March 2, 2018 Show with Philip Webb on “Music that is Pleasing to God”

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But today, we have as our guest again, Phil Webb. He is a critically acclaimed

American tenor in operatic, classical, and sacred music, and he's the project manager and editor at Hymns of Grace.

And today we are discussing music that is pleasing to God, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back for the second time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Philip Webb.

Thank you very much. Glad to be back with you. And co -hosting once again with me is my dear friend for many years and a man who has been, it has been a joy to work with and cooperate with and partner with on many projects for the

Gospel of Sovereign Grace over the years, whether they be debates or conferences or radio programs or other things.

And so I'm so delighted to have back on the program as my co -host, Pastor Jim Capo of the

Massapequa Church of God on Long Island, New York. It's great to be here, Chris. Thank you.

If anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

If you have a question, chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, at least your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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

And of course, Jim, since I cannot see you, you can't wave your hand or anything, you just chime in, you chime in with a question at any point that you feel led to ask one.

And I may be prodding you myself from time to time to ask one, but don't wait for that.

And the last time we had Phil Webb on, which was just a few days ago, we had him tell his testimony of salvation.

We had him give the history of how he got involved with music and also opera and classical and sacred music.

And we discussed Hymns of Grace and the Psalms Project.

But for those of our listeners who are just tuning in for the first time and perhaps just discovering you,

Brother Phil, why don't you tell our listeners again about Hymns of Grace and then you could also repeat some of the information that they should know about the

Psalms Project. Sure. Hymns of Grace is a hymnal project that's out of the

Master's Seminary Press. It's a new hymnal. It's only two years old.

It came out of a desire to produce a hymnal that included some of the best of the old hymns, but also included some of the wonderful hymns that have been written in the last 30 years.

We realized that publishing companies are not publishing hymnals anymore.

They've become a little less popular, but we wanted to provide one and provide that for churches to have.

So we have a website where you can purchase the hymnal in several editions and other possible products.

It's hymnsofgrace .com. One of the other products we just produced, in fact,

I picked up the CDs yesterday. We have produced a CD from last year's

Shepherd's Conference. If you've ever been to a Shepherd's Conference, Pastor's Conference at Grace Community, there's nothing like being in the auditorium with 3 ,000 men singing.

So we have Hymns of Grace live at Shepherd's Conference. It'll be released next week at Shepherd's Conference.

But if you go to our Facebook page, Facebook page is at hymnsofgrace, there's a video posted and we'd just love for you to watch it and share it with others.

We've had over 10 ,000 views in just the last two days. So it's a video of Bob Coughlin leading 3 ,000 men in the old hymn,

I Stand Amazed in the Presence, My Savior's Love. And it's nothing like being in the middle of men singing.

So that'll be released next week and then it'll be for sale on our website following that. You can follow

Hymns of Grace on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and then you can buy all the products at hymnsofgrace .com.

The Psalms Project is really a work in progress. I grew up in the church,

I've been around church music, I've been a minister of music in church for over 20 years, and I realized other than the

Reformed churches who use the Psalter, we do not have a strong history of singing the

Psalms. We don't have a repertoire of congregational hymns that are comprised of the

Psalms. So we are trying to find a way to encourage that and to bring to bear the resources that the body of Christ has in pastors, in musicians, in poets, in lay leaders who can help us accomplish this.

So the first step in this is we have a part of the seminary called the

Institute for Church Leadership. If you go to tms .edu

under Resources, you'll find the Institute for Church Leadership which is online programs for churches to bring their lay leadership through various subjects.

And we're creating the Psalms Project to be a part of that program. And it's going to be a series of videos on preaching, praying, and singing the

Psalms. And I'll tell you what the videos are going to be. I'll be speaking first on a theology of congregational singing, trying to give a biblical perspective of what worship is biblically, and looking at Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, what specifically are we expected to do musically, and how does music fit into our gatherings.

We've got Kevin Twitt of Indelible Grace who's going to talk about Isaac Watts and his paraphrasing of the

Psalms. Bob Coughlin is going to talk about the themes of God's glory in the Psalms.

H .B. Charles is going to talk about preaching from the Psalms. Steve Lawson has already recorded his sessions on preaching the

Psalms. Ligon Duncan is going to talk about singing the Psalms in corporate worship and how the Psalter shapes our worship.

Tom Pennington is going to talk about praying the Psalms in our services. And then Will Varner from the

Master's University is going to go through the grammar of the Psalms and talk about reading the Psalms devotionally.

And Bill Berrick from the Master's Seminary is going to talk about the poetic structure of the Psalms and the emotional elements.

And these videos are designed to inform lay people about the

Psalms, their structure, their content. And then we want to take it a step farther. We need paraphrases, sometimes metrical paraphrases of the

Psalms that we can sing in a congregational format. That used to be done by pastors.

Pastors used to see that as part of their ministry. And we need to return to that and get pastors involved and get musicians involved.

And we need to write some hymns that are based on the Psalms that are excellent. So these are the first set of tools that we want to roll out.

And then over the year we'll continue to provide other resources. We may at our website become a clearinghouse for paraphrases and versifications and a place to submit musical items for critique.

We may try to go in that direction and just try to bring the body of Christ around us. And let's build up a modern collection of Psalms that the

Church can sing. We need Psalms that have melodies like, In Christ Alone.

And we need Psalms that have melodies like, Come, Behold the Wondrous Mystery. These are very wonderful modern hymns, but we don't have any modern

Psalm hymns that match the quality of those. And that's what we want to get to.

So that's our goal. We're still working on it. Still pressing ahead. We're actually going to be filming these sessions next week.

And we'll create an actual website. But you can always find information about it at hymsofgrace .com.

So that about wraps all that up. Well, thank you. And by the way, do you know if the

Shepherds Conference is sold out, because I know it's next week? Yes, it's sold out.

Oh, okay. I just wanted to check on that. And do you know if it will be live streaming?

Yes, it'll be live streamed. So if anybody wants to watch the live streaming, I'm assuming they go to shepherdsconference .org?

