Musical Worship Teams - First Heresy

Musical Worship Teams a heresy? This has always been the view of scholars. That churches having lost their elasticicity demand a "new wineskin" to allow the wine-like exhilaration of "worship" to move the group into drama in an effort to "move the worshippers into the presence of the gods." Identical to the ideas at the tower of Babel there must be a progression up the "steps" to find the gods "taking off and landing" on the "platform."

Was the Spirit OF Christ and Paul so illiterate that they did not know how to command playing an instrument?

First, since psallo never at any time or place in recorded history MEANT more than pluck or smite a string with your FINGERS and never with a PLECTRUM they would know that pluck had and has absolutely no "musical" content.  That is why there is no recorded Bible or literary example of being able to instruct someone to pluck a string with one word. If you tell someone PLUCK there is no telling what would happen to you.  The same is true in English and all languages.

Second, if you want to tell someone to PLUCK an INSTRUMENT there are compound words for all named instruments and STYLES of plucking.
Third, you blaspheme the Spirit of Christ by saying that:
  1. He was too ignorant not to use TWO words such as PSALLO Plus A Harp.
  2. He was too ignorant not to use one compound word which meant play a harp
  3. He just wanted to throw in stumble words for those who have not been washed with water INTO the Word or school of Christ or
  4. He intentionally wanted to sow massive discord since singing as an ACT was first imposed in the hear 373.
Even if "psallo" meant play a harp it could NEVER be used to justify a guitar pick, a flute or drums

Playing the part of those deliberately sowing discord and blaspheming, let's assume that the Spirit of Christ or Paul or anyone prior to 1878 was too illiterate to know about all of the compound words.  For instance.

Anti-psallô, A.play a stringed instrument in accompaniment of song, a. elegois phorminga  {harp of Apollo, Abaddon, Apollyon's instrument]
 

Epi-psallō, A. play the lyre, S.Fr.60, Poll.4.58(Pass.); “melesi kai rhuthmois” 
                    SING,tous humnousLXX 2 Ma.1.30: Then the priests sang the hymns.
Even if you define a melody that would NOT include a rhythm.
Melos  rooted in cutting limb from limb like all musical terms.
        A.
limb, in early writers always in pl.is corrupt for kata meros
       
2. metaphor., “esmen . . allēlōn melēEp.Rom.12.5, cf. 1 Ep.Cor.6.15.
        meros
,  A. share, portion, 2. with Preps., ana meros in turn, successively,
        III. the part one takes in a thing
B. Especially musical member, phrase: hence, song, strain, first in h.Hom.19.16
        lyric poetry, choral songs, Opposite Epic or Dramatic verse

Perhaps the Holy Spirit was not educated enough NOT to use psallo which is never translated to mean musical melody and was not aware that He could have used MELOS which means musical melody or a series of single notes.
HH 19 To Pan:1 Muse, tell me about Pan, the dear son of Hermes, with his goat's feet and two horns —a lover of merry noise. Through wooded glades he wanders with dancing nymphs who foot it on some sheer cliff's edge, [5] calling upon Pan, the shepherd-god, long-haired, unkempt.... Often he courses through the glistening high mountains, and often on the shouldered hills he speeds along slaying wild beasts, this keen-eyed god. Only at evening, [15] as he returns from the chase,
        he sounds his note,
        playing sweet and low on his pipes of reed:
        not even she could excel him in melody
        that bird who in flower-laden spring pouring forth her lament utters honey-voiced song amid the leaves....
Then all the immortals were glad in heart and Bacchic Dionysus in especial; and they called the boy Pan because he delighted all their hearts.
2. music to which a song is set, tune, Arist.Po.1450a14;
        Melos is Opposite. rhuthmos, metron, Pl.Grg. 502c;
                Melos is Opposite metron , II. metre, Ar.Nu.638, 641, etc.;
Aristoph. Cl. 638 Soc.
In the first place, to be clever at an entertainment, understanding what rhythm is for the war-dance, and what, again, according to the dactyle.
Again "meter" is the opposite of melos or melody and rhythm.
                   Opposite melos (music) and rhuthmos (time), Pl.Grg.502c
         Melos is Opposite. rhuthmos, rhēma, Id.Lg.656c;
                 Melos is Opposite rhēma  (erō) A. that which is said or spoken, word, saying,
                                    Ero I. I will say or speak, II. I will tell, proclaim, 2. to be specified, agreed, promised
                                                II.2. to be specified, agreed, promised
sullegō  II. of persons, collect, get together, “stasiōtasHdt.1.59; “egkhōriousE.IT303; “khoronAntipho 6.11; “ekklēsian
—Pass., come together, assemble, “rhēmata kai logous
mustered, Gathered

1Corinthians 14:23 If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?

1 Cor 14: 23 Ean oun sunelthē ekklēsia holē epi to auto kai pantes lalōsin glōssais, eiselthōsin de idiōtai ē apistoi, ouk erousin hoti mainesthe;
 
Sunerkhomai II. come together, assemble, meetsunelthe pros Theōna

La^l-eō ,Mark of the Locusts
II.  chatter, Opposite. articulate speech, as of locusts, chirp, Theoc.5.34; mesēmbrias lalein tettix (sc. eimi), a very grasshopper to chirp at midday, 
III.  of musical sounds, “aulō [flute] laleōTheoc.20.29; of trees, v.supr.1.2; “di'aulou [flute] ē salpiggos l.”[trumpet] Arist. Aud.801a29; of Echomagadin lalein sound the magadis,  [double flute]
                        3. subject of speech, matter, Hebraism cf. rhētos
                               
rhēt-os on stated terms, on certain conditions, according to covenant
                               
IV. to rh. the precise, literal contents of a document,
                                 the letter
of the law,

                                     
expressly, distinctly, Plb.3.23.5,
                                      rhētos literal, Opposite. allegorical, Ph.1.69, al.
Opposite Allēgor-eō , (agoreuō2. abs., speak figuratively or metaphorically,
4. allēgor-ētēs , ou, ho, allegorical expounder,
agoreuō agora  1. to speak in the assembly, harangue, speak
of the kērux in the Ecclesia, tis agoreuein bouletai; who wishes to address the people?
Click to see the sin of bringing instruments into the Holy Places.
Adam Clark on Instrumental music and Amos
Click for more mind control.
Click for David Lipscombs False Claims
Musical Worship Teams as Heresy
See the MUSIC connection to HERESY in the Greek language
See how Tertullian connects rituals to heresy.

