Does Worship Music Matter?

Revealed Apologetics

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00:01

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host, Eli Ayala, and today

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I'm back on with another guest. I got actually got a couple of guests coming in the future.

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I know that J. Warner Wallace will be on on May 17th to talk about the existence of Jesus and the person of Jesus, why

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Jesus is unique. And so we're gonna be talking about that topic. That's gonna be super interesting. Super excited to have

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J. Warner Wallace kind of give me his time. He's a pretty busy guy and he agreed to come on. And I know my presuppositionalist friends are like, what are you doing, man?

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But come on, it's J. Warner Wallace. You know, I think we could still have a great conversation. Even my guest today, as I'll introduce him in just a few moments, we differ on some key theological points, but hey, we're good friends and I enjoy having conversations with him, which is definitely an iron sharpens iron sort of situation.

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And so hopefully you guys have someone like that in your life, doesn't agree with you and everything, but you can have that fruitful friendship.

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I think it's very useful. So also I am planning an epic presuppositional round table.

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I have invited six people, six people, some that you may know and others that you may not know, but are pretty solid in presuppositional apologetics.

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And I wanted to invite a bunch of people to talk about different facets of presuppositionalism from their perspective.

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Because me as a teacher and as a student of Van Til and Bonson, I can sometimes present this material kind of technical and that can be lost on some people, but I think it'd be useful to have other people on who use it in a different context and they're able to kind of communicate a lot of the truth from perspective, but coming from that same foundation.

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So I'm looking forward to having that. I'll let you guys know definitely when that will be happening.

01:59

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02:07

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02:14

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I am giving my online course, PresuppU. When am I giving it again? When am

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I teaching it? And when are signups going to be happening? Well, I have decided that PresuppU will continue on June 7th.

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03:06

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It's really cool to kind of connect with people from all over the world. So signups are available now and classes will start on June 7th.

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So I'm really excited to do that. And it's a super helpful way, guys, really. I mean, this is a super helpful way to support

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I'm doing more frequently. So I greatly appreciate if you guys can support in that way. All right, well, without further ado,

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I wanna invite my special guest who has actually been on this episode and I've actually had a philosopher on to critique my guests on the topic of libertarian free will and things like that.

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So, but he's a really good friend and I really appreciate him. I would like to introduce on the screen with me,

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Dr. Braxton Hunter. How are you doing, man? Hey, Eli, so glad to be here as your, what, non -Calvinist correspondent,

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I guess. That's right, that's right. And people should know, okay, right?

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I am a Calvinist. I'm a presuppositionalist. Braxton is a classicalist and he's a, he's a

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Molinist. And yes, I still think he's saved. He's just wrong.

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So, but we're not gonna be talking about that today. I'm just kidding. But I am super happy to have

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Dr. Braxton Hunter on. Let me just kind of give you some background. Braxton Hunter, and he can correct me if this information is out of date, but Braxton Hunter is the former president of the

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Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists or awkwardly, COSB. It's the worst acronym ever.

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It's the worst acronym ever. As a professor of philosophy and apologetics at Trinity College of the

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Bible and Theological Seminary in Newber, Indiana. Dr. Hunter is passionate about the defense of the

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Christian faith in a skeptical world. Dr. Hunter also holds a BA in expository preaching, an

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MA in theology, and a PhD in Christian apologetics. So basically he is a black belt in apologetics, okay?

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Well, I mean, I'll give you black belt. You're not a presuppositionalist, but you get the belt, okay? You took the classes, right?

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Okay. He's also an author of multiple books, which I highly recommend. He is the author of Blinding Lights, the

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Glaring Evidences of the Christian Faith, Death is a Doorway, Truth Bombs, Brief Thoughts on Big Issues.

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And my personal favorite that I found useful, even as a presuppositionalist, is his book

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Core Facts. So you guys wanna check that out. You can purchase those at Amazon.

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Is there any other way people can order those books if they wanted, Braxton? Yeah, you could do that just on Amazon by searching my name, but you can also get it at braxtonhunter .com

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on the resources tab. So, and occasionally

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I'll give away an ebook or something like that. I don't make a lot of money off this stuff.

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I just wanna get the stuff out there. Yeah, he likes to give away things. He's given me, you've given me some material.

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You've actually given me - I think I gave you my book Evangelistic Apologetics. That's right, yeah. You're also a black belt at giving stuff away.

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Is that a black belt? Is that something that - If it is, I'm proud to have that black belt. All right. Well, I don't know what background you have in music.

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I am not a musician. I was raised around music and I'm a singer. I used to be a lead singer in a band and I did,

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I used to be in a Spanish band as well and a band with a group. So I've been a lead singer and a singer with two or three other guys as well.

