Bible Backgrounds/Church History 2012
Vern Peterman · Dec 30, 2012
Bible Bkgds/Church History, No. 51
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926339193981

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're going to wrap up this church history lecture. We've been going through six months of Bible backgrounds, and now completing six months of church history. This one we're looking at the history of Christian music and worship, and one of the things we're skip past here as we do that, is looking at the history of music and worship during biblical times. We're stepping into the New Testament era and then forward. So, in order to limit our scope, we'll be doing that. One of the things we'll do is, with the start here, the first page of your handout, has to do with What does the New Testament say, largely the New Testament say, about Christian music and worship?

So we have there Colossians 3.16.

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And there's a very similar passage in Ephesians chapter 5. Not identical, but similar passage in Ephesians chapter 5. The same three words, Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Psalms, are included in both passages. Here's something kind of interesting.

Psalms, it is translated. This is often used in reference to the Psalms of the Old Testament. 150 of them, but in general reference, we would call what this particular word refers to as hymns. Now, the Psalms is Israel's national hymn book, and that's important to keep in mind, especially as we look at reading the Psalms or singing them, as is done in some churches. The next one, what's called hymns, actually refers to things sung directly to God. So a song where we are saying something directly to God, you, speaking in that term, that is a hymn in terms of what that word means. The next one, spiritual songs, songs which are spiritual in content and nature.

So, you've got those three, and one of the ways that we kind of clarify it here is with the three ovals that have some overlap. Is it possible to have a song that includes two or even all three of those categories? Could be, under some circumstances. I might say something directly to God, and then in another verse or chorus or part of it, switch into another mode where I'm not saying something directly to God. So I might in fact have two or even three kinds of, all three kinds, in one song, possibly.

Alright, the next one, worship can include, and this is just looking at the New Testament, worship can include words said and not sung. Revelation 4, 9-11 is that category. Worship can include things shared, sharing with other people. Worship can include presenting our bodies as living sacrifices. That's Romans 12, 1 and 2.

But why is it that worship can be so varied? Why is that? Don't we typically think of worship as, okay, now we've got a worship time and we sing these songs and, you know, hear the songs and maybe we've got them in a book or we have them on a slide? Why can worship be so varied?

It's a little different for each of us. That could be different for each of us, and that's a very good and valid reason. Any other ideas why worship could be varied? Possibly different circumstances. Yes, so there could be difference in the people and also different circumstances. Different situations might call for different expressions of worship.

Worship can include our bodily position before the Lord, that's in Revelation 5.14. So, you've got different people, different circumstances, different expressions. Ultimately, what is worship?

Giving praise and glory to God, which can be done in music or otherwise. Could I put it in musical form? Yes. Could I put it in a musical form, but just have lyrics, and maybe just read the lyrics? Could that be worship? Yes. Could it be, I don't say a thing, but I'm in a posture of worshiping or praising God? All of those are possible, and it might vary with the person, it might vary with the circumstances. It is easy for Christians sometimes to kind of get into a mold where worship is what we do for a certain period of time for a certain number of songs on Sunday morning and that's it. But the reality is biblically it can take on a number of different forms varying with the person, varying with the circumstances.

Could I worship the Lord individually? Sure, I could do that individually. We can get together here as a larger group and do that. You could do it in a smaller group at home. It's possible it's done under, as Stan brought up, different circumstances. And two of the four examples I gave are circumstances where we aren't even here. These are in heaven, aren't they? So it's possible that it takes on other forms.

Now what about musical instruments in worship? Musical instruments were certainly used in the Old Testament. We have examples there from a couple of the Psalms, Psalm 33, 2 and 105, 3. Paul makes reference to musical instruments, but not necessarily in Christian worship. This is 1 Corinthians 14, 7 and 8. Originally the word psalmos was used for strumming a stringed instrument, later applied to singing with the accompaniment of the musical instrument being implied.

You have a picture in your handout, and we've got it in color on some of the overheads here. This is a replica heart based on the descriptions that we have from the time. So someone has taken that and reconstructed it based on what's described. Josephus, the Jewish historian, described the hearts that were used in the temple worship. apparently in the middle part of the temple they would from time to time gather the Levites and put them on the circular steps there and have a choir.

