WORSHIP AND CHRISTIAN MUSIC – Joshua Law, Challenger 1990

WORSHIP AND CHRISTIAN MUSIC  —  by Joshua Law  CCM, Challenger 1990

True Worship

When we go to church on Sundays, what do we expect from the worship experience? Most of us expect to be lectured to when we get there. We have learnt to become passive, and quietly pay our religious dues by enduring a boring but necessary religious ceremony. We do not want to admit it but deep inside, we tend to believe that the church experience is mainly for the good of our children and it is a form of work that we do to gain salvation.1 The worship service is rarely exciting and meaningful. We know some where in our hearts that the message of the gospel is powerful and is the source of our happiness, wisdom and strength. We heard many great blessings from the Bible delivered through the pulpit, but we don’t seem to get these blessings in real life. It seems as if they are all true in theory only. So we slowly come to the conclusion that all these blessings are not for the present life,2 and may be, if we attend church often enough and be a good person, we will have a better future life in Heaven.3 So therefore most of us, in order to find meaning in church activities, resorted to socialize and making friends and planning programs around the most superficial of Christian themes.4 Going to church at its best means to have a sense of belonging, to make friends, to be lectured to or to live the good life. To have fellowship means no more than drinking coffee together and chit-chatting until there is nothing to chit-chat about. Hymn singing is often dull, dragging, and exhausting. All in all, the church experience rarely bring us any excitement, much needed nurture, discipline, and growth.

Truly, some churches do have great preachers or teachers, and people are excited just to hear them, and the whole worship experience seems to center around the pastor-teacher’s sermon. In fact, many thriving churches are doing well just because they have a multi-talented preacher and they build everything around the pastor. However, God has always intended that the worship should be focused on the individual worshiper,5 for He is looking for people who truly worship Him. He is interested to see how we praise Him, how we readjust our attitudes toward Him and starts from a heart of gratitude to God to relate to others. The worship service is a natural, open, corporate expression of our gratitude and admiration toward God for His love and His provision of salvation. We worship God out of gratitude. The purpose of the worship service by God’s design, is to teach believers how to relate themselves to Him individually or corporately for their own good because God loves them.6 So therefore, the inward heart and mind participation and the outward actions of each individual in the worship are most important. It is great if the pastor does a good job to provoke the congregation to worship, but it is not a responsibility that is only given to the pastor. Each of us are called to provoke each other to good works.7

So we do not go to church merely to be lectured to, but to join many other worshipers in worship. The worship service should be designed to allow and encourage maximum opportunity for the individual worshipers to worship God through:8

1.   Praise, (hymns and psalms)

2.   Meditation, (on God’s love)

3.   Confession, (of daily sins)

4.   Illumination, (by the Holy Spirit while waiting in submission to Him)

5.   Nurture, (exposition of and exhortation by the Word of God)

6.   Supplication, (prayers for daily needs) and

7.   Intercession, (for others, the city, the country, the nation, the world)

and be filled with the Spirit, submitting to each other and exhorting each other to good works through:9

1.   Psalms, (reading and singing of the Psalms)

2.   Hymns, (singing hymns of Praise)

3.   Spiritual songs, (Christian music and songs)

4.   Encouraging words, and

5.   Confessing to each other to restore fellowship (Matt 18)

6.   Testimonies (which bears witness to God)

This means that the service should have maximum worshiper participation rather than having great majority of the time devoted to preaching. Preaching is very important, it is a mind and heart exchange, it encourages worship, but it does not produce the act of worship. It will never replace the act of personal and corporate worship. The job of the pastor-elder is to instruct and guide the worship so the worshipers can be totally involved in worshiping God for themselves which is the most intimate, dynamic and person to person interactive experience between God and man. Relating to each other in fellowship (koinonia) is only next in importance to the act of worship itself. Preaching is a great experience for the preacher. It is where one internalizes the Word of God and delivers it to another or exhort another to put the Word into practice because the Word of God is the only and complete foundation of our faith.10 It gives feelings of achievement and satisfaction to the preacher because it fulfills part of his calling. However, guiding the flock (congregation) into worship is a much more important task than preaching during the worship because it helps to maintain the good relationship between God and the believers. It prepares the believer to receive and understand God’s Word and it encourages the practice of the Word in the church and thus ensures that the Word of God given through preaching would not be given in vain. However many pastors concentrate only in their preaching and often neglect the most important task of provoking the individuals in the congregation to worship God. One should design the worship service around guiding the people to worship God not only in the church but also every day of their lives because worship is an attitude, it does not start or end in the worship service on Sundays, it is the very life and attitude of the believers every moment of their lives. The corporate worship is a place where on-going worshipers join each other in worship and it is a teaching medium, an object lesson, an opportunity to practice worship where believers are taught and practicing how to worship God both privately and corporately.

