Romans 14: ACU Rubel Shelly

The komo or comedy as the perverted sinnging and dancing of Dionysus. They are often shown with a new wineskin draped over their shoulders. You will noticed that they were usually UNCLOTHED.

But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof. Romans 13:14

Paul really said, don't let these weak people into your group and allow them to pass judgment. Paul did not consider wine drinking an iffy issue.

for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. 1 Cor 11:21 (or perhaps just saturated)

Don't you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not! 1 Cor 11:22

Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 1 Cor 5:7

Old yeast inheres in the word Jubilee which is a defacto denial that Christ came to fulfill all Old Testament types, many of which were imposed because of Israel's "musical idolatry" at Mount Sinai:

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with
........... regard to a religious festival,
........... a New Moon celebration
........... or a Sabbath day. Col 2:16

These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Col 2:17

"Judge" implies more than just trying to teach one against New Moon celebrations. Judging means that they try to force you to eat like they eat, drink what they drink, attend the religious festival, observe the New Moon or not do any work on Saturday.

Judging is insisting that strong people obey the Old Testament or pagan rituals when the strong brether knows that he is free.

Because "music" or more properly "noise" was part of the "like the nations" religious festivals and offering animal sacrifices, one who judges is the one who insists that we have no right to teach against it and that we must fellowship instrumentalists and any of the other "shadows."

A strong person knows that he can observe certain days. However, it would be judging to insist that he observe them in a religious sense.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: What Paul calls the strong brothers, on the other hand, could eat meat, celebrate holidays (holy days) and drink wine without offending their consciences.

Getting drunk on wine in Ephesians 5:18 is inconsistent with the church which is a school of the Bible. Just as in modern taverns, music and wine cannot be separated:

By looking at the literature as the only DICTIONARY of how words were used, getting FILLED with wine meant more than singing with wine in your tummy. Getting drunk and making external melody were intimately connected.

See the meaning of the Greek Symposium and Music, Wine, Homosexuality connection.

Even modern proponents of musical "worship" are strongly influenced by the god of the new wineskins: Dionysus. They used the same terms of wine as EXHILARATING WORSHIP. They must know that they are FLUTING DOWN with or without mechanical instruments the WORD of Christ and giving heed to Christ. The hallucination is that not Jesus Christ or God the Father but the indwelling HOLY SPIRIT person is directing the charismatic music and preaching. Music and wine were the weapons of the new wineskin or old Dionysus perverted worship:

kat-aule-, charm by flute-playing, tinos Pl.Lg.790e, cf. R.411a; tina Alciphr.2.1: metaph., se . . --s- phob-i I will flute to you on a ghastly flute, E.HF871 (troch.):--Pass., of persons, methu-n kai katauloumenos drinking wine to the strains of the flute, Pl.R.561c; k. pros chel-nidos psophon to be played to on the flute with lyre accompaniment, Posidon.10 J., cf. Call.Fr.10.3 P., Phld.Mus.p.49 K.

The word charm or charis from which people get "Charismatic" is the EARTHLY meaning of GRACE centered or not. Putting the focus on GRACE meant that sodomy usually in the form of pedaresty was part of worship and an appendage to ALL priesthoods.

Paul intended that the synagogue or school of the Bible not be just another tavern. Both the wine and the music would overpower or PIPE DOWN the mind so that study of the Bible was impossible. Therefore, look at the phrase:

The phrase: "methu-n kai katauloumenos (Drinking and overpowering with the flute.)"

> Kataule-

I. to play upon the flute to, tinos Plat.:--Pass., of persons, to have it played to one, id=Plat.:--Pass. to resound with flute-playing, Plut.

II. c. acc. pers. to overpower by flute-playing:--generally, to overpower, strike dumb, Eur.

> Methu- [methu] [only in pres. and imperf.; the fut. and aor. act. belong to methusk-]
........... I. to be drunken with wine, Od., etc.; m. hupo tou oinou
........... ........... Under your Wine
........... II. metaph. of things, boei- methuousa aloiph-i an ox-hide soaked in oil, Il.
........... 2. of persons, to be drunken or intoxicated with passion, pride, etc., Xen., Plat.

Kat-aule- continues:

2. c. gen. loci, make a place sound with flute-playing, Thphr.Fr.87:-- Pass., resound with flute-playing, n-sos kat-uleito Plu.Ant.56 .

The prase: n-sos kat-uleito is:

N-sos 1 an island, Lat. insula, Hom., Hes., etc.; en tai megalai D-ridi nas-i Pelopos, i. e. in Peloponnese, Soph.; makar-n n-soi, v. sub makar. [Perhaps from ne- to swim, as if floating land.]

And again.

Kataule-

I. to play upon the flute to, tinos Plat.:--Pass., of persons, to have it played to one, id=Plat.:--Pass. to resound with flute-playing, Plut.
II. c. acc. pers. to overpower by flute-playing:--generally, to overpower, strike dumb, Eur.

II. in Pass., [ton monochordon kanona] parechein tais aisth-sesi . . katauloumenon SUBDUED by a flute accompaniment, Ptol.Harm.2.12: metaph., to be PIPED down, RIDICULED

III. c. acc. rei, play on the flute, ta m-tr-ia Duris 16 J.:--Pass., to have played to one as an accompaniment on the flute, -oumenoi pros t-n hepomen-n ta m-tr-ia mel- D.H.2.19 .

A similar word is:

Katapsall- , play stringed instruments to, [sumposion] kataulein kai k. Plu.2.713e :--usu. in Pass., have music played to one, enjoy music, ib.785e; of places, resound with music, Id.Ant.56.

2. Pass., to be buried to the sound of music, Procop.Pers.2.23.

3. metaph., katapsalletai . . ho d-miourgos is drummed out, Porph.Chr.34.

The phrase: sumposion kataulein speaks of the gathering of homosexual men where wine and flute players were popular. However, it is significant that if the group had any important issues to discuss they silenced the flute players.

> Sumposion 1 [sumpin-]
I. a drinking-party, symposium, Theogn., Hdt., etc.
II. the room in which such parties were given, drinking-room, Luc.

And again for comparison:

> Kataule-

I. to play upon the flute to, tinos Plat.:--Pass., of persons, to have it played to one, id=Plat.:--Pass. to resound with flute-playing, Plut.

II. c. acc. pers. to overpower by flute-playing:--generally, to overpower, strike dumb, Eur.

The female instruments players were usually prostitutes and the male instrumentalists were sodomites to be USED after the festival. However, if they desired to discuss any issue they had to CAST OUT the musicians or parasites who couldn't keep their mouth shut.

See Rubel Shelly make the same accusation as the Jewish clergy: that Jesus was a winebibber and a wine manufacturer in the intoxicating sense. Several scholars see that as a deliberate attempt to wound the character of Jesus.

Didn't you hear what Paul just said?

These (Jubilee, Sabbath, holy days) are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Col 2:17

A strong person "might" but a strong person would not deliberately restore the Jubilee and deny the Atonement of Christ who "restored" the order. If the wine drinker or Sabbath keeper or festival keeper was the strong person then why would Paul call them just shadows?

"Eating and drinking" is a ritual or fellowship activity.

So don't let anyone criticize you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating Jewish holidays and feasts or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. Col 2:16LIV
........... Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. Col 2:17

Don't let anyone criticize you or JUDGE you for not tolerating instrumental music in imitation of the "triumph over" of Jesus with instruments which murdered Him but freed us from the weak and beggarly elements.

Now, listen to Paul set the whole "christian" university system straight:

Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. Gal 4:8

But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Gal 4:9

Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. Gal 4:10

I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain. Gal 4:11

This repudiates Rubel Shelly and declares that those who continued to practice Law-based observing of days and times and Sabbaths are the weak and in serious dangers members. These are the people who are to be silenced if they try to impose Sabbath assembly or Sabbath (Saturn) Eucharist "eating and drinking the gods."

However, until he was weaned off the observing of times and seasons (astrology) he could still meet with the people whose conscience would be mortally offended by bringing the Legalistic days into the Christian assembly.

The shadow was under the Monarchy where Israel "fired" God and demanded a king like the nations so that they could worship like the nations were involved in shadows.

Animal sacrifices were just shadows of the One Sacrifice of Christ.

Music was added under the gone-astray Monarchy and was never used except during animal sacrifices for dedicatory or purification rituals or to give glory to the civil courts.

The religious festivals were also just shadows.

Whatever people do in private, animal sacrifices and all that went with it are not related to the kingdom.

Therefore, Paul was not defining "kingdom" practices or "assembly" practices but ordinary superstitions about days and foods.

Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. Rom 14:16

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, Rom 14:17

because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. Rom 14:18

In the Haunted House by T. Maccius Plautus, the festival was really for Apollo:

PHANISCUS Really! why, yesterday and the day before, four, five, six days ago, all along, in fact, since his father went abroad from here, eating and drinking have never ceased for a single three days here.

THEUROPIDES What is it you say?

PHANISCUS That eating and drinking have never stopped for a single three days here, bringing in wenches, living like Greeks, hiring harpists and music-girls.

In the secular world, their idea of God always involved eating and drinking. Therefore in Christianity there is no handout for the musicians and rhetoricians as parasites. The priests and musical Levites who made noise and not music were fed by the people by a tithe of the food from the free lands. They ate and drank in the Temple court areas. And so did all of the pagan temples which were built specificially to BLEED OFF food from the poor and widows as did the Pharisees. The church as synagogue or school of the Bible had no free food to hand out to either Orphics or Dionysics so Christians had better follow the synagogue which had no STAFF roles of parasites:

Parasitus: (parasitos, "table companion"). denoted originally the priest's assistant, who, like the priest, received his SUPPORT from the offerings made to the temple, in return for certain services. These services included the COLLECTION and care of supplies of CORN due to the temple, assistance at certain SACRIFICES, and the preparation of the BANQUETS connected with certain festivals. Iin the Middle and New Greek COMEDY, where it means the hanger on, who plays the FLATTERER and BUFFOON, with a view to getting invited to dinner. The parasite was transferred as a standing character to the Roman imitations of Greek COMEDY, and figures largely in the plays of Plautus.

In the Postmodern churches people are told that the musicians fill the Levitical singer roles but this denies that Jesus paid the final price and tax. Furthermore, they insist that the preachers are the priests and the TITHE is still in effect to pay them. See Madison Church of Christ imitation of the Shelly plan. However, don't be fooled because Paul said that the kingdom is not about EATING and DRINKING accompanied by the musicians. Therefore, they are parasites:

Parasitos , ho, one who eats at the table of another, and repays him with flattery and buffoonery....
II. of priests who had their meals at the PUBLIC EXPENSE, Clitodem.11, Polem.Hist.78.
2. one who dines with a superior officer, Arist.Fr.551.

Parasit-ia , h-, profession of a parasite, Luc. Par.37.
Parasit-e- , board and lodge with, tini Pl.La. 179b.
2. play the parasite, aph' hou parasit- from the time I became a parasite,
II. to be honoured with a seat at the public table, Plu.Sol.24 ; prop. of the priests named parasitoi

EPIDICUS, alone.) T. Maccius Plautus, Epidicus, or The Fortunate Discovert (ed. Henry Thomas Riley)

EPIDICUS (to himself) . I do think that in the Attic land there is no spot of land so fertile as is this Periphanes of ours; why, from the locked and sealed-up money-chest I summon forth silver just as much as I please. But this, i' troth, I am afraid of, that if the old man should come to know it, he'll be making parasites of elm-twigs Note 1

1 , to be shaving me quite clean. But one matter and consideration disturbs me--what music-girl, one that goes out on hire, I'm to show to Ap-cides. (He muses.) And that as well I've got: this morning the old gentleman bade me bring for him on hire some music-girl to his house here, to sing for him while he was performing a sacrifice 2

She shall be hired, and be instructed beforehand in what way she's to prove herself cunning towards the old man. I'll away in-doors; I'll get the money out of the swindled old fellow. (He goes into the house of PERIPHANES.)

1 Parasites of elm-twigs: He alludes to the propensity of Parasites for devouring to the bone all who came in their way.

2 Performing a sacrifice: It was the custom, while private person were sacrificing to the Lares or household Gods, to have music performed upon the harp or the pipe.