And so at various times on schedule they would gather them together and they would sing and these harps would be played along with it. Revelation 5, 8 through 10 Pictures of four living creatures and 24 elders on the heavenly scene. By the way, those four living creatures match up with the descriptions and role of the four Gospels, and in sequence.

Here's Revelation 5.8-10. It goes like this.

And when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, and this is Christ the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals, for you were slain and purchased for God with your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a royalty and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth. And by the way, that word royalty is a change from the original translation, which is a kingdom, but royalty is, I think, the appropriate translation.

So then, New Testament hymns. We don't know explicitly for certain that there are hymns in the New Testament, but there are some that scholars in studying them have suggested that those are probably hymns that Paul included in the books. And we have there Philippians 2, 6-11 is one of them. Colossians 1, 15-20. And 1 Timothy 3, 16.

And Ephesians 5.14, that those are either hymns or parts of hymns that the Apostle Paul included in those letters. But by the way, what would be the value of the Apostle Paul including portions of songs in his writings?

Was it a praise? Pardon? Was it a praise? In some cases, yeah. One is it would be an expression of praise. Is there another reason? why it would be good for him to include those in the letters that he wrote. Well, he certainly did that in a number of places, didn't he? We went through that, for example, in 1 Corinthians 9 and 10. Yeah, well, these weren't necessarily from the Old Testament. Yeah, in other words, these were things written, but not necessarily from the Old Testament, although he did quote from the Old Testament too, as well. One thing is quoting from some of these hymns would be a point of familiar contact with them, and particularly if it was a hymn that taught doctrine that was in the passage, and he had been with them in each case, it would be a point of familiar contact with him where They had sung the hymn book together before and he just underscoring what it says and teaches.

Yes. Couldn't it also be for memory? Yes, that's a good point. In other words, you ever have some song and you just, boy, I remember the words. Why? Because it's put to music. Yeah, memorization is another reason for putting that there. Okay, let's look at page two here.

And what we're stepping into now, we're stepping outside of the New Testament era, outside of the time of the apostles. And by the way, there's some different things that start happening in church history right after the time of the apostles. And we have an important question to settle on.

If something was done in the early church right after the time of the New Testament, does that mean that we should do it? No, it means they're exploring new things. Without this direction that they've had. There are people who have looked at, this is what the early church did, therefore we should do it, and what's wrong with that idea? Time of transition? Yeah, one, it's a time of transition, and you're right. Transition into what is a good question. Yeah, a time of transition.

Why else would that not automatically be something that we should do or not do? Yeah, in the end, the Bible is our measure, not what did they do. In other words, they established traditions, and some of those traditions were immediately unbiblical. They began having, and the Apostle John was still alive, they began having people acting as bishop. I'm going to tell you at some other church, some many, many miles away, what to do and not do. We mentioned by 170 AD, so John had been dead only about one lifetime, he began calling the pastors priests. By 220 AD, the Lord's table and baptism were counted as effective spiritually. They did something. So the early church began to drift in some areas away from scripture substantially.

And so it should not be the measure. So let's take a look at it. Christian music in the early church, there wasn't a reliable method for preserving music in a written form. And even at that, in our own culture, does everybody know how to read music? No, certainly not. And so even if you have the means of preserving it, it doesn't necessarily mean that everybody is going to do it the same.

Here's another question. Do songs, even in our own era of being able to record things and transmit them electronically, do songs stay invariably the same from one group and people to another? Things get changed all over the place. Some of the hymns have variations that are international in scope. One, I think it started off Swedish, you know, oh Lord my God, when I am awesome, I wonder, you know.

That one ended up getting a Russian verse in it. And I read the translation of the Russian verse and it was just terrible. But anyway, so that one has morphed from Swedish and Russian involvement and other European continental involvement and then finally come to the U.S. and English. I'm glad they dropped out the Russian verses. Anyway, it is possible for songs to get quite a variation.