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So I do have some background in singing. I cannot play an instrument for my life.

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Do you have any background in music, Braxton? As a matter of fact, when I was a teenager, I took guitar lessons for three years and that was probably as much to write songs to praise the

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Lord as it was to impress girls at the time. This is the carnal thinking of a young man.

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But in any case, I've played guitar off and on ever since. And I did have a band that was called

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Today's Special named after what was a children's program that I loved when I was a kid.

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But we performed in our church youth group and then also in some places in the Nashville area,

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Christian organizations and things. And then when I went to college at Middle Tennessee State University, I was majoring in music business.

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By then I learned, you're never gonna be a wealthy musician, Braxton, but you can make money off of people who are wealthy musicians if you're their manager or something.

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So I studied music business, but then God called me to the ministry and I said, yes. And I've never looked back, but I still love music.

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And like you, I still love music and know a little bit. I can't read music.

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I'm not the greatest, but I have some opinion. So you're a black belt in apologetics, you're a brown belt in music.

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Well, actually I got a yellow belt in karate and a yellow belt in Taekwondo. One of them is a gold belt.

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So let's just say I have a yellow belt. Okay, all right, we'll go with the yellow belt. All right, interesting, very cool.

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Now I grew up in a Spanish Pentecostal context and we were very connected with a bunch of churches.

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So I was always, not just at my church, I was always visiting other churches and just exposed to a lot of music.

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So I'm very much aware of like the musical culture, the worship culture of kind of those churches that tend to be more on the charismatic spectrum, if I can say that.

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And it's very interesting to observe and maybe you can kind of confirm this in your own experiences. And people can resonate with this too, that music is such a powerful mechanism.

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It is a powerful tool to use within the context of worship. Would you say that that's been your experience?

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Oh, absolutely, come on. There are certain songs, this is the thing. This is one of the reasons we have to be cautious is because music can seem right.

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It can seem right to you and you can wrap up ideas that might be in the music as seeming right, right along with it.

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But I think certainly most Christians who have been Christians for very long have had powerful experiences in worship.

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There are people who are not very emotionally inclined, who maybe they don't get the touchy -feelys as much, but I think still most people have had meaningful moments in worship with music.

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But even more than that, or not more than that, but just as much as that, and this is of course, again, why we gotta be careful, is

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I've had moments where a song that wasn't even a Christian song was so powerful on the radio or something,

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I had to pull over the car for a second and say, wait a minute, this is an incredibly just, good, well -made, emotional piece of music.

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And so, yeah, absolutely, music is powerful and a powerful vehicle for ideas.

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Now, to kind of nerd out, so the kind of music that I listen to, I don't know if I've ever admitted this on YouTube, but people ask, like,

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Eli, you do apologetics, you like talking about philosophy. I'm like, man, what do you listen to? What's in your head, right?

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I grew up loving movie soundtracks.

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So the majority, like 99 .9 % of the music that I do listen to are music soundtracks, movie soundtracks, and most of them don't even have lyrics, they're just,

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I love the Rocky soundtrack, especially the Rocky IV. I think No Easy Way Out by Robert Tepper is the song that I've listened to the most out of any song in my entire life.

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Roll down the windows, wear your 80s, and blast that. The snare drum on that is straight up fire.

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And Star Wars, the Star Wars soundtrack. Now, here's the thing. When I listen to Star Wars, and yesterday was

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May the 4th, right? When I listen to Star Wars, there's actually a guy who actually enhanced the original music to make it more epic.

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And perhaps I'll share, maybe I can show you where to listen to it online. It's awesome. So I love movie soundtracks.

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I understand. It's a stinking movie about aliens and space wizards. And even with the music from a movie,

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I can get the goosebumps because it is a very powerful, music is a very powerful thing. I think

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God created us that way to respond to music, to be able to create music out of creativity and these sorts of things.

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But when we talk about worship music, I think it's very important to, before we kind of jump into worship music within the context of,

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I think, people who are tuning in are thinking about, I think it's very important to kind of define what worship is.

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Before we kind of jump into worship music, let's kind of go over what is worship in general.

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So maybe you can take a moment to share your definition of worship. And then I want to share a passage out of Wayne Grudem's systematic theology because unlike a lot of systematic theologies, he actually has a chapter on worship, which

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I think is helpful. So why don't you unpack for us what you think worship is, and then we'll correct you by quoting

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Wayne Grudem. Yeah, well, so, you know, if you go into the

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Old Testament and you look at these earliest moments of worship and things like this, it's very much closely associated with sacrifice.