You can also find it at, you know, if you go to gracechurch .org,

but let me see if it's shepherdsconference .org. Shepherdsconference .org,

yes. Okay, shepherdsconference .org is where you would go to the live streaming of the

Shepherds Conference, and it will feature John MacArthur, H .B. Charles Jr., Albert Moeller, Ligon Duncan III, Mark Dever, Stephen J.

Lawson, Art Azordia, Tom Pennington, Phil Johnson, Austin Duncan, and the aforementioned

Bob Kalfin. Yes, Bob will be leading the worship during the day and teaching a couple seminars for us.

Great, and that is March 7th through the 9th, so I hope that as many of you as possible can live stream and view that phenomenal conference, which

I hope to one day attend. I have not yet been to a Shepherds Conference, but I hope, God willing, even next year that I might be able to attend that.

What I'm going to do now... Phil, will you be singing at the conference?

Yes, you know, I can't sing a lot when I'm having to teach and talk, so I'll sing the last session on the evening session with choir and orchestra on Friday night.

Does that get live streamed as well? Yes, that will be live streamed as well. Excellent, great.

Great, and now I'm going to play a song by our guest today,

Phillip Webb. And this is a song that I'm sure is one of the most beloved hymns of the majority of our listeners.

I'm sure that our Calvinist and Lutheran listeners especially may get a chill up their arm as they're hearing this song.

A Mighty Fortress, the classic hymn of the Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther. I count this among my favorite hymns, and I hope that you enjoy

Phillip Webb's rendering of it. And here is Phillip Webb with A Mighty Fortress.

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.

Our helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.

His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate.

On earth is not His equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing?

Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing?

Just as cruel that may be,

Christ Jesus did His king. Lord Sabaoth His name, from age to age the same.

And He must win the battle.

And wonder of all earthly power, no thanks to them above either.

The spirit and the gifts are ours, to Him who with us

I lend. Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also.

The body they may kill, God's truth abideth still.

His kingdom is forever.

Amen. Amen. I went to a shepherd's conference in Germany, actually in Wittenberg, and I got to sing it in German, didn't have to sing it in English.

Then we had another pastor's conference in August where they had me sing it in Spanish. So they kept me busy with that song, but it's just such a wonderful song.

We don't sing about God sometimes in such strong, authoritative ways.

So it's good to be reminded of that. Now you just reminded me of something. I always wondered how close the lyrics in German are to the

English -translated lyrics, because obviously the English translation rhymes perfectly.

So is this an exact translation from German to English, or is there some word changes in the hymn?

No, there are some word changes, and actually the Germans sing it with a metrical change also, because of the

German language. There's a couple beats that are different in the German arrangement of the hymn that we in our

English hymn don't do. I'm trying to look. A Mighty Fortress in German is...

I've got the German translation right here a little bit, and I can tell you a little bit what they say.

It starts off pretty much... It's not literal, but it's got the same idea.

It's... But they...

Sometimes there's a few note changes and syllabic changes. But the same thing is meant.

But for me it's a little bit funner to sing it in German.

One of the things that I wanted to discuss today under the theme of music that is pleasing to God...

As you know, Philip, there is great division in the body of Christ. It's very tragic to witness and hear about church splits that occur purely over musical preference and taste.

I have very dear friends who pastor churches that have had large numbers of members have an exodus out of the church because they wanted to introduce contemporary music into the worship services, and the church had a history of traditional hymnody and psalmody, and they did not want to include some of the more contemporary sounding...

Now, they did not bar all hymns and music that were written in a modern era.

It was just more of the style, the praise band, bordering on rock music style.

Now, I am not a stick in the mud. In fact, I'm less conservative about music than my co -host

Jim Capo. But, in fact, it's funny because Jim Capo, he pastors, as I mentioned before, the

Massapequa Church of God, which is in the Church of God Cleveland, Tennessee denomination, and his worship services are more

Reformed Baptist than many Reformed Baptist churches. Very traditional, reserved, conservative.

Now, do you believe that there is an area...

I mean, obviously, there is a certain realm of music that would be subjective where you could not say emphatically, without question, that a particular song or melody or rhythm was absolutely unacceptable.

There is that realm, but do you believe that it can cross that line into music that would not be pleasing to God as far as the style of music?

There is Christian music or so -called Christian music that I have heard that you can't even understand what the people are singing or what the person is singing, and you just would think, if it's blaring in somebody's car or if you're passing by a building and you're hearing it through the windows, you would think that it was just a secular rock concert or a heavy metal concert or something.

Do you think that there is a line that is crossed? You know, that's a very difficult question, and I'm reminded of something that my pastor said a few weeks ago when a lot of discussion was around social justice and things like that, that he said, you know,

Jesus preached to the hearts of people. He wanted to reach people's hearts.

So is there a type of music that crosses a line and God is not pleased with? And I think my first answer has to be, yes, if the heart of the people who are participating in that is not in the right place.

Is there a style that lends itself to bending the heart? Yeah, I think so, but I have no definitions.

I know what Scripture says about music, and I think it's best to start there.

I mean, I think we both can agree that Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 address this issue.

I think we can agree that Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 are both very similar passages.

It starts off in Ephesians 5, he starts off saying, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.

Ephesians 3 says kind of the same thing, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness.

He's trying to get people to walk in a certain way, even if you backtrack from there, if you go all the way back to Ephesians 4, 4 .1,

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you have been called, and you compare that with Colossians 2, therefore as you receive

Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. So then when you get to both of the verses in those passages, your thought is, you know,

Ephesians 5 says, be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the

Lord with your heart, giving thanks always. And Colossians 3, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

I think any music is permissible as long as it leads to the sanctification of the believer and their walk in Christ.

Yeah, and it also involves singing to one another, and that's where the line gets blurred, because there's a lot of Christian music out there that doesn't fulfill singing one to another, and a lot of it is because of style, a lot of it is because of rhythmic and harmonic choices, that it's not able to fulfill this command of being used to sing to one another, rather in a personal time of devotion or in a congregational setting.

