December 4, 2017 Show with John Price on “Exclusive A Cappella Worship Defended” (Part # 2 of 3: “History”)

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this fourth day of December 2017.

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Today we are returning to our discussion that we began over a month ago on the theme of exclusive a cappella worship defended.

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This is part two of our discussion focusing on the history of music in the church and specifically on a cappella worship in the church, and we have as our guest today to defend a cappella worship for the second time

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John Price, who is pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Rochester, New York. He's also the author of a book called

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Old Light on New Worship, Musical Instruments in the Worship of God, a Theological, Historical, and Psychological Study, and being part two, this is the historical aspect, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor John Price.

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Good afternoon, Chris, and it's good to talk with you again. And before we go into our subject at hand,

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I want to bless our listeners with some a cappella worship music. This is from the new

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Wonderful Gods CD by Praise and Harmony A Cappella Worship, and I am really excited about this

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CD. This is a new CD especially for the Christmas season, but you can listen to it any time of year, obviously, and it actually comes with instructions for singers.

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There's a second CD in this CD set with instructions for singers, so I think that it might be very helpful especially for those of you who are leading the worship in your congregation or you just love to sing and would like to improve your skill.

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But here is just one of the tracks from this beautiful new CD, Wonderful God, by Praise and Harmony A Cappella Worship.

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O holy night, the stars are brightly shining.

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It is the night of the dear Savior's birth.

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Long lay the world in sin and error pining,

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Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.

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A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

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For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

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On your knees, oh, on your knees,

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Hear the angel voices, hear the angel voices,

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O night, O night divine, O night when

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Christ was born. O night, O night,

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O holy night, O night divine.

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Well, that was beautiful, and that was just a part of that song. I faded that out because of time restraints that we have today, but that was obviously

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O Holy Night off of the new CD, Wonderful God, by Praise and Harmony A Cappella Worship.

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I hope that you look that up, and I will give you a website at some point during the program where you can order your own

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CDs and give them away as gifts for the Christmas season and so on. Thank you,

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Chris. My pleasure. And John, tell us also something about Grace Baptist Church of Rochester, New York, for those of our listeners who did not have the opportunity of hearing part one of this discussion on acapella worship.

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Well, Grace Baptist Church, we're located here in Rochester, New York. My wife and I returned to Rochester.

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This was our hometown. We had gone down to New Jersey where I was trained to be a pastor.

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That was back in 1991 to 95. After my training, we returned here and we began the church planning work.

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And so it's amazing how fast the years have gone by, and now we've been here 22 years, and the

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Lord has been pleased to bless us and establish a church, and it's a great delight to be the pastor here.

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And this would be a Reformed Baptist Church adhering to the 1689 London Baptist Confession as a summary of the biblical teachings that you embrace, and it's also known as the

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Second London Confession, very close, nearly identical to the Westminster Confession of Faith that our conservative

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Presbyterian brethren adhere to, and also very close to the three forms of unity that our other

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Reformed brethren adhere to, and the Savoy Declaration as well. That's correct, and so we are definitely a

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Reformed Baptist Church, and the Second London Confession is our Confession of Faith.

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And we should state at the outset, because people may be scratching their heads and saying, wait a minute,

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I'm a Reformed Baptist, and all the Reformed Baptists I know use some kind of musical instruments in their worship.

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We would have to admit that this is, today, in the 21st century, that is, a rarity amongst even

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Reformed Baptists, this strictly a cappella view of worship. That's true.

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We used an instrument, a piano, back in the early days of our

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Church here, and that's what I was always accustomed to in other Reformed Baptist Churches where I had worshipped.

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I always had the question, though, in the back of my mind, why do we have a piano?

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I could not find one in the New Testament commands for the worship of the

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Church, and so that was always an issue that I always had a question concerning.

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And it wasn't until I really got into the study of this matter, and into the study that produced the book, that I came to the conviction that we really should not have a piano or any musical instruments in the worship of the

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New Testament Church. And the last time we were on, I invite all of you listening who missed part one of this discussion, when we were focusing in on the theological aspects of this topic.

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Last week, or should I say last time, that we had Pastor Price on to discuss exclusive a cappella worship defended, we focused on the theology, and today we are discussing the historical aspects of this the next time that he is coming back on, which is a week from today, correct?

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That's right. Yeah, a week from today we are discussing the psychological aspects of this study, and some of you may be wondering how on earth could there be psychological aspects when it comes to what kind of music we use or don't use in a worship service, but you will be surprised if you have that understanding.

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You'll be surprised that there are indeed psychological aspects, and when it comes to this issue, first of all, some people might wrongly use the phrase that Pastor Price does not believe in music in worship.

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Now, using your voice as the sole instrument of worship does not mean that you don't believe in music.

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That is music. Right, absolutely, and you know,

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I think Calvin and other Reformers and Puritans, I mean, they were men who enjoyed music, and for example,

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Zwingli in Zurich, Switzerland, he was really a professional musician.

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He had studied music for years in the university in Bern, Switzerland.

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He was a master of at least 12 musical instruments, and Zwingli was an accomplished musician who enjoyed the use of instruments, but he never brought them into the worship of the

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Church, because in the Church we're coming into God's house, and in God's house he has control over what we do in worship, and Christ has never commanded the use of instruments in the

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New Testament Scriptures. We have no example of any musical instruments being used in any of the churches of the

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New Testament, and so Zwingli, while he would enjoy and use instruments in his own home, he would never bring them into the

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Christian Church, and he's an example of many others who have held to this position. Yeah, in fact,

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I want you to read a list of great men of God throughout the centuries who believed in exclusively acapella worship.

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I will do that. Now, would you mind if we kind of traced out the whole history first, and then we reviewed it there?

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Oh, yeah, that's fine, if that's what you prefer. And also, okay, that's fine.

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And I want our listeners to also know that we did—I'm repeating myself here—but we did address the theology of this, which is the most important aspect of it, because my guest and I, and all

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Reformed Baptists, believe strongly in what is known as sola scriptura, that the

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Scriptures alone are our sole, infallible, inerrant authority in the

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Church, and no matter what we see in history doesn't prove unquestionably any teaching.

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But, obviously, history is a helpful guide as to see what the

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Church, what the body of Christ has believed throughout the centuries, and what a more dominant view may have been.

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And it's always good to know what great teachers have believed, even if we view them as fallible.

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It's always a helpful thing, because we would be arrogant to ignore history and ignore great men of God whose minds are far greater than many of ours, or most of ours, especially mine.