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To worship is to sacrifice. Or at least it will often have that as part of it.

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And I think that carries for Judeo -Christian theology and specifically Christian New Testament theology, I think that plays right on through to where we are today.

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Of course, worship in the Old Testament was a lot to do with sacrificing various things at the tabernacle or at the temple or in other ways.

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And you would sacrifice, and that was an act of worship. You were giving of yourself for the good of another. You're giving of yourself because that's what

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God asks of you, to obey because of your love for God. As we get to the New Testament, as the law has been fulfilled and Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, the lamb without blemish, the one sacrifice that was weighty enough and worthy enough to cover the sin of the whole world.

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This, in this situation, we still sacrifice in our worship and we sacrifice by living a sacrificial life.

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I sacrifice my life daily. But then in another sense, worship, and notice none of this necessarily has to do with corporately singing songs yet, although that can be part of it.

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Another thing I often say about worship is that to worship God is to do exactly what God created you ideally to do.

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When we think about worshiping God forever in heaven, without end, I think some people think this is gonna be a really boring experience.

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I'm gonna, I mean, you know, we're gonna be in one corporate worship service with our nose in a Baptist hymnal, probably.

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And you better bring a back brace because you're gonna be bent over.

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It's gonna really give you back problems. And, you know, it's just gonna be rough. It's gonna be, and bring an iPad or something because it's gonna get boring.

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This is not the idea of heaven that anyone wants. And actually, I think what has happened is that well -meaning pastors and evangelists and youth pastors have said things like we're gonna worship

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God forever without doing what you're doing right now, which is saying, hey, let's talk more deeply about worship. And as a result, they've got the idea that heaven's gonna be boring because forever we're gonna worship

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God. When in reality, I think of course we'll have corporate moments of worship, but the thing that should be understood is that every day in heaven, we will be living as God ideally wanted us to be living.

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Why does nature, why can we say that my dog is worshiping God or the trees are worshiping God or the rocks and all these kinds of things?

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In a sense, at least in a sense, they're worshiping God in that they're at least trying to do what

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God made them to do, trying, you know, anthropomorphizing, but they're doing what God created them to do in some sense, even if nature has fallen.

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But one day we will have perfect worship in that sense. So I think those are important things to say about worship.

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And I think when those two things are done right, then the corporate act of worship is an outflow of an overflow of joy from a life lived in gratitude to this

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God who has given us so much. So see if Grudem can do better than that.

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Well, that is pretty good. I do like how you kind of associate worship with this idea of sacrifice.

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It makes me think of Romans chapter 12. One, I wanna read it for folks. Here's out of the inspired translation.

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Okay, this is the translation that the Apostle Paul clearly quoted from. Romans 12, one says, therefore

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I urge you brethren, this is the NASB. Therefore I urge you brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

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And so that's very much wrapped in what you were talking about, kind of worship. It's weird, kind of we kind of segregate this genre of music called worship music so that when we're not doing that, we can kind of get the mindset that we're not worshiping now, but when we go into the congregation and we sing these songs, now we're worshiping.

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But this passage seems to be saying a little bit more. What do you think this passage is trying to say? Well, I think first of all, go ahead and read verse two.

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Did you read through verse two? I did not, I only have verse one here, but I think. Read verse one and then I'll quote verse two from memory.

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Read it again. Look at you, look at you, you came prepared today. All right, okay. All right, therefore

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I urge you brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

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Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the ruining of your mind. And my yees give me away.

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My yees tell you I am reading from the KJV, baby. But in any case, it's just, that's what

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I have it all memorized with. All right. But yeah, I think it further puts the exclamation point on what you're trying to draw out of this, which is to live a life of sacrifice.

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This is worship to God, at least in one respect. Right, right. And I think also it's, when we speak about Romans chapter 12, one, which is kind of present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, it has this idea of kind of your whole life being a sacrifice unto the

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Lord. And it's that living that life of sacrifice is what your true worship is, is in a very profound way, more meaningful than what we do once or twice a week when we kind of sing a song, right?

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Anyone could sing a song and call it worship, but what are you doing when the songs aren't playing, when the music isn't playing, when the guitar isn't playing?

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I think that's very important to keep in mind. Okay, so let's go to Grudem, okay?

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So in chapter 51 of his systematic theological monstrosity, the thing is ginormous.

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I actually have the updated version somewhere here. It's pretty thick, but he has a chapter, chapter 51 on worship, and he says this.