And I listen to a lot of contemporary, well, I don't listen to a lot of contemporary Christian music, but sometimes

I hear it, and it's just a performance. There's not any way that it can be used for sanctifying the body of Christ.

And let me give you a perfect example. Messun Dorma is a beautiful melody.

It starts down on a D. Messun Dorma. And it goes all the way up an octave and almost two octaves to a high

B. It's a beautiful melody, one of the most beautiful ever written, but it in no means is something that people can sing along with.

And you can dream that you can sing almost two octaves, but people struggle with singing octaves.

And so a lot of your musical style questions can be answered in, is this congregational?

Is this helpful in leading my people to sanctification in their walk in Christ? And I think a lot of style things you have to answer no.

It might be a nice piece of music. It might be a happy piece of music.

It might be an exciting piece of music. But ultimately, if you can't use it in the body of Christ to sanctify people in their walk in Christ, then you can't use it.

In fact, when we come back from our first break, I have a feeling that Jim Capo is chomping at the bit to ask a question.

So when we return, we'll have Jim ask a question and we'll also take some listener questions. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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

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Let's say you disagree with your own pastor or church or denomination in regard to music or something in that regard.

Perhaps you disagree with your spouse. You don't want to draw attention to your identity. Feel free to remain anonymous, but if it's not personal and private, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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Thomas Manton offer on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with Philip Webb and he is a critically acclaimed

American tenor in operatic, classical and sacred music and he's the project manager and editor of Hymns of Grace.

We are discussing music that is pleasing to God. If you'd like to join us on the air our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com and Pastor Jim Capo you have a question for Philip Webb.

Yeah, um... I've had discussions with a lot of people about this about this issue of music and what's appropriate and not appropriate and I've had many people say to me that the style just apart from the singability of it we'll leave that out for a moment because I agree with you 100 % on that that if it can't be sung congregationally then it should not be used for congregational worship regardless of whatever the style is.

But what I hear over and over and over again is that the music itself apart from the words are completely amoral they're completely neutral they're not good they're not bad the only thing that makes them appropriate for Christian worship whether it's congregational but even beyond that it's just sitting and listening to it the only thing that makes it appropriate for the

Christian and appropriate for glorifying God is the words that there is no quote unquote ungodly style there is no style that's displeasing to God and I've had people insist that would include any style heavy metal rap, hip hop whatever it's all all on the table it's the words that you put to it that ultimately make it appropriate or not appropriate

What do you say? Do you agree with that? Do you disagree with that? Okay several things first of all

I agree with that to a point however I do believe here's the point that I agree with I don't believe that music contains some sort of alternate mystical power

I do not believe that but I do believe that man can arrange and create music under demonic demonic influence and so therefore

I believe that man is capable of creating a piece of art that is inspired by Satan or has every intention of being created in antipathy to God I do believe that man is capable of that and I think for that situation we have to look and say you know whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely if we can think on these things in the right way number two

I think you have a responsibility to shepherd your flock the idea that there's always been this distaste with the previous with music that the newer generation brings up I think even

Plato complained about the new music that was being written in his time that it was not not adhering to the structure that he believed was mathematically correct so this has always been an argument that as the generations come and as music evolves that you are most satisfied with what you experienced probably as a teenager and what your ears grew up being developed on and it is harder for us to accept what is new that's an ongoing thing but as a person in leadership you have a responsibility to shepherd your flock and if you have people in your flock who find that this is a great issue then you have to neglect some things in favor of other things and you have to bring all the generations together to worship together some have to give aside some preferences and some have to give aside other preferences and you have to shepherd people through the questions you know you might have to get people to be a little more accepting

I find that with the older generations it's not so much the musical style but it's the newer songs the more contemporary songs are harder for them to sing the rhythms are harder the range is harder and that that frustrates them you know and I think the younger generation does not consider that a valid issue because they've grown up listening to that and being involved in that I mean

I teach voice and I'm always having to say to my singers I cannot understand the words they'll bring musical theater pieces to me or pop pieces and most of the time

I cannot understand what they're singing and it's because I just don't listen to that kind of style very often

I think finally this whole thing of does music have power I'm going to give you I'm going to give you an example that you'll relate to very well personally

I love Wagner's music Wagner's music is very powerful to me and he did things musically that were not ever done before and he was a pioneer in his resolution of chords the way he used instruments all these things and I even had one of my one of my coaches at the

Met told me once he said be very careful with Wagner he will suck you in emotionally and it's right when you listen when you listen to the overture to Meisterzinger or you listen to the

Flying Dutchman or the Ride of the Valkyries it just it inspires you it inspires you how a man at that time with no recording devices could create that is really genius

I always put on a viking helmet when I hear it a viking helmet and a bare skin and that's that's only part of his music let me talk about the

Meisterzinger von Nuremberg which is based on the story of a singing competition that was held in Nuremberg in the 13 -1400s and interesting enough the main character of this opera is a poem a poetic guy who was a shoe cobbler he was actually a real character he was actually a shoe cobbler in Nuremberg who was also a devotee of Martin Luther the guy actually wrote commentary on some of Martin Luther's works and this whole story evolves around a knight coming to town and you had to you had to enter a competition if he could win the competition then he would marry one of the

Meisterzinger's daughters he had to create lyrics he had to create melody and then sing it in the final competition and the opera is basically extolling the power of German art well what

Hitler did with that particular opera you've seen the videos of the torch lit parades in the vast stadium in Nuremberg where they're just laid out all around marching with torches and banners you know what took place you know what took place before that?

no Hitler required his officers to go to the opera house with him and watch the five and a half hour opera of the

Meisterzinger now they were inspired afterwards the final scene the music it's very inspiring so he was using that opera to get his officers psyched up now even today people are still offended by Wagner's music not because of Wagner but because Hitler used it and I have a friend in Austria I said do you he lives in the northern part of Austria I said do you ever go see any

Wagner operas and he said I will never attend a Wagnerian opera ever because of the war so his the power of that music is still big with people