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And it would be as if we are rejecting the Scriptural mandate that there are certain qualifications for teachers and elders, and that the

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Bible does not in any way condone lone wolf or maverick

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Christianity, where people are wandering around developing their own opinions. And so it is a helpful aid to know what the

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Church of the past has believed, even if the Church of the past on this earth has always been imperfect and has always contained sinners, and has always contained people veering off into error and even heresy.

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It's still a helpful guide. Am I right? That's correct. And so we are in full agreement that the

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Scripture alone is the final authority on any issue. And we look to the

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Bible first, above all other authorities, and there's no question about that.

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The importance of historical theology is what we're speaking of here, and the importance or the value of it is that we are not the first ones to open our

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Bibles. We're living at a time when there's been over 2 ,000 years of Church history, or 2 ,000 years approximately of Church history.

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We would not pretend to be the first ones to wrestle with the doctrine of the

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Trinity, or to deal with the deity of Christ, or the issue of the doctrine of justification by faith.

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There have been many men who have gone before us who have wrestled with those things throughout the history of the

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Church, and Ephesians chapter 4 tells us that Christ gives pastors and teachers to the

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Church for the safety, the upbuilding, the growth, and the maturing of the

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Church. And so we should look back to them. They are men who have had the

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Holy Spirit. They are men who have studied the Scriptures.

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And to look back on any topic or subject that comes up is always a safeguard for us, and a check against error.

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If we find ourselves departing in some way, and no one else has gone in this direction before, then that would be a serious matter for us.

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And so there's great value in the study of historical theology. And another thing...

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If I might just read a quote. Sure. And I just looked this up this morning. This is a quote from one of my historical theology professor in seminary, and he says, after we've done all of our study in the

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Scripture, and he says this, there is another test that may be applied to either our own doctrinal conclusions, or those of others.

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The test of the history of theological and dogmatic development. It is no small thing to reject or to ignore the sovereign superintendence of Christ over Church history.

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We show no little contempt for the Spirit of grace and illumination when we disregard

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His teaching ministry in the Church over the past 20 years. And we are arrogant to a high degree if we suppose that our minds are unaffected by sin, or we are in no way influenced by the

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Spirit of our age. So I think that quote kind of captures the importance of what we're dealing with.

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Amen. Excuse me, and I think it's wise for us to make a couple of more clarifications quickly.

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Number one, as much as you highly respect, love, value, and appreciate our brethren who are not only exclusive a cappella in their worship, but also believe in exclusive psalmody, that only the

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Psalms of the Old Testament are to be used in the singing portion of our worship services, as much as we love and appreciate them and agree with them on this part of the discussion in regard to a cappella worship, you do not believe in exclusive psalmody, nor do

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I. Amen. That's correct. We do sing hymns and spiritual songs that are of human composition, if we could say it in that way, outside the

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Scripture. And I would just say that I'm always careful about the type of hymns that I sing and so on, and the content must be, as Paul says to the

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Colossians in chapter 3 and verse 16, the Word of Christ dwelling richly within you, and then you are, from that, singing the

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Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. So that's my position. I'm not an exclusive psalmist. And I know from having a number of discussions with you that you do not want this to become some kind of litmus test for fellowship.

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You are not seeking to divide churches and cause animosity amongst

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Brethren in Christ over this. You believe it's a serious issue, as most things that are taught in the

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Scriptures are, but you don't believe it's something that should divide

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Brethren, unless, of course, somebody is so overwhelmed by conscience's sake that they have to leave a particular congregation over this.

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These things do happen. We can't hide from the fact that that is just a fact of life.

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Even many of us who are Reformed started our Christian lives in Arminian churches, for instance, and then we found that we could no longer sit idly by and just hear incorrect teaching week after week, and we had to leave.

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But it is not your goal to be divisive about this. I'm glad you brought that up, and that's certainly true.

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I certainly do not want to be divisive in dealing with this issue. I have fellowship with many men who are not in agreement with me, and I have good friendship and good fellowship with them.

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But at the same time, we're talking about the worship of God, which is of highest importance.

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We're talking about what we do in His house, and we're talking about our activity as worshipers every

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Lord's Day, every seventh day of the week. We are in God's house to worship. So this is not a matter that should be ignored, and it's not a matter that we should just pass by as if it's not something that we need to pay attention to.

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Now, I think you may have slipped there. You don't worship on Saturday, do you, or as far as you're getting? Oh, I'm sorry. I meant every seven days, first day of the week, yes.

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Okay, and I'm not laughing at those who are listening who do worship on the seventh day. I'm just saying

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I know that that's not what my brother meant to say. That's correct. Well, let me just quickly give our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, and please try your best to stick with the history of worship in the church, but we will accept any question about music in the church, whether it be the use of instruments or acapella singing and so on.

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But if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, and please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and please only remain anonymous if the question involves a personal or private matter.

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Okay, brother, well, let's go back into time and begin with a study on the history of music in the church.

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Yes, let me just summarize briefly the scriptural and theological principles that we found last time in our study, because they do have a bearing on what we're talking about today.

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Yes, and they are the most important matters. Right, and what we found before in a very brief summary is that musical instruments were commanded by God to be used in the

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Old Testament temple in Jerusalem, and they only entered into the temple use by God's clear command through David and through the prophets.

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Um, and, but now that we have come, now that Christ has come and we've come into the period of the

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New Covenant, the Old Testament temple worship, in all of its rituals, in its ceremonies, and in the use of its musical instruments, the entire temple worship has been abolished by the coming of Christ, and we established that from various passages in the

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New Testament letters, the temple worship has been abolished. And so, as New Testament worshipers, we need to look to Christ and his apostles alone for the worship of the

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New Testament. We are not temple worshipers, we are gospel worshipers. And when we look to Christ and his apostles, we find that there is neither any command nor any example of any musical instrument being used in any of the

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New Testament churches. And so, we have no authority, no right to bring in elements into the worship that Christ has not commanded.

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So those are the principles that we established last time in our theological study, and those principles really continue, and they have always been the perspective of the

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Christian Church on this subject throughout the centuries. And that's what we're going to see as we proceed today.

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The first period that we want to come to is the period of the church fathers, immediately after the apostles.

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And what we find with the church fathers is that they rejected the use of any musical instrument in the worship of the early church, and they did so unanimously, and they did so in the strongest terms.

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They were vehement about the rejection of any musical instruments in church. They did so based upon those same principles that I just stated, that they regarded the

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Old Testament temple worship to have been abolished, they looked to Christ and his apostles, they found no command for such instruments, and so they never brought them into the worship of the early church.