What we call RESPONSORIAL singing was someone quoting a part of the DIRECTLY COMMANDED RESOURCE (THE SCRIPTURES) and others repeating it one to another with the OBJECT of TEACHING and ADMONISHING.

The musical PRECENTOR was required only after SINGING became an ACT of worship in the year 373. However, that did not mean congregational singing but done totally by the CLERGY PRECENTOR with perhaps an amen.

"The McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia not only speaks, in general terms, of 'heresy largely pervading the church and making rapid headway' at that very time, but it specifies 'the appointment of singers as a distinct class of officers in the church' with 'the consequent introduction of profane music'; and why should not instrumental music have been introduced if the carnal wishes of the people called for it" (Kurfees, M. C., Instrumental Music in Worship, p. 123)

"They were taught the doctrines concerning God, creation, providence, sacred history, the fall, the incarnation, the resurrection, and future rewards and punishments. Their books were portions of the Bible...

When the ecclesiastical spirit overcame the apostolic and Gospel teaching,
the study of the Bible was
largely displaced by ritual ceremonies
and priestly confessionals.

A few faithful continued to teach the Bible, as the Waldenses and the Lollards." (Shaff-Herzog Religious Ency. , Sunday schools, p. 159).

This urge for "play" or drama is the evidence of lostness which can be somewhat relieved by pretending a form of worship to replace the never-realized goals of a few minor gods:

"It is symptomatic of structures that have lost their elasticity, becoming too rigid to accommodate further development,

to intensify the semantics of self-reference as a sort of final act of self-reassurance.

The patterns of self-reference by drama to drama as we see them in The Bacchae of Euripides reflect a crisis in the very genre of tragedy, in the context of drastic changes in Athenian society toward the end of the fifth century; the prospect is one of abrupt confrontation and loss." -- Nagy, Pindar's Homer p. 388

Music had its magical - religion beginning in Babylon and is reflected in the story of the fall of man and the establishment of religious institutions invented to enslave the masses. Therefore, there is no tradition other than that Satan (the serpent) invented musical choirs and instruments to teach his change agents how to seduce those who loved God's message.

As modern religion gets it polytheistic spirit as "the little man (spirit) in the big man (me)" from Africa, it also gets its modern revival of "tower of Babel" music, which had been preserved in Africa and elsewhere, from Africa which includes a component of the magic of voodoo:

"But vocal blues are essentially racial, and the language employed is shot through with words particular to the subculture. It has been pointed out that: Few whites would be familiar with the voodoo terms such as 'black cat bone' and 'John the Conqueror root... In effect, the language of blues is a cultural code, in the sense that few whites would grasp its sexual and racial levels of meaning. Terms such as 'jazz' and more recently 'nitty gritty' have been assimilated by the white population." (Frank Tirro, Jazz, a History, p. 177)

The Britannica notes of the Spiritual that "A second source was the singing of hymns (as opposed to psalms only), reintroduced by such 18th-century religious dissenters as John and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism.

Hymn verses were composed and set to borrowed melodies, often secular folk tunes. Many of these evangelical hymns passed into oral tradition.

""In the late 18th century and up to the mid-19th, there were several waves of religious revivalism. The resulting camp meetings and revivals were marked by spontaneous mass singing. It is not completely known how the camp-meeting songs and revival spirituals were sung; but it is thought that they were sung unharmonized, the tune typically begun by the high male voices, the women and basses joining in an octave (or other comfortable interval) above or below. A call-and-response pattern (as in lining out) may have at times been used. Melodies were apparently ornamented.

A 19th-century offshoot of the spiritual was the gospel song. Influenced by "correct" European music, it had composed melodies and texts, was sung with instrumental accompaniment, and (unlike the folk hymns) was written to be harmonized.

"After the Civil War the black spirituals were "discovered" by Northerners and either developed toward harmonized versions, often sung by trained choirs, or, conversely, preserved the older traditional style, especially in rural areas and certain sects.

It is also noted that religious slave-ownerns know that music works to keep the "audience" happy and that makes the master happy. From Jazz A History:

"The transfer of these West African tribal traditions to the slave fields, railways, and rivers of the southern U.S. was of advantage to oppressed and oppressor alike,

the slave obviously taking solace in the cultural memory of his own collective past, the slaveowner encouraging work songs in the same spirit as an infantry general might approve of military bands-- for the stimulus they gave to work rate.

Many of the early examples of primitive vocal jazz relate closely to the labours being performed, and the content of the lyrics is a reminder that not only the cotton plantations but also the levees and railroads of the Deep South were created and maintained by slave labour.

The "musicians" were particularly useful in "setting forth" the slave labor to build the temple.

"After that discovery, G. P. Jackson traced the considerable influence of revivalist and evangelist songs from the early 19th-century camp meetings of the Southern white population. Jackson claimed, using hundreds of comparative examples, that many black spirituals were adapted from or inspired by these white spirituals. Thus it can be assumed that African musical traditions were amalgamated with the religious songs of the white South, which had many sources, to produce a form of folk music that was distinctly black in character.