The early Christians tended in general to pattern their worship services after the Jewish synagogue services. There was a tendency to say, well, what are they doing in the Jewish synagogue? Well, okay, let's do that too. And so that was the pattern. These included readings, the singing of the Old Testament psalms and hymns.

The common Christian musical style at the time was called plain song, a melody sung without accompaniment. Now, it was typical in the early church not to have instruments in the church services. Does that mean that we should not have instruments in our church services? No. And it's one of my reasons for asking earlier, if the early church did it, is that the standard for us? No. What would be some reasons why they didn't have musical instruments commonly in the early church services?

I see Ruth doing this. Money. Yeah. A musical instrument was costly and a great many of the people, not all of them, but a great many of them were poor. So that was one thing. Just the money to buy an instrument, the money to get trained on it. that would be hard to come by for a lot of them. Other reasons? Yes, Dan? In some instances, I don't think they wanted to advertise that they were having services. Ah, yeah, here's the other thing.

If you're in the middle of a persecution, do you want to start singing Christian hymns? No. As a matter of fact, you might sing it real quietly. I might say it real quietly, and having some musical instrument which would really get everybody's attention would not be what you do. And they weren't in a space like this?

Yes. We don't have a circumstance like this, so at best it would probably be something portable, certainly not a piano or organ or something of that sort. So yeah, there are several different reasons you can look at it, and it's probably not a good idea. Besides that, just like Ruth pointed out, there's no way we can afford that. Yes? And I think maybe they may have tried to avoid idolatry.

Yeah, here is one reason, and that is a lot of the musical instruments were used in various pagan situations, and in an avoid sounding like they were in some pagan festival or a pagan observance of any kind, that was one of the ways of avoiding it, was staying away from the instruments. So there was a pattern there. We'll soon get to that because you're right, but that was actually a slightly later development, the chance, but you're correct. The next slide over, the early Christians were careful to reject music connected to festivals, competitions, and dramas of the day, including instruments.

They wanted to avoid anything that was pagan, so the instruments were one of the ways of dropping that out. Not only did they want to wean the new converts from their pagan past, but many Christians were inclined towards asceticism, that is, denial of anything that was pleasurable, denial of anything that might seem as excess.

Now, the other is, in the next part here, the authority of the Roman Empire. Once the Roman Empire made Christianity the official religion, that was about 313, musical expression and worship increasingly became a matter of official enforcement. Whatever we do, we're going to enforce it. Christianity is an enforced religion. By 324, Christianity in the western part of the Roman Empire was the only permitted religion. And that was done at a time when only about 10% of the people were Christians. So they had to enforce this upon people.

Melodic expression that was outside official guidelines was expressed only by those few who were at odds with the official position on other grounds. It was a rebellious thing to do, to do anything different than what was enforced. Now the next slide we have somewhat tongue-in-cheek is the Battle of the Bands. It wasn't really bands as much as it was a kind of choral groups.

But Arius, who was a heretic, who taught that Christ, essentially it's Jehovah's Witness teaching. God the Father is God. Christ is the first created being, but just a created being. And the Holy Spirit's a force. That's what Arius taught. That's what the Jehovah's Witnesses teach. continued to spread his heresies through catchy tunes. He'd go in public places in the eastern city of Edessa, and with catchy tunes he would spread his false doctrine. Well, not to be outdone, then John Chrysostom, trying to counter this heresy, went about with an ornate procession and singing songs with the proper doctrine, or so he thought.

At times these groups would meet, even with bloodshed. So we're singing these songs, catchy tunes, you know, and all that, and we're both claiming to be Christians. Of course, very confusing to people, and occasionally they encounter one another. About the same era, Augustine, wrote that he struggled with Christian music in which the musical aspects of the song took his attention from the spiritual content of the lyrics. And that's been a struggle that has gone on for centuries.

Chants were developed, and this is your point there earlier. Though the organization of and guidance for the chants would come later, various groups, often monasteries, developed a number of chants. Now, why a chant? Yeah. It's something that causes emotional involvement and gets you going, so to speak. Right. You focus on this chant and there's a certain emotional attachment to the words that you're saying and things of that sort. Yeah, like the drumbeat and the rhythm. Johnnie Cash, like a train sound. Early rap music. Religious rap.