I had a voice teacher who was a very famous soprano she was invited to sing at Bayreuth she told me

I will never sing at Bayreuth because of the war and what they did to our boys wow so so history and man and culture imbues music with power it you know and I don't

I didn't grow up during the war I don't have those feelings so for me listening to Wagner is completely different I have a completely different cultural relationship to his music so does music have power yes it has power based on what culture allows it to have power with you know for me my father was a pastor he couldn't stand

Elvis Presley because he was there when that whole thing happened you know he considered it you know ungodly and demonic and that sort of thing

I was born later I didn't grow up listening to Elvis I don't have those same strong associations um so I hope that's a good example

I just don't think that a piece of art I don't think that a piece of art created by man has a spirit and then

I'm going to go to Jesus said that God is a spirit and you have to worship him in spirit that's what sets

God apart from any idol that man creates because God is so far above something that either is made of flesh or flesh makes now one one ok go ahead

Jim go ahead ok so so you're saying that there would be no particular style of music or arrangement of notes or arrangement of melody harmony and rhythm that would for instance can uh what do

I say promote anxiety or depression or rage or or or sexuality

I think there is but it's it's what it's what the person listening to it brings to it ok it's not

I don't think it's inherent within the quality because I think there are some people who can listen to it and not have the same interpretation well there are some musical styles though where the even the composers and the artists performing openly admit the reasons they compose the music some of it is because they wanted to convey the emotions of rage and anarchy and rebellion uh where where there's a type of heavy metal music that I can't even remember the name of it but the singers scream they scream in a very growling animal like voice right there are all kinds of and there is even very very sexy music

I mean there's there's melodies that I think go ahead I'm sorry I I think that those are demonically inspired pieces of music you know

I think those are people who um are under the control of it's called scream something scream metal or something like that yeah

I've heard it and I see I don't even really think that's music but I think yes there are pieces of music that are devised for demonic purposes and used in that setting um can

I say that all music I just think any power that music has over us mentally and emotionally is brought into it by either the person who creates it with that in mind or whatever is in the person listening in their life that they culturally bring to it also

I just don't I just don't believe that actual harmonies rhythms and melodies have a spiritual power to them does that make sense yes

I agree with the spiritual power part but I do believe they create moods I don't even think that it necessarily has to be a learned thing uh

I think that there could be uh you know there's there's I think there's a reason for instance the military uses certain beats for uh military music and and uh the performers that are intending to be sensual use specific rhythms and so on uh

I don't know if we have to learn to associate those things with the intended moods

I mean I'm not a scientist I'm not a musicologist I don't I don't know yeah and I was reading the other day how that Beethoven loved the key of C minor um and this this one person in the 1800s wrote a book about the various keys and what emotions and moods each of their keys meant but I can listen to some of that if I had never read that I don't think

I could identify at the same time with that as well I think it I think a lot has to do with the time period you're in the type of things you listen to and what type of environment you listen them into what types of feelings you're having when you listen to them what type of emotional things you're going through I think those contribute so much as well

I think the heart of the person listening attaches itself sometimes to what they're hearing musically and I think that can help arouse things because I think ultimately we're responsible for our heart in all of this by the way our listeners

I was just about to say Ted in Tuscaloosa Alabama one of our listeners said he believes it's called screech rock the type of music you were thinking it's awful it's not really screech metal right yeah yeah it's just it's just demonic type responses and so but see

I don't those type of discussions because I don't know the answer totally but those don't even enter into my thoughts about Christian music right well unfortunately it does with other people one thing to me go ahead

I'm sorry continue brother the issue is what what what is going to edify and cause people to be more sanctified in Christ to me that is the biggest issue as someone in a church outside the church

I have freedom to listen to things but I still have to be someone who's who's approaching sanctification so the question of sanctification is still in my mind as an individual when it comes to what

I listen to music wise so that addresses some of those issues too how can I be becoming more

Christ like by listening to music that maybe I don't identify sin with it but other people do one thing that occurred to me in fact it occurred to me today and I don't think

I ever thought of it before but I wonder the people who are really strong advocates of of if anything goes in regard to music in a church service a worship service

I wonder how they would react if the pastor was to begin to preach screaming at them at the top of his lungs every single word phrase sentence until the sermon was over without any without any change in tone or volume or if the pastor ascended into the podium and started speaking in very sensual tones like Barry White or someone

I mean you could go on and on somebody speaking like Red Skelton in a very goofy comical voice you know if the person who is preaching shouldn't do that why would it not matter if people singing and performing music shouldn't do that whether they do that or not right and again

I think that the question is how is this how is this helping us become an imitator of Christ which you know we ask about a lot of things in our life music is one of them we need to ask about as well and TV movies all that sort of stuff right we have to get to our midway break right now it's our longer than normal break because we have to get to our it's our longer we have to it's our longer it's our longer music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music music

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They were battlefields of my own making

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Then I heard that the king of all ages

Had fought all the battles for me

He's the king of all ages He's the king of all ages

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We are back with Philip Webb, our guest today, critically acclaimed

American tenor in operatic classical and sacred music and project manager and editor at Hymns of Grace.

We are discussing music that is pleasing to God, and we have an anonymous listener, and the anonymous listener says,

I have become disturbed in an increasing measure with the music that I am hearing at the church where I am a member.

Doesn't 1 Corinthians 14, verse 40 come into play here, but all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner?

Does not some music violate that very principle? Philip? I'm sure there is some music that violates that principle.

I've sat in services where, to me, the music was chaotic the way it was written.

I will say this, that today, Christian music, we don't have a lot of beautiful melodies.

We have people who are writing music for emotional and physical effect, and the craft of writing a beautiful melody has fallen out of practice, and what we have instead are rhythmic riffs, maybe a measure or two long, which are then repeated over and over, or we have what's known as hooks, little phrases within a song that sort of are the hook of the song, and these aren't real pieces of art.

These are not real pieces of songwriting. They're purely written from a marketing standpoint, and I think a lot of our

Christian music takes that stand, not how can we sing and make melody and address one another, but how can

I grab a person's emotional and physical attention and hook them into that?