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He says, quote, The term worship is sometimes applied to all of Christian's life, all the

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Christian's life, and it is rightly said that everything in our life should be an act of worship, and everything the church does should be considered worship, for everything we do should glorify

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God. However, in this chapter, I'm not using the word in that broad sense. Rather, I'm using worship in a more specific sense to refer to the music and words that Christians direct to God in praise, together with the heart attitudes that accompany that praise, especially when

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Christians assemble together. And then he specifically defines worship in this way, and then you can comment.

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He says, worship is the activity of glorifying God in his presence with our voices and hearts.

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Do you agree, disagree, or perhaps wanna add a caveat or something like that? No, no caveat needed, because what he did in the first part of that comment is to put a parenthetical frame around everything

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I said and say, of course, all of this is true, but what I'm talking about is the corporate act of singing to God.

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Is that basically what he said? Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. And he says you're pouring out, read it again, just that part at the end.

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The definition part? Yeah, just the actual definition. Sure, worship is the activity of glorifying

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God in his presence with our voices and hearts. Yeah, yeah, and in fact, there's only one of those things that still distinguishes it from just the regular act of worship, and that's the worshiping with your mouth, singing, that sort of thing.

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But yeah, I like that. You would agree with me that there are differences. Worship is one thing that encompasses all of life, but there can be an appropriate distinction between the all of life, which is worship, and the specific act of singing within the context of the church and praise and things like that.

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Yeah, I think so. Okay, all right, cool. All right, so let's jump in, though. So we know that biblically, and we know that this is the teachings of Jesus, that theology is important, right?

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Theology is really the soil out of which everything else kind of flows out of, right? So what can you share with people or encourage people with respect to this idea of the music we sing and the type of theology that it should reflect?

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What do you see in a lot of modern music that perhaps capitalizes on that and does that faithfully, or perhaps is a little off, as we know?

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A lot of people are familiar with various songs that sound beautiful, are emotionally powerful, but really are, in some senses, heretical or borderline heretical or just straight out weird.

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Yeah, I think if you have a song that is one of those things, or you determine that that's what's happening there, then perhaps you shouldn't sing that song.

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Like, don't sing that song. But really, what concerns me about this is, so there can be bad doctrine in old songs, new songs.

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All of that is true. So in a certain sense, you have to take it case by case when it comes to songs.

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What concerns me actually more, and maybe I'm jumping ahead in the conversation here, but what actually concerns me more than here or there in the music,

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I can find something that I think is, and I'm not even 100 % sure if that's there intentionally or if it's just someone getting carried away, those kind of things.

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I'm more concerned actually with what are the doctrinal affirmations of these, in the cases of the places

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I think we have in mind now, organizations, churches, or at least big organizations that are, and labels now, recording labels, that what is the doctrinal affirmations of those places that are producing this music?

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Because in reality, what we see happening is the music is very pop, the music is very good.

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And by the way, notice, I haven't actually given you an opinion yet. I'm just setting the stage. Sure, yeah.

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The music is good. Everybody loves the music in terms of just its appeal.

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And so people listen to that, and then they go to concerts or conferences or whatever ostensibly to hear for a praise and worship night or something, again, mostly about the music.

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But then there's doctrine. To the extent that something like that is happening, my bigger concern is not actually just that there might be, not that it shouldn't concern us when there's bad doctrine, but the bigger concern is, is this a pathway to something else that is more straightforwardly a problem in a much more robust way?

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Because there's actual didactic teaching about things like that. What do you think?

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Well, I have a question. So have you found, because that's an important point that you made, it can be a gateway.

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I mean, music is, I remember when I was in fifth grade - Did I say gateway? I almost hate that I said that.

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That's a good, I think that's a good word. It kind of made me think, when I was in fifth grade, I was part of the D .A .R .E. program, kind of the just say no to drugs sort of deal.

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And I remember Officer Richie. Officer Richie, it was this Italian guy. He talked like this, like he was from Jersey or something like that.

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And he always had a red face. The image kind of pops out at me. And he'd always start every talk with the kids.

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He goes, look around. The person that you're sitting next to might be dead by the time you graduate.

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We were like in fifth grade, we're like, you know. And so he would talk about that it is very easy to succumb to peer pressure and get into drugs and things like that.

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And he often referred to marijuana or the devil's lettuce, as some people call it, as the gateway drug, right?

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Some people argue, well, it's not that bad, but it can be a gateway into more severe things.

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And so I would say that a lot of worship music can be kind of the marijuana, so to speak, the gateway drug into things that are more severe.

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So I would agree with you. We do need to be very careful. It's very funny that Pine Creek is here in the comments and hey,

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Doug, how's it going? And he actually left a comment that I agree with. Here we go, here's

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Doug. He says, I always pre -read the lyrics before singing worship songs. Now, why is

24:32

Doug singing worship songs? That might be a topic for another discussion, but good

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Christians should do this. I think that is correct. I think that if you are on a worship team or you are in charge of getting the music together,

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I think it's very important that a worship pastor should be concerned with the lyrics of the songs that they're singing.