The religious festivals have been abrogated. Therefore, the weak wine-drinker is not to impose his practices upon the church. The wineskin creed compares the worship assembly to the exhilaration which comes from drinking fermented, bubbling wine. This is a device to introduce the pagan belief that wine and music represented the presence of God causing the strange feelings.

These feelings were pure drug-induced or excitement-induced "highs" and do not represent the presence of the kingdom unless you implicate the King in the wine drinking or the pseudo-wine drinking, music-produced excitement.

Paul would say that the excitement of the flesh is the sign of a weak believer and they must not impose their practices upon the church. The spiritual "high" does not come from:

eating and drinking but from
righteousness, peace and joy in the Spirit of Christ Who promised to be in our midst without being called down by a musical performance.

So, whatever you think about Romans 14 the focus on the externals of eating and drinking are not kingdom related.

We might tolerate someone wanting "exhilaration" from worship but they are the weak brothers and cannot be allowed to impose their views upon the strong members.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Frankly, it's a bit difficult to be sure where these points of view originated. I don't think we know. Were the "weak" Jewish believers who were offended by the Greek majority?

Or were the "weak" Gentile Christians whose philosophies had led them to some extreme ascetic type positions? We just don't know. That's a matter of opinion. Mere matter of opinion. Whatever the origin of their points of view, though, the problem's clear. They'd taken some doctrinal stances. And it's also clear that both groups were wrong and had sinned against each other.

The weak had tended toward legalism: judgment and condemnation. The strong had tended toward an air of superiority: judgment and condemnation.

The pagan background in Rome was of the Dionysics who were wine-drinking, meat-eating worshipers who depended heavily on instrumental music.

Dionysus the Meat- Eater's wine- drinkers flute- player's God. Count the favorable mentions of WINE in this review:

"Dionysus is a strange god. Although he is best known as the god of wine, he is also a vegetation deity, a god of the liquid element,

a death god,
a god who comes into and changes,
often irrevocably, the normal community life,
and lastly the god of the theatre.

"The duality of dionysus is related to another of his attributes, which is that of loss of identity.

The postmodern theology are, if the truth be known, post garden of Eden and post Towers of Babylon. When people lost sight of God and rejected His Word He sent them strong delusions that they believe a lie and be damned. In the classical Book of Enoch or book of Jubilees and three dozen other ancient view, the children of Lamech including JUBAL they were used by SATAN to form mixed sex choirs, use instruments, dress, color, decoraton and perverted

Click to see the Feminine nature of restored Dionysus Wineskin religion. Dionysic music, dance and drama has always claimed to be mediators between God and man.

The modern ZOE concept of music and drama claim to be mediators between God and man.

The Orphics were the only "vegetarians" and they were also highly addicted to instrumental music to "bring them into the presence of the gods."

Josephus notes that Vegetarianism was a religious movement which was Orphic in nature. The Orphic religion was devoted to instrumental music. And incidentally, the Rhea or Zoe principle was intimately connected. Zoe or Sophia-Zoe or Eve was the one who forced the male "gods" to engage in musical worship teams. We look specificially at this in Romans 15. This article will direct you to Orphic music to determine whether you want those high male voices presiding over the flock.

"Orpheus was the most famous musician and poet of ancient times. His lyre, given to him by Apollo (after he invented the Cithara), could enchant not only the wild animals, but the trees and rocks as well. As will become obvious, Orphism is closely related in many ways to Dionysus, and could be considered a reform of the Dionysian Mysteries and is often regarded as the highest religious form in the ancient world.

Note the Cithara - parasite connection in this article.

"Orpheus is said to have travelled to Egypt, where he learnt from the priests there and became the most learned among the Greeks in all that concerns the Gods and their initiatory rites. He excelled in the beauty of his verse and song, and was believed to have discovered mysteries and how to achieve purification from sins, cures of diseases and means of averting divine wrath. These early rites were said to be very similar to those of Dionysus but have also been linked to the rites of Osiris and Isis."

"There are many stories of his death. Rejecting all women after the death of his wife, Orpheus was torn to pieces by Thracian women; or in another version, he was dismembered by Maenads (at Deium in Macedonia) at the urging of Dionysus, who resented Orphic rejection of sacrificial murder and the worship of Apollo (in whose temple Orpheus served as a priest).

The Oracle at Delphi to Apollo was quite identical to modern Seeker-Centers used to dispense the "new wineskin" religion, women, music, theater, swimming pool, gymnasium and gender-variant sex.

"There is more about the Thracian women. They were said to have been put up to their task by Dionysus who was angry against Orpheus because Orpheus had looked into the rites of the God.

"The Thracian women plotted his death, because he had persuaded their husbands to follow him in his wanderings and that, first after having drinking much wine, they dared to kill him; hereafter, it is said their men adopted the custom to march to battle drunk. Some believe he was killed near Mount Pieria, and close to this place an urn was preserved, which was said to contain the bones of Orpheus.

"It is also told that when the women who killed Orpheus wished to wash off in a river the blood-stains, the river sank underground, not wishing to lend its waters to cleanse manslaughter.

"Orphic initiates (and the stricter Pythagoreans) were vegetarians and also agreed to lifestyle and dietary restrictions, like not eating beans (apart from the effects beans have on the human body, they also resemble parts of it.) Pausanias mentions that Demeter gave the human race the products of the earth excluding beans.

The refusal to kill and to eat animals, was a radical step in a world of general sacrifice to the Gods, and cut them off from many of the State ceremonies."

Paul had the same solution which he commanded to the Ephesians and Colossians: that they teach and admonish one another with the Word of Christ (Spirit of God) with the singing and melody in the heart.

Rather, than Romans 14 giving all of those who lust for the sexual stimulation provided by musical and theatrical performance, Romans 15 was the absolute and only way in which diverse groups could meet in the Christian assembly which was most often the "synagogue."

In these meetings, one did not gather to get his "fix" with a religious high. Rather, the assembly or synagogue was almost exclusively to worshp God in the only way one can worship Him "in spirit" or in the mind and "in truth" which dishonors Christ if we use our own words. This, Jesus says, makes one a liar like Satan who "speaks on his own."

Again, look at Dr. Shelly's consistent method of cutting verses into halves or quoting just up to the "punch line."

That is darn handy and using the "core principle" of Narrative Theology to take fragments and construct one's own narrative.

Never mind that rather than giving permission for "music"--which is never a Biblical, worship word--Paul issues a direct command which for a One Another teaching process:

> Is the only way to fulfill the concept of worship "in spirit" rather than "in the carnal body" and in "truth" as the Words of Christ as opposed to using Satan's method of "speaking of his own" and being called by Jesus "a liar."

> It is the only way to prevent the "sowing of discord" if two instrumental music sects did their own thing.

> Contrary to this, those who introduce instruments or 'theatrical performers' know beforehand and with a high hand "sow discord" and "offend many of these little ones." This is the terminal, beyond redemption consequence of rejecting all but the CORE GOSPEL and being sent a strong dilusion which, in the pagan world, was most often with new wine, women and instrumental performance: "The idolatry of talent." James treats "respect of persons" as the "trap stick" which drops the entire Law on one's head.

When David sang to the Gentiles it was the musical "triumph over" which Judas would try on Jesus. David shed the blood OF the Gentiles. However, Christ shed His blood FOR the Gentiles and His "singing" is not the Hebrew, musical war chant but the gospel of peace.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: The doctrine, I repeat, doctrine, held by either group was tolerable to Paul. Paul said, "Now, there's a right on each of these. But it's okay for you to hold whichever position you're committed to."

It was difficult to the charismatic pagans to abandon their deeply-held beliefs. Therefore, Paul said that you can "receive" a wine drinker in the sense of meal fellowship. Or, you can receive him into the collective assembly which HAD NO PRAISE SERVICE and assuredly NO INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC for the purpose of doing "synagogue." That is, you could receive a vegetarian musical member into the assembly to be taught by the revealed Words of Christ. However, Paul did not approve of their old superstition and neither should we.

If a WINE DRINKER or a drunkard wants to attend "synagogue" he can attend. If you want to take him to lunch you do not sin by that association. However, it is a sign of terminal ignorance to allow such a lost person to defend wine drinking as something Paul would approve of when the "proof text" is that Jesus also drank wine, manufactured 180 gallon of the pure stuff for an already drunken wedding party with a young bride sure to get pregnant, and therefore THE INCARNATE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE endorses wine drinking. How can you fall into such depths. That happens when you believe and teach the CORE GOSPEL and insist that all of the rest is a product of Narrative Theology made to fit the occupaton of the Bible writers.

Paul did not mean to rule out association with these weak people but certainly the Orphic, musical vegetarian sect should not promote their pagan musical worship.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: The doctrine held by either group was tolerable to him, but the attitude displayed by both groups was intolerable to him.

Thus, Paul was grieved that harsh feelings over these non-fundamental issues were causing a rift in the church.

So, he reminded them that Jesus is the Lord over all believers (verse 9), and told them that they had no right, no right, to sit in judgment on each other (verses 10 and 11).

Paul said that a strong person can either rest on Saturday or mow the lawn on Saturday. It is not part of Christian teaching. However, Paul did not say that he was wishy-washy or held no opinion. We noted that he was totally afraid of believers who continued to believe Legalistic or Paganistic superstitions.

Paul wasn't talking about a church but a SYNAGOGUE or ekklesia. The ekklesia was a school of the Bible and of Christ. Paul wasn't telling them to TOLERATE old habits of DRINKING WINE but to leave all such discussions out of the assembly which was not like their PAGAN WORSHIP RITUALS. He was not telling them to TOLERATE MUSIC but in chapter fifteen defined the synagogue and repudiated ANYTHING used by charismatic musicians to LADE the burden of exciting spiritual anxiety. That would include CHARISMATIC preaching which, in Corinth, was the most divisive OLD TRADITION of counting disciples.

He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.

He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks;
and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. Romans 14:6

Because they didn't eat meat and observe days and seasons "in the church" Paul is still speaking of social discourse: meal fellowship. He is not defining how "I" can add instrumental instruments to the church assembly and say that "you" have no right to pass judgment upon it.

They didn't drink wine in church so we cannot add instruments to "worship" misusing Paul. They didn't tolerate eating meat sacrificed to idols on the Lord's Table so there is no logic to add either the Dionysic or Orphic music to the worship.

If I meet a friend for lunch and I know that he drinks wine, I receive him or "have meal fellowship" with Him but I do not endorse him or miss an opportunity to warn him. Perhaps he can drink will all of his life and not get addicted.

John the Baptist would not meet at a meal in a public sense because wine would be present. The liars used this to prove that Jesus was a winebibber or wine dinker. Jesus said in effect: "you are liars." And so they were.

But...

Rubel Shelly, ACU: These same issues are still matters of doctrine, not opinion, among people in our churches. We don't have many who press for vegetarianism. I've met a few. They wear fake fur coats. (laughter) I can take you to some who argue vehemently about the appropriateness of Christians observing Passover or Christmas, or Earth Day.

And I guarantee that I can cause a church fight in your congregation by putting the question, "Can a Christian drink alcoholic beverages?" on the floor.

I can guarantee that you will have one with the Holy, Incarnate God of the universe over that one. If drinking wine is a second order truth (actually promoted by the wineskin creed) then dancing naked (ala David) is a second order truth. We have heard it used as "an approved example" for Christian worship!

Just settle the issue and tell everyone that Paul said eat and drink at home. So wine drinking is clearly not a doctrinal, meaning a Christ-taught "act of worship" for the assembly.

So, it is not rational to jump from social drinking to permitting an organ or "Sister Singers" to flaunt their fares on stage standing between God and His people.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: And the disputants will not be content to say their point of view is a mere matter of opinion, either, and "It's fine with me, brother, if you do otherwise." Either side will appeal to the Bible and believe that it's case is right and the other's wrong.

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Eph 5:18

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

FORASMUCH then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; 1 Pet 4:1

That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. 1 Pet 4:2

For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable 1 Pet : 1 Pet 4:3

The conclusions of the false accusers and Fred:

and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. Matt 11:19a

Who are they? They are the adversaries of Christ.