Church Music – A Pulpit Ministry

Two of the most prominent communication media of the worship are spoken words and music, whether it is instrumental or songs and hymns. As the worship leader (song leader, presider, preacher and musicians are all worship leaders because they lead the people) leads the congregation in songs, he is acting as a shepherd much like that of the pastor-teacher who leads the congregation into worship by exhortation or study of His words. The worship leader is to lead the individuals in the congregation into personal and corporate worship, which is the same kind of ministry the pastor does. The difference is that the pastor uses his sermon and the worship leader uses hymns and spiritual songs. In fact the song leader has a better tool to lead worship than the pastor which is the music he uses in which the words of the song are the content and the music enhances the content and delivers the message in a musical form, and the active singing of the congregation helps them to internalize the words in the songs. Therefore many people remember the lyrics of hymns and songs more than the content of sermons. One obvious drawback in church music is the lack of content which is limited by the words of the songs and hymns. We require pastors to have strong theological background, to have spiritual substance and proper motivation, to give a balanced theological diet to the people in his sermons,11 but we tend to neglect that church musicians such as the choir director or the song leader, or even the church pianist, who lead the worship using music and songs, should also be required of the same, since they have almost the same influence as, if not more than, the pastor from the pulpit, on the congregation. (By a Southern Baptist study in the United States, theology is taught more through hymns and songs than the pulpit.)

The Shifting Church Leadership Base

We have been taught, beginning from the 30’s, by the great spectator sports and mass media, to take the audiences’ seat of passive non-involvement. This “let-the-professionals-do-it” attitude has been instrumental in misleading us for many years, particularly evangelical Christians, to focus too much attention on a few “super heros”, “super stars”, or scape-goating a few and criticizing them mercilessly, instead of spreading the leadership among all the people according to spiritual gifts which is in God’s plan.12 Even if we regard ourselves as spectators like the sports, shouldn’t we do as most sports fan do, to be emotionally involved? However, the problem is that we become critics, judges and juries’.

In the eighties, an age where the lay person, having been a spectator for too long, and out of gross dissatisfaction of the performance of many pastors, which is particularly true among the American Chinese Christian intellectuals, are arising from their spectator’s chairs to participate more and more in the leadership of the church, it is about time that we should shift the focus from the performance and evaluation of the pastors to the performance and evaluation of every member of the church. The need for “lay” ministry training becomes great. The big problem in our time is that many lay persons do not arise into leadership because of the call of and gratitude to God and their love for His church, but out of dissatisfaction of the performances of their pastors. These untrained, undiscipled men often become self appointed leaders who create problems for churches that prevent growth. Church leaders must be discipled and trained. Church musicians, as leaders of the worship, naturally, should be required to have a good theological understanding and Christian maturity before they are asked to serve either in leading the worship, playing musical instrument for the worship or writing music for the service.