The black spiritual is, above all, a deeply emotional song. The words are most often related to biblical passages, but the predominant effect is of patient, profound melancholy. The spiritual was directly related to the sorrow songs that were the source material of the blues (see jazz). A number of more joyous spirituals influenced the content of gospel songs (see gospel music). Collections and arrangements have been made by Rosamond Johnson and J. W. Johnson, R. N. Dett, George L. White, John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, Roland Hayes, and others. See G. P. Jackson, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands (1933) and Spiritual

In Israel's history When Israel "fired" God and demanded a king like the nations so that they could live like and worship like the nations, the king organized the Levites and later we see Solomon building the temple with slave labor under the Levites as overseers:

David (king), together with the commanders of the army, set apart some of the sons of Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun for the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres and cymbals. Here is the list of the men who performed this service: 1 Chr.25:1

Their "service" was not to be musicians but to drive the temple system:

Abadah (h5656) ab-o-daw'; from 5647; work of any kind: - act, bondage, / bondservant, effect, labour, ministering (-try), office, service (-ile, -itude), tillage, use, work, * wrought

Abad (h5647) aw-bad'; a prim. root; to work (in any sense); by impl. to serve, till, (caus.) enslave, etc.: - * be, keep in bondage, be bondmen, bond-service, compel, do, dress, ear, execute, / husbandman, keep, labour (-ing man), bring to pass, (cause to, make to) serve (-ing, self), (be, become) servant (-s), do (use) service, till (-er), transgress [from margin], (set a) work, be wrought, worshipper.

David summoned all the officials of Israel to assemble at Jerusalem: the officers over the tribes, the commanders of the divisions in the service of the king, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds,

and the officials in charge of all the property and livestock belonging to the king and his sons, together with the palace officials, the mighty men and all the brave warriors. 1 Chr. 28:1

Of the Black music of slavery:

"By adapting his own ritual music to the liturgy of the Christian Church, by contributing, as a member of a congregation, to the creation of new tunes, or by making his own variations on the existing ones, the slave and his emancipated descendants developed the spiritual to the point where, in the form of hymns, ring shouts, revival chants, camp songs, and funeral songs, it gradually merged into a semi-secular tradition.

Significantly, ragtime, that coarse yet disarming bridge between the old songs of slavery and emergent jazz.

"Its connections with the brothels of Louisiana and the saloons of Chicago tell only half the story, for jazz has been concerned with sanctity as well as with sin,

has been a sacred music as well as a profane one.
Its links with Christianity and

particularly with the act of worship and the rituals of birth, marriage, and death have proved so durable that they remain unbroken to this day.

In the modern sense of Post Modern being a point of crisis between the old order and the new, Joseph Campbell in Myths to Live By noted that religions in turmoil having lost its connection with its founder and foundation principles tends to revert back to the archaic. For instance, one result of the y2K hysteria where people believed that the rules of the universe would suddenly change, the urge for Levitical Musicians and restoration of the Jubilee denies the atoning work of Jesus.

As a result of the end of slavery and great northern wealth, a crisis period brought pagan forms of music into many churches. For instance, it wasn't until 1878 that anyone tried to justify the restoration of sacrificial "music" by recourse to an ancient but failed argument.

"The latter third of the 19th century was a crucial point in the prehistory of jazz--a time when jazz was interacting with church music,

with the white commercial world of dances, soirées, drawing-room ballads, and concerts, with opera,
with the theatre, with vague occasional wisps from the European tradition, and a time when the Southern black was learning how to live with uneasy freedom; during this period the traditions of jazz were slowly forged.

The marriage of the sexual or theatrical world to enslave people is fully documented in the Old Testament including the Kingdom period which the Bible faithfully records as the worship and music like the nations because they told God they didn't want to hear any more of His words.

Pagan Musical worship teams were involved in sexual deviation to call the worshiper into a knowing presence of god in the pagan temples. Both male and female prostitutes acted as priestessess using wine and music to seduce the worshipers both sexually and financially. Making the leaders or boy singers into clergy was the first heresy widely adopted in the Christian church.

This end of the period bringing on hysteria is not new:

"The first change in the manner of singing was the substitution of singers who became a separate order in the church, for (or replacing) the mingled voices of all ranks, ages, and sexes, which was compared by the great reformer of church music to the glad sound of many waters" (H. H. Milman, Hist. of Christianity, Vol, iii, pp. 406, 409) (These were young, male, dressed like female and there is evidence that they were emasculated to keep them so.)

Therefore, without a tiny knowledge of the history of religion, human philosophy may inadvertently signal the feminization of the church and the fatally terminal period of the church growth schemes. Isaiah warned that this would be "women and children ruling over you" which, to him, meant women who prophesied or sang out of their own mind. The "women" and "children" does not deny the value of women but it warns against men making the church effeminate. Jesus identified the first century Jewish musical worship clergy and all of their followers as musical children playing the fertility games. They were trying to manipulate the person of Jesus, Who was God Incarnate, into the singing and dancing chorus of the female Dionysus cult. Most women and almost no man got involved. Ezekiel also warns against women as musical prophesiers.

The implication of a male in the Dionysos choral or chorus was that Jesus would reveal a bent-gender and they could, as at Sodom and Gomorrah, "know him personally" which is to say, sexually. They hoped that John's methods meant that he wore the soft garments of the male prostitutes of the kings court. Jesus knew what attracted the masses to what seemed like "entertainment" but they found a fully-clothed man wearing garments of hair preaching repentance to a Dionysos-influenced people.

Psalm 41 said that Judas, whose bag carried the mouthpieces of wind instruments, would not triumph over Jesus. This triumph was outlawed by God when Israel gathered for that short period in congregation which was for instruction (Nu 10:7). This triumph which Judas would not force upon Jesus was:

Ruwa (h7321) roo-ah'; to mar (espec. by breaking); figuratively to split the ears (with sound), i. e. shout (for alarm or joy): - blow an alarm, cry (alarm, aloud, out), destroy, make a joyful noise, smart, shout for joy, sound an alarm, triumph.