What was the response of Jesus?

But wisdom is justified of her children. Matt 11:19b

We might say: "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." Therefore, if Jesus was a tippler or winebibber then they could say: "We saw you drunk in the market." Since they didn't have any evidence then Jesus called them liars.

Jesus said "I drank."

You say "I'm a drunk."

You have no witnesses therefore your accusations are the children of your folish lying.

Jesus DRANK but the BLASPHEMERS said that He DRANK WINE:

Oiopotes (g3630) oy-nop-ot'-ace; from 3631 and a der. of the alt. of 4095; a tipler: - winebibber.

Rubel Shelly gives you his permission to DRINK WINE where even "communion wine" is spiked up to about 18% alcohol. You couldn't drink a glass of modern wine without being guilt of:

Oinophlugia (g3632) oy-nof-loog-ee'-ah; from 3631 and a form of the base of 5397; an overflow (or surplus) of wine, i.e. vinolency (drunkenness): - excess of wine.

Phluaros (g5397) floo'-ar-os; from phluo, (to bubble); a garrulous person, i.e. prater: - tattler

The NEW WINE Rubel Shelly is speaking of is the BUBBLING wine which is a product of the WINE VAT and not of the wineskin.

Here is REVELLING. The little box on the flute case is the JUDAS BAG. Drinkin, music, music, dancing and perversion were part of the komo. The box contained "the mouthpieces of wind instruments." After all, Psalm 41 prophesied that Judas would try to TRIUMPH over Jesus. This word includes "blowing wind instruments and 'making a joyful noise before the Lord'." This was the WARRIOR'S PANIC ATTACK.

Komos (g2970) ko'-mos; from 2749; a carousal (as if a letting loose): - revelling, rioting.

Wine was a common beverage but those who diluted it 2 to 1 were identified as tipplers. That would be about 2% alcohol for most people. However, even one or two beers would get you booked as a DRUNK DRIVER if caught. History shows that as a common beverage the wine could be dilluted up to 20 to 1.

Hermes then defines a tippler:
........... Oh! the delicious tipple, half-wine, half-water!

Aristotle said:

And the pleasanter wine is not the wine pleasant to a man whose palate has been corrupted by tippling,

since sometimes they pour in a dash of vinegar, but to the uncorrupted taste.

And: For taste is concerned with discriminating flavors, as is done by wine-tasters, and cooks preparing savory dishes

Aristotle Politics: Or by the usage of language. Thus any mixed drink is called oinos, 'wine'.

Hence Ganymede is said 'to pour the wine to Zeus,' though the gods do not drink wine. So too workers in iron are called chalkeas, or 'workers in bronze.' This, however, may also be taken as a metaphor

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Now maybe, hearing these verses that I'm going to dwell on from a fresh, contemporary translation paraphrase will make them emphatic to all of us. They may make us all uncomfortable. They may make us blush. They might even lead us to some repentance. Listen to them as I read from Eugene Peterson's translation paraphrase the message.

"Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don't see things the way you do. And don't jump all over them every time they do or say something you don't agree with, even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department.

New translations reject the old, 2,000 year old translations and therefore are commentaries. Paul said no such things and one should BLUSH and REPENT for reading the trash. Paull was speaking of not the OLD pagan beliefs to be brought INTO THE SYNAGOGUE defined in Romans 15. This would exclude wine or music or charismatic speaking (mind manipulation) which woudl create spiritual anxiety as that which Jesus Christ died to remove and caused by the doctors of the Law.

Well, we noted that Paul permitted meal fellowship or perhaps business dealings with a weak wine drinker or observer of days but he didn't endorse initiating them into a secular-like institution with the authority to teach their weak beliefs (Paul called them beliefs not doctrines). Paul said nothing about "jumping on" a weak wine-drinking brother. He said, don't despise him.

Ecoutheneo (g1848) ex-oo-then-eh'-o; a var. of 1847 and mean. the same: - contemptible, despise, least esteemed, set at nought.

Now, only to the Post-modern mind is rebuking and warning translated as "despise" or hold in contempt. Teaching despises the wine-drinking but it doesn't despise the person.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters.

One who does not use instrumental music has the right to have his way in his own group with property he has helped pay for. He does not despise or have his way over other groups who choose to introduce mechanical worship agents.

Paul spoke of eating meat or not eating meat and certainly this was not a doctrinal view. Drinking wine was not illegal but the Scriptures warn against it. Therefore, Paul is not giving permission to replace the "fruit of the vine" with fermented wine and insisting with the Rabbi of the time that one is "bound to get drunk on Passover so that he cannot tell one person from another." We are not bound to let the good rabbi be the preacher and communion preparer.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: It's God we're answerable to, all the way from life to death and everything in between, not each other. That's why Jesus lived and died and then lived again, so that He could be our Master, across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other. So where does that leave you when you criticize a brother? And where does that leave you when you condescend to a sister? I'd say it leaves you looking pretty silly, or worse.

I would say that it leaves you at the same place when you use the RACA words to repudiate those who had NEVER used instruments from objecting when BANDITS imposed instruments and "stole the church houses of widows." Or those who introduce MUSICAL WORSHIP TEAMS to "lead you into the presence of God." Jesus died for that power and TEAMS repudiate both Jesus and His Songs.

Eventually, we're all going to end up kneeling side by side in the place of judgment facing God. Your critical and condescending ways aren't going to improve your position there one bit. Cultivate your own relationship with God, but don't impose it on others.

When one identifies non-instrumentalist as brother killers then I would suggest that this is despising the person and not rationally convincing from the Bible that instrumental music is approved by Christ.

When universities invite such Judgementalism it is also showing contempt for the non-musical group which gave it birth and supported it.

When the good elder gets up and says that we will begin using the Commercial Musical Worship Team to lead the congregation and sell their CDs then you have imposed a 100% opinion over the head of Lord Jesus Christ and 100% repudiation of musical attacks upon heavenly places. All musical groups who wrestle the church away from its owners use a hostile takeover and those who are strong in the faith have "the widow's house" stolen and they impose the paganistic music upon them--spite of hell.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: You're fortunate if your behavior and your belief are coherent. But if you're not sure, if you notice that you're acting in ways inconsistent with what you believe,

some days trying to impose your opinions on others, other days just trying to please them, then you know that you're out of line. If the way you live isn't consistent with what you believe, then it's wrong. So, reach out and welcome one another to God's glory. Jesus did it. Now, you do it."

Open arms is not for open dispute. You can hold any opinion you wish as a personal opinion but this translation does not give you the authority to create sectarianism by adding musical instruments as devices to "move into the presence of God." Nor does it give you permission to impose a weak, beggarly element of "like the nations" worship upon the strong in the faith.

If you construct a new denominational sect aimed specificially at imposing denominational false doctrine then you are the sectarian, legalist and dividing the church over that which you believe is optional but Bible students know is not.

This passage in Romans prohibits adding non-essentials which divides the church just to attract another band of people.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: I think that's a powerful translation. Because of these appeals from the word of God, there are three Biblical actions that I believe men and women of good will within our two groups are obligated to take.

That doesn't sound optional to me!

Rubel Shelly, ACU: These three Biblical actions are deeds of acceptance, reconciliation and unity.

Sounds like an intellectual and ethical problem. We believe that Paul clearly defines strong and weak people.

The weak people might enjoy meal fellowship or attend church but they were not permitted to teach their views about optional matters and thereby divide the church. Click Here

Rubel Shelly, ACU: First, I believe we must accept one another as brothers beloved of God. "Accept one another, then," pleaded Paul. And now I'm reading from a real Bible (laughter), the New International Version (laughter). "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God" (Romans 15:7).

Paul uses the word bear the infirmities. Bear means to endure but not fellowship.

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. Mt.8:17

Infirmities means:

Astheneo (g770) as-then-eh'-o; from 772; to be feeble (in any sense): - be diseased, impotent folk (man), (be) sick, (be, be made) weak.

It is quite different to bear the infirmities than to fellowship one who believes that he hasn't worshiped until he has slaughtered an animal and drank his blood before it dies as the drums and flutes make an insane noise. There were many of these people in Corinth and Rome.

However, it will not bring praise to God if we participate with them in the universally-musical worship.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: We have believed on the same Christ
........... and confessed that faith
........... In the same symbolic act of baptism.

This sounds like BELIEVER'S BAPTISM. Zwingli INVENTED the Baptist (symbolic) baptism as late as 1525. He also repudiated all of the other versions and scholars and claimed that He invented the heresy of FAITH ONLY. Everyone before Zwingli believed that Jesus Christ had the power to forgive sins and give A holy spirit or clear conscience only to those who REQUEST it at the time and place of Water Baptism. Believer's baptism is also a form of ancient PAGAN BAPTISM just as MUSICAL WORSHIP is repudiatign Paul's warning about perverted singing of secular tunes to a Spirit God.

Jesus, Peter and Paul didn't consider baptism a symbolic act any more than a check for a million dollars left unsigned makes you rich. The fact that one is a baptized believer does not automatically cure one of drinking wine or participating in pagan festivals. We might believe that Christ has received them without believing that they have matured.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: We've been put into his one body, the church in that process. Like it or not, we're brothers and sisters in Christ. That brothers differ on the millennium, the work of the Holy Spirit, church organization, instrumental music, having a glass of wine, the role of women in church leadership, and a dozen, dozen (that is 144 tolerable differences) other issues does not change the fact that they're all children of God.

Where in the world does a preacher get the supernatural knowledge to know what is in the Mind of God? Only from hearing the Mind of Christ. Preaching the "now but not yet kingdom" is a premillennial view. This view holds that Christ tried to establish His kingdom, got defeated by Satan, high tailed it back to the safety of heaven, and will -- now but not yet -- give it another try. This is neither liberal nor conservative but just dumb heresy.

Paul made the role of women in church leadership pretty clear. To claim that Paul just picked the "wrong creation account" is to claim that Paul was not inspired. These excathedra pronouncements are clearly out of the head and therefore liberal. Click Here

If you want to hold and practice that false view then it is ok with me. However, if you lay down the law that I must affirm you by agreeing and meeting in your congregation then you are sectarian and divisive. And if you spend the Lord's money trying to impose that view on others then you do not hold it as an opinion and violate Romans 14.

Paul defined for the leadership a term which means: "No, never under any circumstances be near consumers of wine." And he outlawed women in a "non-sedantary" role even as he outlawed most men in a "preachery" role unless they were inspired.

Paul did it as feminist theology admits because he knew that "female authority" by the definition of the word means "sexual authority." You cannot use the sister singers as stand over, non-sedentary, ruling with a tune role without using and abusing them to exercise sexual authority in order to satisfy lust which cannot be prevented and is undoubtedly intended to "bring 'em back again, dead or alive."

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Second, I believe we must not only acknowledge one another to be brothers in Christ, but be reconciled to one another. Without abandoning or compromising the first order truths of the gospel, that is, issues that relate directly to the meaning of Christ and his atoning death,

Again, get it this time, Paul preached this first order truth in Corinth because they were still carnal. To the "perfected" he taught the meaty doctrine consisting of whatever Jesus taught and inspired the Apostles to teach.

We have no authority to define who is or is not a brother in the spiritual sense. And Paul insists that we can have meal fellowship with those who are weak but Paul didn't include "external melody" which he knew was anxiety-creating and would violate the will of Christ who came to relieve the world of anxiety-creators.

The estrangement Rubel Shelly is discussing is the Sectarianizing the Restoration Movement to compete with the growing post-civil, affluent city churches to gather in all of the loose change. It had no spiritual or doctrinal imperative but it was purely mercenary. Not until about 1878 did anyone dare to use Psallo or the Bible in any way to defend instrumental music.

Those who refused to be coerced into instruments and a "one world government" of "Christendom" did not change one jot or tittle from the consistent denominational repudiation of instruments.