Insufficient Leadership Training

Not to mention that in most evangelical Christian denominations, there is an overblown attention given to the pastorate position, while most pastors, majority of them seems to be workaholics, faced with an overwhelming omnipotent complex,13 suffering from extreme self-esteem problems because they are usually regarded either too highly or too lowly, the average Christian is deprived from the great opportunity to grow and to take on their call and responsibilities as a believer-priest. I believe that the reason why most gifted church musicians and leaders are not serving effectively or regarded as a serious Christian worker is because great majority of church musicians and lay leaders including many who graduated from seminaries, are merely trained musicians and methodologists, and they do not have sufficient theological or relevant ministry training and discipleship to work with people, to lead the congregation effectively. Moreover, most churches treat musicians and workers as tools and musical instruments, (like being treated as an object: “play this!”, “play that!”; “do this”, “do that”! or “turn them on, and they will play automatically.”) they have not been discipled nor given any significant positions which requires dependability and serious responsibilities. Often times they are treated as “volunteers” while these people often unknowingly import secular music standards and practices into the church.14 To add to the present problem, the commercialization of Christianity, especially Christian music in which the measure of success and spirituality is determined purely by how many records are sold, has greatly “muddled the water” for the ministry. Often times this results in “Super Stardom”, money, fame and glory where big salaries, big numbers, and popularity means spirituality and success.

The Influence of Commercialized Music

It is commonly accepted that despite of the antiquity in style and more tense, rigid, demanding in singing skills, and academic in composition, the hymns compared to the contemporary choruses, do have a lot more content, whether it be theological or otherwise, while there are always exceptions in both cases. Most of us know that hymns are primarily written for four part a cappella (unaccompanied) singing in which the singers of each part employs the extreme ranges of their voices to accommodate each other. Most of them were written in an era where there were a lot more people who can read musical notes and have a good sense of comparative pitch.15 To sing these hymns means that one would have to sing in his extreme range, usually at the high end because the melody happens to be mostly sung by the soprano16 voice part. Therefore it is relatively hard for the person who does not have a high voice to sing these hymns. Contemporary choruses do have an easy going style and comfortable range and harmonization by which they gain wide acceptance by the general Christian public who are musically uneducated, untrained and are mainly exposed to “popular”17 styles of music, that which is most common to radio and television broadcasts. The reason why this is so is because “popular” music is developed and nurtured by popularity and commercial principles. The reason most “popular” song become that way is because they are written to feed the insatiable need of the people for sex, violence, profanity and curiosity which are basically flesh, blood and soul oriented, and mindless, immature in the Biblical sense. To add to the problem, commercialism has tremendously facilitated the spread of this disease of the soul. For example, based on business principles, most widely sold popular songs nowadays are published in the most marketable form to ensure quick sale and therefore great financial return in the shortest time. To do this they have to simplify the original score and edit them to suit most people in style and technique, including the beginning level pianists and singers, this way they can “cash-in” on the popularity of the song because more people can use them. People who want to buy the original score will have to pay dearly for what they want. In addition, “popular” styles of music are widely used and supported by the media for the same reason. (principle of supply and demand; the demand happens to be dominated by the sin principles in our flesh – selfish sex, violence, profanity) Because of commercialization, and wide exposure through the media, easy popular music becomes wide spread in spite of the over-emphasis of emotional stimulation and extreme lack of enriching and positive strengthening content.18 In contrast to the rich theological content of most hymns, popular Christian songs often contain very little thoughtful content (spiritual content19). But the emotional content (soul content20), riding on easy melodies tends to sweeten these songs and makes them “sweet nothings”. These kinds of Christian music sweeten but do not build up Christian life and understanding.

Pride and Prejudice

Why do we see so many musicians who cannot get along with each other, particularly between those who prefer the “popular” style and those who prefer the “classical” style? The reason is basically an emotional one because people becomes too emotionally involved or preoccupied with the music they love that they forget the Lord of their music. In this busy world in which there are less and less people who can find time to learn an artistic skill which does not have a high market value, such as the “classical” style of music, the art form is slowly becoming less understood and less preferred by the common people. Naturally, musicians who prefer, and are well-trained in the “classical” style of music are being put in a disadvantaged position in most churches of evangelical faith21.

Some of the reasons for the conflict are, on the one hand, “Traditional” and “classical” musicians are usually well trained not only in their art but in their pride.22 I believe they should be proud of their art because they have a greater motivation than fame and fortune that has propelled them to pursue perfection in a demanding musical discipline. As a Christian, I believe that there is nothing wrong in feeling good in what one have achieved. However, if it leads to pride and the emotions of hate, prejudice and divisiveness against each other, particularly directed against musicians of a different discipline, it becomes a problem.