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They regarded the instruments to be a part of the childish elements of the church under its infancy.

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They look back at the temple worship and they said the church was there in its infancy, but now that Christ has come, the church has come to its maturity, so we no longer go back and use the ceremonies, the rituals, or any of the aspects of the temple worship in the

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New Testament church, including the use of any instruments. So now we can go through a number of the church fathers here.

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I would just mention some of the names. By the way, Pastor John, Pastor John, your voice is dropping.

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I don't know if you're moving your mouth away from the phone or what's going on. Can you hear me again? Now you're perfect, yes.

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Okay, I'm sorry. You know, in the book we have quoted the words of the church fathers.

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I'll mention a few of them, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Clement, Eusebius, who was an historian of the early church,

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Chrysostom, Theodoret, Athanasius, Augustine, all of these men were men who rejected the use of instruments based on those principles that I've stated.

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And so when we look back on the history of the early church, we're not looking back and wondering, what did they do, as if we have questions or there's some doubts.

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What we're dealing with here is very clear and established historical facts, and the historians of the early church agree with this as well.

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And so there is no doubt about it that the instruments, there were no instruments in the early church after the death of the apostles.

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Now, I just, what we should do is recognize the significance of that fact.

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Sometimes the question is asked, what does the silence of the

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New Testament in regard to musical instruments mean? Does the silence of the New Testament mean that instruments were there in the apostolic churches and nothing was said about them?

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They were just assumed to be there? Or does the silence of the New Testament mean that there were no instruments, they were not commanded by Christ, and they were not used in the churches of the

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New Testament? The history of the Church Fathers gives us a powerful answer to that question, that there were no instruments in the churches of the

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New Testament in the apostolic age. If there had been instruments in the churches of the

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New Testament, the question would have to be, what happened to them immediately after the death of the apostles?

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How could the Church Fathers have eradicated them and banished them universally throughout all the churches of their time?

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And such an assumption simply can't be true. The unanimous and the vehement rejection of the instruments in the period of the

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Church Fathers is the most powerful testimony that they did not exist, instruments did not exist in the times, in the time of the apostolic church.

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Now, this absence or this rejection of musical instruments continues for hundreds of years.

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The first example or occasion of an instrument being used in a

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Christian church is in the year 670 in a church in Rome, and they had an organ that was placed in that church.

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But we're talking about the year 670, the first time that there is an occasion of an instrument being used.

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The second occasion, the second occasion of an instrument being used is in the year 812, when

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Charlemagne, up in France, put an organ into a

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Roman Catholic cathedral there. That's in the year 812, almost 150 years later.

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So we come to the 9th century, and we only have two occasions of an instrument ever being used in Christian worship.

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Now, what happens in the 900s is there are several organs that are placed in churches over in England, but these organs become, they're strongly opposed by many men at that time, and they are very infrequent.

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And when we come to the year 1260, Thomas Aquinas states, and I'll quote from Thomas Aquinas, we're talking about the year 1260, the church does not use musical instruments such as the harp or lyre when praising

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God, in case she should seem to fall back into Judaism, for musical instruments usually move the soul more to pleasure than create inner moral goodness.

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But in the Old Testament, they use instruments of this kind, both because the people were more coarse and carnal, so that they needed to be aroused by such instruments and with worldly promises.

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So Thomas Aquinas, in the year 1260, states that musical instruments were still not being used in the worship of the

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Christian church. And then that's where we're going to have to just temporarily come to a pause to go to our first station break, and don't forget that we stopped right where you quoted from Thomas Aquinas, and we'll pick up right where you left off.

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If anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

30:26

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence. If you live outside the

30:32

USA, and please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter, on the topic that is, such as if you disagree with your own pastor on this issue, or if you're a pastor who disagrees with his own denomination, or something like that, you don't feel like drawing attention to yourself,

30:51

I fully understand that, and we will respect your wishes to remain anonymous. But other than that, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

30:59

USA. Don't go away. God willing, we'll be right back with John Price. Tired of box store

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Or go to batterydepot .com. That's batterydepot .com. Welcome back.

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This is Chris Orens. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today is John Price.

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And John Price is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Rochester, New York.

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He is the author of Old Light on New Worship, Musical Instruments, and the

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Worship of God, a Theological and Psychological Study. And that is a publication of Simpson Publications.

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So we'll be giving more details on how you can order that book later on. Simpson Publishing Company, to be exact, as far as the publisher.

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And we are addressing today part two of a three -part series that we are conducting.

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Acapella, or should I say exclusive acapella worship defended. And this is part two, which is focusing on the history of music in the church.

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We already addressed in a previous broadcast the theology of music in the church.

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Today is the history. And the next time we meet, God willing, which will be a week from today,

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Monday, December 11th, we will be addressing the psychological aspects of music in the church.

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And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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And I'm going to let you finish your thought. You had just quoted Thomas Aquinas. And there are some listeners who have already written questions.

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I'd like to get to them as soon as possible. But if you could finish your thought right after you had quoted from Thomas Aquinas.

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Are you there, John? Hello, John. Yes, I'm here. I think the main point of what we were discussing is that for well over a thousand years, there were no musical instruments used in Christian worship, with very few exceptions.

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And it's a remarkable fact from the church fathers who, they were unanimous in their rejection of musical instruments.

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And their view continued for many hundreds of years, and until the point of Thomas Aquinas in 1260, in the 13th century, that he could say that musical instruments were not used in the churches of his day.

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And there were those few exceptions that I mentioned. And it's a very remarkable fact that this is the history and the historians of the church are in agreement that this is the evidence and these are the facts.

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Now, what happens is in the 1300s, the organ begins to become more prominent, especially in the larger cathedrals of the

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Roman Catholic Church in Europe. And when we come into the 1400s, there's the increasing use of the organ, and then also other musical instruments enter into the

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Roman Catholic Church. And so by the time of the Protestant Reformation, music really dominates the worship in many ways in the

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Roman Catholic Church. Let me read Erasmus and what he said in the time right before the

39:05

Protestant Reformation. He said, modern church music is so constructed that the congregation cannot hear one distinct word.

39:14

According to priests and monks, it constitutes the whole of religion. Why will they not listen to Paul?

39:22

In college or monastery, it is still the same. Music, nothing but music.

39:28

There was no music in St. Paul's time. And then he says, they perform everything with slide trumpets, trombones, cornets, and little flutes.

39:39

And with these, the voices of men contend. Men run to church as to a theater to have their ears tickled.