You can go into these trances. Yeah, in other words, there is actually not just the chant, but there's sort of a state of consciousness that goes along with the chant. And so we have a kind of a listing of different ones that develop chance there over a period of a few centuries. Think about what's a chance.

The chance doesn't particularly require a lot of musical skill. So you can get people involved in the chant who aren't necessarily real musical. Because there's no complicated melody and certainly not much in the way of harmony and that kind of thing. So it doesn't require a lot of musical skill. It doesn't need instruments along with it. It's simple. It's real simple. So the chants would fit in.

The Gregorian chant, that's the term that we've become familiar with. This took on the name of Pope Gregory I about the year 590. And it wasn't because he wrote a bunch of them, it was rather that he put some organization to them and give some guidance, policy guidelines for the chants. So the Gregorian chants are that way because of his influence on them, not because he offered them. Others before him had done so in varying degrees, but Gregory took on a level of authority and profile that set him apart. He's otherwise known as Gregory the Great. even if it wasn't all that great. Now here's one that developed a little bit after that time, O Come O Come Emmanuel, and that's one that we've actually sung here.

Authorship unknown, 8th century Latin, translated from Latin to English by John Mason Neal in the middle 1800s. So here it had been around for quite some time in the Latin form in the middle 1800s, 1851. It was translated into English. And by the way, that's an interesting pattern. A number of times that sort of thing has happened where something has had much more history and then finally been carried over into English at a later time.

Neil translated five of the seven verses. So, Venni Emmanuel, 15th century French plain song melody. Plain song meaning voice only, no instruments. arranged and harmonized by Thomas Helmore in the hymnal noted, and again, middle 1800s, London, 1854. So, O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.

Let's ask a question. When they heard Israel, what were they thinking? Church. Yeah. And so when we sing it, we oftentimes don't draw that, but during an earlier era, it was automatically assumed If you say Israel, you mean the church. The notes in the original 1611 King James Bible, you look in the Old Testament and where the text says Israel, up at the top, the note says church. Every time.

Every time. ransom captive Israel that mourns in lowly exile here until the Son of God appear. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel." What's interesting is that the tune is not particularly rejoicing. in its nature. It's kind of a minor key thing. It's kind of like saying, happy, happy, happy are the people whose God is the Lord in minor key. It's kind of like that.

Now, polyphonic music is where you start getting variations in other than just a simple melody. It became common in the 13th century, so around the 1200s, about the time that the Crusades had begun. Then they began polyphonic music, allowing more complexity in the music.

Additionally, more secular music developed outside the sacred domain of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church controlled the music that was within its own domain. But they didn't prohibit secular music outside of it. And so that was one area where there was development of music in the secular realm, because they didn't control it particularly.

Now, 1517, starting the time of Martin Luther, into 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia, the end of the Thirty Years' War. Instrumental accompaniment came to be more accepted, eventually allowing for purely instrumental music in churches. With the Reformation came the development of worship music and Protestant lyrical content as well.

Now, we look here and we've got a piano and we have an organ. When did those develop? Between this one and this one, which developed first? This one, the organ first, right? And initially, like pipe organs, developed first. And while there were numerous stringed instruments, the piano didn't develop until the early 1700s. And there were previous to that stringed instruments of different kinds, harpsichords and things of that sort, but the actual piano didn't start until the early 1700s. So we had people colonizing America before there were pianos. And no pianos came over on the Mayflower.

But what has happened is in American culture, we've developed the idea that these are the standard instruments to be used. It's okay. There's certainly nothing unbiblical about it. However, it is a later development and not something fundamentally written out in scripture and not even that old in terms of all of church history. I don't know what the Apostle Paul would have done if he had come to one of our services and seen us playing a piano and playing the organ. I have no idea.