On the other hand many Christian musicians who prefer the “popular” style of music tend to dwell in feeling good and enjoying popularity in the expense of spiritual value and discipline.23 The “hit song” philosophy in the late fifties demonstrates this kind of false value.24 Often times feeling good means that it is right and being popular means that they are spiritual. (For example, the last phrases of the popular song: “You Light Up My Life” which is praised and used by many Christians in churches, says, “It can’t be wrong, for it feels so right.” shows extreme mindlessness.) Feeling good and popularity becomes more preferred to spiritual values.

While musicians of the two sides are having problems with each other, they often do not realize that both styles of music have the same basic problems. These problems are:

1. Music Idolatry: The worship of music. One side worships the pride, the art form, the tradition, the antiquity, the worshipful atmosphere that most classical music seem to project25, the skill and the absolute discipline. The other worships the mystical “hit” success, the money, the fame, the popularity and the power of emotional manipulation that they have over the audience.

2. Sensuality: Many people think that there are more explicit sensuality in popular music than in classical music. Granted that the sensuality problem of popular musicians is more obvious, particularly in the “Rock and Roll” styles, however, classical music, in many of the symphonies (for example, Howard Henson’s Romantic Symphony is known to be extremely erotic.) and particularly in the operas and in their modern staging techniques, the amount of explicit sensuality is not less than any other style of music.

A Convenient Hypocrisy in a Spiritual Disguise

Music is one of the many tools that God has given his servants by which they can serve and perhaps more effectively. Music is an enhanced language, but the ministry of music should be rendered by people who are called to serve by teaching and guiding, (not a call to entertain) or at least by people that are called to be shepherds first and musician second. Christian musicians must first experience the humbling experience of being called to minister, be discipled by an experienced shepherd before they start to serve. This is also true in other aspects of the ministry particularly the maturity aspect. For example one would not ask a new or an immature Christian to preach the Word or lead the worship just because he is a good talker. Unless the person knows the Word and is mature in the Lord, normally we wouldn’t ask him to take major leadership positions in the church. Any musician by virtue of their plain musical skills can take a “joy-ride” on church music and be given the opportunity to serve without having any significant knowledge of the Word or even having been born again. Therefore, if a musician is not mature in the faith he should not be asked to serve and should remain as a musician who needs to be discipled by ministers of the gospel to maturity until he knows much more than what he sings and is also ready “to mean what he sings”. Many musicians, by virtue of their musical talent, become leaders, elevated, admired by many, as if they are musical superstars and also become regarded as spiritual leaders just because they “play an instrument or sing” in the service, regardless of whether or not he is spiritually mature or whether he can make a good choice of music and lyrics. This idolatrous behavior produces a convenient success and hypocrisy for a lot of musicians. Often times the attraction of, and pleasure produced by music replaces the spiritual growth and training they need which involves growth both in spirit and understanding before they are given leadership positions in the assembly.  If we, who are in the front line serving God with music, do not know what a theologically balanced content is in the music and words we use, nor are we mature in the faith, we will be guilty of blind leading the blind and Christianity is reduced to being cheap, insincere, mediocre, and hypocritical and the name of Christ is mocked.

A Call for Substance in A Balanced Theological Content

“What am I to do? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also” I Cor. 14:15