39:47

So that was the complaint of Erasmus. Isn't that amazing? You would think that that was something that was read or written,

39:55

I should say, today or a week ago in regard to the music in the church. Now, I don't know if you are certain on all of Erasmus's positions on music, but was he misusing the term music and including in that singing?

40:14

Did he believe in a prohibition of even singing in the church? Well, he did say, you know, they sang in Latin at that time, for the most part, and their voices were indistinct and difficult to hear,

40:30

I think is what he's complaining about. Okay, but to your knowledge, did he believe that we should be singing the

40:37

Psalms or spiritual songs? Well, I really don't know

40:42

Erasmus's view beyond, you know, in terms of the theology of his view of music.

40:49

I think the only thing I can say here is that he made a very clear complaint, and he demonstrates the dominance of music in the

40:58

Roman Catholic Church at that time. He mentions the slide trumpets, the trombones, cornets, little flutes that they used, and so there was also the organ.

41:10

And I think my point here is that at the time of the late 1400s, and as we enter in now into the

41:19

Protestant Reformation, this was the state of the church at that time, that musical instruments had become so dominant in the worship of the church.

41:28

And I think that you might want to add, unless you had a different time, that you wanted to include this, because this was really eye -opening for me when

41:37

I read this from your book. It was your book that I first learned this, that even

41:44

Orthodox Judaism today in the 21st century, I'm not talking about the liberal forms of Judaism, but Orthodox Judaism even today is strictly acapella in its worship because once the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the

42:01

Jews knew that the instruments that were commanded of God to be used in the Old Covenant were no longer required or even proper, because there was no sacrificial system, and the synagogue system that began has remained for 2 ,000 years a strictly acapella worship synagogue.

42:25

That's correct. And I think that one of the things that's not noticed very often is the fact that we have much said about the temple worship in Jerusalem in the

42:40

Old Testament, but the men of Israel went to the temple only three times a year during the annual feast, and the worship of the

42:52

Old Testament Jewish people, the center of their religious worship was their weekly

42:57

Sabbath gathering for worship in their synagogues. And all of the historical evidence of the synagogue worship is that there were no instruments ever used in any of the synagogue worship of the

43:10

Old Testament people. And that's an important historical fact as well, because the worship of the

43:18

New Testament church is patterned after the synagogue worship of the

43:24

Jewish nation. Because you will frequently have proponents of musical instruments.

43:31

In fact, every single time, if they believe in the Bible and they believe in the inerrancy of Bible, they will allude to musical instruments in the

43:39

Old Covenant, and they'll say, how can you say these are unbiblical? And even the Jews themselves, who use the

43:46

Hebrew scriptures exclusively as their canon for God's Word, even they stopped using the musical instruments when the temple was destroyed.

43:58

That's true. And if we were to go back into Old Testament Israel, we would find every week we went to the synagogue, to our local synagogue in our city or town throughout

44:08

Israel, there would be no musical instruments in those synagogues. When we went to the temple in Jerusalem three times a year for the feast, there we would find musical instruments being used, but only by the

44:21

Levites and by the Levitical priests. And so that would be the situation that we would find.

44:30

And the worship of the New Testament church found its roots, it was derived from the worship of the synagogue among the

44:39

Old Testament Jewish people. Okay, so pick up again where you were entering into the Protestant Reformation.

44:46

Yes, and so when we come to the Protestant Reformation, the

44:51

Reformers look at their, you know, they discover so many truths from their

44:58

Bibles, and what they discover are those three principles that we mentioned earlier, that the

45:04

Old Testament temple worship has been abolished by Christ, and we are now

45:09

New Testament gospel worshipers. We must look to Christ and his apostles for the commands and the ordinances of New Testament worship.

45:18

We find no instruments commanded or used, and therefore we cannot use them in the church. And this became the conviction of all of the

45:26

Protestant Reformers. And with the exception of Martin Luther, Luther, with all of his great contributions that he made in the doctrine of justification by faith and in other areas,

45:41

Luther never developed a biblical theology of worship.

45:48

You know, one man can't do everything. And so that was left to John Calvin and the other

45:55

Reformers who came after him. But Calvin and all the Reformers after him saw this principle that there are no instruments in the

46:07

New Testament church. And so the instruments were banished from the Reformed worship.

46:16

And I can just read you a few of the names of the men who rejected the use of instruments in the church.

46:25

Yes, read as many as you can. We do have a two -hour interview, so you have time. Even before Calvin came,

46:34

John Wycliffe and John Huss were opposed to the use of instruments. And they would sing a cappella in their churches.

46:44

I should say that Martin Luther, he was the one who introduced congregational singing back into the church.

46:52

Congregational singing had not been present. In the period of the Roman Catholic Church, before the

47:00

Reformation, and Luther is the father of congregational singing.

47:05

He reintroduced it. And so then we have John Calvin, who rejected the use of instruments.

47:13

We have John Knox over in Scotland, Zwingli in Switzerland, Bollinger, Beza, Menno Simons, and so it was a uniform view of the

47:31

Protestant Reformers that in the New Testament we should not have the use of musical instruments.

47:36

We should sing a cappella in the church. And the command for the a cappella singing is found in the book of Ephesians, where we are to sing, making melody with your heart to the

47:50

Lord, Ephesians 5 and verse 19, and Colossians 3 and verse 16, where Paul says, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

48:09

So there was singing that is commanded in the New Testament, but there is not the use of the instruments as there was in the temple in Jerusalem.

48:18

And it might be interesting for our listeners to know also that Martin Luther, kind of being a holdout there amongst all of the

48:28

Reformers in regard to music, he, when he started his portion of the

48:34

Reformation, he originally had no intention of starting a new church. He believed he was being a faithful Roman Catholic, an

48:44

Augustinian, and he retained some other areas of Roman Catholic belief and practice that the rest of the

48:54

Reformers had strongly opposed. In fact, he even believed it was completely appropriate to have a crucifix in the sanctuary, you know, a cross with an actual statue of Christ on it, and other things like that that made him not quite in harmony with his fellow

49:15

Reformers. That's true, and Luther was willing to retain many of these existing forms of medieval worship from the

49:25

Catholic Church. And I'll just read you one quote from Luther. He says, I must admit that images are neither here nor there, neither evil nor good.

49:36

We may have them or not as we please. And so that was his view on images, that they're matters of indifference.

49:44

And so Luther clearly did not come to a well -developed theology of music.

