Gutsy Questions

USGN article
by Barbi Franklin
December 1999

The Scottish poet Carlyle is claimed to have once said: "Let me make a nation's music, and I care not who makes her laws. I will control that nation." This troubadour certainly had a handle on the truth! Music is one of the most powerful tools of communication and influence that God has given to us.

In Ephesians 5:18-19 Paul exhorts the body of Christ to "be continuously being filled" with the Spirit, "...speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." Colossians 3:16 says "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." God is setting a high standard for music's role in the life of church. The music we play and sing is to emanate out of the riches of God's Word and the fullness of His Spirit.

It's also convicting to read that the singers and musicians that were chosen in I & II Chronicles and Numbers 8 were appointed and "set apart" for their ministry and even prepared through a ceremony and spiritual cleansing to be "ministers." WOW!!

Now, I have some gutsy questions: Where did the mentality of "performing" or "entertaining" the saints come from? And when did we begin to demean the purpose of Christian music into a source for making money? How did we get to the point where sometimes we are even allowing it to be exploited, in God's name, through men and women who don't even seek after the "riches of God's Word or the fullness of His Spirit?" And further, when did we shift our perspective to idolizing the "talented" rather than the creator and giver of the talent!!

When do we cross over the line and actually break the 3rd commandment??!

(To be continued next month...)

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©1999 Terry & Barbi Franklin.