What are the biblical principles of music? In my opinion, the Bible emphasizes theologically sound Christian music that has rich content in the text, while at the same time composed by Christians who are mature and have godly motivation, that produces spiritual emotions (Spirit guided emotions26) and spiritual understanding (Spiritual mind – Spirit guided thinking27). I am sure most of our Christian music have strong artistic, aesthetic and emotional content. For example, most “classical” style of sacred music has a rich emotional, aesthetic and scholastic value which requires much learning in order to understand28 and most “popular” style of church music has rich emotional and easy musical content and does not require special musical training to understand and appreciate. However, both styles as well as most Christian music need sound theological substance and content. Most contemporary choruses, unfortunately, are extremely short (one to two sentences) with words that enhances only the emotions and they often fall short of having more thoughtful content. For example, the popular praises choruses that many churches are using presently contain good worshipful words like, “We worship You”, or “Be glorified”. However, we must not assume that every one in the worship is ready and prepared to worship God, and they do not need to readjust or “warm-up” to the attitude of worship.29 On the other hand, we must not stop at the emotion of worship, but go forth to tell God what about Him that we worship, that is content. We must make statements to God about our admiration of Him and to man about who God is, His nature and His deeds. Hymns usually have a few verses that shows content. However, most popular choruses we use nowadays only have one extremely short verse. John Wesley used to write hymns that contain twenty to thirty verses because he had a lot to tell to and about God. Telling God that we worship Him, we praise Him, without going further is like telling one’s lover a lot of “I-love-You”‘s but can’t go any further than that. This kind of love is usually self centered and self gratifying, without much interest in, knowledge of and regard to the person whom one loves. There is a great shortage of meaningful spiritual songs and hymns on missions, prophecy, evangelism, repentance and worship that are rich in content and musical aesthetics that is attractive to Christians of this present decade. This lack of musical material and theological imbalance in our Christian experience proves our immaturity in faith. In this day and age where there are more and more divisions of labor, we must not expect the poet and musician to be found in one person. Therefore we must pray that our theologians who are poets and lyricists would be called to write more lyrics that are theologically sound and balanced for mature musicians so that they can write music to enhance them. Without good lyrics, how can we have any good music?

Music Idolatry – When Music Becomes the Cause of Worship

Music is wonderful, it certainly can enhance our worship. Unfortunately many Christians mistakenly replaced God by their own music.  The evidence is more obvious than we may realize. Most musicians have a musical bias or preference, which is all right, but if their preference obstructs Christian unity or their musical preference becomes the cause of their worship rather than an enhancement, they become idol worshipers and their preferred style of music becomes their god. Often times I have heard similar statements such as: “Oh! I can certainly worship in that church because they use my kind of music.” or, “I can’t worship because of their kind of music.” In both of these cases, music becomes the cause of worship and God is being thrown out of the church windows. Music has replaced God. Truly, music that accompanies our songs and psalms are great and I love them, but God is much greater than the good feeling that music can give. He is the cause of our worship. Music, at its best, enhances our words and the tones gives us a vehicle for our emotions to soar better. However, with or without music, God is still the great God He is to us, and He is the only one we worship. When we worship Him, we only see Him. Music should never be an obstruction to worship.

There is a tremendous struggle among Christian musicians as to what style of music one should use in the church. Most of us know who “Rock-and-Roll groupies”30 are. While we condemn the immoral practices of sensuality and idolatry in the “pop-rock” culture, we often forget that there are also groupies of classical music masters. I have seen many who prefer the “classical” style of music, pay tribute to classical composers as though they are all absolutely godly knowing that most of these masters of classical music had led rotten and degrading lives, and they refuse to acknowledge that most of these masters were merely accomplished, stylistic, and popular musicians of their times, and they are as sinful and degenerate as their modern-day counterparts. They deify these “classical” composers and musicians and despise those who prefer the modern “popular” music styles. Usually these “classical” music worshipers do not care if they understand “popular” music or not and are not willing to “betray” their preferred classical style or “to bend” their “lofty” standards for the majority of musically illiterate people. While they take extreme pride in their preferred style of music, many of them do not have a comprehensive understanding of their own preferred style of music, or music in general, but are themselves merely blind followers, groupies, of their own god, their own indulgence of the “classics”. They become music junkies and to protect their pride and hide their ignorance, they condemn music that are not “classical” and regard any one who plays “popular” style as carnal.

A common unbiblical philosophy in Christian music today is that “if the music sells good it must be good,” (commercial value becomes God’s value), or “if music feels good, it must be right, and acceptable,” (sensuality becomes standard for judgement), or, “since people liked it, it must be good” (mass morality, utilitarianism), or “if we have used this kind of music for so long, it must be right and good, why change” (philosophy of convenience), or “since some people got blessed by it, it must be good” (The end justifies the means.) Often times everything is resorted to emotional demand instead of having a balance in spirit and understanding as directed by Paul. (I Cor. 14:15)

The Call to Serve in Shepherding the Flock  

      “But when He saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then said He unto His disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.” Matthew 9:36-38