Unless going into battle or celebrating victory this triumph or alarm was not proper. Therefore, Moses knew he heard "singing." This was the seemingly spiritual but hopeless panic of a people who felt that their God was lost and they needed someone to guide them back to the old, comfortable worship of Egypt.

Under another heading, we note that women normally gain or have gained control of charismatic churches. Bruner, in The Holy Spirit, identifies most modern church music as "low-level glossolalia." If it isn't speaking the Word of Christ as He has delivered it then it is not Spirit and is therefore speaking in tongues. LeGard Smith notes that if "women quit speaking in tongues then speaking in tongues would cease." This does not speak of the majority of sober women but of a certain mental level.

The problem is not with music as such. The problem is incorporating women on the basis of musical talent to preach over or stand over the congregation while preaching with a tune. The evidence seems to say that this is still tokenism while reserving the key role for a key man. Plato notes that the Greek women were semi-tolerated because they produced the "increase" or the reproduction of members of a society. However, he notes that the roles usurped by men and grudgingly given to a few, talented women was really a way to control the remainder.

Woodmont Hills seems to have left the churches of Christ and adopted the Willow Creek model musical worship pattern which, in its own congregation, demands conformity to the idea of a leading role for women. Woodmont has advertised for a Worship Facilitation Minister. We honor any church's right to change if they have decided to change democratically based upon Bible principles. However, if it has to be facilitated we should warn other churches of Christ that they should not be ignorant of the change methods which works when good people remain silent under the mind-harassing influence of sound-good controlling forms of music. It is adulthood and not, "demon-possessionr" or "Satan-Sifting" to object to new, but ancient, forms of worship being sold as the normative for churches of Christ.

Because this is now being sponsored by the Zoe Group it is important to understand that the Local Zoe Group follows the pattern designed for legitimate changes in corporate structure. These corporate change methods are quite identical to those espoused by Lynn Anderson adopting secular methods to changing churches against their will. It is also quite identical to the change methods used in witchcraft to produce a "high" which, as in Christian churches, is believed to be the presence of the gods. For more information you may Click Here.

The hidden affect image really has motives which may not be understood. For instance,

Facilitation means 2. Psychologically "increased ease of performance of any action resulting from the lessening of nerve resistance by the continued successive application of the necessary stimulation." (Webster).

This theatrically-trained facilitator will repeat the ancient role of presuming to present the musical worship to "them whot pays them." s/he will--

"Work with the worship planning committee, the preaching minister and worship presentation groups (music, drama and technical) to facilitate group worship experiences which will help bring worshipers into the presence of God. (The Jubilee Theme)

Presentation means "performance, commerce, naming of a clergyman to a benefice, the position of the fetus at the time of delivery.

Psychologically: anything known by sense perception rather than by description." (Webster)

This, too, appeals to the effeminate (not female) need for hand-clapping, arm-swinging, loud and void so-called "musical worship." However, scholars know that "real men don't dance in church."

The ancient and end-time Babylonian religion (Catholic and Protestant) will be a marriage of religion and commerce (See Re 18). The tool of seduction in making "church" into a huge, "shopping mall" religion will be musical worship led by professional "ministers." The fruit of this worship will be what their "heart lusted after." Modern growth schemes are rushing headlong into ministry co-ops and business techniques gained from the book sellers of the world. The Musical Worship idea has produced a hugh growth industry.

Lyle Schaller, leader of much of this movement, and other business builders for the church propose that to meet the 21st Century you need a leader to whom people stick:

Team leader (Pastor):

Full-time, paid. A magnetic personality, networker, entrepreneur, who attracts a diversity of people.

Worship leader: Full-time, paid. Recruiter of various types of indigenous music. The primary responsibility is to recruit unchurched people who just happen to like singing, playing an instrument, being involved with drama, running the sound system, or generating computer graphics. From.

Indigigenous means "produced naturally." That, too, fits the ancient pattern.

Paul praised the Corinthians because they were so "wise." In his harsh irony he really said to the elite worshipers: "You just love to be fooled." In bypassing the rational (masculine dominant half of all of us) of the brain and steering the church through the emotional (feminine half) the thinking ability of the leading lights is put to sleep and they just can't see how you are missing all of the fun.

The literate minority will understand that what we see is the accidental feminization of the church, the frying of the rational (spiritual) half of the brain and truly "women and children rule over you" perhaps without knowing what is being built. In the case of Amos and Isaiah, the people who would suffer were the righteous women and children who would hunger and thirst for the Word of God but could not find it.

MOST CHRISTIANS TODAY call the main Sunday morning hour "the worship service." This is dead wrong for several reasons! Though worship is part of what the congregation should do together, "teaching" is to be the driving activity of the Local Church. Too, and I must be careful here, though worship is for all -- male and female -- the way it's carried out today, is often

it's a FEMININIZATION of the church service.
Whereas,
teaching is VIRILE and MEATY and speaks head-on to males.

It is clear that singers under the sacrificial system were male, of the tribe of Levi, at least thirty years old (David changed this to 20), served only in connection with dedicatory sacrifices, lived within the Temple, and were given a daily dole of food. The authority for professional clergy singers is a direct appeal to the Law of Moses and reveals a total misunderstanding of the place of the Law in the Christian dispensation.

As the method of reading the Scripture and family-like discourse was displaced by clergy-preachers, the "singing" of Biblical sources was replaced by one professional leader who was chosen for his unflawed skills to compete with the pagan musical performances:

"In competition with pagan musical art, congregational singing began to wane. Basil states that he had 'the Psalms rendered by skilled precentors after the manner of the triumphal Odes of Pindar, the congregation joining at the closing verse, with the accompaniment of lyres..." (Int Std Bible Ency, Psalms, p. 2494a) (See the addition of the Precentor as it relates to heresy by taking away the one-another worship)

Early antiphonal or responsorial singing probably had its origin in the social and often daily early-morning or late-night gathering of the monastic Jews and heretical Christians. However, in time and alongside the other things appropriated from the paganism and misunderstood Judaism, the professional singer was seen as a priestly-class officer of the church by whom singing could be performed for the congregation much like the Levitical singers. That is, singing was seen as an "act of worship" and only the priestly class were able to administer the sacraments and to do much of the singing. As the members participated in the Lord's Supper by being able to eat the bread , only the priest could drink the fruit of the vine (believed to be the literal blood of Christ), the congregation participated in the singing only in a responsorial way.