49:52

Calvin is extremely strong on this subject. He says that musical instruments in celebrating the praises of God would be no more suitable than the burning of incense, lighting up of lamps, and the restoration of the other shadows of the law.

50:10

The Papists, therefore, have foolishly borrowed this, as well as many other things, from the

50:16

Jews. And Calvin says that instruments are not now to be used in public thanksgiving.

50:22

They are banished out of the churches by the plain command of the Holy Spirit. And Calvin would argue that instruments are among the childish elements of the

50:34

Old Testament. And they bury the light of the gospel. And they introduce the shadows of a departed dispensation.

50:44

So Calvin is extremely strong. And his influence is carried on and spread throughout the

50:53

Reformed church for many hundreds of years later. And the

50:59

Reformed churches that come out of the Protestant Reformation are churches where acapella singing is the practice, and there are no instruments in worship.

51:13

Now what happens is, this continues. This continues into the Puritan era.

51:19

We come into the time of the Puritans and the same views of Calvin and the other

51:26

Reformers continues. We're talking about various Puritans, John Owen, John Bunyan, the period of the

51:36

Westminster Assembly, as well. And I'm just trying to give, what

51:41

I want to do is just give a complete summary here of the whole history. Then what you should do is pick up where you left off, because we have to go to our midway break.

51:53

And I don't want to interrupt you in mid -sentence there. Because I'd like you to even trace the history closer to present time, including men from the 19th century and so on, that are very recognizable by most

52:05

Christians today who shared your view of strictly acapella worship. But we are going to our midway break now.

52:11

It's a longer break than normal because our friends at Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

52:16

FM, in Lake City, Florida, who air our program twice a day in a pre -recorded form, they require that we have a 12 -minute break in between our two -hour segments.

52:29

So please be patient with us as we go to our midway break now. And please take this time to write questions in, if you have them, on worship in the church, especially in regard to music, and even more especially in regard to acapella worship, exclusive acapella worship.

52:47

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

52:53

Please give us your first name, your city and state, your country of residence, if you live outside of the USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

53:02

It's interesting that we have several people waiting to have their questions asked and answered, and none of them are from the

53:08

United States right now. They're all from overseas, including Africa, Ireland, and Slovenia.

53:15

So we will get to as many of you as we possibly can. So don't go away.

53:21

God willing, we'll be back very soon with our guest John Price and our discussion on a defense of exclusive acapella worship in the church.

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01:00:09

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That was the beautiful new CD I mentioned earlier today, Wonderful God, Praise and Harmony, Acapella Worship.

01:01:07

And if you'd like to order this, go to acapella .org, acapella .org,

01:01:14

and you will find this listed among other CDs and DVDs that you can purchase featuring acapella

01:01:25

Christian music. And in particular, the thing that I love about the Praise and Harmony series is that it is congregational worship.

01:01:34

It's not merely just acapella groups that are providing special music, which are included on that website.

01:01:42

There are groups, including a group called Acapella, that I actually hired way back in the early 1990s to perform at a fundraising concert for the

01:01:54

Timothy Hill Children's Ranch in Riverhead, Long Island. That's a home for abandoned children out there in eastern

01:02:04

Suffolk County, Long Island, and I had a fundraiser for them featuring the group Acapella. But the

01:02:09

Praise and Harmony Acapella Worship series is specifically congregational worship, which makes it, to me, even more beautiful and more meaningful, especially in regard to our topic today, because that is one of the facets of our discussion is that our guest,

01:02:25

John Price, not only believes that our worship today in the

01:02:31

New Covenant not only should be strictly acapella when we are having worship services, but also that the worship should be congregational and not feature choirs and special music.

01:02:44

Not that they would be always excluded in all cases, but he is referring to specifically the worship, the special gathered day and time of worship when

01:02:54

God's people assemble on the Lord's Day. But before we return to our discussion with John Price of Grace Baptist Church of Rochester, New York, and author of Old Light on New Worship, I just have to make a couple of quick announcements regarding special events that are coming up.

01:03:11

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And then following that, from the 18th through the 20th, the main conference on the theme,

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Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship, will take place. And that includes speakers such as Stephen Lawson, Votie Baucom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B.

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01:09:23

I mean where you could send in questions for our guests today. John Price who is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Rochester, New York.

01:09:32

He's also the author of a really enlightening I think superbly written fascinating book

01:09:41

Old Light on New Worship Musical Instruments in the Worship of God a theological historical and psychological study.

01:09:47

Today we are addressing part two of exclusive acapella worship defended and we are focusing on the history of the subject.

01:09:55

And if you could Pastor John pick up where you left off. We have entered into the realm of the

01:10:00

Reformation and you have shown us that all of the Reformers with the exception of Martin Luther unanimously agreed that acapella worship was the biblical model of worship in God's church.

01:10:15

And if you could bring us even further to our contemporary day where great men of God from the 18th and 19th century even were in complete agreement with you on this.

01:10:29

Yes, let me just mention Chris that the Protestant Reformation was as much a

01:10:34

Reformation of worship and perhaps even more so than it was a Reformation of doctrine.

01:10:40

We often look back at the Reformation and we think of the doctrines that were reformed theology that came out of the

01:10:48

Protestant Reformation but to the Reformers living at that time they regarded the

01:10:53

Reformation of worship as at least as much as important as the other aspects of the

01:10:59

Reformation. Calvin said it was first the change, the reform of the mode of worship.

01:11:07

And they had that view because they believed that the truth of the

01:11:14

Bible, the truth of the gospel could only be maintained in a context of true biblical worship.

01:11:24

If the worship of the church was corrupt and man -made elements were in the worship of the church then the

01:11:32

Holy Spirit would be grieved and the truth of the gospel could not be maintained in a church where the

01:11:39

Holy Spirit is grieved and the light and the truth of the Spirit is not present. So they regarded

01:11:44

Reformation of worship as a primary part of their work and the removal of musical instruments from the churches of the

01:11:55

Reformation was one of the great works of the Protestant Reformation. And this continued through the time of the

01:12:03

Puritans as well, and all of the Puritans, English Puritans, American Puritans were in agreement.

01:12:15

You and I are Reformed Baptists, so I'll just read from Benjamin Keech, who was one of the authors of our

01:12:21

Confession of Faith, and he writes, there is now no other instruments to be used in singing, but that of the tongue.

01:12:30

In the New Testament, no instruments of music are mentioned. To use musical instruments is to corrupt the ordinance of singing and to add poison to it.

01:12:43

So Benjamin Keech called the use of musical instruments poison in the life of the church.

01:12:50

I'll just read Cotton Mather here. He summarizes the Puritan view on it.