Music is one of the greatest tools for the ministry. It is because of its power and influence that it tends to be misused and abused. I do not believe that God is calling Christian musicians merely to entertain, to gain a reputation or even to have a big program but to nurture the flock into Christian maturity.  Jesus said, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” (Luke12:48b) Musicians are given special gifts of communication, gifts of influence. They should then be accountable for what they are given. In order to serve well, we must first realize that we are called as servants first and be trained in the Word which is the basis and substance of our faith. Many of us are serving just because we enjoy music, enjoy preaching, while we may be babies in the faith and are easily misguided. To serve God, one must be qualified according to principles required of elders and pastors as revealed in the scripture. (II Tim. 3:2-7)

A Suggested Guiding Principle

It is true that music does reflect the life style of the composer. Musicians play their music because they identify with the composer and the lyrics. So what we can do is to make an assessment of the composer’s life (fruit) and examine the verbal content of the music in order to make a choice regardless of the style and period of the music. Often times a persons words, attitudes, life style and fruit identifies who they are. If they are truly carnal, then their life will eventually show forth their carnality. There are music that are the results of unrepentant living and attitude, these we should avoid. But without facts to verify our suspicion, we cannot judge music merely by our own preferences.

A Personal Testimony

I was called into the ministry at a time when I was already an accomplished musician trained in and preferred classical music. Having had teaching experiences in music departments of seminaries and secular colleges for a great number of years, working with music of all styles and periods, when I felt called into the ministry, instead of following the usual route of taking a doctorate program in music in one of the most well known seminaries, I felt lead to take the master of divinity degree program to prepare me for the pastorate because I strongly believed that what I need, as well as most Christian musicians, is not more music training, but to be trained to minister well and to really know God’s Word with confidence. Music skills can be learnt anywhere, in any secular schools, and there are plenty of good ones around, but when I go to a seminary, I want to learn the skills of the ministry. After graduating from the seminary, I was fortunate to have been offered positions of ministry where I was not only given opportunities to minister with the Word but also was discipled as a pastor-teacher by some of the best Bible teachers and theologians in the San Francisco Bay Area. And above all, the Lord has richly blessed me with a tremendously supportive wife and family. Now, as I am sharpening my ministry skills, the Lord has allowed me to minister effectively both in the Word and music. Praise God, my ministry in worship is characterized by enthusiastic praises, vibrant testimonies, deep and intimate sharing, and fervent prayers in which members of the congregation participate in worship and direct each other’s attention toward God and His Word.

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1Eph. 2:8-9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

2Mk. 10:29-30 “And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land, for my sake, and the gospel’s, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.”

3Ibid.

4Most Christian activities are around the same very first and fundamental themes of repentance from dead works, faith toward God, doctrine of baptisms and so forth. (Heb. 6:1,2) But hardly go any deeper into perfection in which they become independently confident in their faith and growth and ready to teach and lead others to maturity. This is so because either most church leaders are not trained any further or that this more profound truth are not “popular” and requires commitment.

5John 4:23 “….the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the father seeketh such to worship Him.” This shows that the true worship is personal, starting from within.

6John 21:21 “Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.” This verse shows that relationship between God and the believer is specific, it differs from person to person, and individualized.

7Heb. 10:24 “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works:”

8Truth about worship and relationship between God and man are taught many times and many ways in the scripture. Of these teachings, the tabernacle worship is the greatest object lesson (note my article on ‘the priests of the heavenly tabernacle’) in which each furniture in the tabernacle has a very significant meaning in the light of the worship under the grace of Jesus Christ which allows us to go straight into the holy of holies. (direct access to God the Father through Jesus Christ, Heb. 10) The ways of worship listed correspond to the pieces of furniture arrangements in the tabernacle starting from the Gates of Praise (Psalm 100), The Brazen Altar, The Laver of Confession, The Lampstand of Illumination, Table of Shewbread, The Altar of Incense, and the Throne of Mercy (Ark of the Covenant).

9One of the descriptions of New Testament worship listed in Eph. 5:19.