So I do agree that that passage does apply. The judgment, the implication of that passage is a bit subjective, but I think a very trained musician realizes what a very well -crafted melody is, and what just a, for lack of a better term, what a jingle is to get someone's attention.

Well, thank you, Anonymous. Anonymous, if you give me, of course off the air by email, your full name and your full mailing address, you have also won a free copy of Hymns of Grace, the hymnal produced by our guest today,

Philip Webb, and that's actually, the hymnal is called Grace Hymns, correct?

Hymns of Grace. Oh, it is called Hymns of Grace. That's the title of the hymnal. Yes, we needed a title, and Dr.

MacArthur said to me, we wouldn't call it Hymns of Law, would we? So, Hymns of Grace.

Maybe some churches would prefer Hymns of Law. Yes. You can't argue with him when he says that.

No. Well, let me ask you this, because what you just said leads right into my next question. How do we, and this is tough, okay?

How do we evaluate beauty? How do we decide, are there objective standards that we can, and principles that we can apply to a piece of music or any work of art, and say, you know, this is beautiful and this is not?

And I agree with you, I think beauty is a standard, that we should have a standard of beauty, we should, we want to create beautiful music, but how do we decide what's beautiful?

Well, in academia, the way we evaluate beauty is basically based upon the disciplines that have gone into the art.

And, you know, if you take voice from me, if you're not singing in tune, which unfortunately we don't place a high price on anymore, if you're not singing in tune, if your tone is not beautiful, if you're taking a breath in the wrong spot, if you have, if your tone is interrupted by puffs of air, that's not going to qualify as being beautiful, because you're not even doing the basic things that serve the form of art.

So I think the disciplines of whatever piece of art you're doing, the disciplines are what help us understand if something is beautiful or not.

But then it does become very subjective, and unfortunately we live in a culture that has dumbed down the subjective part of it.

When we have failed to educate people in what beauty is and what disciplines are, then we can no longer expect them to have the tools to rightly evaluate art.

For instance, you know, a piece, you take a symphony, take

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which is a beautiful symphony, but if you have never heard it, or if you have never sung the choral parts in it, you probably have absolutely no appreciation for it at all, because you don't know technically what is required to produce something like that, let alone that the man was practically deaf when he wrote it.

So if you don't know, you have not been educated into what is required to make something beautiful, then you have no disciplines to therefore evaluate it by, and that's where our culture fails, because we've taken, we don't teach our kids what beauty is.

We don't teach our kids that, you know, something beautiful takes time, takes effort, takes focus, takes discipline, and we don't teach them that anymore.

We teach them that, oh, you can have something beautiful in just a few minutes, pop it out on your computer, and it's not.

It's not the same thing. And so that's the battle that we have, is most people don't understand what beauty is and what it consists of anymore.

So then how, like, just using one of the examples you mentioned before, if you're giving a voice lesson and the person's tone isn't beautiful.

Now, I have battles with people online. I'll listen to the live broadcast from the

Metropolitan Opera. You know, you get three or four a week on the satellite radio on the Met Opera channel, and I'll have it on all the time.

I'll be doing work at night, and usually at least once a week there's this big website of opera fans, and they have a live chat that goes along with broadcasts, and we're all listening, and we are all...

They don't like me because I'm a Christian, but that's okay. Go ahead. Well, I'll say this site is, it caters to a very ungodly segment of the opera.

I know exactly which site you're talking about. But I'll battle with these people.

There are very well -known superstar tenors, for instance, and I listen to them, and I hear no beauty in their tone.

To me, and I know everybody hears it differently, and different sounds appeal to different people, but how do we...

I mean, who's to say I'm right, that that person's tone isn't beautiful when someone else feels it is beautiful?

I always struggle with the subjectivity of that. I understand that, but part of what happens in the operatic world is a lot of those people heard voices 20, 30, 40 years ago, and that's their benchmark.

That's me. That's me. I listen to the old broadcasts. Right, but a lot of the people you're arguing with, they don't have that benchmark.

So they have no idea what you're comparing it to, because they don't have that benchmark for beauty.

And it is true. I mean, it's like, okay, who was better,

Pavarotti or Placido Domingo? I mean, in that situation, they were both great in their own way, but we all know

Pavarotti was better. I agree with you, but a lot of people would fight you to the death on that.

Yes, I agree with that, but there are people today in the operatic world, the quality of vocalism has deteriorated greatly.

And people do not sing well. I am shocked, but the audiences don't understand, because they don't have a benchmark to compare it for.

How many people in the audience listen to Pavarotti sing live? How many people in the audience listen to Domingo sing live as a tenor?

Not as a baritone, but as a tenor. As a baritone, yes. Right, but they don't have a benchmark to compare the beauty to anymore.

And my contention is, I know the theater managers are trying to reach a younger audience, and so they're not putting the emphasis on vocal quality.

Our academic institutions are not developing the voices that they should be, and nobody knows the difference anymore.

Nobody knows what used to be, what used to be possible, because it's not in their ears, it's not in their heads, and they have nothing to compare it to.

They haven't seen the Forbidden City in Beijing, so they have no idea how it is so unbelievably beautiful compared to other palaces in Europe or anything like that, because they haven't seen it.

They haven't experienced it. And unless you've experienced a high degree of excellence, you have nothing to compare it to.

That's a wonderful answer, yeah. And that's the same way with culture in general. We are dumbing down, and we're not, number one, demanding discipline of kids when it comes to culture, and number two, we're not telling them, this is beautiful and this is why, this is what it embodies, this is what it took to get to this point.

And instead, we're trying to put on these performances, I sang at the

Bregenz Festival in Bregenz, Austria, two summers in a row, which is a huge outdoor theater that seats 700 people.

The stage is actually about 100 feet from the shore, sitting in the lake. The orchestra is inside, they pipe them out, we're singing outside.

We did performances of Aida, and we had these huge construction cranes and the weirdest sets.