01:12:56

He writes, now there is not a word of institution in the New Testament for musical instruments in the worship of God.

01:13:03

And because the Holy God rejects all that he does not command in his worship, he now therefore, in effect, says to us,

01:13:10

I will not hear the melody of your organs. And so what happens is this view of the

01:13:18

Reformation and the Puritans continues in the Reformed churches. And what happens is when we get into the middle 1700s, there begins to be the entrance of certain small instruments.

01:13:36

The viol and the violin begin to be used in certain churches.

01:13:44

Smaller organs begin to enter as well. The cello, by the time we get into the early 1800s, the organ becomes more and more popular.

01:14:01

The first organ that was used in a Baptist church in the United States was in the year 820.

01:14:08

1820. 1820, you're right, 1820. Rhode Island.

01:14:16

And the first organ to be used in a Puritan church was in Providence, Rhode Island in the year 1770.

01:14:25

So as we proceed through the 1800s, the organ becomes more popular in various churches, but it's resisted by many.

01:14:38

It's opposed by many. I don't know if you have the quote by, I think it was Dabney that had something very horrific to say about the organ.

01:14:47

I don't know if you... Right, I might be able to find it, but I just, I'm looking right here at Spurgeon.

01:14:54

We're talking here about the late 1800s in the ministry of Spurgeon in the

01:15:00

Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. Everybody knows Spurgeon. Spurgeon rejected the use of any musical instruments.

01:15:09

He strongly opposed the use of the organ in his day, and the Metropolitan Tabernacle sung acapella.

01:15:16

And Spurgeon writes, if you want the sensual gratification of music's melting, let me commend you to the concert hall.

01:15:24

But when you come to the house of God, let it be to sing to the Lord. He writes, had

01:15:30

I no conscientious objection to instrumental music in worship, I should still, I think, be compelled to admit that all the instruments that were ever devised by men, however sweetly attuned, are harsh and grating compared with the unparalleled sweetness of the human voice.

01:15:48

And one more quote from Spurgeon, he writes, what a degradation to supplant the intelligent song of the whole congregation by the theatrical prettinesses of a quartet, the refined niceties of a choir, or the blowing off of wind from inanimate bellows and pipes.

01:16:07

We might as well pray by machinery as praise by it. And so what

01:16:13

Spurgeon is expressing here is the view of many reformed men over history, that God is to be worshipped spiritually from our hearts, and that we cannot worship through instruments or mechanical devices from our hearts.

01:16:34

So this continues now, and then we get into the 19th century, the 1800s, as I said,

01:16:45

Spurgeon was opposed to the use of instruments, and we get into the 1900s, and the organ continues to be popular.

01:16:53

When we get into the early 1900s, the piano also is used.

01:17:00

Then we come to the period after World War II, we have the popular rise of rock and roll music, and we have many other instruments now that were never used before, such as the guitars and drums and saxophones.

01:17:14

And the major change is also the electronic amplification that we find in churches today.

01:17:22

So we all know the situation that we're in right now in the 21st century, where you can hardly find an evangelical church where there's not a variety of musical instruments, perhaps even a rock and roll band of some sort for the most part.

01:17:43

And so we're all aware of our contemporary situation that we find ourselves in.

01:17:49

I would want to point out this, that as we look over the entire history of the Christian church, 2 ,000 years of church history, there are two periods in which musical instruments are dominant in the worship of the church.

01:18:05

The first is at the peak of the Roman Catholic corruption of the church in the 1400s, and the second is what we are living through right now in the 21st century.

01:18:21

Those two periods are the two periods at which musical instruments dominate in the life of the

01:18:29

Christian church. And even when they arose in the Church of Rome, they were still met with hostility within the church, even in the

01:18:37

Church of Rome. That is correct, yes. But they did eventually dominate the place.

01:18:46

Yeah, they did come to the place where they were dominant. It's a remarkable thing that we are living through another experience of what they lived through just prior to the

01:18:57

Protestant Reformation. Now, just out of curiosity, I remember, because it's been at least two years since I read your book,

01:19:05

Cover to Cover, but I remember basically the Lutheran stream of Protestantism being the only holdout historically for accepting musical instruments.

01:19:17

And I forgot where the Anglican church found itself in that regard, because I know that the

01:19:24

Anglican church throughout history was like a ping -pong match going back and forth from Anglo -Catholic to Protestant.

01:19:33

And to this day, you have a apostate left wing of the

01:19:39

Anglican church, and you have a Romish -Oxford movement Tractarian wing, which is barely distinguishable from the

01:19:46

Church of Rome. But you also have solid Calvinistic, low -church Anglicans, and even some high -church

01:19:54

Anglicans that are solidly Protestant and Calvinistic. But how do you trace the

01:19:59

Anglican church in history? Did they share our other Reformed forefathers in their opposition to musical instruments?

01:20:10

The Anglican church would have followed along with the Lutheran church. Okay. Yeah. I think

01:20:16

I do have a quote from Dabney. Oh, great. And he writes, this is in 1889, he's writing about the organ entering into the

01:20:26

Protestant churches. And he writes, but these organ -grinding Protestant churches are aiding and encouraging tens of thousands of their members to adopt this pagan mistake, like the besotted pappas, they are deluded into the fancy that their hearts are better because certain sensuous animal emotions are aroused by a mechanical machine in a place they call a church and in a proceeding called worship.

01:20:53

I wonder what he really thought. Pardon me? I said,

01:20:58

I wonder what he really thought. Those are very harsh words, obviously.

01:21:03

And it's, what is astonishing, we have to keep reminding our listeners, that was in the late 19th century, the late 1800s.

01:21:10

People seem to have, as I did, this thought in their head that Protestants unanimously have been using instruments for centuries, if not always.

01:21:22

And this is really eye -opening stuff. Well, it's just the assumption.

01:21:27

I mean, we're living in a certain bubble of time here. And we think the church has always been the way that it is today.

01:21:35

And it hasn't been. In fact, the majority of the history of the church has been acapella.

01:21:42

I think that's clear, that's evident. And we are living in this little bubble that is, it's really, it's unparalleled.

01:21:52

When I did the study, I ended up talking with one of the church historians down at the Eastern School of Music here in Rochester.

01:21:59

And he helped me to see that these two periods of time are the two periods throughout church history in which musical instruments dominate.

01:22:09

But he said that the period we're living through today because of the electronic amplification and the variety of musical instruments, it's unparalleled in the history of the church.

01:22:21

And I can read his words. This is from a church historian here at the Eastman School of Music.