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I mean, is there any instance in which you've seen people kind of not make that an important thing?

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I have people like, oh, it's not a big deal. Have you ever had that experience with anyone? Oh, sure, and I think there are,

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I've been in good churches where, and I say this like I'm some authority, I'm not, but I have preached in hundreds of churches when

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I was in evangelism going around. I've preached in kind of various denominations, and I've seen worship leaders, and this has been often,

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I'm gonna tell you, this has been often, that the pastor has said, hey, one of the things we wanna do is we wanna find out if you're willing to tell us what you plan on preaching on Sunday, because we want the worship leader to be able to get music that kind of supports that or compliments that, and so there have been places where I know that they think about what's being sung and even what's being sung based on what the preacher's preaching and things like that, and I think that's great.

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There have been a lot of cases where either because it's a very big church and they think they have to, it's what all the big churches do, or because they're a smaller church and the guy doing the worship or the woman doing the worship or whatever the case may be, they don't have, they don't really have time to put all the effort into sussing out the theological issues, and so as a result, whatever seems to be the popular recommended worship songs of the day, well, that's what we do, and in a certain respect, though that's not the ideal,

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I can certainly understand how that happens, and so yeah, I've seen, I think

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I've seen that happen, yeah. Okay, so here's the thing. So we know some of these popular songs that come out of Bethel, Hillsong, and we kind of all know the controversies surrounding that.

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I mean, I don't know if you saw the Hillsong documentary. Have you seen it? No, but I'm aware of the scandals. Yeah, yeah, well, the documentary was really interesting.

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My wife and I, we watched it, and it was very fascinating, but we know that out of these churches, there's some pretty bad theology.

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I remember when I was struggling finding good sermons to just listen to, because I was listening to a lot of apologetics and a lot of theology, and I was like, you know,

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I just really need to, I need to listen to a sermon, and I need to kind of allow a nice sermon to edify me, a biblical sermon, and so I asked someone, you know, do you have any suggestions?

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And, you know, they listed, and I'm an apologist, so my heresy meters go up really easy, and they gave me a list of,

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I think only one of them was Orthodox, and I know Joel Olsteen was on there. I know

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Stephen Furtick was on there, and I was like, you should listen to Stephen Furtick, and I'm just like, please, step back, because I'm about to explode.

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You know, there's some pretty bad theology that comes out of these churches, but these churches are making, and I know this is, people will differ, the music is good,

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I mean, aesthetically, the way it sounds, in terms of bringing out certain emotions that cater to that context of worship, it's almost like it has the ability to create an atmosphere that you can touch.

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It's almost like when you're done with the worship and the music stops, it almost feels like you've stepped out of the presence of God.

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It's weird, it's something you can feel. How should we navigate the power of music, even music that has maybe

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Orthodox lyrics, but comes out of these churches that really promote, I think, very detrimental doctrine?

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How should we navigate that, in your opinion? Yeah, so I don't know, but I'll give you what I think are some important things to keep in mind as you make a decision about this.

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I have really gone back and forth, even just today, thinking about this issue. So, as I've told you, the organizations themselves and their affirmations are my biggest concern.

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Those are the things that I'm most worried about, because the didactic teaching is obviously straightforward, will be more clear to the person, even if it's false.

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On the other hand, music is powerful in and of itself, because you can change a culture with things like their entertainment, their music, their cultural stories that they tell.

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We talked a little bit about that with Star Wars as like a cultural myth that our culture tells itself.

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So I'm more concerned about the organization than I am the, but if you find a particular song that's problematic,

29:15

I think that's, obviously, yeah, if that's not salvageable. I think I remember Mike Winger saying about reckless love.

29:21

He said, so yeah, reckless doesn't work, but he said, at the time, he said, you could say selfless love or something like that.

29:27

He said, you make up your own mind. So, I can't say whether a person shouldn't do that, but there's two concerns that I think we should think about specifically.

29:36

If you determine that the theology there is bad, like you kind of just suggested, and then

29:43

I think that one thing to consider is in buying the music or in enjoying the music, even in church, and that church is giving, is in some way indirectly from your perspective, funding this organization or these organizations that if they are teaching false doctrine, you're in some way indirectly making that a bigger organization that's able to, in a more effective way, teach false doctrine.