Again, notice that this change to musical worship teams was so uncharacteristic of the New Testament principles that it was considered heresy:

"The McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia not only speaks, in general terms, of 'heresy largely pervading the church and making rapid headway' at that very time, but it specifies 'the appointment of singers as a distinct class of officers in the church' with 'the consequent introduction of profane music'; and why should not instrumental music have been introduced if the carnal wishes of the people called for it" (Kurfees, M. C., Instrumental Music in Worship, p. 123)

The motive for the addition of the musical worship clergy leader was that singing was much like a sacrament and if the leader sang off-key then the "sacrifice" to God would be flawed. Or perhaps the paying masses returned Sunday evening "disguised as empty pews." Building a congregation of rice Christians will not survive.

The authority for professional singers is a direct result of an appeal to the Law of Moses and can be seen from the place that liturgical singers had in church history. While the congregation was allowed to sing, the clergy must do the leading and much of the singing. Again, we note that:

"The first change in the manner of singing was the substitution of singers who became a separate order in the church, for the mingled voices of all ranks, ages, and sexes, which was compared by the great reformer of church music to the glad sound of many waters" (H. H. Milman, Hist. of Christianity, Vol, iii, pp. 406, 409).

The writer is comparing the congregational singing to "the glad sound of many waters" and decries their replacement by professional singers who became an order of paid clergy.

"The lower clergy were almost universally the presenters, for the singing of the congregation was regarded as such an integral part of the divine service that only clerical officers should direct it." (John Fletcher Hurst, History of the Christian Church, vol. I., p. 357).

Worship as the primary purpose of the church has little or no Scripture to recommend it. Rather, the elders have the task of "equipping the members for the ministry." If leading singing is a member hasn't the clergy stolen the right of every kid to learn to minister?

This of course followed the belief that the local Pastor-Teacher must be replaced by professional preachers trained in Greek rhetorical styles. This was at first based upon seeing the church in Old Testament terms and later was based upon the fact that to pay the bills and build the biggest cathedral one must have the best speaker, soloist, or choir.

At first--

"They were taught the doctrines concerning God, creation, providence, sacred history, the fall, the incarnation, the resurrection, and future rewards and punishments. Their books were portions of the Bible...

When the ecclesiastical spirit overcame the apostolic and Gospel teaching,

the study of the Bible was
largely displaced by ritual ceremonies
and priestly confessionals.

A few faithful continued to teach the Bible, as the Waldenses and the Lollards." (Shaff-Herzog Religious Ency. , Sunday schools, p. 159).

Many modern churches even have the ability to turn Bible Study into a ritual where content matters not at all. Year after dull year the congregation hears the teacher recite what they already know in exactly the form learned fifty years ago. The legal ritual is so rigid that a new idea from the Bible will not be tolerated. Along with the demise of real Bible study and research--

"The bombastic, rhetoric which had ruled in the Roman world since the death of Cicero was now introduced into the Christian pulpit, and the congregation burst forth in applause extravagant enough for a welcome to a chief returning from the conquest of a new province." (John Fletcher Hurst, History of the Christian Church, vol. I., p. 357).

This applause was to affirm the showmanship of the preacher or musical worship minister and not as an endorsement of the non-existent Biblical reading-exhortation. Preaching by the direction of the Holy Spirit was fundamental in the forming churches and reading the work-product of the Spirit through the apostles and prophets with explanations continued until the very nature of the church changed and it reverted to being priest-oriented.

"The public prayers had now lost much of that solemn and majestic simplicity, that characterized them in the primitive times, and which were, at present, degenerating into a vain and swelling bombast." (Mosheim, Eccl. Hist., Vol. I., p. 303).

This formalism is the inevitable result of seeing prayer as an act of worship rather as a means of communicating with God. Seeing singing as an act of worship concedes defeat to those who want to enhance the act as the outgrowth of ceremonial legalism which imitates the ancient form condemned by grace.

"During the early Restoration Movement, Isaiah Boone Grubbs, Professor of NT Exegesis and Church History in the College of the Bible, Lexington, Ky., in decrying the secularizing influence of formalized music said,

"There sits the congregation, mute as in death. Here the godless choir and noisy fiddler fill the air with soulless strains, while the preacher, precious man, speaks his pretty piece of poetry as musically as possible by way of a solo, or as a sort of interlude." (Kurfees, p. 233).

In the beginning, changes to the worship had to pass the Biblical test. However, in time the professional clergy who had taken control of the church over the opposition of the people imposed liturgy which was a reflection of the growing return to Old Covenant and pagan practices. This meant that only the clergy could do certain things.

"We laid it down as a rule that one of the officiating ministers should chant or sing the psalms of David, and that the people should join by repeating the ends of the verses." (Apostolic constitutions, Book ii, 57, Quoted by J.E.Riddle, Christian Antiquities, p. 384).

Further comments from the Apostolic Constitutions show how the clergy had been patterned after the Law of Moses, In addition:

XI. Nay, further, we do not permit to the rest of the clergy to baptize,--as, for instance, neither to readers, nor singers, nor porters, nor ministers,--but to the bishops and presbyters alone, yet so that the deacons are to minister to them therein.

But those who venture upon it shall undergo the punishment of the companions of Corah. (1) We do not permit presbyters to ordain deacons, or deaconesses, or readers, or ministers, or singers, or porters, but only bishops; for this is the ecclesiastical order and harmony.