01:22:27

And he writes, never before of our day that we're living in right now, he says, never before have men and women been subject to such a cacophony as they are on Sunday mornings.

01:22:38

So what we are living through in that sense is unparalleled in the history of the church. And this is at an institution where accomplished musicians are attending this

01:22:51

Eastman... Right. The Eastman School of Music is well known. And it's a very prominent school of music.

01:22:58

And he was a historian of church music. So this is to prove that even people who are accomplished musicians and love music can come to this and embrace this position without sacrificing their love of music or their even their own personal performing of music.

01:23:16

It just is restricted, in your opinion, according to the biblical record, from the gathered worship.

01:23:24

That's correct. Yeah. I mean, many men throughout the history, the Puritans, I mentioned Zwingli, the

01:23:29

Puritans enjoyed the use of musical instruments in their own homes. But they would never bring them into the church because this is

01:23:37

God's house. And we obey God's commands only. Okay. And if you want to finalize a thought, because we should go to some of our listeners' questions.

01:23:46

Well, what I would like to do, Chris, if you don't mind, I'd like to read through this list of names. Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely.

01:23:52

Definitely. So we start with the church fathers who were unanimous in their rejection of musical instruments.

01:23:59

We have Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Clement, Eusebius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Athanasius, Augustine.

01:24:10

And then their views, their views continue for over a thousand years of church history.

01:24:15

And then we come into the times of the Reformation. We have John Wycliffe, John Hus, John Calvin, John Knox, Zwingli, Bollinger, Beza, Menno Simons, and other reformers.

01:24:30

And we also have the synods of the Reformation rejected the use of instruments. Then we come into the time of the

01:24:36

Puritans. We have John Owen, Henry Ainsworth, Robert Brown, William Ames, John Bunyan, William Perkins, David Calderwood, George Gillespie, Samuel Rutherford, Thomas Goodwin, Thomas Manton.

01:24:57

Then we have Matthew Henry, Cotton Mather, John Cotton, Isaac Watts, John Gill, Benjamin Keech, Hansard Nollies.

01:25:08

We have the Westminster Assembly, the English and the American Puritans. And then later in the eight, in the 1900s, we have

01:25:15

Thomas Chalmers in Scotland, Andrew Fuller, Charles Spurgeon, John Dagg, James Thornwell, Robert Dabney, and John Garrardew.

01:25:26

And so all of these men throughout the history of the Church, they have been unanimous.

01:25:32

They speak with one voice. And we have this collective testimony of the greatest men and theologians that Christ has ever given to the

01:25:40

Church. And so the question has to be asked of anyone who is an advocate of musical instruments in the

01:25:47

Church, how can you stand opposed to the greatest theologians and the greatest minds that Christ has ever given to the

01:25:54

Church? And how can you be willing to hold to a view that has been rejected in such a clear and convincing way throughout the entire history of the

01:26:04

Church? There's many issues in historical theology where there are differences.

01:26:11

There are few in which there is such unanimity and such oneness throughout the history of the

01:26:18

Church as this issue in the rejection of musical instruments for the Christian Church.

01:26:24

All right, what I'm going to do I am going to read a question for you that comes to us from Osinachi in Lagos, Nigeria, Africa.

01:26:35

And it's either Lagos or Lagos, I don't know if you know the difference. Should I say the correct pronunciation of that? But I'll also forward you the question so you could look over the question during our final break, which is a much briefer break.

01:26:50

And Osinachi says, can you please ask John to trace the history of the modern -day use of instruments in the

01:26:56

Church, seeing as this wasn't a feature in the Church both pre - and post -Reformation era? Okay, you've already really done that.

01:27:03

I'd also like some light shed on the regulative and normative form of Church worship. That would be more probably something you could summarize since you've already in detail answered his first question.

01:27:17

But actually, I guess I don't really need to forward that to you because it's a pretty simple question to remember.

01:27:23

So when we return, if you could discuss the difference between the regulative and normative in a summary form, obviously, because we're running out of time.

01:27:32

And it is interesting because you have differences among those who claim to be faithfully adhering to the regulative principle.

01:27:45

You have some who use both hymns and musical instruments who say that they're adhering to the regulative principle.

01:27:52

You have some like yourself who use hymns but no instruments believing that you're adhering faithfully to the regulative principle.

01:28:00

And then you have our exclusive psalm singing brethren who say that we are both wrong and that the only way that you could faithfully practice the regulative principle is to be both acapella and exclusive psalmody.

01:28:16

And by the way, there is another area where you have those that use exclusively the psalms but use instruments also, which is interesting.

01:28:25

You have some of the folks from the Dutch Reformed branch of Calvinism who use instruments but only use the psalter.

01:28:36

So it's interesting. But anyway, we'll be back, God willing, after these final messages from our sponsors.

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01:37:26

I'd like you to shed some light on the regulative normative form of worship if you could briefly summarize that the normative principle is the belief that unless something is explicitly forbidden in the scriptures then it is acceptable to be used in worship that view of worship really enters into a lot of problems because there's thousands of things that the scripture has not explicitly forbidden and one could argue that because they're not forbidden therefore we can use them in the scriptures and I don't mean to poke unnecessary fun at this principle but I'll give you one extreme example and this is a true example of a church down south that on a

01:38:21

Sunday evening they had mud wrestling in their worship service what?

01:38:28

well yeah and this is true and so you know one could argue from the normative principle that mud wrestling is not forbidden in the scriptures and therefore it's acceptable so you can see the problems that this kind of principle can bring someone into bring a church into the regulative principle is that we only bring into worship what

01:38:51

God has explicitly commanded in the scriptures and for us in the New Testament we're speaking about the

01:38:57

New Testament church in the commands of God in the New Testament and what we find there is we find the preaching of the word of God we find the reading of the scripture we find prayer and we find the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs those are the four main elements of worship that are commanded in the

01:39:21

New Testament and we could also add baptism in the Lord's Supper but these commands we should confine ourselves to what

01:39:33

God has commanded he alone has the right to tell us what to do and he has clearly done that in the word of God well that's the regulative principle right well thank you very much

01:39:44

Osinachi and thank you also for giving us an American address if you have not won the book already we'll have to check on our previous mailings but if you have not already won

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01:40:14

Joe in Slovenia who says he is basically asking about something that I mentioned before the break the fact that even those who say we as a church adhere to the regulative principle of worship he says beyond instruments there are hymnals, choirs, worship leaders, etc.