I don't know what was being communicated. We think it was a little bit anti -American, but nobody would admit that.

And we realized the idea here is not about Aida. The idea is to create something

Disney -like, something huge, something like Cirque du Soleil, something big event.

It's not about the singing, it's not about the music. And that's what's happened to classical music, is you're trying to create an event that attracts people.

You're not trying to put the art on display that causes people to wonder. And we do have a listener,

Todd, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says, what is your opinion about those who hold to the regulative principle and interpret that principle to teach that we are not to use instrumental music in worship services?

And I can say that I had a guest on here, John Price, a Reformed Baptist pastor in Rochester, who has a book,

Old Light on New Worship, and we interviewed him on his belief that acapella is the

New Testament -ordained way to worship God in a gathered assembly for worship.

He and he does not believe the New Testament prohibits musical instruments for any reason, or that Christians should never use them.

He has the view that, in regard specifically to a worship service, that only acapella should be utilized in singing.

How do you respond, as our guest, or should I say our listener, Todd in Cumberland County is asking? I don't,

I just cannot prove that biblically. I don't understand why God would say in Psalm 150, praise

Him with a trumpet sound, praise Him with a lute in the heart, praise Him with a tambourine in dance, praise Him with strings and pipes, praise

Him with sounding cymbals, praise Him with loud clashing cymbals, let everything in half a breath praise the

Lord and say, oh, but now that you're in the New Testament age, you can't use any of that. I just, it strikes me as just, that's kind of strange.

Is God just saving it all for heaven? I'm not sure. And why was it okay in the Old Testament? I just, yeah,

I don't, I can't say that the Bible is that specific about what we can or cannot use in our services.

So I, yeah, I respect that view, and I understand why they take that view, but no, and it also leads also to the exclusive psalmity view that believes that only psalms as inspired should be sung in our worship services.

I struggle with that because, you know, they would take the phrases, psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs and say, oh, in the

Septuagint, they were classified as that. However, you have to be reminded the

Septuagint ordered and classified the psalms differently than the original Hebrew did. I also would say, how come

I can only sing psalms from the Psalter because they're inspired, but we are allowed to pray our own words, which are uninspired?

Even preaching is uninspired. Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right. So I appreciate their view.

I know what they're trying to do. I just can't say that's exactly what Scripture says, so I kind of stay away from that.

And in fairness to John Price, who can't obviously answer, this isn't going to be a debate without John Price here, but he believes, as do others, that the psalms also include other things that we do not do in New Testament worship, and he believes that those musical instruments were specifically tied in to the sacrificial system.

And he does point out how it is interesting that the synagogue, the

Jewish synagogue ever since the destruction of the Temple, and even to this day amongst Orthodox Jews, they do not have musical instruments.

But that's just a side issue. Yes, but what you said is true, but they did that out of mourning.

It was because they were in mourning that the Temple had been destroyed. I agree he's correct in all those things.

However, there are many people who think that the distinction between psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and Ephesians, and Colossians doesn't have so much to do with content, but also has to do with type of music.

There are some people who believe that the word psalms there has to do with music that was set to instrumental accompaniment.

So there's a lot of different positions on all that stuff. My point is if we're going to be more like Christ, we're to be singing to one another about God, using music and singing to one another to remind us that we are to be sanctified, we're to put off the old, put on the new, and we need to sing about that process on a regular basis.

Congregational singing should be the central part of our worship.

Amen. And by the way, just also a little clarification. John Price, who wrote the book that I was just mentioning, he, although believes in acapella music, is not an exclusive psalm singer.

I just wanted to make that point clear. We have to go to our fourth... Let me... Okay, can

I mention one book, and a really good book for people to read on the psalms? Oh yeah, sure. Forgotten Songs, Reclaiming the

Psalms for Christian Worship. Excellent resource. Wow. Forgotten Songs. Wow.

And who's the author of that? That is two guys, Richard Wells and Ray VanNeste.

Okay, great. Well, perhaps... Are they living authors? Yes. Okay, perhaps

I could get... And it's published... It's published by B &H, B &H Academic.

Yeah. Forgotten Songs. I will try to get them on the program. With your recommendation,

I certainly will. We're going to our final break, and this is another song by our guest,

Phillip Webb, that I hope you enjoy. And then when we return from the break, we will have about 25 minutes or so to answer your questions.

So if you have an intention to ask a question, send it in now to chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And here is another beautiful song by our guest, Phillip Webb. And may the

Lord bless your heart with this. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Down from His glory Everliving story

My God and Savior came

And Jesus was His name

Born in a manger To His own a stranger

He stood to rule, to win To save my soul

Oh, how I love

His sunshine I call it all

He came

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, and this is the final 24 minutes or so of our interview today.

Our guest has been and will continue to be Philip Webb, a critically acclaimed

American tenor and operatic classical and sacred music, and project manager and editor of Hymns of Grace, and we are discussing music that is pleasing to God.

Our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com, if indeed you have a question for our guest.

And before we take any more of our listener questions,

Phil, I was just wondering about something, that do you think that there's a difference involved when those that are appointed to choose music in the church, whether it be the elders or some appointed musical ministers, ministers of music, et cetera, that there's a difference between a new church that's being planted and a church that has had, for instance, traditional music perhaps for decades, if not a century, and then all of a sudden they are disrupting what has become a cherished tradition and introducing music that is upsetting to people.

There seems to be, in the latter, a degree of selfishness there, especially when we view our elderly silver -haired saints who may be shocked, they may be horrified, they may be dismayed, and there seems to be an utter lack of concern about what the older brothers and sisters in Christ believe about this.

People, in fact, seem to want to drive them out anyway. There's a worship of youth, if you will, an idol of youth.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's this feeling that, what do they call it, the juvenileization of American churches.

I mean, it's part of our culture. Experience, wisdom, and age are not valued in American culture.

They are. I mean, say, for instance, in Japan, it's totally different. But the pop culture, the pop music business is totally centered around appealing to a younger age group for sales, and we're seeing that creep into the church also.