XVII. We have already said, that a bishop, a presbyter, and a deacon, when they are constituted, must be but once married, whether their wives be alive or whether they be dead; and that it is not lawful for them, if they are unmarried when they are ordained, to be married afterwards; or if they be then married, to marry a second time, but to be content with that wife. which they had when they came to ordination.

(5) We also appoint that the ministers, and singers, and readers, and porters, shall be only once married. But if they entered into the clergy before they were married, we permit them to marry, if they have an inclination thereto, lest they sin and incur punishment. (6) But we do not permit any one of the clergy to take to wife either a courtesan, or a servant, or a widow, or one that is divorced, as also the law says.

Let the deaconess be a pure virgin; or, at the least, a widow who has been but once married, faithful, and well esteemed.

See the index on the deaconess in history.

It is clear that musical worship team or soloists is a way to gradually introduce women ruling over the flock or officiating in the primary role of teaching. History is clear and Paul implies that only "uncovered prophesying" which was usually with musical instruments, that the women who participated were "just out of paganism."

Psalmody thus came to be increasingly the monopoly of trained singers, and the 15th canon of the Council of Laodicea, 360 AD, proscribed that 'no others shall sing in the church save only the canonical singers...who go up into the ambo and sing with a book." (Int Std Bible Ency, Psalms, p. 2494a)

The addition of soloist, choirs, organist, and professional singers meant that they rapidly displaced the congregation "speaking one to another." And this was always the nature of responsorial singing--the clergy did most of the reciting and the flock simply answered, or as in the Synagogues benedictions, simply said Amen. And in the name of Divine justice, when the congregation was squeezed out of their place purchased by the death of their Lord they simply went out and reformed the church by starting all over again.

It would be totally unnatural that once a soloist is employed to present the lesson set to music that those responsible for filling the pews would not seek out the most attractive and professional singers or musicians. This happened when professional choirs and organist were hired.

In another example of Divine justice a recent newspaper article lamented that there was a danger that a large denominational church might shut down because the demand for live music had so depleted the ranks of the professionals that they could not hire an organist, choir, and orchestra.

The Lutheran scholar Lenski seems aware of the problem:

"All of this music with all its instructive and admonitory words resounds in our inmost hearts when our lips sound it forth in the congregation. Many church choirs and many other singers in the church might note this phrase. All this singing is to be 'to God,' to His praise and His glory" (Lenski )

In later church history, the preaching took precedence over Bible teaching and study and rhetorical styles became very popular. Church history is abundantly clear that placing the emphasis upon pomp and ceremony--at the expense of the word of the Holy Spirit, the Bible--led to various styles of worship services which were to attract crowds or cater to the ego of the speaker.

"The use of polyphony was from the earliest times restricted to major feasts, often including the patron saint of a cathedral or its dedication festival...

but these (rules) were often disregarded because of the

sensuous appeal of the new art. Professional singers delighted in solo or duet virtuoso performances, accompanied by the organ...

By the 12th century, the art of harmony had matured, especially in France where the early polyphonic tropes of Limoges had stimulated the later and more spectacular organs of Leonin and Perotin" (MEMBERS: Britannica Book of Music, p.185).

The Renaissance also witnessed the growth of liturgical organ music, which was used originally when there was no choir capable of singing polyphony.

The organist alternated harmonized settings of plainsong hymns, canticles, and masses with plainsong verses that were sung by the choir or by the congregation. The rise of the verse anthem in England and of the Baroque motet in Italy (genres that included elaborate vocal solos) stimulated the organist's ability to improvise accompaniments. In Venice, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli and their followers made dramatic use of spatial contrasts and opposing forces of strings, winds, and voices.

"The musical culture of the Hebrew peoples, recorded from about 2000 BC and documented primarily in the Old Testament, was more directly influential in the West because of its adoption and adaptation into the Christian liturgy. Because of the prohibition of Jewish religious law against the making of "graven images," there are very few surviving artifacts or pictures.

Among the established practices of the temple service still current in the synagogue are the extensive use of the shofar (a ritualistic ram's-horn trumpet) and

the singing of passages from the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), prayers, and songs of praise.

"In all of these early cultures the social functions of music were essentially the same since their climate, geographic location, cultural pace, and mutual influences produced many more social similarities than differences.

The primary function of music was apparently religious, ranging from heightening the effect of "magic" to ennobling liturgies.

The other musical occasions depicted in both pictures and written accounts were equally functional:

stirring incitements to military zeal,
soothing accompaniments to communal or solitary labour,
heightening aids to dramatic spectacles, and
enlivening backgrounds to social gatherings that involved either singing or dancing or both.

In every case musical sounds were an adjunct either to bodily movement (dance, march, game, or work) or to song.

Many centuries were to pass before pleasure in euphonious sound became an end in itself. Ancient Greece (Britannica Members)

Of the eastern Mediterranean cultures, it was undoubtedly that of the Greeks that furnished the most direct link with musical development in western Europe, by way of the Romans, who defeated them but adopted much of Greek culture intact. Entering historical times relatively late, c. 1000 BC, the Greeks soon dominated their neighbours and absorbed many elements of earlier cultures, which they modified and combined into an enlightened and sophisticated civilization.

The two basic Greek religious cults--one devoted to Apollo, the other to Dionysus--became the prototypes for the two aesthetic poles, classical and romantic, that have contended throughout Western cultural history.

The Apollonians were characterized by objectivity of expression, simplicity, and clarity, and their favoured instrument was the kithara, a type of lyre.

The Dionysians, on the other hand, preferred the reed-blown aulos and were identified by subjectivity, emotional abandon, and sensuality. (See Greek music, Apollo, Dionysus.)

Apollo is Abaddon or Apollyon. He had a Seeker Center at the Oracle of Delphi. Apollo is the father of musical worship and the twanging of bowstrings to kill the enemy.