Now, Rubel Shelly insists that those who didn't sectarianize finally affirm, approve and fellowship those who divided and divide the church. This can be nothing less than joining with the Christian Church movement after "assimilation" by meeting in a Christian Church Building and being "affirmed" by them and "facilitated" into an instrumental view. That is, these people have been converted by the Christian Church which has eternally been "evangelistic" in trying to take over non-instrumental property. And it works.

This would be equivalent to a Catholic affirming Catholicism. Therefore, he would not be an honest broker to pretend to be a church of Christer and use the "platform" in violation of Romans 14 to try to impose the Catholic Eucharist (Walk to Emmaus) on the "paying audience" masquerading as a church of Christer. This would be especially damning when he knew before hand that he would sow discord, divide brethren and offend many of these little ones.

The only solution, if one is insisted on, would be for the instrumental churches to dispose of what created the musical sect, and for the pseudo-instrumental groups to disband their musical teams exercising sexual authority over the flock.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: we must stop labeling as apostate and

withholding or withdrawing fellowship over second and third order truths.

For me, a second order truth in the New Testament includes those discipleship issues such as drinking wine versus teetotal.

And third order truths would be group distinctives such as instrumental versus a cappella music.

One assuredly has to be unaware of the entire Old Testament, New Testament, the church Fathers, the denominational founders, most of church history for over 1800 years to make instrumental music a third order truth.

The Bible abounds with implicating wine and instrumental music with starving the people for the Word and telling God to get lost.

Sounds like problems deeper than I can grasp. How in the name of holy conservatism can a for-hire preacher be so underemployed that he has the time to be so aggressive in trying to force things like the denial of baptism (Max Lucado, Jubilee 97), using psychological force (violence) to make people practice lifting holy hands, laying on of holy hands, viewing the ladies around the Asherah Poles with instrumental music (Jubilee 98), and a host of other things?

I find that the activities of one small congregation gives me more fellowship than I can tolerate and more needs for ministry (the old term for preacher who is not located evangelist) than any single person can begin to serve. Do I really have to go to the Baptist church, confess that I am wrong about baptism and instrumental music, fellowship and worship with them? Aren't we just too expansive? That will have to be a rubber wineskin.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: First, second, third order truths, and then I might even acknowledge a fourth order of truth. A fourth order of truth is those mere matters of opinion.

Wine, women and song is a first order truth to me and the Bible. I don't care what others do but to insist that I am divisive and guilty for teaching the clear words of Christ is dogmatic and sectarian. The entire batch of gurus posting themselves at the peak of the hill (har meggido) pretend that they know nothing about the Bible and instrumental music. But Jubal was the father of those who handle (without authority) instruments to deceive people and undoubtedly his sons still abound.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: And of course, the truth on each of those is each of those as I see them. But to stay with first, second, third order, that's not to say that some things in the Bible are true and some are false. It's to say that everything in the Bible is true, but some of those truths are more important than other truths.

When Jesus said, "Don't get involved with the body or flesh: My Words are Spirit and Life" (John 6:63) He seems to have failed to outline acts like a Thesis of first order, second order and third order and then opinion." Doesn't this new definition deny Christ and His power to preach more than the "first principles"?

I suppose to the curse of a pyramidal ministry team imposed upon Israel for demanding a king so that they could "worship like the nations" we are going to have to have some new books, some new training classes at the Universities, some new seminars and then some new ministers to sort out just which "order" of truth we will be legalistically bound to observe:

Minister of First Order Truth: Pulpit Minister

Minister of Second order truth: Hire a Holy Bartender from Vineyard.

Minister of Third order Truth: Hire theatrical performers (actor means hypocrites)

Minister of Fourth order Truth: This can be contracted out to Gallup

Then, of course, we need an Order Police.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Paul, in Romans 14 and 15, said, "Look, there's an absolute bottom line, fact of the matter about the right and wrong of each of these. But," he says, "back off and leave each other alone to draw some conclusions that aren't the same. Draw your conclusion in good conscience. Live with it consistently. Don't try to coerce your brother. Don't condescend to your brother."

No. He said, "Don't bring your old practices into the SYNAGOGUE of Christ because in the next chapter I am going to discuss a CHRIST-MODELLED way of "glorifying God WITH ONE MOUTH" using ONLY "that which is written." Elders are commanded to "teach that which has been taught and refute those who oppose it." Paul was repudiating all old WORSHIP CENTERS and the Lord's Day was to keep them away from the worship of the S.U.N. god when they should be LISTENING to the S.O.N. God.

Churches of Christ remained faithful to the Restoration Movement which was somewhat faithful to the church of Christ which began on Pentecost.

The musical group "backed off" in order to organize a musical sect where they could confiscate the property.

Now, why is it that the new thought police cannot be happy with people doing what they are conformable with?

Why make a new sect our of denying sectarianism? Why make it a first order principle that I have to worship with people with whom I disagree? Is this the guilt clause to try, as they did with McGarvey, to keep him from being "divisive" by refusing to worship with instruments?

It was the musical group which forced its opinions upon the others. And when the churches which had never been musical from their Biblical and historical foundation, it was a musical organization which attempted to "evangelize" and force music. This was what broke the fellowship between the musical and non-musical churches.

Churches of Christ have not moved from the entire Biblical and historical foundation. Billy Goat of the hill will not push us off.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: First order truth, that's truth that's critical truth.
........... That's core truth about how one comes to know Christ.

The second and third order truths,
........... one need never come to a view on in order to be a Christian.

On Pentecost, those people understood enough first order truth to accept Christ. They didn't have a position that day on whether to support Herald of Truth out of the treasury.

Paul said NOTHING about PREACHING only Christ and Him Crucified. To the literate he said that he would "KNOW only Christ and Him crucified." That means that the preacher should model Christ and GO OUT and preach rather than SOW DISCORD all over the world with a PAGANISTIC view of "worship" as the ONLY WORK of the church. Again, in the next section we will prove that both Christ and Paul repudiated ANYTHING manipulated which would RAISE THE EXCITEMENT LEVEL. Nimrod and modern science knows that MUSIC creates a DRUG HIGH. This in turn AROUSES the impulses of FIGHT, FLIGHT and SEXUALITY.

Sounds like a somewhat violent put down of those who knew that the ship of state was sinking when their feet got wet and didn't have to wait until it got blown off course and they were in water up to their neck under the Navigators now Navigating the Winds they were blowing up in the first place. Sounds like my wife's experience with a recent auto mechanic: "I busted your heater but I will fix it for 300 dollars."

Many of these people were devout Jews who traveled long journeys and endured hardships to be at Pentecost in Jerusalem. They had been taught from their youth by what we confuse with singing. That is, they chanted the words of God in order to memorize them.

They were probably more literate than many preachers who apparently have never read the Old Testament--even to get that Phd.

They had one problem, they asked one question, they got one answer, and they obeyed Christ by being baptized. Their education continued.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: They hadn't had time yet to debate whether or not now that we are Christians we can ever have a glass of wine with dinner.

They didn't discover levels of truth through debate, did they? They had been Jews all of their lives and therefore they understood about those who "would prophesy to you about beer and wine" for a price or just for the beer and wine. They knew enough that Peter said "this is that" and they understood.

They knew that if they saw a priest drinking wine he would be disqualified. That is why the clergy lied about Jesus by accusing him of being a winebibber. If they could convict Him of drinking wine--any wine--He could not be prince, king or priest.

Jesus said that "wisdom is justified by their children." That means that Jesus said: "You are a bunch of liars."

The "new wine in new wineskins" gets clearer and clearer. How else could the kingdom and gospel be compared to fermenting wine which was the universal symbol of evil when Jesus spoke about the "water of the Word" and Paul spoke about "milk." When we accept evil for ourselves we suddenly become non-sectarian and want freedom for everyone.

They knew that wine or any leaven was taboo for Passover and they probably knew that only the "preachers" believed and taught that one should get so drunk at Passover they couldn't tell the difference between Joe Blow Preacher and Jesus. They know that Kings and Princes did not drink wine and that a woe was pronounced on anyone who would feed it to others -- usually to see their nakedness, real or emotional.

Many have known about the "wine, women and instrumental music" condemned by Amos as taking away the key to knowledge. They may have caught Isaiah's chapter five song of God connecting wine and instrumental music.

Well, we just don't know, do we? We know that the Jews understood that street preachers or musical street performers on the day of Pentecost were normally drunks looking for a handout. That is why they accused the Apostles for being out there.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Wouldn't have occurred to them to bring up the matter of what kind of music we're going to have when we go to church Sunday.

That is a fact. There was no "music as worship" in the culture of the Jews. The only "music" in the culture of the Gentiles was of the pagan priestesses or effeminate males singing, playing and trying to arouse the "worshipers into the presence of the god" who would meet them in the back room and look just like the priestess.

These literate people already knew that music was always for the civil temple state and never for congregational worship. They knew what Josephus knew: that musical Levites were bringing the temple down once again.

If hey knew any Greek they knew that "music" was a secular term and was never used in a religious sense except by pagans. The Jews "made a loud crashing sound" which was not music to our ears.

They may have know what Josephus knew when he attributed, like Ezekiel, the destruction of the nation to the musical Levites and promised that their reinstatement to wear linen garments and perform as musical worship teams would again destroy the nation. See Josephus condemn the self-appointed priests, Agrippa's Seeker Center and the musical levites all at one place.

Music was Never used on the Sabbath for "congregational singing with instrumental accompaniment." Sabbath was for rest, not for worship.

Knew that music was for animal sacrifices for dedicatory or purification rituals.

Knew that they were not "not in church" but inside the gates which kept the people out.

Knew that sacrificial worship was performed by the civil leaders and the clergy.

Knew that when they heard a great, crashing sound they had better fall on their faces.

Knew that the Levites were added as Israel's burden and were to keep the "congregation" out of God's symbolic presence in the reassigned Tabernacle.

Knew that the Feast of Tabernacles had become a pagan fertility ritual and that Jesus didn't go up because He knew that the jubilators would try to murder Him during the opening, musical festivities.

Knew that the temple was the "church" of the civil or other bigshots and Sadducees.

Knew that the "congregation" went to the synagogue.

Knew that there was no form of our singing. There was no praise service in the synagogue.

Knew that there was no instrumental music in the synagogues

Knew that the "preacher" read the Word and had the decency to sit down as patterned by Jesus and dialog it.

Knew that they didn't sing sentimental, effeminate poetry.

Knew that if they saw a musical team with uncovered women it was probably, as Solomon warned, prostitutes trying to "lead the customer into the presence of the pagan gods."

Knew that if they saw male musicians in public they were always gender-confused. They tried to seduce Jesus by "piping" to get Him to sing and dance. Hoped that John wore "soft" clothing: the clothing of a catamite.

Knew that you cannot listen to instruments and think or learn at the same time and that synagogue was school and not worship center like the pagans.

Knew that only Levites and Priests were permitted to play music.

Knew, many did, that Jesus "cast out the musical mourning team 'more or less violently' before he healed the young girl.

Knew their own synagogue background (only about 10 to 12 thousand manned the temple as money machine taking widow's mites) that music had no role to play.

Therefore, we see no hint that they wanted, needed or used music in any sense. Hymning psalms is not a musical term.

So, I would say that they knew more than our good doctor's audience.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: This means that people on both sides of these issues who have judged and condemned each other, whether from a legalistic or superiority posture

must repent of our past behaviors and be willing to admit that we've both been wrong.

And consciously undertake a more Christlike treatment of one another. We're free to hold and practice our points of view but we are not free to judge one another any longer.

Jesus didn't treat any of the "musical" episodes in His life with undue kindness.

Again, musical worship was legalistic in paganism. It was used to "move the worshipers into the presence of the gods."

It was legalistic under the Monarchy because it was associated with Jerusalem, the temple and animal sacrifices.

When the temple ceased twice, the music ceased because any Jewish boy would understand that it had no rationale outside of animal sacrifices and then it was noise and not music.

I don't plan to repent about seeing baptism as operative as a way to "accept the will of God for my life."

I don't plan to repent about not attending where instruments are played. Don't even plan to repent for turning off my hearing aids when the spit flies during congregational shouting.

Don't plan to repent for refusing to participate with wine drinkers. Paul commanded of the elders "don't go near the drinking bouts where the wine might not even be intoxicating."