I don't like the word tradition because tradition sometimes means it's just that we're unwilling to change.

But there isn't a respect for the value that older things give us.

And, yeah, I definitely see that where we go to some churches and it's like being in the youth department.

And there seems to be some churches who are started for that very purpose, that we want to appeal.

And there are parents who, sad to say in this day and age, we have too many parents who want to live like their teenager and not like their parent.

And that's not my opinion. I hear that from my 19 -year -old son very often. They're just parents who don't want to grow up.

And we've structured complete church plants around that whole thing, that we've got to reach the kids that are 15 to 25, and that everything we do.

And it's sad because we're to shepherd the entire flock of God, not just one generation or one particular age group.

And there's some give and take that, yes, has to happen on both sides of the issue.

And I think it just requires a godly pastor and some wise elders to teach and walk a church through that.

But I think turning your whole church into a youth group is not helpful.

And let me just say this also. What we do in our youth groups in our churches is not helpful. If you have a church that does not promote your children at an early age, and I'm not speaking against Sunday school or anything like that, but teach your children to come sit in an actual service where they have to open a hymnal, they have to open a

Bible, they have to sit there and listen to prayers being prayed, then you're going to be in a dangerous situation.

Number one, you're probably going to lose that child to church down the road because you're not teaching them that the public gathering and assembling of believers is the priority of their life.

So you've got to have a church that teaches kids you're in big church. You're not in there playing games, running around, jumping up and down to music.

You're in big church. Secondly, churches that promote that sort of dichotomy between what we call worship in the big church and what we call worship in the youth department, that's dangerous also because we're teaching those kids that there's no room for serious reflection, for serious worship, for serious congregational participation, that it's all about grabbing their attention and their emotions.

That's a very dangerous way to practice also. So I've probably opened up a huge can of worms there, but you see churches starting on every corner built around that whole philosophy that we've got to dumb things down and we've got to appeal to a younger generation, and I don't think that's real shepherding, but that's just my opinion, so you can take it for what that's worth.

I can recall, in fact, Pastor Jim Kappel may have been my co -host back then.

Were you my co -host when I interviewed Dr. T .J. Gordon on Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns? Yeah. Do you recall when we were talking about different styles of music and Dr.

Gordon was saying that there are certain styles that do not lend themselves to proper states of mind in worship, and he said, can you imagine even the most ardent defender of modern music in a worship service how he would react if a loved one of his had died and you showed up at the funeral and started playing a kazoo?

Sometimes we have to view things the way they might affect us in a different setting than a church service, and it really kind of jolts you into realizing that there perhaps are inappropriate ways to, not only inappropriate instrumentation, but ways of playing it.

Do you agree with Dr. Gordon on that? Philip? Yeah, I do.

I do, in a sense. I think there is a sense of appropriateness, and I think that's where 1

Corinthians comes in. When it speaks about things being done decently and in order, there's an element of appropriateness in there, and I think that's something that everybody has to consider when they're planning a service.

But like I said, I think that what the real idea should be in any type of service is getting people to participate congregationally.

It's not to grab their attention. It's not to pump them up. It's not to emotionally move them.

It's to get them to participate congregationally and to sing to one another. I think when you start focusing on that as your goal, then a lot of these other issues get set aside because they don't serve that goal.

Amen. In fact, Bob in Westchester County, New York, has a question that lends itself to what you just said.

Bob says, When does it draw the line when you have a soloist, a duo, or a trio, or quartet, or quintet performing, or a praise band performing, and it enters into the realm of entertainment, and should we not predominantly be having congregational worship in our services rather than having these types of groups perform for us?

Well, I mean, first of all, I'm a soloist who sings at church, so this is a little bit difficult for me to answer, and it's also interesting.

I'll tell you, once, I think it was 1993, I was visiting London, England, and I sang in an evening service at Martyn Lloyd -Jones

Old Church, and I'm the type of person, I was never comfortable holding a microphone and singing like a pop singer, and so I've always sort of sung from the pulpit.

I've always done that, and I remember I went to rehearse at his church, and I stood behind the pulpit, and they played the track, and I sang, and then they came up to me, and they said,

Oh, no, no, you cannot sing there, because you cannot sing from where the doctor preached.

And there was still enough old people in the church that they remembered him, and that they could not bear the thought of someone singing or doing something that might remotely resemble entertainment from where he preached.

I think that we have to be very careful in the area of special music, because a lot of times it does cross the line into entertainment, and that's not always the fault of the performers.

That might be the fault of the setup. That might be the fault of the music that they're doing.

I think any time someone offers a musical offering out of a sincere and pure heart that wants to glorify

God, I think it's permissible. But I think you have to be careful, and as leadership, watch how you present that.

Does the music distract from the lyrics? Does their appearance distract from the lyrics?

You have to do whatever you can to cause people to participate in a way with the lyrics and what the texts are saying.

I understand that there are some places it turns into a complete show, and man, especially musicians, you have to understand this.

Musicians, typically we are very vain. We are very prone to performance.

We are very prone to attention. Sadly, there are a lot of people who are musicians for one reason and one reason alone.

That's because it gives them a stage. It's the same way in the secular opera world.

There are people whose lives I looked at and they were just a mess, but as long as they could get on stage and they could perform and the spotlight would come on, then everything would be okay.

That's a sad, sad place to be in. But there are Christian musicians who are exactly like that, and they're still singing at 100 years of age because they can't give up the stage.

They can't give up the attention. You have to be careful. Musicians have to be careful with this.

This is an ongoing problem seeking to use your talent to gain affirmation and attention.

It's a musician thing. Some preachers do it as well, but there are musicians that struggle with this all their lives, and they need someone shepherding them and holding them accountable.

It's a very big deal for musicians in that regard. Now, even as a soloist, since you have been interjecting throughout the whole program the need for congregational singing,

I assume that the part of Bob's question that said, should not the congregational singing be predominant, he didn't seem to be indicating that we shouldn't have any soloists or anything like that, but do you agree with that, that the congregational portion of singing should be the dominant thing in a worship service?