As Dionysus apparently represented the sap, juice, or lifeblood element in nature, lavish festal orgia (rites) in his honour were widely instituted. These Dionysia (Bacchanalia,)

quickly won converts among the women in the post-Mycenaean world.
The men, however, met it with hostility.

According to tradition, Pentheus, king of Thebes,

was torn to pieces by the bacchantes when he attempted to spy on their activities,
while the Athenians were punished with
impotence for dishonouring the god's cult. (charismatic music)

The women, nevertheless, abandoned their families and took to the hills, wearing fawn skins and crowns of ivy and shouting "Euoi!," the ritual cry. Forming thyasi (holy bands) and waving thyrsoi (fennel wands bound with vine leaves and tipped with ivy),

they danced by torchlight to the rhythm of the flute and the tympanon (kettledrum).

While they were under the god's inspiration, (1 Cor 13 - 14)

the bacchantes were believed to possess occult powers,
the ability to
charm snakes and suckle animals,
as well as preternatural strength that enabled them to tear living victims to pieces before indulging in a ritual feast (omophagia).

The bacchantes hailed the god by his titles of Bromios (Thunderer in the pulpit no doubt), Taurokeros (Bull-Horned), or Tauroprosopos (Bull-Faced),

in the belief that he incarnated the sacrificial beast. The worship of Dionysus flourished long in Asia Minor, particularly in Phrygia and Lydia, and his cult was closely associated with that of numerous Asiatic deities. (Britannica Members)

(See our annotated The Bacchantes By Euripides)

Did you notice that real males were disgusted with the worship of Dionysus just as God Incarnate was disgusted with the effeminate Jewish clergy when they tried to get Him into the choral dance with the other "girls" as the circular "team" sang to influence the gods.

Did you also note that they Took to the Hills? Well, women are increasingly deserting their roles as "mothers" to the "brethren" to help in the development of masculinity, becomming mediators between the god and the "audience" and LOOK TO THE HILLS to learn how to manipulate the spectators which, in all societies where women and effeminate men took to music, was sexual manipulation. Music produces FIGHT (rouses opposition), FLIGHT (run from the seven hills worship) or SEX (enjoy the mother stripped of the cover God gave her to save her).

Click on Look To The Hills for the restoration of this Greek form of god manipulation.

Bacchanalia also called DIONYSIA, in Greco-Roman religion, any of the several festivals of Bacchus (Dionysus), the wine god. They probably originated as rites of fertility gods. The most famous of the Greek Dionysia were in Attica and included the Little, or Rustic, Dionysia, characterized by simple, oldfashioned rites;

the Lenaea, which included a festal procession and dramatic performances;
the Anthesteria, essentially a
drinking feast; the City, or Great, Dionysia,

accompanied by dramatic performances in the theatre of Dionysus, which was the most famous of all; and the Oschophoria ("Carrying of the Grape Clusters").

Introduced into Rome from lower Italy, the Bacchanalia were at first held in secret, attended by women only, on three days of the year. Later, admission was extended to men, and celebrations took place as often as five times a month. The reputation of these festivals as orgies led in 186 BC to a decree of the Roman Senate that prohibited the Bacchanalia throughout Italy, except in certain special cases. Nevertheless, Bacchanalia long continued in the south of Italy.

The prevailing doctrine of ethos, as explained by ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle,
was based on the belief that
music has a direct effect upon the soul and actions of mankind.

As a result, the Greek political and social systems were intertwined with music, which had a primary role in the dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes.

And the Grecian educational system was focused upon musica and gymnastica,
the former referring to all cultural and intellectual studies, as distinguished from those related to
physical training.

You must read Aristophanes as he ridiculed the superstition surrounding the musical worship teams. Click if you dare - R rated.

To support its fundamental role in society, an intricate scientific rationale of music certain scales), and rhythms. The 6th-century-BC philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras was the first to record the vibratory ratios that established the series of notes still used in Western music. From the total gamut (from Kamut a god) of notes used were derived the various modes bearing the names of Grecian tribes--Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, etc. The rhythmic system, deriving from poetry, was based on long-short relationships rather than strong-weak accentual metre. After Pythagoras, Aristoxenus was the major historian and theoretician of Greek music. (Britannica Members)

At the same time that the Gregorian repertory was being expanded by the interpolation of tropes and sequences, it was being further enriched by a revolutionary concept destined to give a new direction to the art of sound for hundreds of years.

This concept was polyphony, or the simultaneous sounding of two or more melodic lines.
The practice emerged gradually during the
Dark Ages,

and the lack of definite knowledge regarding its origin has brought forward several plausible theories:
it resulted from
singers with different natural vocal ranges singing at their most comfortable pitch levels;

it was a practice of organists adopted by singers;
or it came about when the repetition of a melody at a different pitch level was sung simultaneously with the original statement of the melody.

Whatever motivated this dramatic departure from traditional monophony (music consisting of a single voice part), it was an established practice when it was described in Musica enchiriadis (c. 900), a manual for singers and one of the major musical documents of the Middle Ages. To a given plainsong, or vox principalis, a second voice ( vox organalis) could be added at the interval (distance between notes) of a fourth or fifth (four or five steps) below. Music so performed was known as organum. While it may be assumed that the first attempts at polyphony involved only parallel motion at a set interval, the Musica enchiriadis describes and gives examples of two-part singing in similar (but not exactly parallel) and contrary movement--evidence that a considerable process of evolution had already taken place. (Britannica Members)

In about 1400

As one manifestation of their cultivation of elegant living,

the aristocracy of both church and state
vied with one another in maintaining resident musicians who could serve both chapel and banqueting hall.

