What Musical Instruments Should Be Used in Church, if Any?

Hello, and thank you for listening to this podcast. We're going to be talking about the question, are we supposed to use musical instruments in church? That's the question. And I'm going to read from this article and give you my own thoughts on the issue.

Churches of Christ and the Question of Instruments

Now it's going to seem like a strange thing for some people, like why would that even be a problem? Most people are aware that there are some churches that don't allow any musical instruments. For example, the churches of Christ.

This is a restorationist group that came out of the 1800s from the Campbellites. And they believe, they're especially common in the South, and they believe that no musical instruments should be allowed in church.

I was just talking to a pastor last month, and he said, any church that has a drum set, nope, don't want nothing to do with it, he said. So these ideas are out there. So there's a lot of churches that have a contemporary service, and they have guitars and drums, and then other churches that are more traditional.

Our church would be more on the traditional side, although from time to time, people have played guitar, and that's not a problem. I prefer just kind of giving you my idea, my belief up front, just knowing what I know.

Looking to Scripture Rather Than Making a Law

About the scriptures.

There's no explicit command against it, so I don't want to make a law where there is.

No law.

But let me just read from this article, it says, in all the examples of believers meeting together for worship in the New Testament, we have no clear instance of musical instruments being used. Most churches today utilize musical instruments of all kinds, but some use none at all.

The lack of a biblical example of a church using musical instruments have led some to believe that musical instruments should not be used in the church, but that our singing should be done a cappella.

And like I said, the Churches of Christ or the Church of Christ, not the UCC, not the Congregationalist Churches UCC, but the Church of Christ, they would be the most well-known that holds to that position of no musical instruments.

I think a guitar like this, even in a traditional church, you know, it's electric, that's true, but it's somewhat respectable looking, you know. I think most people, if you're playing with a clean tone, I think people would be okay.

With that.

Drums, you know, drums, people have opinions on. And then again, for some people, this is, it's ridiculous that we would even be talking about this, but let's read from the article some more. And by the way, this guitar, like I said, would be okay if you had these clean tones, but if you had this guitar with some distortion, you know, using the whammy bar or something, like I don't think that would go over as well.

What do you think?

The Old Testament Pattern of Instrumental Worship

So while people are going to have differing ideas, we should look to what the scripture says, not just the New Testament, but also the Old Testament, because the Old Testament is still the word of God.

So there's no explicit command against instruments in the New Testament. So I think the Old Testament is worth looking at. The article continues that musical instruments were not only used in the Old Testament, at times they're even commanded.

For example, Psalm 81 verse 2, Psalm 98 5, and Psalm 150 verse 4, several of the Psalms were intended to be played with stringed instruments, as well as the song of Habakkuk, Habakkuk 3 .19. Instrumental music accompaniment was a common part of worship.

David commanded the leaders of the Levites to appoint their fellow Levites as musicians to make a joyful sound with musical instruments. So it's very clear the Old Testament says that musical instruments were good, stringed instruments.

And, you know, the piano, contrary to what some people think, is a stringed instrument, as is the guitar, even the electric guitar. But you know, whatever your church thinks is good and appropriate. I do have reservations, obviously.

Avoiding Excess and Judging Others Over Worship Style

This should be obvious. A church service should not look like a heavy metal concert, okay? When Andy Stanley opened up his church service with Led Zeppelin, like, if you like Led Zeppelin, hey, that's up to you, but, you know, Stairway to Heaven, it's not actually a Christian song.

So to open up a church service with that, it's, to me, that's outrageous. That's going way too far. But long story short, let's just keep this very simple. If a church wants to use musical, if they want to use musical instruments, that's totally.

Fine.

And if a church wants to sing only a cappella, that's totally fine as well. But those churches like Churches of Christ, some of them are kind of fanatical about it to where if you use a musical instrument in church, you're not a true church.

I think judging someone's spirituality or judging their salvation based on whether or not they use this instrument or that, it's wrong. I think it's wrong. My name's Michael Grant. Thanks for listening.

Until next time, may the Lord be with you. Have a great day.