30:07

Yeah. Okay. So, well, okay, so let's give some pushback, because I know someone who's standing there is like, listen,

30:13

I used to - Well, by the way, I don't mean to cut you off on your own show, but I did want to get this out. I am in a minute going to give what

30:19

I think is the best reason on the other side, perhaps not to suddenly pull the plug on all this.

30:27

But go ahead, what were you going to say? Well, I know that there are people who say, listen, I have seen

30:32

God move when singing these songs and these sorts of things, and someone could make the argument, well, wait a minute, okay?

30:40

So we shouldn't purchase these songs and use these songs because it's kind of like we are providing financial resources to these churches who are promoting all sorts of terrible doctrine, okay?

30:49

I get it. But what happens when you buy sneakers or when you buy some clothing line that has been using sweatshop workers, right?

30:58

You're indirectly supporting all sorts of things when your money goes to other things. So like, look, so hypocritical, at least in this instance, this music is actually edifying people and God is using it, right?

31:10

We've often heard people say that God can strike a blow with a crooked stick. So, okay, the church is a little off, but who's got perfect theology?

31:17

The music is a powerful tool. How would you speak into somebody who's coming from that perspective? Well, I might agree.

31:24

I mean, it depends on the severity of the doctrinal issue, right? You know, if like, let's just go to an extreme.

31:33

Let's imagine that a church was teaching Mormon theology, but they wrote songs that theologically were almost perfectly acceptable to most

31:44

Christians, or maybe they're a oneness church or a Unitarian type church in that respect, and they're not

31:52

Trinitarian, but they write music that in all every other respect is incredibly wonderful. Like, is there a line at which you would say, okay, well, because I understand that you don't wanna cut off your nose to spite your face sort of thing, but I do feel like there is a categorical difference between where I buy or what kind of bread

32:10

I buy and who makes it, right, you know, to feed my family, versus who is providing the worship that my church is gonna use to give me a sort of a recitation to say to God in an act of worship, and then what are they doing with the funds

32:30

I gave them to give me that? Sure. It seems a bit more direct in a way that you can't easily, like, and it wouldn't be even that hard.

32:39

Well, that would go into the second point I wanna make that's actually in favor of it, but at least in a practical sense and taking sentimentality out of it, it's not like they're the only people making worship music.

32:50

You could get worship music from more reliable places, right? It's not like that's not there. Well, right here, I had a conversation with someone, and I won't mention the person's name, but they were like, listen, you can get music other places, but let's be honest, the music's kind of whack.

33:03

It's like, not all of them, but a lot of theologically sound music is just not that good, right?

33:13

And so you have this kind of conundrum that if you want the good sounding music, you gotta go with the heretics.

33:20

If you want the theologically sound hymns, you gotta go with the out of date, 20 years behind style of music.

33:27

Now, I know that's not true. No, it does feel that way. I mean, like I'll tell you,

33:33

I can worship God. I think because of being in so many different churches, I've kind of, and I'm not saying this to sound pious, please,

33:40

I have a lot of shallow issues, but in this respect, I've kind of developed the ability to worship God wherever I'm at because I had to, if I was gonna worship

33:47

God because I was on the road at a different church every week. So if they were singing a 1990s youth group type song, like -

33:54

Like what? Can you give us an example of a 1990s youth group song? Shelter.

34:00

What's the one about the shelter? My refuge, my shelter. There's the Heart of Worship. That was one we sang a lot.

34:07

I'm coming back to the Heart of Worship. Remember that? Shout to the Lord. Shout to the Lord. That's the one. That's right.

34:13

Shout to the Lord. See, if they're singing something like that, I can get into it, man. I can still -

34:18

Why don't you sing a verse? Well, shout to the Lord. I don't know a verse. Is that the one?

34:24

My Jesus, my - No, I'm not gonna sing it. But, if you look hard enough, you might be able to find something like that online.

34:31

I'll just say that. My wife just popped in. She goes, I know the hand motions of the song, so you can sing it. You can have my wife dance in the background.

34:38

It'll be - If she'll do the hand motions, I'll sing it. Hey, she's right here. I can call her. Oh, no, I retract.

34:43

I retract. I retract. So, but I can worship God singing that. I can worship

34:48

God singing a hymn. In fact, I find it really powerful when, in modern worship, they put a hymn.

34:54

But I also find it powerful sometimes in hymn -only type worship, they put in a powerful newer song.

35:00

Because I don't buy this, honestly. Frankly, I hear this all the time and I don't see it. I don't necessarily buy this idea that newer songs just ontologically can't have good theology.

35:12

They absolutely can. And there are examples. And there are examples. I don't have any on me, so don't ask for them. But I've seen examples of bad theology in older hymn -type music.

35:21

So it can happen both ways. But now I've forgotten the original question that we started with.