Oh, I most definitely agree. It should be dominant, but also the public reading of Scripture should be dominant, and praying publicly should be dominant.

Those should be the dominant things. And the preaching of the Word is an act of worship, and how you listen to it as a person in the pew is also an act of worship.

All of those things should be dominant. And I do sing solos in my church.

We print in our bulletin and ask people not to applaud after the solos. I understand that there is an emotional charge, especially some of the songs that I sing

I usually end on a high note, and I just know that people are conditioned today to applaud for anything.

Even baptisms and things like that. Well, yeah, we applaud for baptisms at Grace Community.

And people are conditioned, you know, in today's culture, a standing ovation is just a cheap response.

It's not a real sign of any sort of excellence. But that's just the culture that we live in.

And so I just believe, you know, they're just acknowledging God, they're acknowledging the effect that it has on them.

It really has nothing to do with me and my performance, because, quite frankly, I'm usually not very happy with my performances, and I want to fix something or do something better.

So as a musician in a church, you can never take the applause or any affirmation as a serious sign that God is happy with you.

You can only take what you know in your heart. You're responsible to God to use your art in a way that pleases

Him, and you're also responsible to be diligent with your art and to develop it. That's what

God is going to hold you responsible for, not how your performance affects other people.

By the way, I do want to say that the congregation where I used to be a member in New York, I received a standing ovation when

I announced that I was moving to Pennsylvania. That was kind of odd. We have a listener in south -central

Pennsylvania, Cristobal, that's a Spanish version of my name, and I can't remember where to put the accent on there.

I used to know. Is it Cristobal or Cristobal? I don't remember. But Cristobal says,

Can you give us some basic elements that you believe should be present in music that is worshipful and honoring to God?

Well, I think, first of all, worship that is honoring to God must contain a sort of reverence.

When you look at Isaiah 6, that passage on worship, there's two things that you notice very quickly.

That God was elevated high above anything that was remotely man.

So that, and secondly, just the response of Isaiah, Woe is me, for I am unclean.

I think that music that leads us in expressing our worship has to elevate

God above the flesh, above the world, above mankind. It can't bring man down to our level so that we can look at him as sort of just another friend or person that we hang out with.

Second of all, it has to lead us to have some sort of deep sense of respect and adoration for him.

It can't reduce him to some sort of perception of our earthly character traits.

It has to hold him in high esteem. I also believe, and this is something we do get away, we need to sing of the

Trinity. We need to sing of the Father, we need to sing of the Son, and we need to sing of the Holy Spirit. And we have gotten away from that in older hymns, especially around the

Reformation. That was more subject matter that we dealt with. We're also getting away from singing about death and heaven.

Those are things that we need to continue to sing about, and we need to continue to sing about suffering. We talked about the

Psalms, but quite frankly, the Psalms don't fit in today's culture because they deal with such stark feelings and such tough truths about hatred, about war, about fighting, about enemies, about death.

But those are things we need to incorporate into our praising of God, because God is the answer to all those tough things.

So that's just a quick answer off the top of my head. And thank you, Christobal.

You have won a free copy of the hymn produced by our guest today through Hymns of Grace.

So please make sure we have your full mailing address so that Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

can ship that out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. As a sequel to that question, there have been many

Reformed individuals that I have heard criticize much of modern Christian music because many of the lyrics are man -centered and basically are expressing the emotions and the experiences of the ones singing, rather than singing praises to God and singing about His glorious attributes, etc.

Do you agree with that? Do I agree that man is narcissistic and even

Christians can write narcissistic lyrics? Yeah, I guess that's the question.

Do I think that God doesn't care how we feel? No. But narcissism seems to be the mark of our society at this point, and I think there's a certain degree of Christian narcissism where we only look at God in relationship to how we feel about ourselves.

And yes, that is a problem in the writing of Christian music. I do agree with that.

I wish we did. We live in a culture where we all think we're great athletes, we all think we're great students, we all think we're great musicians.

When I have to grade my students, I get very frustrated because everybody expects an A, and frankly, they're not worth

A's. And as a professional, I paid people hundreds of dollars to walk into a crowded apartment in New York City and listen to them tell me for an hour that I wasn't very good.

Now, it seems a little bit masochistic to do that, but that's the only way I would get better, was

I would hire people to tell me I was bad and to fix things. And when you want to be very good at something, you have to take criticism.

Even though some of it may be unjust or unfair, you have to take it and figure out how can

I use that in a positive way. And we as Christians, we don't take criticism well.

We think that our music's great, we think that what we're doing is great and everything's happy and we need to make everybody happy.

But frankly, musically, like when it comes to psalms, we haven't done a very good job of turning the psalms into congregational singing.

There are a lot of people out there who've taken English translations and added rock and roll and melodies to them, but frankly, they're not very good.

The quality is not very good, and I think our worship deserves and our God deserves better. And we as Christians need to get serious about if we're going to use this art form, then we need to do it.

I'm not saying being operatic or classical, but we need to be excellent about it and we need to work hard at being excellent.

God just doesn't reach down one day and bless us and say, you're a star. There's disciplines you have to go through.

Well, we are out of time. We are out of time, Phil, and I know that your website is hymsofgrace .com,

hymsofgrace .com. For those opera buffs who want to know more about the operatic side of our guests, you can go to philipweb .net,

and Philip is spelled with one L and Webb is spelled with two Bs. Do you have any other contact information?

There's also philipwebsacredarts .com if you want to see some videos of some sacred music.

My sacred music you can buy online at iTunes. CD Baby sells my

CDs, any of those things. Do go and listen to the video at hymsofgrace at Facebook and share it with some people and spread that all around.

And if you don't own a good hymnal, then place an order at hymsofgrace .com.

We'd love to send you one. Thank you very much, Pastor Jim Capo, for being my co -host again today. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in questions.

You're all getting a free copy of the hymnal produced by Hymns of Grace. And now we're going to conclude with another song by our guest,

Philip Webb. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and a blessed Lord's Day, and I hope you all remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater