Son's party where "music" and dance are often grouped together. The Hebrew Word is:
Sumphonia (g4858) soom-fo-nee'-ah; from 4859; unison of sound ("symphony"), i.e. a concert of instruments (harmonious note): - music
The music of harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters, will never be heard in you again. No workman of any trade will ever be found in you again. The sound of a millstone will never be heard in you again. Revelation 18:22
Mousikos (g3451) moo-sik-os'; from Moåusa , (a Muse); "musical", i.e. (as noun) a minstrel: - musician
When Jesus entered the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, Matthew 9:23
Auletes (g834) ow-lay-tace'; from 832; a flute- player: - minstrel, piper.
he said, "Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep." But they laughed (mocked) at him. Matthew 9:24
After the crowd had been put (expelled, more or less violently) outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. Matthew 9:25
In the Old Testament, flute playing, polluting and prostitution come from the same word:
Halal (h1984) haw-lal'; a prim. root; to be clear (orig. of sound, but usually of color); to shine; hence to make a show, to boast; and thus to be (clamorously) foolish; to rave; causat. to celebrate; also to stultify: - (make) boast (self), celebrate, commend, (deal, make), fool (- ish, -ly), glory, give [light], be (make, feign self) mad (against), give in marriage, [sing, be worthy of] praise, rage, renowned, shine.
Next, Paul did not command "singing." When they hymned a song and went out they may have vocalized it or they may have spoken it "to themselves." Paul's operative word is "teach" or preach or speak. The resource is the inspired text and the result will be singing and melody "in the heart" and not "upon a harp."
If you can get God loving "music" out of that then Scripture has no meaning
If you can't beat 'em, ridicule 'em:"In pagan traditions, musical instruments are invented by gods or demi-gods, such as titans. In the Bible, credit is assigned to antediluvian patriarchs, for example, the descendants of Cain in Genesis 4:21. There is no other biblical tradition about the invention of musical instruments." (Freedman, David Noel, Bible Review, Summer 1985, p. 51)
These traditions involve Satan and the goal was to divert the eyes and ears off the Words of God. Nothing works better for shutting down the rational mind than music. Why? Why, because music generates a morphine-with which gives you a "high" after it hurts you. Click for article One and article Two.
The Book of Enoch, quoted by Jesus, by Peter, by Jude and at least 128 times says that God will come with ten thousand of His saints. The judgment will be against the "fallen angels" who seduced the young people into forming mixed-sex choirs and how to use musical instruments. With this they seduced the people into worship of Satan with instruments. See the Table of Versions top of Page here.
Instrumental music is implicated in many of the "falls from grace" by Israel. Their "rising up to play" at Mount Sinai was musical idolatry.
"The triumphal hymn of Moses had unquestionably a religious character about it; but the employment of music in religious services, though idolatrous, is more distinctly marked in the festivities which attended the erection of the golden calf." (Smith's Bible Dictionary, Music, p. 589).
Nevertheless,
"It has always been common among the advocates of this Popish mode of worship, to meet the objections of simple minded Protestants to the organ, with the retort that their scruples were the relics of fanatical prejudice, and rustic ignorance. Such objections have been treated almost with levity and ridicule, as if they were contrary to taste, refinement and light,
although the reading world knows, that they decided the minds of the wisest and most learned Reformers; the fathers of Protestantism.
The resort to this species of reply appears the more ill-considered, when we remember that Dr. Girardeau is supporting the identical position held by all the early fathers, by all the Presbyterian reformers, by a Chalmers, a Mason, a Breckinridge, a Thornwell, and by a Spurgeon. Why is not the position as respectable in our author as in all this noble galaxy of true Presbyterians? Will the innovators claim that all these great men are so inferior to themselves? The ideal seems to be that the opposition of all these great men to organs arose simply out of their ignorant old-fogyism and lack of culture; while our advocacy of the change is the result of our superior intelligence, learning and refinement.
The ignorance of this overweening conceit makes it simply vulgar. These great men surpassed all who have succeeded them in elegant classical scholarship, in logical ability, and in theological learning. Their deprecators should know that they surpassed them just as far in all elegant culture. The era of the Reformation was the Augustan age of church art in architecture, painting and music. These reformed divines were graduates of the first Universities, most of them gentlemen by birth, many of them noblemen, denizens of courts, of elegant accomplishments and manners, not a few of them exquisite poets and musicians. But they unanimously rejected the Popish Church music; not because they were fusty old pedants without taste, but because a refined taste concurred with their learning and logic to condemn it. R. L. Dabney, Presbyterian
First, you must remember that neither modern harmony nor instrumental music was used in most churches when the churches of Christ were recognized as separate from Calvinistic and Baptist churches for reasons not related to music. Neither the Baptists nor Presbyterians used instrumental music and as late as 1900 still condemned it and many still do.
However, when dominant men trained to reject inspiration saw their membership flag they decided to add an organ over the objections of the congregation and its eldership at Midway Kentucky.
Instrumental churches, therefore, condemned non-instrumental churches and caused division.
A Capella churches continued as they had from the day of Pentecost. However, sentimental poetry set to four part harmony was denounced in many circles. Men like Alexander Campbell published a song book but it had no musical notation.
Instrumental churches sent evangelistic teams especially into Tennessee and Kentucky trying to subvert and impose instruments upon peaceful churches. This destroyed unity in the South and many churches changed their name from Christian churches to churches of Christ to celebrate the fact.
Time came when the census counted instrumental churches separately from the historically - correct churches.
Using Rubel Shelly's ideas from his Aztec concepts for church renewal, "When instrumental proponents still try to force musical worship into peaceful churches, those being invaded mounted an attack." Don't we call that "mounting a defense"? This is a dishonest way of turning truth on its head. Defenders are never attackers unless the attacker is God.
Click To Read the Gory Details Below
To see that Instrumental Music for worship was an ancient Babylon control device used by Priests, Soothsayers, Musicians and prostitutes to excel over or oversee or dominate the people Click Here.
To see that Instrumental music was forbidden when Israel assembled for instructions Click Here. While there were occasions for making a great noise with trumpets this was not congregational singing with instrumental accompaniment. Only priests were authorized to perform.
David added music as he was changing the law for the worship of Israel to be like the nations. Even so, he added the instruments of David to the trumpets of God for animal sacrifices associated with Jerusalem and the Temple and in connection with dedicatory or purification rituals Click Here Congregational singing with instrumental accompaniment was not used by the Jews.
For a very clear, and available, source for educating us about the use of Instrumental Music as a signaling device and not for worship we appeal to Alfred Edersheim which you may view. This will help next time to explain that it is not the ignorant rednecks who have always opposed music as a mind-altering device being sold, at a price too high, as worship. This is sold as having lasting value when Amos in the LXX has God saying that it is just "fleeting pleasure."
I remember a prophet who believed that he was the only one who had not done the knee-bending, whirling, maddening dance to the beat of musical instruments. God told him not to be silly or something to that effect. We--as non-judgmental we hope--are part of the majority in history which rejected instrumental worship which was the property of paganism, the military and prostitution.
See Instrumental Music in Worship, Australian Free Presbyterian Church to see that the commanded instruments were not for congregational worship.
However, the organ was never used to accompany congregational singing: one absolute proof is that you disobey direct commands if you do not speak "that which is written for oru learning." None of that inspired text is metrical: you couldn't sing it with or without an organ if your life depended on it."At the time of the Reformation, the truly reformed churches abandoned the use of organs. Martin Luther, ranked "musical organs amongst the badges of Baal." (Eckerd's Works, p. 639).
Further proof is from Catholic sources which show that the professional-introduced organs were never part of the liturgy but signalled processionals, intermissions and recessionals. A clergy precenter chanted the Psalms.
In addition after the Reformation the secular people wanted to sing psalms (only). None of them could be sung so that Calvin permitted some psalms (only) to be radically rewritten to set them to a simple melody meaning a series of single tones. They were sung in unison only long before the organ was imposed.
John Calvin, in his "Commentary on Exodus," 15:20, writes, "Instrumental music is reckoned among the number of legal ceremonies which Christ hath abolished, where as now we must retain a gospel simplicity."
Zwingli said, "It is evident that this ecclesiastic chanting is a most foolish vain abuse."
Later Bishop Lightfoot wrote, "Christ abolished the use of the Temple, as purely ceremonious; but He perpetuated the Use of the Synagogue, such as reading the Scriptures, preaching, praying and singing of Psalms, and translating it into the Christian Church as purely moral." The force of Dr. Lightfoot's remarks are clear, when it is remembered that instrumental singing was peculiar to the Temple service, and never used in the Synagogues. (Note: even singing was "at the places of watering" and the Kohan chanted or read the Psalms)
Musical worship has always been a mark of a harlotrous marriage between the commercial and religious interests of a city. For instance, great Cathedrals were often built to compete for the trade fairs and the ancient "Hotel - Motel - Arena" network. The religious leaders dominated and got a cut of the traffic. This is why in Revelation 18 the end-time religion in all of its organizational forms will have commercial interests using the church for its own profit:
"Recently our attention has been directed to the example of the Dutch Reformed Churches; but this presents no argument for the use of instrumental music in Christian worship; as the organ was obtruded upon the Dutch Reformed Church by the State, without the consent of, and against the wishes of the Church. The Synod of Holland and Zealand, convened in 1554, gave the following instruction:
"That ministers should endeavour to prevail with the magistrates to banish organs and instrumental music out of the churches." Twenty-seven years later, in 1581, the National Assembly convened in Middleburg, again called for the removal of organs from the churches. Therefore, those who champion the use of instrumental music in Christian worship are in direct opposition to the Apostolic Simplicity of Worship as held by the fathers of the Dutch Reformation."
Commercial interests include the use of the bodies of visible men to attract the crowd. Commercial interests includes the seeker model of using secular musical forms to attract members to a pseudo-spiritual assembly.
And we could make you sick with overwhelming evidence that the majority, scholarly, view is that instrumental music as worship is not from Scripture but from paganism.
Women who became false musical prophesiers (singers-players) led the nation astray while the Watchmen should have been on their stations listening for the war trumpets. To see Ezekiel repeating the law against music Click Here.
To see how God outlawed the Levite Musical Worship Teams who had served, without authority, "in church" and how Josephus proves that this is the case Click Here. The music in the courts of the temple were for temple rituals involving animal sacrifices. Going to the temple does not mean that they went into the temple to offer animals to replace Christ.
I believe it was Willie Sutton who was asked: "Why do you rob banks?" His response was: "Because that is where the money is." You don't need a P.hd to understand that. In the same way, the apostles' motive for going to temple or synagogue was because that was where the people were. At the same time they could denounce them.
It is elementary that the music prescribed by David and multiplied by Solomon was to "make a great crashing sound" during animal sacrifices at the temple and in Jerusalem. This was not congregational worship. The Jews have always acknowledged that with the loss of the temple there could be no animal sacrifices. And without animal sacrifices there was no rational basis for using instrumental worship. And they did not until the Christians seduced them into it in about A.D. 1815 in a liberal synagogue. Even then, Gentiles were hired to play the instruments because no Jew could work on the Sabbath. This proves, to many, that the Jews did not play instruments on the seventh-day Sabbath.
Paul's use of the word "melody" probably does (did once in pagan Greek which was the source of many Hebrew terms) include instruments. This is why he clearly restricted it to the heart and scholars are agreed that as used at that time psallo excluded external instruments because it was a universal sign of those trying to overpower their enemies. Musical worship is always associates with grinding the enemy to death.
Melody is related to abrading, crushing, grinding to powder. Instrumental music was the device of the prostitute and the military Levites. The goal was to crush the enemy into panic to make them run for their lives. The prostitute seduced you by shutting down the rational "gate way" to the brain so that temptation could not be filtered out. This is still true. The sop Jesus fed to Judas comes from this very word. Panic happens as we inject a dose of endorphins (morphine-like) every Sunday and run for our lives without knowing why. This is why Paul insisted that the melody (which has nothing to do with harmony) be internal. This would "break the heart" as the congregation speaks the Words of Christ or Spirit or Mind of Christ to one another to instruct and nuothetically counsel.
"Again, if you prefer to test the presence of God by the agreeable effects on the hearing, and not sight, or smell, or taste, harps get their strings and pipes their bones from animals; and these become musical by being dried, and rubbed, and twisted. So the pleasures of music, which you hold to have come from the divine kingdom, are obtained from the refuse of dead animals, and that, too, when they are dried by time, and lessened by rubbing, and stretched by twisting. Such rough treatment, according to you, drives the divine substance from living objects; even cooking them, you say, does this. Why then are boiled thistles not unwholesome? Is it because God, or part of God, leaves them when they are cooked? ST.AUGUSTIN: ON THE MORALS OF THE MANICHAEANS, Ch 16,46
This is why it is almost universally agreed that, in a Christian sense, melody or Psalm does not include the external melody of what Paul called lifeless instruments or carnal weapons which abrade, crush, grind you to bits like the sop Jesus rubbed out for Judas. Some Baptists note that:
"The word psallo occurs five times in the New Testament - Romans 15:9; 1Cor 14:15 (used twice in this passage); Eph 5:19; and James 5:13. Without an exception, all the standard translations, King James, English Revised, American Standard, and Douay (Roman Catholic), render psallo as "sing, sing psalms, sing praise, make melody." In not a single word of these versions is the word translated as meaning to perform on mechanical instruments of music. The leading modern versions, such as Goodspeed, Weymouth, Moffatt, and Knox, all translate psallo essentially the same as the standard translations. The men who gave us these versions, both standard and modern, are among the world's most competent Greek scholars; if the playing on mechanical instruments of music is expressed in the meaning of the word psallo, as used by the New Testament writers, is it not exceedingly strange that these translators failed to so render it?
The Greek Catholic Church, with more than one hundred million members, does not use instrumental music in its service. Of all people they ought to know whether psallo includes mechanical instruments. Their conclusion is that it means simply to sing. Elder Zack Guess, Instrumental Music, Primitive Baptist.
Using language which might be appreciated by Edward and those often promoting music to "get even" with many unkind religionists:
"It has always been common among the advocates of this Popish mode of worship, to meet the objections of simple minded Protestants to the organ, with the retort that their scruples were the relics of fanatical prejudice, and rustic ignorance. Such objections have been treated almost with levity and ridicule, as if they were contrary to taste, refinement and light, although the reading world knows, that they decided the minds of the wisest and most learned Reformers; the fathers of Protestantism.
"The ignorance of this overweening conceit makes it simply vulgar. These great men surpassed all who have succeeded them in elegant classical scholarship, in logical ability, and in theological learning. (R. L. Dabney Click Here for More)
"It is not my purpose to attempt to do again, what Inquirer has done so well, by stating the scriptural and historical objections to the use of this instruments, in Protestant worship. But my object is to vindicate the great body of the Protestant church, and the Fathers of Protestantism, from the charge of ill taste, rudeness and blind prejudice, in their opposition. It is not strange that men, such as the present advocates of the organ in Presbyterian churches in America, should bring such a charge against such men; many of them educated amidst the richest specimens of the fine arts in the old world, their youth imbued with the spirit of a gorgeous and poetic age?" Presbyterians review of articles written in1849. From the First Presbyterian Church, Rowlett, Texas
To see that the rejection of Instrumental worship is not based on "our tradition" click about anywhere in the Bible or church history! To be more explicit, the Catholic Encyclopedia sets the truth smack on top of the error:
"For almost a thousand years Gregorian chant, without any instrumental or harmonic addition, was the only music connection with the liturgy. The organ, in its primitive and rude form, was the first, and for a long time the sole, instrument used to accompany the chant. It gave the pitch to the singers and added brilliancy and sonority. (Instruments which replaced the songs were strongly condemned).
"In secular music, however, instruments played an important role at an early date. It may be said that instrumental music developed simultaneously with the secular music itself
"While it is certain that as early as the fifteenth century instruments besides the organ were used in connection with polyphonic liturgical compositions, it has not been definitely ascertained to what extent such was the case, what passages were played by the instruments alone, and where they simply reinforced the voices.
"It was with the advent of monody (see Harmony) that the use of instruments in connection with the voices received a great impetus. The closely-knit, compact polyphonic structure which had predominated up to this time, needed no extraneous aid for its effectiveness and sonority. This was not the case with the new style of composition rapidly superseding the old school. It depended to a great extent for its tonal body and artistic existence on the aid of instruments.
While all this development had, up to the first half of the sixteenth century, served mainly secular purposes, it was through Ludovico Grossi da Viadana (1564-1627) that the use of instruments became more common in churches. (This was to feature composers more than to worship).
"Another event which was destined to exercise a momentous influence, not only on the growth of the use of instruments but also on the future development of liturgical music itself, was the birth of opera with the first performance (1594) of Jacopo Peri's "Dafne" in Florence. This new art form, originating as it did with the humanistic spirit of the time and being a return to the musical and literary ideals of antiquity which enthralled the cultivated classes of the day,
For lesson 001aaa on the rest of the article on music Click Here
The destructive musical-food-wineskin religion condemned by Amos was the Marzeah which is defined as "a feast with and for the dead" who were now gods needing to be appeased:
"We need not shrink from admitting that candles, like incense and lustral water, were commonly employed in pagan worship and in the rites paid to the dead. But the Church from a very early period took them into her service, just as she adopted many other things... like music, lights, perfumes, ablutions, floral decorations, canopies, fans, screens, bells, vestments, etc., which were not identified with any idolatrous cult in particular; they were common to almost all cults." (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 246, art. "Candles.")