35:27

It's all right. This is a perfect opportunity for me to speak to the audience for 10 seconds to remind them that, as with all my guests, they are always so wonderful to...

35:36

Actually, I didn't ask you, but I'm sure you're fine. They always are open to taking questions at the backend.

35:43

So if you have any questions, and there are already a few questions in the comments, if you have a question, be sure to preface your question with question so that I can differentiate them from the comments.

35:52

So I know this is a super interesting topic and there are a lot of questions related to this topic that have great practical importance.

36:00

So if you wanna kind of put them in and at the backend, I will go through them and we'll see if we can get through as many as possible.

36:07

Once again, if you're enjoying this discussion, be sure to like this video and share it and check out the podcast too.

36:14

So this will actually go up on the Revealed Apologetics podcast on iTunes. So you can kind of listen to it.

36:19

I know there are folks who watch the YouTube channel, others who listen through iTunes. So you can do that.

36:26

All right, well, here's my next question. And it is really related to...

36:31

How can I phrase this question here? There are a lot of people, and you could agree that today, we live in a time where a lot of people, a lot of believers are educated theologically, primarily through music.

36:50

So that most of the theology that people are getting are coming from the music. Why don't you speak into that?

36:56

What are the dangers of that? What are some of the things that we can do to kind of navigate that and kind of use discernment with respect to how much we put into music in terms of allowing the word of God to get into us?

37:09

So you can study the word, other people not studying it as much, but they're kind of getting their theology from music.

37:14

Their perception of Jesus comes from these songs that sound like love songs and things like that.

37:19

How can you speak into people who are coming from that perspective? So first of all, I think

37:26

I know what you're getting at, but let me say this in the meantime, because I am gonna present something that I think is a positive reason in a minute, maybe not to keep some of these things for now, unless they're obviously heretical in some way.

37:43

But, sorry, ask the question again. What was it exactly you asked me? No worries. Oh, someone who is enjoying this and they're getting most of their theology from music.

37:54

I would say to someone like that, first of all, don't do that. Even if it doesn't come naturally to you right now, find a good preacher that people you trust around you, people like Eli will recommend, and would say, yeah, that's a good guy, or that's a good person you can trust.

38:12

They're giving you sound doctrine. Really rely heavily. Faith is the, Christianity, we think about things corporately.

38:20

We think about helping brothers and sisters. We think about holding each other accountable, lifting each other up and being one body together.

38:29

And so in that regard, lean on those people when you're young in theology, even if you've been a

38:34

Christian for a long time, you've never grown, lean on those older brothers and sisters who are ahead of you and really learn and find someone.

38:41

And even if it's work a little bit, remember, this is part of what worship is. It's sacrifice, sacrificing your time, sacrificing what's comfortable to you to push a little harder, to understand what

38:50

God wants us to do. In 2 Peter 1, he tells us, there's like eight or nine times in 2

38:56

Peter 1 where he tells them that they're to grow in knowledge. And so the knowledge of the

39:02

Lord Jesus Christ. So make sure that that is happening. Music is great for supporting that.

39:09

And even for capturing certain things in an impressionistic sort of way, but we want the direct teaching to come from the word of God and we want it to be theologically sound.

39:19

Now, as for the music itself, I would also want to say this. If you're a person who is in that state with particular songs that you find, even if your church sings songs by these groups,

39:32

Hillsong, Bethel or whatever, Elevation Church, whatever it is, just if there's a song you like and you find yourself singing it at home or whatever, hey, run that by someone you trust.

39:44

Even if it's at your church, if you're not sure, ask someone. Ask someone that you do trust and say, can you read this and tell me, is there anything here that you're seeing that's a problem with this song?

39:53

Because worship songs are different in one respect than just pop songs on the radio.

39:59

Worship songs are songs people use for something. And it's not just entertainment. They use it to create that situation where they're in the right mindset to study from God or to hear from God.

40:11

There's a lot going on there that's more than just listening to a song about two people in love. So I think that's a good thing.

40:18

And even if your church continues to use it, use those songs you like to find out what is the theology of this and is it safe for me?

40:27

So, okay, so why can't we speak to people who maybe they're into music and they create music?

40:34

So you have this idea of creativity, right? There's the balance of creativity and there's the temptation to function in that space to reflect what's already out there.

40:45

How do we navigate creative license as a musician, as a singer and the unchanging truths of the gospel?

40:54

How do we balance the desire to be creative and innovative while holding true to kind of these unchangeable truths that are so foundational to the

41:02

Christian faith? Because I know there are people who like, hey, listen, we get it. Theology has to be solid, but a lot of these songs they're really setting the standard for a lot of people and they are doing things that weren't done before in the same way.