Don't plan to apologize for gagging when I see the world lost and preachers in a bonded-buddy fellowship all over the world (almost 40,000 at PK Atlanta, 1996).

Where is all of that brotherly love for legalists?

Legalism adds body rituals in order to move the worshipers into an ascending ceremony to make exhilarating contact with God.

Those who don't do that assuredly should repent but of being so ignorant of the musical worship issue that we allow musical proponents to "rule over us" as friends of error.

Legalism is to use psychology and human potential to try to fix people's medical or mental problems while ignoring the Words of Christ. Superiority means "I have the fix for your problems in Nashville."

Sectarianism was always behind the addition of music in the belief that they could worship God -- they baptized instruments, you know.

Those who judged and condemned, created sectarianism by adding instruments and trying to evangelize churches to join the Missionary Society and add instruments. I have never heard this "legalistic superiority posture" recently unless it was by a "parrot" having listened to a sermon, say 20 or thirty years ago when people got so enlightened that they gave up on the Bible and began to sell human opinion. Note by Clicking Here and by Clicking Here.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Third, I believe we must begin to practice unity within our long-fractured fellowship. My appeal here is not for organizational unity but for mutual respect and understanding. We can converse, worship, pray, and minister together.

Rubel should grasp that only people ON THE DOLE have time and "motive" to seek WARMTH from activities outside of their own time and place.

I have never known a non-musical person who did not respect a musical person. It is truly possible to forcefully argue and even condemn as ignorant the flat-earth people while holding them in respect as persons.

Jesus Christ and Paul fractured the church into local assemblies within the community. Jubilee is a defacto proposal for organizational unity where you come to Nashville to learn how to "worship" with music and drama or theatrical performance, how to import a Community Church form and sell books and Sunday School stuff.

Because there is no organization among churches of Christ with which to unite it is fairly liberal of Dr. Shelly not to try it.

Otherwise, to affirm, to worship, pray and minister together is about as united as one can get. Who gives way? It will never be the instrumentalists saying, "We will toss out our multi-horsepower instrument just to gain Dr. Shelly's affirmation." Based on my knowledge, I don't suspect that they have as much free time as Dr. Shelly. Nor do they agree with the move into secular bands to supply their music.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: We can encourage one another. We can be each other's confidants and counselors. (Is that male bonding?) We can practice hospitality. Why, within our common commitment to congregational autonomy, no one could even propose a meaningful form of organizational unity for us to adopt. For people who've watched these Restoration Forums with the fear that we're trying to create such an organizational unity, let those fears forever cease.

What people watch these forums for is for self-appointed leaders to abandon the non-instrumental position for everyone else, to court confidants by affirming the musical position and passing harsh judgment upon the non-musical group.

This way, without any organic unity, each can go back and spill the leaven into their own churches and slowly move toward the instrumental position. It is not a sign of courage to abandon and ridicule one's old position just to get friends. One suspects that they don't really need any confidants who so readily turn coats.

People who pay the bills are too busy for belly-button contemplation. Why, if I need counseling, I could probably find someone close to home. If I need a confidant -- pretty much outgrew that one -- I still have Jesus. Annie, the beagle, and Tiger the cat give me about as much counseling as I can tolerate: I am well trained.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: I'm pleading for nothing more than the sort of unity one Church of Christ (non-instrumental) has with another Church of Christ (non-instrumental). Nothing more than what one independent Christian Church has with another independent Christian Church.

Frankly, the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ has more in common with the Donnelson Church of Christ in Nashville than with, say, the Jackson Park Church of Christ in the same city.

I mean no more disrespect by telling you that than by telling you that the Highland Church of Christ in Abilene has more in common with the Preston Road church in Dallas than with the First Christian Church in Nashville. I'm just talking about, what in business, we call "networking."

I told you about the motives. Don't comprende "networking." Jesus might suggest, "Go, preach, baptize, teach" and you will suddenly run out of networking time.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Yet in terms of actual shared experience and networking, the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ has more in common with First Christian Church in Nashville than with the Jackson Park Church of Christ in Nashville.

That is not because the First Christian Church agreed to any "church of Christ" views. It is because, as in all ecumenical movements, the Word based systems always get sucked into the performance worship based systems. I just have to laugh when educated people believe that they are meeting on equal terms when they, as in the story of Genun (Jubal) have just been defeated and can never, because of pride, return to the old paths of non-exhilarating worship.

So, just confess, that one is now a defacto Christian Church and stop passing judgment on old enemies.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Just as congregations within the framework of our two brotherhoods (that sounds like two denominations) have greater or lesser fellowship with each other at a purely practical level, so many congregations may, across those boundaries, have greater or lesser fellowship with each other. We need not reject God-given opportunities for fellowship out of the fear that

some schismatic brother or paper might attack us for accepting them.

Is that an oxymoron? That is what we all knew! How can one be a schismatic in these terms and still be a brother?

Is that "despising" one who has a differing "doctrine" in violent repudiation of Romans 14?

Why isn't the schismatic brother one of those weaker brethren whom you should see as a teachable mission point?

It is purely because the "schismatic" will not join the SECTARIANS who added the "non-essential" instrumental music and theatrical performance guilds knowing beforehand that he was dividing the church, splitting of a new sect and doing it "spite of hell."

Where do people get time for all of those buddy meetings? Why does the "leaven spore" of my church not grow and satisfy and do the will of Christ without feeling the God-like urge to judge that some other church is more unschismatic Christian? Is that a first order schismatic or a second order schismatic?

To claim that rejecting musical worship is schismatic is to use the guilt clause. The Zealots or Sicarri (as in Judas Sicarri) stabbed with a dagger and then cried: "Foul, most foul, some schismatic has stabbed this here good brethren."

Schismatic is adding musical worship knowing that it will sow discord, that there is no Biblical command and doing so for purely mercenary reasons to collect the crowds to keep from "going out in the cwww."

If you add the music and I remain exactly where the Bible-based belief has rested for two thousand years, then by what twist of illogic can I be schismatic. Might as well, in keeping with The Second Incarnation, blame those being invaded for attacking you on the beaches.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Now, lest those three issues of acceptance, reconciliation and unity be left too vague to be helpful, I'll dare to define some specific behaviors, projects and interactions that are possible within such a framework.

First, many of us pray, both individually and with one another for God to show us a way out of division into unity. We believe it can't possibly be wrong for us to pray for the same thing Jesus prayed for in John 17:20, 21.

Sounds like a preacher problem or a Jesus problem: Why do you suppose Jesus wasted three years training the Apostles if all they needed was a CORE? Why do you suppose He patterned no instrumental music and repudiated the Jewish clergy as "pipe playing children" if it wasn't important. Why didn't He go up to the opening ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles as a giant fertility ritual or Jubilee if He had no opinion. His unity is based on His Word and His word will not give you any clue to unity by violating that word.

You have to "come out of her" to be united.

For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. John 17:8

I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. John 17:14

Isn't it a deeply psychological problem to feel the need to be affirmed by everyone so you can go "dunkin donuts" or wine drinking with them? The full gospel has always been divisive and if it produces "peace, peace when there is no peace" it is another gospel.

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. John 17:17

As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. John 17:18

And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. John 17:19

Because the apostles were to go into all the world, Christ was not concerned about establishing nation-wide unity forums where all of the for-hires have time to leave their flock.

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; John 17:20

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. John 17:21

Now, nobody is gonna get mad if you just preach the CORE so that everyone who was ever swept through the Restoration Movement (Mormons? Wesley Pentecostals?) can fit into a new wineskin so that we can all drink wine and preach a wineskin gospel and kingdom without offending one of these little ones.

Offenses come when you faithfully preach the APPLE which consists of everything the Invisible God of the Universe revealed through the ONCE Incarnated God of the Universe! What caused the Jews to be offended? Baptism, of course. And assemblies not in the doomed temple, of course. And failure to keep condemned feast days, of course. And failure to worship in the New Moon festivals, of course. Failure to pay the temple tax or tithe, of course. They really got mad when they played their fertility music and Jesus refused to sing and dance. He was not very non-sectarian, was He.

How can preaching the CORE bring the sanctifying Spirit Christ put into all of His Words (John 6:63)?

Unity is based on the Word which not even Jesus altered.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Second, we can have conversations with each other. Some of these conversations may deal with points of concern and disagreement. Many more of them, though, need to deal with the even larger points of agreement and joint affirmation. Although our history contains many more of the former than the latter, (history of conversations about our disagreements, getting together to debate instrumental music, for example,

There is nothing to debate: we can collect all of the literature from the ANE, the Bible and church history and it ALL repudiates the idea of MUSIC as worship. It is pagan and PIPES DOWN the Word of Christ.

Shelly etal can not find a jot or tittle of information about MUSIC being used in congregational worship.

Debate over unless they can produce evidence which overcomes the COMMON SENSE TESTIMONY that you cannot worship or GIVE HEED to Christ and the musicians at the same time. Let a sixth grader be the judge.

Isn't this paper showing Dr. Shelly still debating instrumental music? Hasn't he already come down on the affirmative side of music as a non-essential? Of course, debate among those who already agree will be consistent with unity forums.

Why would we debate second and third order truths such as drinking wine and instrumental music? If one can introduce the legalistic work of a pseudo-pipe organ with women overseers moving the audience into the presence of God as mediators how could we even worry about instrument? If it is a debatable issue then why would we condemn churches of Christ as rotten and destructive (decadent and deleterious for you city people).

Why don't we just leave everyone alone and do our work in our "field white unto harvest." If the world more than doubles in the next half-century, won't Nashville do more than double? What are you doing to preach the Word to them without worrying about where they get baptized or join your group and subscribe to your collection plate so that you can build a new temple symbol of civic-pride?

Rubel Shelly, ACU: rather than getting together to talk about some things we might do on the mission field, or to better communicate the Restoration ideal in this culture), I think that's a mistake that needs to be corrected. As in marriage counseling, a pair'll have better success in dealing with its points of tension if there's first a deep and unifying appreciation of its commonalities. If a couple comes into my office warring, I don't start in by saying, "Give me the list and let's duke it out." I say, "Can you tell me how you met? Can you tell me why you fell in love? Can you tell me about your wedding day? Tell me about the birth of your children." It seems to me there's a great deal of common sense in that, that we've not applied in our family discussions.

Third, we can engage in joint ministry with each other. We've been speaking at each other's conferences and lectureships on a limited scale and that practice seems not only to have been generally well received but to be growing.

Many of the groups already do that and probably no one ever suggests silencing the organ and the clanky-clank piano in the interest of unity. When churches of Christ speak of being ecumenical they always have to abandon their principles to unify with the others.

This doesn't sound like cooperation but "a hostile takeover" and a very dumb sell out.

We know of churches of Christ which have added organs or their human-synthesized equivalent, the musical praise team, but can't really find a Christian church which has put the organ out. Get the picture? This is not unity: it is a person who has converted to a new religion and is urgently trying to take other (legalistic) churches with him. Why not just get off the dole and find a church which uses instruments rather than being sectarian and judgmental against all of those old legalists and trying to take over their property?

To do joint missions those who do not hold the Biblical view of baptism would fit in nicely with many of the instrumental group who already agree. But, then, this would not be a joint mission effort but a mission team united on the principles of the instrumentalists.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Frankly, more of us have been invited out of the a cappella churches to be a part of lectureships and teaching settings at Christian Church schools and congregations than the reverse.

Don't they invite those who will agree with them and also attract crowds? Doubt that they would ever invite anyone who would present the Biblical and historical view. So, isn't this like me inviting those who already affirm me?

Don't the Christian churches get a lot of good psychological mileage out of inviting one who still claims to be a church of Christer? I know that Baptists love to drag Dr. Shelly out as a sign that the "Church of Christ cult" finally has some new winds blowing in its sails.

So. Perhaps, Dr. Shelly is just being used?

Rubel Shelly, ACU: You have to understand where the two groups are, I suppose, even politically, to understand why that's so, but that's beginning to change.

We're teaching at each other's schools now, we're doing guest lecturing and offering courses.