The claim that our position is, as one book put it, the result of "the mentality of ignorant, southern, red-necks" is ignorance sold to the masses who would buy a ticket on Hale-Bopp if some preacher hiding under a sheep skin told them to get on board.
History and contemporary practices deny that churches of Christ are the ignorant minority
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Churches which rejected or reject Music
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THE REASON WE DON'T VIOLATE DIRECT COMMANDS:This, like the wine skins parable, turns the words of Jesus upside down to sell ignorance for the same price--or higher--as the truth.We trust that God will extend His grace to all of us who fall short both in vocal noise and instrumental "triumph over you" music but I have my doubts that grace extends to deliberate ignorance about the universally-condeming message in the Bible, in church history and the common sense (commonly rare) that, as Plato said, "those who change the music intend to change the government by carefully introducing things which, at first, appears harmless." If they can "bring the crowd back Sunday night, dead or alive, it is judged doctrinally correct among the scholars who are always one payday away from unemployment.
In fairness, many defacto Wineskin Revived vocal churches probably violate the principle worse than a quiet organ which forces more unison singing. However, we believe that Edward Fudge is voicing a popular sign of the times to move toward vocal worship teams performing worship for the people and this will be followed quickly by quiet and then noise-producing instrumental music. If you cannot explain to the children whom God has entrusted to you to teach the truth--what ever your practices--and then let the truth, and not men, be the judge then we are well past that one generation away from apostasy.
Those of the Shelly team dedicated to the addition of instrumental music and a wider role for women show that you do not know or no longer care about teaching Scripture "as it has been taught" without feeling compelled to become "invaders" into innocent territory only to be repelled by the "attackers" so that you can blame them for division. It has always been so!
"Dr. Herman Norton, author of Tennessee Christians, tells the story about the first division usually identified with the U.S. Religious Census of 1906. A preacher by the name of A. I. Myhr came to Tennessee to work for the "organized" missionary societies to win over Tennessee churches of Christ into the ranks of the "organ" and "society" Christian Church. Myhr worked for twenty years (I890-1910) with this one objective in mind. He was supported by the editors of the Christian Standard and the Christian Evangelist. At the time of his resignation as Secretary of the Tennessee Missionary Society in 1910, he had not won over a single church of Christ in Nashville and met with poor success in both Middle and West Tennessee. The United States Religious Census officially recognized that two Restoration churches did in fact exist in the 1910 publication.
"Dr. Norton wrote in the Tennessee Christians that during the twenty-year effort in Tennessee, Myhr had succeeded in "engendering a bitter partisan spirit in almost every congregation in the state." And he added, "where there had been one communion, admittedly in discord, when he arrived in the state, there were now two separate and distinct bodies with no meaningful communication between them" (Tennessee Christians, p. 123).
"When Dr. Shelly came to Nashville some twelve or so years ago, the churches of Christ were at peace. The churches cooperated in many good works. Goodwill prevailed on every hand. This is, sadly, no longer true!"
Edward Fudge from GracEmail is simply wrong. It was not the ignorant and reactionary preachers who rejected musical worship. Musical worship was not in most churches and churches of Christ refused to add it and were therefore disfellowshiped by musical churches.
He is wrong about the Bible: if at all the trumpets were a part of the "put down God's wrath" by David and later by Hezekiah as the temple and secular places were purified. The instruments of David in addition to the trumpets of God were used only to signal the beginning and ending of animal sacrifices as a stop the plague effort.
From cover to cover, frum Jubal to Revelation 18 and the end-time Babylonian form of worship, instrumental music while God is trying to speak to His people is condemned and that does not come with the Phd package but from a more-than proof-text look at the Bible. It was and is the sectarian spirit which introduces music to destroy in spirit and in truth which is the only kind Jesus accepts.
Hebrews 2:1 Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed
to the things which we have heard,
lest at any time we should let them slip.
Hebrews 2:2 For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast,
and every transgression and disobedience
received a just recompence of reward;
Hebrews 2:3 How shall we escape,
if we neglect so great salvation;
which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord,
and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;
Hebrews 2:4 God also bearing them witness,
both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles,
and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?
More extensive of Edward Fudge's A Cappella Article from GracEmail
Kenneth Sublett
Counter added 12.28.04 6p 2000
7.29.09 6.22.11 6428
7.29.09 6.22.11 6428
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