Now, here's one. This is the translation of Martin Luther's. Martin Luther actually did both the words and the music for this. A mighty fortress is our God. Let's see, when I was over in Germany on a few different visits, I went to the castle Coburg, which is one of the places that he was held, and I think our hymnals may even have Einfeste Burg as one of the subtitles in here, a mighty fortress. And if you go to Coburg, they've got signs, Einfeste Burg. pointing to going up to this castle, and so they went to the room where he was at. A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. Our helper, he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe. His craft and power great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not as equal.

Martin Luther wrote the original in German, In fact, one visit, about 1985, I was in a Lutheran church and we actually sang that over there in Germany. But it was brought over into English by Frederick Hedge, who by the way was a Unitarian, a little off on his theology, but translated into English by him in the middle 1800s. And it's again a pattern of a lot of things were brought over into our American English hymnology, if you will. during the middle 1800s by translation, not by original writing.

As a generalization, Lutheran musical style and content tended to allow for more freedom and variety of expression than was typical of the Reformed churches. They preferred simplicity, so there was a cultural and preference difference between the churches. Lutheran saw things as permissible unless prohibited. The Reformed churches saw things as prohibited unless specifically allowed.

Now, I don't know if you can tell any difference of that sort now. I'm sure things have changed and evolved over time, but that was initially what influenced their approaches to music and instruments. Presbyterian churches of the Reformed stock set in place the book of Psalms as the standard hymn book with the standard melody and meter. And I think, Joanne, I think you showed me you had a copy of the Psalms written as a hymn book from like back in the 1800s. Pardon? Yeah. Yeah.

And interestingly enough, that's what I saw over the churches over in Uganda. They frequently did this because they're Presbyterian background, right? And so the tendency is to take those psalms and then put them in some kind of singable form. Oftentimes I would recognize the melody that they would have as some well-known hymn. but they would sing the Psalms and sing through them. And by the way, let's think about that.

Is there anything wrong with singing the Psalms? No. Not particularly. Now, is there something that might be mistaken about reading the Psalms? Yeah, what might be mistaken? The Church is Israel. Yes, and so the issue is, is this teaching doctrine that's appropriate for the Church Or am I just singing Israel's national hymn book and not understanding the difference? So that might be an issue.

One that has been brought over into a modern era praise song, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Yeah, and so in the Old Testament it was an issue, but for us now, we're promised very clearly multiple times in the New Testament, we in the Church have the Holy Spirit indwelling every believer all the time. And so pleading for that is not something relevant to us. Matter of fact, we ought to be singing more about the continuing and universal in dwelling with the Holy Spirit and learning about what that means, rather than pleading that the Holy Spirit not leave us.

Anyway, the Council of Trent. This was a series of meetings called by the Roman Catholic Church, kind of a counter-reaction to the Reformation. Counter-Reformation, it's called sometimes. Included in addressing some complaints about Roman Catholic Church music.

Secular melodies uses the basis for sacred works. take some secular song and then put some, you know, Christian music to it. So there are complaints about that because, remember as we said, it had been a few centuries earlier that secular music had begun to develop outside the church. Now, bringing those secular tunes back into the church was, you know, something that people objected to. complex polyphony made it impossible to understand the words.

Sometimes you get the song is so complex, you can't understand what they're saying. Not just harmony, but you got woo, this has got all sorts of, you know, multiple, you know, melodies and that sort of thing. And you can't understand what they're saying, because it's so complex. Well, yeah, and if you think about that, there are different ways that it can be done. Complexity is one of them. The other is to just bury the words with all the instrumental part of it. Yeah, and it's possible, especially with today's amplification, but it could be otherwise, that you just can't understand what people are singing. because of the volume or character of the music. Yes?

I grew up in a Catholic church and we sang in Latin and nobody knew what we were saying. Yeah, nobody had any idea what we were saying. We even have expressions now that come from that Latin. Ever hear the term hocus pocus? That's from hic est corpus, this is the body.