10II Tim. 3:16 “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works”

11II Tim. 2:15 “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

12I Cor. 12 The whole chapter here states that there are diversities of gifts the purpose of which is to work together to profit all. (v. 7) All Christians together make the body, though each one differs in function from others, but all are organically, cooperatively and sympathetically related to each other.

13When one believes that he can do anything if he tries hard enough.

14Standards such as: “having higher degrees of learning makes it easier to become more Christ-like more authority in spiritual matters, more wisdom; Enthusiasm means spiritualism;” “Having more money means more success, security and power;” “All churches should be democratically run;” “Music is worship,” and etc.

15An ability to determine, compare and judge or produce a requested tone of absolutely correct pitch after a tone of any standard pitch is given as a reference.

16A high female voice.

17Any music that is not designated as ethnic or classical, (sometimes called the three B’s – Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms) such as folk, country, western, Broadway, rock (easy rock, hard rock, punk rock, motown, and etc.), jazz, blue grass, pops, electronic, and etc.

18According to Biblical principles, all things should be done to the edification of the whole body. (I Cor. 12:7; Eph. 4.)

19Spiritual content – the thoughtful content of songs, Biblically, the word “spirit of man” refers to the thinking, purposing, self-consciousness and deciding part of us. I Cor. 2:11 The spirit knows by thinking and reflecting, which are its functions.

20Soul content – the emotional content of songs, Biblically the “soul of man” refers to the seats of our emotions, that which we are most aware of. When God created man, it was a soul oriented creation, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (“being” is translated from a Hebrew word which means “soul”, translated “soul” in King James Version, and “being” in many other translation because of plain English usage)

21Most churches of evangelical faith are ministering to the middle class, “commoners”, which constitutes majority of the US population. This people group often are technically educated and holding average paid positions and are the largest target group of the business community for their hard-earned money. They happen to prefer the “middle-of-the-road”, “not-too-serious” kind of music (pop-rock type), while the extremely educated and rich people seem to prefer more conservative kinds of art and things such as antiques and classical music. Most young people, regardless of class they come from seem to prefer the pop-rock style of music because of its nature. This makes them the greatest market of commercialized music.

22This is obviously observed among classical musicians that a great number of them secretly or openly reject or criticize popular musicians as misbehaving, mediocre, worldly, undisciplined and immoral. Music schools and institutes including major universities would not encourage the study of such kind of music as an academic study.

23This is the author’s personal observation.

24″Hit Songs” – a late fifties development when the music business people rank music by their popularity, naming them “hit songs” for less of reasons to explain why they became popular. People use to say, “It doesn’t matter whether you are good or not, if you have a song that is a “hit”, you’ve made it.”

25This author has observed for many years that it is quite easy for most aesthetic classical music lovers to equate God and the worship experience with the atmosphere created by classical music and music halls. When one enters a classical music hall in use, one cannot but feel the religious feeling and worship atmosphere there. People dress better attending an opera than attending a Sunday worship service. The worship atmosphere, in the author’s opinion, should be one filled with cerebration and joy, for we are cerebrating our glorious hope of eternal life because of the resurrection of our Lord.

26Spirit guided emotions – that is transformed by the Holy Spirit through correct and undistorted thinking which is based on the good relationship between God and the person

27Spirit guided thinking – a way of thinking which is directed by the Holy Spirit through understanding of scriptural truth.

28Music is a language that needs to be learnt. In the last two decades, when our government is severely cutting budgets that supports the arts, the country’s exposure to classical music is very limited, we discovered that there are less and less people who understand and prefer classical music, which is very unfortunate. When education of music (mainly through exposure) is left to the businessman, they turn all music into their profit. The guiding principle becomes our greed.

29Because of the sin principle that is still living in our flesh, God encourages us to live a body life where we can be discipled, guided, disciplined and corrected by our fellow Christian from our daily wanderings and restored to the good and blessed relationship with God through gathering and particularly the worship service experience.

30Young people, particular girls, who admire “Rock and Roll” super-stars so much that they forsake everything, their money, their family, their education and their bodies and throw themselves at the mercies of these “Super-Stars” by following them everywhere they go, becoming junkies, dope dealers, doing anything they ask whether they respect them or not. Often times these girls risk everything including murder or being murdered for their gods.

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