01:40:36

all of which are not mentioned in the New Testament do we dare mention pulpits, pews, baptisteries, etc.

01:40:43

please ask brother John to outline a biblical hermeneutic that will sort out these many discrepancies thank you so much for tackling the tough issues yes and as I said before you have exclusive psalmists who strictly adhere to acapella worship and you have others that have musical instruments

01:41:02

I even know of one case of an exclusive psalmody church that brought another church in their denomination under some form of discipline because they went acapella and they believe that that was somehow a violation of scripture that boggled my mind but we also have of course folks who use both hymns and musical instruments and those of our listeners and you who believe that we are free to use the hymnal but not to use musical instruments now how do you sort all that out since all are claiming to believe in the regulative principle well

01:41:45

I think what he's talking about is what we would call circumstances of worship and there are certain things that are necessary for us to carry out worship for example we need to meet in a certain place we all meet in a certain place we all meet at the same time if we're meeting inside of a building we need to turn on the lights so we can see there are these circumstances of worship that have no direct bearing on the elements of worship for example a hymn book a hymn book may be necessary some churches might put the words up on a screen but the fact that what we need to be able to do is to all sing the same words together if we're going to carry out the ordinance and so something that is essential and necessary to the ordinance itself to the carrying out of the ordinance of worship that is what we would call a circumstance now musical instruments do not fall into that category we can sing without the use of musical instruments and a circumstance of worship is something it's also something that God has never dealt with in the

01:42:57

Bible God has clearly commanded the use of instruments in the Old Testament temple but that temple worship has been abolished and now there are no instruments in the worship of the

01:43:09

New Testament churches so a circumstance of worship has to be something that the scripture has never dealt with and God has never addressed

01:43:16

God has addressed this and he has abolished it in his from his

01:43:21

Old Testament temple worship we are gospel worshipers in the New Testament so this argument you know we're getting into all kinds of things that really are of no significance oftentimes

01:43:33

I would say that we need to carry out the elements of worship the ordinances that God has commanded and and not add things that are unnecessary to them well thank you and if you have not already won old light on new worship you have also won a free copy of the book today compliments of Simpson Publishing and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service cvbbs .com

01:44:04

who will be shipping that book out to you at no charge if indeed you have not already won it we have

01:44:11

Joey in Clifton New Jersey you've already answered his first question

01:44:17

I believe thoroughly enough his second question is I very much agree that there are many carnal uses of music and instrumentation in modern worship but in spite of my feelings as I am considering your view

01:44:31

I also want to be biblically fair we do see the principle of God accommodating hardness of heart in the

01:44:40

Old Testament for example in his permission of divorce but I find it more difficult to say that God used instruments as accommodation for carnality scripture seems to comment positively on the use of instrumentation in the

01:44:54

Old Testament I'm also thinking how music draws upon some of man's most profound talent and ability can you clarify this well there's a couple different strands of thought going into this question here um

01:45:10

I would say um that in far in terms of God accommodating um in the argument from divorce and so on in the

01:45:22

Old Testament um I would I would go to Leviticus chapter 10 and and look at what

01:45:29

God did with Nadab and Abihu um and he wasn't very accommodating um in their in their bringing in uh in an ordinance or a false of worship into into the tabernacle um so I I don't think that that's a valid argument

01:45:48

I think God is very uh concerned about the worship of his house um and I don't see any evidence that there's accommodation in that regard um and Chris maybe you could remind me of some of the other well you talked about the talents

01:46:05

I mean I mean with many people have God gives gifts to men in different all kinds of different areas of life and all different kinds of skills um and musical instruments the use of musical instruments is only one of them but do you be a sculptor a painter and a lot of things that would not be proper to have that talent uh displayed in a worship service right and uh we have you know uh all kinds of talents that men have but the worship of God is not the place for those things to be displayed um when we come to God's house we should do what he commands us to do and um not add or subtract from his commands yeah

01:46:51

I can I can remember years ago watching EWTN the Roman Catholic Television Network and Mother Angelica who was at that time one of the primary hosts on that TV network she was reading mail or something and she said some listener writes in about uh why does the

01:47:12

Catholic Church have so many images that they venerate including so many images of Mary and uh

01:47:20

I I and the listener or the viewer was very opposed to this and Mother Angelica said what an insult to Michelangelo well and in the grand scheme of things who really cares about insulting

01:47:33

Michelangelo it's we should be more concerned about whether or not we were offending God obviously but um but the uh one of the things that he was bringing up Joe and I don't know if forgive me if you said something about this and it just went over my head but I think he was saying something about getting

01:47:54

I was I was getting the impression that he believes you are saying that musical instruments have something innately wrong about them to be used like God just tolerated them but but you believe

01:48:08

God commanded them in the old covenant it's not that he was just tolerating them he was commanding them at a certain point in time that's true that's true

01:48:17

I'm talking about man -made additions I'm talking about human inventions being brought into the house of God I'm talking about things that he has not commanded things outside of his command at the time of Nadab and Abihu they brought strange fire into the into the tabernacle and that was which he had not commanded and that was the problem that took place with them later in the time of David and to the time of Christ then the instruments were commanded in the old testament and you're right there's nothing inherently evil about musical instruments and we've mentioned that a couple times during the program that the men throughout history have enjoyed their use and been very talented in the use of instruments but musical instruments they do fall into the just like everything else they can every gift that God gives us can be abused and they can be used for wrong purposes they can be used for sensual purposes and so on and musical instruments are used for those often in the secular world and we even find the prophets

01:49:24

Isaiah and Amos in the old testament condemning the use of instruments along with drunkenness and sensuality so instruments can be misused just like any other good gift of God but you don't believe that God was just accommodating the hardness of heart in the old testament like he did with divorce when he when it came to the use of musical instruments in the old covenant you believe that those were wonderful gifts of of God that he commanded to be used but that the time for their use has come to an end since the destruction of the temple right and i would say that everything in the temple was a foreshadowing of prefiguring of Christ to come and Christ has come and fulfilled everything that the temple foreshadowed now and the musical instruments i mean the question the question is what did the musical instruments foreshadow and many of the reformers the puritans the church fathers would say that the musical instruments in their ability to arouse and and and stir the emotions of men they prefigured the joy and the comfort of the holy spirit who would come in the fullness of time in the new testament church and we'll thank you uh joey in clifton new jersey if you have not already won a copy of old light on new worship the book we are discussing by our guest john price well if you haven't won it already you have won it today and we will take a look at our list from our previous interview to make sure and please give us your full mailing address if you have not won that book so that cvbbs .com