Okay, now, inappropriate behavior of church musicians. You got this, alright, he's a church musician, but boy, you sure couldn't tell outside a church, right? So that would be one. Inappropriate use of the instruments. How could inappropriate use of the instruments be a concern? You could, as we've mentioned here, have such a high volume, you can't tell what's going on. You could have someone where the instrument simply takes over the song and the content is lost because the instruments are taking over. Yeah, the idea is that they would be accompanying the voice. Yes, yes, yep, yep. Okay, now stepping from 1648, the Peace of Westphalia, the end of the Thirty Years War into the present.

There were both occasional and prolific hymn writers during the 1700s. Isaac Watts, who was kind of a predispensationalist. Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley of the Methodist strain. Thousands of hymns from him. John Newton, what song is he famous for?

Amazing Grace. In fact, I think we'll be singing that shortly here. The 1800s saw the development of more hymns such as by Fanny Crosby in an era in which it became more accepted for women to write hymns. So lots and lots of hymns. We'll sing a number of hymns here.

We're selective, however, because why shouldn't we be selective about the hymns? Why shouldn't we just sing everything? The content, yeah, the content counts. If you have a hymn that sits there and goes over and over again harping on keeping the law, that's a problem. We will look carefully at the content of hymns, not simply sing it because a famous hymn writer wrote it.

Fanny Crosby and Charles Wesley each wrote thousands of hymns And they both believe things that we would not support here. So there are songs and sometimes verses that we won't sing because of that. Handel's Messiah, I bring it up because that's one, at this time of year, it's very popular.

However, written 1741, its three parts represent Christ's birth, death, and resurrection. But it was originally connected to Easter and not Christmas. Isn't that interesting? Easter and not Christmas. So what happened over time, it morphed to being more in people's minds as a Christmastime event. Why would it be connected to Easter? Because it's birth, death and resurrection. Now what happens is it's morphed over into a Christmastime event and almost even culturally people will look for that even if they're not really focused on Christ.

The performance of the Messiah caused many to be aghast at his having made the music, in their view, overwhelm the message. In fact, I have heard people who are atheists say the music is inspiring. And they don't mean anything spiritual by it, but just sort of stirring. This tumult over the Messiah lasted almost a century. There were people making lots of complaint and noise and criticism about Handel's Messiah. Why? Because the music was particularly stirring and the music tended to overwhelm the content.

In 1788, Mozart was commissioned to revise the Messiah for different instruments and performance before a small audience. That was one thing, that the Messiah was written initially, and then it was morphed so that it was presented before different groups. By the late 1830s, the Messiah was being performed for audiences of different social classes, revisions for different social classes. The theory being that the morals of the lower class would be improved by hearing it.

I see Bev has her hand open. That's the theory. So different forms of the Messiah were developed with those social classes in mind and the influence that you are supposedly having upon those different groups. Here's another famous one that has an interesting history.

Birthplace of Silent Night, essentially a little village church in Austria. That's where that came from. Here's the aerial view here of the bend in the river of Oberndorf. The manuscript, dated 1816, was discovered in 1995. So, real interesting. And here's one that gets sung all over the place, not originally sung in the works that we're familiar with. First half of the 20th century, hymns continue to be written into the 20th century, and this is one I mentioned earlier, How Great Thou Art. That was one that started off Swedish, ended up with some Russian verses, which I'm very glad didn't get included, and ended up getting carried over into English, and that's what we, you know, sang and are familiar with. Great is Thy Faithfulness is another one, you know, written a bit more recently.

As secular music developed new forms, jazz, pop, rock, ska, reggae, punk, thrash, metal, soul, etc., contemporary Christian music followed with Christian lyrics to match each style. Christian contemporary music has become a very significant economic force within the music realm. And, real interestingly, my son Randy used to work in a Christian bookstore, and he said they had real problems with people stealing the Christian music. So, anyway, a little hard to reconcile, I know.

Music has been developed to fit a charismatic approach to Christian worship, including the lyrics, repetition, and emotional expression now prominent in Christian churches. It is expected in some churches that you will have quite a musical investment with the ideas that music is supposed to get you all pumped up and get you ready to go through the week until the next Sunday. And so, as a matter of fact, it's looked upon in some groups that that's a significant responsibility of the church leadership is to get that music performed and pumped up. use that as a major part of the worship. So, we've got people who like some of the music and people who don't like some of the music and we've got people who really back that, people who really want to get amped up on it, some folks who want to have a mountaintop experience and others who don't care very much. about this Christian music, and so there are lots of different expectations among Christians these days.