The frequent interchange of these musicians accounts for the rapid dissemination of new musical techniques and tastes. Partly because of economic advantages, Burgundy and its capital, Dijon, became the centre of European activity in music as well as the intellectual and artistic focus of northern Europe during the first half of the 15th century (Britannica Members)

The selection of a professional musician was based upon the knowledge that pure gospel teaching can never (should never) compete with idolatrous exhibition. And if "speaking psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" as a method of teaching cannot compete with the drawing power of the temple of idols on the next streets then McClintock and Strong are consistent in saying that the heretical appointment of singers as a separate class (ministry) would logically--and consistently--lead to the substitution of songs other than the Biblical text. Again, we note that:

"Already at the end of the second century the Byzantine, Syrian, and later the Armenian church showed a marked preference for new, non scriptural hymns, despite all warnings by the catholic authorities. Even Canon 59 of the Council of Laodicea (360-81),

which expressly prohibited non scriptural texts, was constantly circumvented and openly violated, as enormous hymn literature of the Eastern churches demonstrate." (The Int. Std. Bible Dict., p. 467) (Click for Presbyterian emphasis upon Psalmody)

However much we seek the restoration of "the ancient order" we as a group have joined with a small but growing group who have long abandoned the Bible as the non-charismatic source of teaching in song. Musical worship led by others is the total take over from the one-another ministry of a true church.

Even the most liberal groups who used the changing musical styles still took the Biblical text and translated it into a poetic form so that when the church engaged in singing they still obeyed Paul's absolute demand that singing be from Biblical sources.

"It was Beza who completed the task of putting the Psalter into French poetic form. Marot and Beza's Psalter speedily achieved popularity and passed through many editions.

Put to music, much of it popular ballad tunes, its Psalms were sung on the streets and in services of public worship. With alterations, Marot and Beza's Psalter long remained standard for French Protestantism... paraphrases of the Psalms in English were to be widely sung in the English-speaking churches of the Reformed tradition." (A History of Christianity, Harper and Row).

"But certain churches employ the Psalms largely or exclusively. The most prominent of these has been the United Presbyterian, using a Psalter adopted in 1912. But in 1926 a collection of hymns was added...Other psalm-singing churches are the Associate Presbyterian Church of North America, the Associate Reformed Synod of the South, the Reformed churches of the Netherlands, the Original Secession Church of Scotland, and the Reformed Presbyterian of Scotland, Ireland, and America." (Int. Std. Bible Ency., p. 2494B).

Undoubtedly much of this deviation from the Biblical pattern naturally flows from selecting a clergy-musician who seeks out song books with songs which please the church and compete with "pagan musical worship art." However, as "Sunday School Boards" have displaced the Bible as a publishing enterprise, historians believe that publishers have been very instrumental in the demise of the Biblical text for "speaking to one another"--After all, who is going to pay for a song book with the Biblical text used for songs?

"The large displacement of the Psalter by other matter of praise in the Protestant Churches during the last one hundred years has been due, not so much to the lack of appreciation of the Psalms, as to the commercial enterprise of music publishers." (Int Std Bible Ency., Psalms, p. 2494B).

This, of course, is one of the signs of end-time, Babylonian, prostitute religion: the religion of the Great Harlot who probably will not live in Rome.

Men like Justin Martyr, Erasmus, John Calvin, a host of denominational groups, and Tertullian would be astounded by our sad neglect of God's Word.

"We meet together in order to read the sacred texts, if the nature of the times compels us to warn about or recognize anything present. In any case with the holy words we feed our faith, we arouse our hope, we confirm our confidence. We strengthen the instruction of the precepts no less by inculcations..." Tertullian, On the Soul 9:4) ??

With the radical introduction of preaching, professional singers, singing styles and song content borrowed from Judaism, the theaters, and the temples of idols it should be expected that the more extreme ecstatic acts would develop.

Charismatic preachers have deliberately developed a loud, hypnotic chant; the ability to express extreme joy followed immediately with great sadness; a huge library of sad stories (research shows that most are not real experiences but lies); the hypnotic use of body movement and gestures; the claim of a "supernatural call"; spiritual insight into the Bible; and an unholy disregard for the Biblical context. On the other hand, God speaks to us "in the voice of a whispered silence" according to Karen Armstrong, in The History of God.

He is necessarily supported by a huge emphasis upon charismatic leaders with a large effeminate input into decoration and music supported by choirs, soloists, and a strong component of loud horns and percussion instruments.

The end-product as well as the goal in many churches is mild ecstasy from the sentimental poetry or the beat of the music or extreme ecstasy in more radical groups. The arrogant goal is to help bring the worshipers into the presence of God.

A lot of research confirms that mankind is reached through the "windows" which Jesus narrowed to "hearing" and "seeing" for intellectual and spiritual understanding and they can find no "antenna" through which other information flows.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have

known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Tim 3:14-17

Church music was largely a product of monastic Jews and Christians. Therefore, it is logical that:

"The Prelate loveth carnal and curious singing to the ear, more than the spiritual melody of the gospel,

and therefore would have antiphony and organs in the cathedral kirks,
upon no greater reason than
other shadows of the law of Moses; or lesser instruments, as lutes, citherns and pipes be used in other kirks." (Giradeau, p. 68, quoting Calderwood). See article about the Presbyterians Giradeau and Dabney

Musical worship teams may be the fad of failing churches. On the other hand, like the song book, they are probably the result of shoddy goods sold through tele-marketing schemes who have their own printing presses running and ready to "fill your orders."

All of this performance "speak" of human wisdom shows utter disregard for God and violates the principles even of an inspired speaker:

This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 1 Corinthians 2:13

Click to see a contrast between modern and Biblical songs.

Jubilee 99 Navigating The Winds With Dionysus

Homeric Hymn to Apollo

Lucian The Oracle Monger

First Musical Heresy Musical Worship Teams

Musical Heresy 2: Hippolytus on Music and Soothsaying

Hippolytus Book V

Orphic Music

Orphic Connection to Romans 14

Rhea-Saturn-Zoe Connection

Classical Index

Musical Worship Index

Church Fathers

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