But, try to post information on the Restoration Movement from the non-instrumental view and you will find the host of powers in heavenly places come down on you. The musical web pages will link some of the wildest material but will not link any information from a non-instrumental view. And they do take some time to limit your influence. So, those who teach in musical colleges are defacto-musical disciples or they would not be hired and certainly not permitted to teach the non-instrumental viewpoint.

So, pro-instrumentalists will continue to be invited to pro-instrumentalist lectures. And, in fact, pro-instrumentalists exclusively will be invoked to church of Christ "Christian" colleges to present their views. Why? Well, one supposes that the quicker the non-instrumental institutions move into the musical realm the broader their appeal for obscene charges for depth-evacuated lectures and seminars.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: That's good. We've written for each other's publications.

Whom has written for who? Well, pro-instrumentalist and church of Christ mortal enemies will always be welcomed in musical publications. Will they publish anything from people who disagree with them? They will not. So, again, we know that people love to use people to bash other people.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Several of us in this room have written for, say, "One Body," or "The Christian Standard." And some of you have written for "Image" or for "Wineskins."

Waall, why not, Bubba? Isn't Image and Wineskins on the attack against non-musical legalists? Sure, they would welcome articles from those with whom they agree. But, surprise! Surprise! Surprise! or even Shazam. Why not? Will Wineskins publish anything deeper than the dry skin of an onion on the non-musical view? Of course not. So, Dr. Shelly is among friends and I would guess that he got some more invitations out of bashing the non-instrumental group.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: We're writing a New Testament commentary series together. Under the leadership that Don DeWelt gave to that project in a generous financial endowment that was provided to it, we're doing the New Testament commentary series together now, with about fifty-fifty authorship. The books are already being produced. They're coming out and that has to be good for both of us.

Truly want to read those musical passages. I'll bet you can guess who it will be good for.

Heard about one rare church going instrumental after going musical worship team and learning how to lift holy hands at Jubilee and the Zoe movement. Held a course on the Restoration Movement. A black student heard that to be against instrumental music is to be racist! That was because the division over instrumental music was a racist-non-racist fight. That, of course, is a falsehood. Came out of Pepperdine But those ecumenical professors will play the race card because they don't need to be Biblically or historically literate to hold down a "chair."

So, why not join up with the instrumental group. As bonus, you also get an entree into other musical denominations.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: The Woodmont Hills Church of Christ, the church were I preach in Nashville, and First Christian Church of Nashville are sharing a worship facility.

You see, it rubs off, doesn't it?

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Some of you already know that. Others of you, perhaps, would be shocked to learn that about three and a half months ago, the a cappella Woodmont Hills Church of Christ sold its building. And we had to give possession of it about 45 days later. And we were not just the church of the homeless, we were the homeless church. And we started looking around for possible places to have assemblies for 18 to 24 months, the length of time we suspect it's going to take us to draw plans that are only now being started, to build on a property that we're not even due to close on until 12 days from today. This is not going to be just a two or three week deal. We looked at about 37 different options. As it turned out, the most practical option that was received warmly by both churches was a shared use of the facility of an independent Christian Church on Franklin Road. They'd accommodated us by moving their Sunday evening service a bit later and we have use of that building on Sunday from 1 to 6 and we have a 1:30 and 4:15 repeat of the same worship hour and Sunday school in between at 3. We do our mid-week assemblies in there on Thursday. But not only that, we're sharing and exchanging the uses of personnel.

We co-hosted a seminar by Lyle Shower

(spell ? Perhaps, Lyle Shaller, a commercial change group much like Willow Creek). We will do some things together in the immediate future with regard to hosting other events of spiritual significance for our two churches

that will allow us to affirm our relationship to be a positive one.

We intend for these 18 to 24 months not simply to be a time of landlord and tenant relationship, but a time of healing between these two congregations, so that we can henceforth work together in productive ways and not be obstacles to each other. We believe that's against the will of God.

You probably noticed that none of the A Capella philosophy rubbed off on the musical church. That is the way it is and why we are warned about "walking, standing and then sitting" with others. The flesh-appeal always rubs off on the spirit.

I would let a Catholic group use "my" building if I thought that I could, through experience, accustom them to not having an organ in the "sanctuary."

It is no credit to say that we haven't added instruments when you have added musical worship teams! Restoration Forums will not restore the church in all of the communities outside of the Nashville, Dallas and Abilene circles.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Fourth, we can link arms (hand in hand) to stand against the real enemy of the body of Christ (schismatic or decadent churches of Christ by changing their name). To my brothers and sisters who use instrumental music, let me tell you to your faces that I don't regard you as my enemy.

Everyone knows that the NEW STYLE MUSICAL WORSHIP has its origins in the hippies and The Family of God concept.

Wow! I am sure that this is some relief! I also love those whom I defeat!!

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Satan is our common enemy. He's the bad guy. And I refuse any longer to allow him (incarnated as schismatic brothers) to divert me from confronting him by fighting with you. It's been a great diversionary tactic that he's used. I'm looking for ways to affirm and fellowship and glorify God in company with his children wherever they are found. And I know where a big block of you are.

Is this Fraudian or what? Pop scholars have read just enough about the Monarchy period to believe that God demanded musical instruments to glorify Him. However, one "pastor" claims that all musical instruments are "the Devils' instruments. However, God saw how wonderful they were at calling in the "seekers" and took them over for His own worship!?

Well, it is a fact that God tolerated instruments during animal sacrifices because Israel rejected Him and worshipped like the nations. They were past redemption and the Law was to keep them from polluting God's name and getting by with it.

What will this "Satan" look like? Won't he look like an angel of light? Why would h flaunt himself as a judgmental legalist? Won't he promote fellowship with anyone and everyone? Is there a dissociation here somewhere?

On the other hand, all traditions and the Bible attribute musical worship to Satan:

"But as to this Genun (Jubal), Satan came into him in his childhood; and he made sundry trumpets and horns, and string instruments, cymbals and psalteries, and lyres and harps, and flutes; and he played on them at all times and at ever hour. -- Second Adam and Eve 20:2

In time, Satan's led mixed-sex choirs and instrumental music brought the people down into the dark valley of the Cainites where wine, women and song so crippled them that even when they repented they could never be redeemed.

This is quite identical to the less-detailed Book of Enoch in which "God will come with ten thousand saints" and the key offenders were those who introduced instrumental music and worship teams to take the eye off God. Musical worship and abortion are grouped together by Enoch. There is a host of pre and post New Testament testimony to this universal belief that Satan used instrumental music to try to defeat God and His Word.

Ole Jubal (rhymes with?) went out and organized mixed choirs to seduce the Sethites who were faithful to the Word off the Holy mountain:

"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)

"Where kithara playing and dancing and hand clapping find place, there is the beguiling of men, the corruption of women, the sorrow of angels and a feast for the devil... Today, to all appearances, they sing psalms as God ordained, and tomorrow they will eagerly dance as taught by Satan. Today they contradict Satan and tomorrow they follow him... Let it be far from you that today, as one loving Christ, you listen attentively to the reading of the divine Scripture, and tomorrow as a criminal and a hater of Christ you listen to lyre playing." (St. Ephraim, quoted by Green, p. 37-38).

Lucifer (Latin) seduced the angels even of Heaven. She came into the garden of Eden with wind, string and percussion instruments. She wholly seduced Eve (she was bisexual). Paul treats this as a SEXUAL SEDUCTION of a bride to be.

They lie about Clement of Alexandria but you can read his story here.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Fifth, we can model non-denominational Christianity as a witness to the larger religious world. In this post-denominational era, the implementation of our rhetoric about unity in the gospel, liberty in matters of interpretation, and charity in all things should get a sympathetic, even an excited hearing.

This truly works out well if you are already agreed in opposition to non-instrumental groups.

The watching denominational world is also upset because of the take-over by feminine and effeminate control. How can you seduce spiritual people out of a Baptist church when you probably cannot compete with commercial religious pageants. I read more than a few web sites who are just embarrassed about the whole end-time effort to join commerce (more attenders, books, cds) with religion. The Nashville papers have their own "jubilee" about division in churches of Christ created each year by Jubilee.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: The reason it's not is simply that our rhetoric is not matched by the way we actually treat each other.

Neither of us is willing to,,
........... affirm as brothers and sisters in Christ people
........... who've not been born anew of the water and the Spirit.

Jubilee 97 denounced the value of the water part!

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Neither of us is willing to consider some sort of open fellowship policy toward the larger religious world. And neither of us is willing to pursue a merely pragmatic unity that owes no allegiance to the absolutes of the Christian faith. We both have rock solid convictions about the gospel and we are united in the intellectual and existential affirmation of that gospel. It's time for us to proclaim that gospel boldly while simultaneously living a unity in Christ that honors and preserves our historical distinctives, minus the judgments and condemnations. I need the experience of living in healthy tension with people around me whose points of view challenge my own, whose thinking is not a carbon copy of my own, but whose love for God and scripture is equally as emphatic as my own.

I need brothers and sisters who challenge me on my views about divorce and remarriage, instrumental music, the role of women, and the value of programs such as Christian Jubilee or the North American Christian Convention.

As iron sharpens iron, our vigorous and respectful challenges of one another's points of view will keep us intellectually honest and spiritually sensitive.

As groups of people gravitate to leaders in churches that have particular emphases about one or more of these subjects, they will be known, at least in part, not only for their faith in Christ,

but also for their free or restricted use of females in church life,

or for their use or non-use of instrumental music, or for their primary or non-primary emphasis on compassion ministries.

The distinctiveness of the resulting congregations need not make them ineffective as witnesses to Christ. Our congregations no more have to look alike and act alike than individual Christians have to look alike and act alike. Neither do they have to alienate themselves from each other.

Then why spend 1/4 of a million dollars on Jubilee 98 trying?

Rubel Shelly, ACU: As surely as the latter happens, though, that alienation, our witness to Christ both separately as congregations and collectively as a fellowship seeking unity,

it is diminished significantly, because, people,
we are as sectarian as anybody dared to be

if we let something like instrumental music make us into what we have been, a totally fractured fellowship.

That is true: so it is time that those who founded the MUSICAL SECTARIAN GROUP which divided and deliberately sowed discord to just quit doing music. However, only preachers seem to have the time to fellowship EVERYONE. Most of us are stretched by our family and local group and do not need to affirm the musical sectarians.

This is like the old shell game: is the pea under the MUSICAL WORSHIP TEAMS or the INSTRUMENTAL WORSHIPPERS. Well, the trick is that it isn' under either. By keeping up the confilct only Satan wins by pretending that HIS musical instruments are just a matter of opinion.

The fact is that the Israelites worshipped with music and lost the Covenant of Grace at Mount Sinai. There is no good attributed to MUSIC in the entire Bible and it is often used to MARK those who will not listen to the Words of God.

The DEBATE word is PSALLO. However, Paul defined the Dionysian Wine DRINKERS and EATERS who received their TRUTH while driven mad with eine and music. They were piped down where DRUNKENESS could be drunken with passion. This is the meaning of EXTERNAL psallo or melody:

Psall- [psa-]

I. to touch sharply, to pluck, pull, twitch, Aesch.; toxou neuran ps.

to twang the bow-string, Eur.; belos ek keraos ps.
to send a shaft twanging from the bow, Anth.; so, schoinos miltophur-s psallomen- a
carpenter's red line, which is twitched and then suddenly let go, so as to leave a mark, id=Anth.

Look again to see whether this is charismatic celebration of one's own carnal senses in MAKING MUSIC.

Apalgeo (g524) ap-alg-eh'-o; from 575 and algeo (to smart); to grieve out, i.e. become apathetic: - be past feeling

Only in a secondary sense does the word mean to PLUCK with the FINGERS. The defined act is PLUCKING and not the resulting MUSIC.

II. to play a stringed instrument with the fingers, not with the plectron, Hdt., Ar., Plat.

And only LATER to sing to a harp:

2. later, to sing to a harp,

And in the New Testament SING:

sing, New Testament

This can have no application to wind instruments or percussion instruments.

---

Similar Latin:

revello, velli, vulsum or volsum, 3, v. a., to pluck or pull away, to pull or tear out, to tear off or away (freq. and class.).