So at Holly Hills, here's the approach that we're taking. We will employ music and the lyrics as part of our whole worship of the Lord, because remember we said worship isn't just music, right? Our whole worship of the Lord in spirit and in truth, We will exercise discernment about the lyrical content of the music using God's Word.

So we'll look at, what does this song say? We don't look at, for example, the doctrine of the author. There are things that Charles Wesley taught we would absolutely not agree with. There are things that Fannie Crosby taught, the famous hymn writer, we would not agree with and we simply would not sing those verses or that song. We're going to use discernment about the lyrical content of the music using God's Word. That's going to be how we do it.

We have sung songs that actually have Catholic origin here. We have sung songs that have come out of the charismatic movement. We've sung various songs and our standard is not where did it come from and who wrote it, but What is the content? So that's the first thing. We will not discern on the basis of the doctrinal belief of the author of any song, but on the lyrical content of the song itself. Graham Kendrick, for example, has written some very good music. We're not agree with this theology at all. It comes out of the vineyard. Knowing You is one of the songs, for example, that he has done. Wonderful song. There are just other things that he has written and said and believes that we would not stand by at all.

Charles Wesley, for example, Fanny Crosby, another. What's interesting at Fanny Crosby is, other than the first few weeks of her life, she was blind lifelong. And if you see her hymns, and there are some in our hymnal, if you see her hymns, look for the place where she talks about sight, where she writes about sight. Very interesting. She writes fairly often about seeing in those even though that she hasn't seen since the first about month and a half of her life.

This song is to say what is true of God and our relationship with him with one another and all the things that God's Word addresses. So we look for that in what we're singing. There are times when a song can be taken different ways, and we will often, as soon as you'll see a verse reference, we don't make a big noise about it, but we'll often include a verse reference to guide how we're thinking about that particular song. We've searched for songs and written some songs. We'll have a song even this morning and next week and the following that are written by people here at Holly Hills.

It will encourage others to do so, especially in those areas of teaching and insight where there's a lack of such songs. There is a lack of songs about our being identified with Christ and the truths that come from that. Many of the hymns come from a legal perspective and not fully understanding what grace is. So those are some key areas where songs are missing or lacking.

Then here's one, If It Weren't for the Cross. That's words by Hal Malloy. We'll do that in a couple of weeks here. If It Weren't for the Cross is one where Hal wrote the words and then Lee wrote the music. Here's one by Randy, Grace Upon Grace, Love Upon Love.

We will encourage and be encouraged when the various members of our church body step forward and minister among us in varying ways and times and song and music. That's a good thing. And we will also encourage our body to look to God's word in this area. Everything is measured by God's Word. It's God's Word that will be the standard.

A number of churches, and I've run into this sometimes at catastrophic speeds, I've run into this where people will measure, is this good by whether I feel blessed? by whether I feel blessed rather than saying a blessing is what God's word says and God's word is the standard for everything. Additionally, we will not be using our feelings as the basis for measuring our blessings or to know what is true or what is spiritual. Musical aspects of our worship are more subjective but must be considered. Music is subjective, isn't it? I mean, there are certain things you look, say, what's one of it? Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus. That's one. We have people here who love that. And we have people here going, and just it grates against them.

So here's the same thing, different emotional reactions. We will sing it sometimes, even if people react emotionally in some negative way, because the words are okay. But you'll have varying emotional reactions. Nancy and I, there are a couple of things that we've occasionally sung with sort of an Appalachian melody. Nancy and I really like it, not everybody does. At any rate, it's the content that will be the main focus. We hope that the music doesn't get distracting.

But sometimes even playing classically and not wild or any of that sort, occasionally there's something where you have mixed reactions. That's a little tough to know what to do with. You're not going to do the show. We'll be selecting our music with the support of musical volume, style, etc. They're not at odds with the purpose and message of the lyrics for the song. Should we sing Amazing Grace with a big band sound? Probably not, right? Probably not. That will mean that we will not choose to sing certain songs or verses or may even change a word or two here and there. We're kind of reluctant to do that. More inclined, if possible, to skip a verse than to do that, but it's at all possible.