I. Lit. be torn away, remove,

II. Trop., to tear away, send away injurias honorificis verbis,

Signum: A sign, signal; a watchword, password, given by a wind-instrument.

---

The phrase: belos ek keraos is made of two parts:

Belos [ball-, as Lat. jaculum from jacio]

1. a missile, esp. an arrow, dart, bolt, Hom.; of the rock hurled by the Cyclops, Od.; of the ox's leg thrown at Ulysses, id=Od.; hupek bele-n out of the reach of darts, out of shot, Il.; so ex- bel-n Xen.

2. like enchos, used of any weapon, as a sword, Ar.: an axe, Eur.

3. the agana belea of Apollo and Artemis in Hom. always denote the sudden, easy death of men and women respectively.

4. after Hom. of anything swift-darting, Z-nos bel- the bolts of Zeus, thunderbolts, Aesch.; purpnoun b. id=Aesch.; bel- pag-n the piercing frosts, Soph.:--metaph., ommat-n belos the glance of the eye, Aesch.; himerou belos the shaft of love, id=Aesch.; of arguments, pan tetoxeutai belos id=Aesch.

keras means

# 2. of musical instruments, a horn for blowing, Xen.: a flute, Luc.
# 3. a drinking-horn, Xen.

Conclusion: ALL musical terms or names of instruments are derived from Satan or Lucifer who is the father of all WARFARE including over musical instruments which were NEVER used to worship a spirit God. Why would anyone become a MUSICAL SECTARIAN other than as a "change agent of Satan."

The kingdom of God is NOT about EATING and DRINKING and therefore Paul repudiates all groups highly addicted to MUSICAL "worship" which made the drinking of wine to intoxication of puking possible.

In the later uses as a musical instrument, ALL of the evidence points to Apollo or Abaddon or Apollyon as the father of musical harmony, twanging bowstrings to send a singing arrow into your heart, father of thieves and liars. There is no exception in the Greek literature or the church Fathers but that music is SATAN'S DEVICE to PIPE DOWN the Word of Christ.

This is the "Guilt Clause." They even used it on John Calvin: they tried to rule Calvin, Calvin resisted, therefore Calvin destroyed the unity.

But, people, lets look at the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth:

> The secting out or creation of a sectarian group was the result of and consisted totally of those who created the division by adding the instruments.

> Those who added instruments gave no Scriptural reasons. It was just a fact that instruments and choirs attracted "the largest miscellaneous crowds" away from the denominations across the street. They paid organists and singers at sums equivalent to a modern professional singer.

> Therefore, they rejected the view held en toto by Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians.

> They had some mercenary reason for doing so.

> > Therefore, by all definitions of sectarianism, the instrumental group were the sectarians.

> Churches of Christ did not waver from the total non-catholic view held from the time of Christ.

> To have wavered would have been in their financial interest.

> > Therefore, the non-musical churches could never be defined as the sectarians. Consistent with the Pharisee pattern, there must be (a) a rejection of the commandments of God in order to follow their own laws or traditions, and (b) there is a commercial interest in taking away the houses of widows.

I had a widowed aunt. A musical church enticed about 60 thousand dollars out of her for a new electronic organ.

I know of no non-instrumental groups which have (a) changed the laws or (b) seduced widows out of money to buy organs.

But, Dr. Shelly is on the instrumental side and does not know much about the music issue from a Biblical or historical perspective. As usual, the musical arguments are legalistic proof-texts.

Musical churches became a sect by adopting instruments even while spitting in the faces of those, like J. W. McGarvey, who helped build their church. They are free to operate as they will. However, they are not free to remain ignorant of the music issue.

Non-instrumental churches are faithful for a 2,000 year practice and are not likely, unless lied to, change.

Therefore, if sectarianism ceases the blame will have to be placed where it belongs and not heaped on the backs of those who refuse to dance while Dr. Shelly pipes.

Calvin noted that if an error is held long enough, such as the Catholic priesthood, then it becomes "sanctified" and those like himself who left Catholicism was branded the heretic and the Sectarian.

However, he knew that this was core-based dishonesty at work.

This is the Second Incarnation "those being invaded turning around and attacking the invading army" or the guilt clause which is a hostile, deceptive attempt to place the secting brand on those who refused to join the new sect. This is not honest but, lordy, it is effective -- as slick as boiled okra but twice as disgusting. Don't miss the guilt clause.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: In our quest to recapture the ground the American Restoration Movement originally staked out for itself, may God help us to learn four things. Number one:

Respect without reorganization.,,

The original ground from all denominations repudiated instrumental music. It was only the Voodoo connection with the Great Awakenings such as Cane Ridge which introduced non-Biblical songs to replace the Psalms.

The original ground of churches of Christ was that unity could only happen when common worship practices were based on the commands or examples of the Bible.

The original ground of the Disciples or Christian Churches was the "High Church" ground much like the Pharisees which gave them the authority to replace the commands of the first century for new commands and practices to fit the culture.

Division was inherent because the two groups had a different foundation. Therefore, the "High Church" Disciples simply returned to the Catholic or Church of England (Episcopal) movement out of which the Christian churches in the south east arose.

The modern movement begun in 1987 to facilitate "instrumental music and a wider role for women" now confesses that there is no urge to restore the first century church. Rather, the urge is to restore the charismatic effort which also plagued and slowed the work of men like Campbell. This is the meaning of restoring the Restoration Movement rather than restoring the church Christ died to purchase.

The Post-Modern or Post-Denominational effort is not to depend upon the "assignment" of Jesus in the first century but to get a new assignment for our new wineskin.

Rubel's group has sected itself into the Family of God movement with "churches of Christ" an addendum. His group uses The Willow Creek Association to supply worship resources. The Zoe wing teaches the "female instructing principle" for Jubilee dittos. As I write, Seattle is undergoing the trauma of a take-over by performing artists. Probably a blend of Jubilee, the Zoe Group and Promise Keepers.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Both our brotherhoods stand firmly on the doctrines of historic orthodox Christianity and our congregations are filled with people who simply want to know Christ, honor him in daily living and live with him in Heaven forever.

The historic, orthodox Christianity in all of the ancient literature is totally opposed to using machines to tickle the glands and calling it worship. Instrumental worship is not historically orthodox.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: We can affirm that much about each other and live out the practical implications of such an affirmation. That sort of respect says nothing about needing to create a denominational type organization that would represent an organizational form of unity.

This goal is always hindered when the goal of the post-denomination church is worship. Worship is defined as a collective effort facilitated by professional theatrical performance. Jesus said that worship is in spirit (in the mind) and according to truth (His Word). This facilitated worship defeats the goal of listening to Jesus.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: We have histories, and we carry baggage, and we have wounds. We are who we are and there's no reason for either of us to try to manipulate or coerce the other to a point of view that is not authentic to our sincerely held convictions. So, Romans 14:13: "Let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way."

In Jewish law:

"Providing an individual with a prohibited food, e.g., wine to a Nazirite (who takes a vow which prohibits him from drinking wine, cutting hair, or ritually contaminating himself by coming into contact with the dead), would be a violation of this commandment (Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim 22b). Rabbi Ashi, who owned forests, was permitted to sell wood to heathens who were fire-worshippers only because the majority of purchased wood is used for kindling, not for idolatry (Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 62b). However, to sell the wood directly for the purpose of allowing pagans to practice their idolatrous practices would be prohibited."

The musical sectarians at Mount Sinai placed a stumbling block. The result was that they lost the Book of the Covenant and were burdened with THE BOOK OF THE LAW.

Of the almost violent treatment of those who will not allow THEIR lambs to stray, Rubel is getting close to dangerous grounds about stumbling stones:

"One should not entrust animals to a shepherd, if there is a strong possibility the shepherd will allow them to graze on other people's property (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 5b). Even purchasing milk, wool, or kids from shepherds was not permitted since they might have stolen these items from the cattle under their care (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kama 118b).

"There is a Midrash (Midrash Hagadol, Leviticus 19:14) that states that individuals who "strengthen the hand of sinners" or assist others to commit a misdeed have transgressed the prohibition against "placing a stumbling block before the blind." One might argue that remaining quiet in the face of evil, i.e., not blowing the whistle on iniquities, strengthens the hand of wrongdoers.

And how about buildings with the tallest spire or asherah poles: trying to be the biggest church in town:

"Advertising that is intended to elicit envy or create the need for showy luxury products on the part of the consumer may also be problematic. In the classic medieval ethics (mussar) work, Orchos Tzadikim (Chapter 14: Jealousy), the author notes that jealousy comes from observing what friends own. We become envious of a friend's garment, food, house, and/or wealth, and envy leads to coveting. Thus, individuals who purposely flaunt wealth in order to arouse the envy of their fellows are guilty of lifnei iver.

Keeping quiet when wrongs are being committed by an organization is also tantamount to "placing a stumbling block ..."

Musical worship, female pastors (teams) and musical mediators are an ancient stumbling block.

The goal of the Musical Worship Facilitator which means "gradual manipulation to take people where you want them to go" is one of the strongest forms of manipulation or coercion toward a musical church.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Number two: May God help us to learn cooperation without compromise. Both our brotherhoods are firmly opposed to unbelief and compromise of the gospel. We've separated from each other over second (wine) and third order (instruments) issues because we've not kept the cross as our primary focus.

In that, we had been guilty of idolatry.

Music is almost 100% associated with idolatry in the Bible, the ANE, the classics and church fathers. Today it is called "the idolatry of talent."

If I cannot worship with an instrument and brother Joe cannot worship without an instrument then how can you compromise just in order to get me and Joe together at one time and place? This view is the failure to "plant and water" and takes on God's role of "giving the increase." I meet with 300 and I don't need any more noise.

Non Instrumental music has never been called idolatry. Musical worship has. In fact, everyone in the superstitious ages believed that the gods lived inside of the instruments. The "familiar spirit" was an old, hollow wineskin and has the same meaning as a nebel or harp. Catholics baptized organs and bells.

"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).

The Dead Sea Scrolls version of Psalm 41:

DSS: They have overtaken me in a narrow pass (gap) without escape

And there is no rest for me in my trial.

They sound my censure upon a harp

and their murmuring and storming upon a zither." Ps.41:11

 

DSS: A root bearing poisoned and bitter fruit

is in their designs;

they walk in stubbornness of heart

and see Thee among idols,

then they set before them

the stumbling-block of their sin.

 

DSS: I cannot step forward lightly,

For my legs and arms are bound by shackles

which cause me to stumble.

 

The tongue is gone back which Thou didst make

marvelously mighty within my mouth;

it can no longer give voice.

 

I have no word for my disciples

to revive the spirit of those who stumble

and to speak words of support to the weary.

My circumcised lips are dumb.

All pagans believed that the carved instruments were the homes of the gods and the god's mouthpiece. People still believe that music can "lead you into the presence of God" and that the "team" becomes the platform upon which God lands. This is truly the meaning of idolatry and one cannot endure it and still focus upon Jesus and the cross when the theatrical performers are standing squarely between me and God -- and demand that you look and listen!

Those who tried to make their idols speak to them always believed that the gods or spirits lived inside of the musical instruments:

"Yobal (Jubal). (Note: Jubilee or "a blast of trumpets" is from Jubal which means "to lead with triumph or pomp.") and Tobalkin (Tubal-Cain), the two brethren, the sons of Lamech, the blind man, who killed Cain, invented and made all kinds of instruments (or metal weapons) of music.

"Yobal made reed instruments, and harps, and flutes, and whistles,

and the devils went and dwelt inside them.
When men blew into the pipes, the devils sang inside them,
and sent out sounds from inside them. (Note: the "familiar spirit" of the Witch of Endor was an old "lifeless instrument" made of an old water or wineskin).

"For non literate peoples, music often serves purposes other than entertainment or aesthetic enjoyment. Certain wind instruments are closely associated with the supernatural, and their sounds connote powerful magic.

Australian Aborigines, for instance, identify the sound of a bull-roarer with the voices of supernatural beings;

for the Plains Indians, the same sound signifies an awesome natural phenomenon, such as thunder.

Wind instruments are often among a group's most important ritual objects, and in some cultures they are specially venerated. The Kamairua Indians of the Amazon rain forest keep their giant flutes (three to four feet long),
........... wherein spirits are believed to dwell,

in a special shrine where they are worshiped. The flutes and drums of New Guinea are similarly housed and worshiped. "wind instrument" Britannica Online.

Pagans always used instruments because the "gods" lived inside. The later Catholic church could not use them until they were baptized. How else could they bring you closer to god than they themselves are?

Now, if a new member is just out of such ignorant superstition--that music mediated between God and man--one could still "receive" him for meal fellowship without becoming polluted. Or the person could attend the "synagogue" and use the TEACHING command of Romans 15, Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3.

However, Paul would not tolerate that terminally-ignorant person to make his arguments that the gods really lived inside of the instruments, or the musical performers "led you into the presence of God" or that they musicians were "mediators between man and God."

Rubel Shelly, ACU: I know that's a strong charge, but I believe it's correct.

It is nothing less than idolatry to let something other than the cross define our relationship to one another in Christ.

It is nothing short of idolatry to let something other than the cross be the basis of our passing any form of judgment against one another.

Again, Paul preached just the cross to those who were still carnal. This lust for just the core gospel is what is idolatry. It repudiates the clear anti-musical teachings of the Bible and the exampled experience of Jesus.

To claim to preach just the cross or THE CORE GOSPEL is to be self deluded and offering the same Paul-like insult to his carnal audience which pays his bills.

It is Bible 101aaa that if the musical performers getting a message from God (out of their own spirit according to Paul) are on the bamah or high place or platform performing to specifically swamp my vision and hearing then they are defining our relationship.

Therefore, we agree that any form of performance is idolatry. A "hypocrite" is an "actor."

It is not idolatry if I turn off my blessed hearing aide or go to the library until "this too shall pass."

Well, we just added several things to the cross above. How about: "fraticidal, traditionalist, legalists, superiority posture, unChristian, schismatic, Satanic, sectarian, and idolatrous people, irrelevant, junk."

The Core Gospel is sold as just the cross. We wonder why you would need a Ph.d in order to preach just "Jesus died, was buried and was resurrected"? Well, we know that everyone uses the cross as a crutch to define their new world order and the "law" to define others. However, this is a denial of the cross and the gospel which we speak to here.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Give me the freedom to follow scripture to the best of my understanding...to the best of my understanding...to the best of my understanding.

Granted: return the favor. But if you don't know the facts about the idolatrous history of instrumental music and mixed-sex choirs then you should not pose as an authority so high that you can define those who disagree as "idolaters."

Rubel Shelly, ACU: My understanding is not infallible. The conclusions I'm going to come to are not incorrigible. But give me the freedom to do the best I can.

And please don't judge me as a legalist because I prefer not to adopt a practice that you embrace.

But one is judged as they judge. Why is it that not adopting the practice of instrumental music is legalism? We showed that "judging" is imposing literally or psychologically a practice which is not Biblical or has been abrogated.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Give me the freedom to follow scripture to the best of my understanding. Please don't judge me a liberal because I can embrace a practice that you prefer not to adopt. Romans 14:10: "You then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat."

I agree, and wouldn't it be wonderful if we could ignore all of the hurt and division and "offending of these little ones" by the assumption of supreme power to collect people from all over the world to use praxis (practice) to condition people into "lifting holy hands, laying on of hands, using vocal and instrumental bands and promoting female ministers?" It would be just fine if they went home not knowing how to Navigate the churches into winds of change even if you have to use dishonest brinkmanship, deception and a denial of the power of the members.

However, these sectarians "Hit you in the nose and kick you in the groin and label you as mumblers and trouble-makers if you yell 'ouch' and create disturbance in the church."

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Number Three: May God help us to learn appreciation without antagonism. No two persons agree on everything. Even my wife's wrong about a few things. But all of us tend to feel threatened when somebody disagrees with us, and to get defensive. (In the Second Incarnation this becomes "Those being invaded turn hostile and mount an attack.") Those two facts, that we don't all see everything alike and that we all tend to feel threatened when we are disagreed with, those two facts, set up the potential for serious conflict.

I thought that I might make it through my allotted time without seeing a major effort to divide churches of Christ when earlier we had been the fastest growing group in the nation. The preachers learned to negotiate and intimidate and liquidate and Jubilee will probably go down as the worst precalculated division in the Restoration Movement. Without Jubilee I know of no other far-reaching effort to conform everyone to a new "paradigm" after rejecting the old "pattern."

Having learned the Second Incarnation lesson well, those who become defensive turn around and attack. They will, true to the well-taught pattern, see those who yell "OUCH" as the trouble makers who just needs better athletic protection.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Spiritual immaturity will embrace conflict and see victory as the goal. Spiritual maturity can allow honest disagreement and see preserving the unity of the body of Christ in love as the goal. Romans 14:14, 15: "As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you're no longer acting in love.

Do not by your eating, destroy your brother for whom Christ died." Appreciation without antagonism.

Amen. I am waiting! But since the functional level of the church is no larger than the local congregation why should I embrace conflict. Here is the way to test immaturity in the Christian assembly (synagogue):

But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, Matt 11:16

And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. Matt 11:17

But then Paul did pass judgment on keeping of days and other things which we noted. Therefore, Paul didn't mean that we have to give up our decision making or spirit testing just to get along.

Do not by adding musical worship teams exercising "sexual authority" over me displacing the leaders and do not place a "chist of whistles" over me because it has always been believed to be the voice of the gods speaking, destroy me for whom Christ died!

Rubel Shelly, ACU: And then Number Four: May God help us to learn fellowship without fear. Acknowledgement, cooperation and unity must always rest on our mutual commitment to the core doctrines of the Bible.

A core doctrine is one that,,
........... relates directly to Christ,,,
........... his substitutionary death on the cross and
........... our acknowledgement of him in obedient faith.

Like Wow! Sounds like a well-stripped CORE. How about just teaching the APPLE and not trying to force-fit everyone into your own wineskin which allows you to have that wine at home?

That core repudiates all of the listeners as "still carnal" and not able to eat meat. And, according to Amos, as long as the flutes toot we will all hunger and thirst for the Word and not be able to find it.

Instrumental music relates directly to Christ because Psalm 41 says that Judas will attempt but fail to triumph over Jesus. The Dead Sea Scrolls affirm that this was the enemies of Christ "standing in the gap" with musical instruments which were always used in war to panic the enemy. The clergy which controlled Judas "piped" to try to triumph over Jesus by making him sing and dance the Dionysus choral.

Jesus did not command or practice instrumental music. That related directly to the spirit of Christ. He somewhat endorsed the synagogue which repudiated any "praise ceremony" and certainly instruments.

Jesus more or less violently put the musical team out of the girls room before He would heal her.

Jesus directly communicated with and appeared to Paul to further instruct him. He led Paul to repudiate the wine induced singing which was always instrumental. He had Paul prescribe a synogogue-like teaching program using the Words of Christ or Spirit. He repudiated mechanical instruments by defining the human voice and heart.

He informed John to warn us about the end-time Babylonian Whore worship with music in Rev. 18.

Music directly relates to Jesus Christ because it has always been the way to take people's mind off God and His Word.

Jesus died as our substitute and the substitute of animals which were offered at the temple with the "musical instruments" actually a great noise. The people were excluded from this by the Spirit of Christ by assigning the Levites to keep them away when the music played.

His substitute took away those who took away the key to knowledge. They way they did that was with "anxiety created by religious rituals." Therefore, Christ substituted for institutionalized worship and died to permit me to worship in spirit or in my mind.

We cannot acknowledge him in faith and adopt music because there is no command and therefore cannot be by faith.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Although we have no basis for spiritual fellowship with unbelievers in actions that are distinctly Christian, such as the Lord's supper. What in the world would it mean for me to eat the Lord's supper with an unbeliever? That's a distinctly Christian act of fellowship.

What about stripping Baptism of water at Jubilee 97 and making salvation depending on calling God: "Father." I'm gonna try that on Bill Gates!

Speaking the Word of Christ or Spirit is the distinctly Christian way of teaching one another and honoring Him. What in the world would it mean for me to try to worship with nerves frazzled by external harmony which is not related to melody as melody is not related to singing the Psalms.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: Or evangelistic outreach? That's a distinctly Christian behavior that I can only participate in with someone else who is also part of the body. Well, while we have no basis for spiritual fellowship with unbelievers in actions like that, we do have the basis for such fellowship with each other.

Well, if you have walked to Emmaus as many groups are doing you have fallen for the Sabbath Eucharist. This is not a regenerating effort for local groups but like PK an effort to infiltrate whole churches to evangelize those who have been evangelized by seduction into pagan "eating and drinking the gods."

Rubel Shelly, ACU: And we can learn, not only to eat the bread and drink the wine together as the affirmation of our being one body, but we can put missionaries in settings together.

"Come eat the bread, come drink the wine" is one of those heretical songs in the new Praise Book we call "the Jubilee Song Book." Jesus took pains not to use the word wine because any product of ferment was taboo at the Passover. Only the clergy liked to substitute real wine so that they could get drunk. Wine is the universal symbol of God's wrath and it will be poured out upon those who entice others into drinking intoxicants beginning at the Lord's Supper.

When wine was substituted for blood it was always poured out at the altar. Christ substituted the Fruit of the Vine and not the fruit of the vat.

Sounds good, Jubilee! Why not do that very thing by taking along your begging bag and preach where the gospel has never been heard rather than try to collect a miscellaneous group to listen to your praise team and Word-evacuated sermon. Did you know that no needy person from Gambia can get to Jubilee 2000? Don't think that wasting the money on a guru exposure to the worshipers will qualify as evangelism.

If you do it and someone tries to stop you I will help you out.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: I have, in foreign settings, off the soil of the United States, sat with groups where people from a cappella, instrumental and non-Sunday school churches work together in such unity that unless you saw the pay checks that they got from back in the States to support their work, you'd never know that they were from different traditions.

I'll bet they use instruments! Again, Dr. Shelly cannot get away with defining instrumental music as just our tradition. That is false.

Rubel Shelly, ACU: There is something about being in an environment where the enemy is a little bit clearer than where over here we have

the luxury of parsing the nuances and fighting about some things that are ultimately irrelevancies.

There is something about being in that setting that clarifies a lot of this junk. And we wept together that day, that if we were back in Texas or Tennessee or Arkansas,

we couldn't be doing what we were doing there, in sharing the gospel together with unbelievers.

Just don't believe it! Sounds like more excuses which give you brownies by bashing churches of Christ. In my inventing - engineering background, the most ignorant man in the plant could come by and tell me what was not working!

God always warned about first walking then standing and then sitting with others. It is impossible to try to be friendly with people without softening one's opinion even on clear Biblical issues. That is why Christ sent evangelists out to preach the gospel and not bundle up on the mission field or at home.

However softened and moist we become, that should never be authority to repudiate the clear teachings of the Word. If you want to bundle with others the do so on personal grounds and do not use personal feelings as the foundation to rebuild the Word. That was what the Pharisees did.

You may believe that the non-instrumental view is irrelevant or "a lot of junk" and weep all you wish but that does not change one jot or tittle of God's word which universally repudiates music as a way to soften or moisten His Word. Music always works. Even ugly girls look pretty good if they can "sang and chord."

In Part Three we will see that Music is the Ultimate Stumbling Block.

Click for a more detailed picture of Christ "singing to the Gentiles" in romans 15

Click for

Part One---Part Two---Part Three

See a more recent assault against non-musical churches.

Post Modern Index,,

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

Home Page

Abilene Christian University (ACU), Rubel Shelly, unity forum, instrumental music in worship, judging others, Romans 14, romans 15, ephesians 5, colossians 3.

 

Counter added 1.11.05 9:43a 3958  11.01.09 10000  11.09.14 11365

www.perseus

 
<a href="https://www.hitwebcounter.com" target="_blank">
<img src="https://hitwebcounter.com/counter/counter.php?page=7873098&style=0032&nbdigits=5&type=ip&initCount=0" title="Free Counter" Alt="web counter"   border="0" /></a>