Anyway, that's the end of our church history time. What we have tried to do all the way along is not just present, here's church history. but in fact to compare everything to God's Word. Say, here's God's Word, because in the end, God's Word is the standard for everything. And if you can look at where church history wanders and all sorts of horrible things happened or vile things took place, it's because they didn't compare things with God's Word. And so we most certainly want to look at things in view of God's Word. Thoughts, comments, questions? I think we could just assume a different tune for the deep, deep love of Jesus. I see. And people would like to find that the words aren't a downer. Yeah. It's just the key. Yes. Yeah. Or just transpose the key. Yeah. And it's also one of those that if you do it just a little slower, it changes the character of it. If you do it a little faster, it changes the character of it. But a little on the slow side makes it more like a dirge. But anyway, yeah.

Yes? I've worked with a lot of different churches, and what I find is a lot of the volunteers that I work with say, My favorite part of the service is the worship. And I go to XYZ Church because of the worship there. And I'm wondering how much of it is kind of a... I did my duty. I went and I worshiped the Lord. I sang all these songs and I praised Him. And they get nothing from the service part of it. There's no spiritual growth. That's an important thing to look at is what is there to grow on? What is there to really guide a person's life? Maybe nothing in a lot of these cases, especially if the focus is on how do I feel?

The tendency since the end of World War II has been for Christians to absorb more and more of the culture's, the world's, perspective on things, and that is to make feelings and experience the standard. It's been, you know, it was around 1960 that we got the charismatic movement begun, where it jumped beyond denominational lines. And then around 1980 was when Wimber started the Vineyard Churches, and then it jumped not just beyond denominational lines, it jumped to expressions outside of anything described in the Bible. You know, holy barking and holy barfing and holy mooing and all those things. So feelings and experiences ended up being the standard.

And I remember sitting down in Carson City, here I am with a group of leaders there at the church, and one of the guys talked about feeling blessed, and I said, now we're in trouble. Because feeling blessed, that's not what you use as the standard for things. But many have been taught to do so. And they go to the service not to, you know, what do I learn and what can I grow on? And using God's Word as the standard, but rather, how do I feel and does it get me pumped up? Do I like it? Do I feel blessed?

Yes. So, what's the point of a few good words and a lot of repetition? Yeah. Yeah, even if they're true, right? Yeah. the music that just repeats all the time. They got a short phrase, it's good. But what's the purpose of it? Well, it becomes more like a mantra, which that's an Eastern term, right? It becomes more like a mantra than stating true doctrine.

The reality is, you look at first, excuse me, Colossians 3.16, teaching and admonishing one another. So that's content.

That's actually exhortation, teaching and admonishing, in fact the word means to place in the mind, with psalms, hymns and spiritual psalms. So our psalms, hymns and spiritual psalms are intended by God to actually be used as not just worship of the Lord, but to teach and admonish one another. And that happens when the word of Christ dwells in you richly. So you start looking at the content of that verse, it doesn't point us in the, boy, does that make me feel good, direction. Not that it shouldn't, but the point is that's not where it's aimed at. It's founded upon the Word of God dwelling in us richly. It's founded upon us actually being taught and gaining content and direction for our lives from what we sing as we're worshiping the Lord. and it impacting our hearts in that way, not, well, how do I feel?

Well, we're starting to get people collecting in the back there, so we better close it up. Let's pray. Lord, we do give you thanks for the chance we've had here to look at essentially all of history. and the language and culture behind the Bible, as well as since the time when the Bible was completed. And in these last almost a couple thousand years here, we can see that while human beings have done lots of crazy things, you are indeed still in charge of all of history, and we can trust you to sum up everything in Christ. And we thank you that you're going to work all things together for good, that we're conformed to the image of his son, and that we can count upon that absolutely. And we just pray, giving you thanks in Jesus' name.