41:15

So sometimes people will kind of look at these as kind of great examples of creativity and innovation and so they try to push the envelope in doing things that people have never done before in that way.

41:25

How would someone navigate unchanging truths of the gospel and new and innovative ways to couch those unchanging truths within the dress of music or songs or whatever the case?

41:39

I just think you can innovate musically, don't innovate theologically. I mean, you basically said it in the question,

41:47

I think, is that you hold fast to those Orthodox teachings that the history of the church has stood on.

41:55

And whatever your secondary doctrinal background is, you can hold fast to those things.

42:03

Just don't innovate theologically, innovate musically. And when you're innovating musically, like one of the reasons that I think it is true, there's an atheist that you and I know who he is,

42:14

Matt Dillahunty, who I've debated. And Matt Dillahunty said, well, this whole worship idea,

42:20

I can get the same feelings at a concert or doing drugs or whatever thing that you...

42:26

Okay, well, first of all, I don't think you're experiencing exactly the same thing as worship, but to the extent that these things are similar,

42:32

I think that God has designed our brains to worship and you can use that brain that God designed to worship to worship the wrong things.

42:39

In fact, I don't know why Matt Dillahunty thinks that's surprising when ancient Israel did that over and over and over again.

42:45

They used this gift of worship to worship the wrong things. And so I just think that when we do worship, we should recognize that there are goods in the creativity of unbelievers in terms of style out there.

43:03

Everything that is good, I mean, the beautiful music, the creativity that goes into it behind a

43:09

John Williams movie score. I mean, come on. I can look at that and say, no,

43:15

I don't even wanna say it's subjective. There is something objectively good going on.

43:20

You're gonna be playing the Star Wars theme song in heaven. Like it's... I got it, yeah. And you know what?

43:26

It springs forth from the creativity that God put into man that can be used for good or evil. And so I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a style that's popular right now.

43:36

There's a guy here where I live who's pretty fundamentalist in not the best ways. And he told me a few years ago that, yeah, basically, cause

43:45

I said, you know, the songs that you like, they were popular and new at one time. And he said, yeah, basically a song needs to be about 45 years old before we start using it because then it's not popular and we're not trying to be like the world anymore.

43:55

I'm thinking, no, you are. You're just trying to be like the world 40 years ago. I mean, you know, so I think that there's nothing wrong with that.

44:03

The message has to be right. I mean, I'll tell you even with all this stuff going on and all the deconversions, deconstructions and all of that.

44:10

And then the guy from Skillet, John Cooper, I think is his name. And he got in trouble for speaking out against deconstruction as forcefully as he did and using spiritual warfare language that's couched in the

44:22

New Testament. And I'll tell you, I've really started, there may be something else about him that I don't know, but from what

44:28

I know right now, I'm really appreciating him. And his music is not really the type of music I typically like. It's way heavier than what

44:34

I would listen to. But what he's saying is what our young people need to hear and what speaks to my heart.

44:40

And I don't care if people think that sounds cool or not. That's how I feel about it. Sorry, I didn't mean to get on a soapbox.

44:48

No, no. Something about your channel makes me wanna preach. All right, well, that's okay.

44:55

I have you on here. This is, you can get on a soapbox. That's why I have you on. So, okay, so here's an interesting thing.

45:00

So when I think of a lot of modern worship music, the ones that sound decent,

45:05

I know that a lot of men tend to have difficulty worshiping to some of these songs because maybe you noticed this.

45:12

Is it just me? Or do a lot of these new songs coming out of the elevations and the

45:18

Bethel, they sound very feminine. It's boyfriend

45:24

Jesus music. That's what people call it. What was it? Say that again? Boyfriend Jesus music. Yeah, yeah.

45:29

It feels like there's a lot. So a lot of women, if we had this conversation with some women, they'd be like, listen, you don't understand.

45:35

That's what speaks to my soul. But to a dude, I mean, a guy is just like, there's a song that's talking about dancing with Jesus and the guy's like brolic with tattoos on it, and God saved him from drugs or gang life.

45:46

And now he's here worshiping to a dixie chicks or something. And having heart palpitations and sweating while dancing with Jesus.

45:54

I mean, this is what's in the lyrics. I mean, this certainly sounds like romantic love, physical romantic love, right?

46:04

Yeah. I mean, I guess there's a certain respect in which what speaks to your heart there is subjective given your personal experiences.

46:15

But I don't think it's appropriate to speak about God as you would, let's face it, what we're saying is like a sexual partner.

46:25

I just, I think we ought to ditch that. But then I could call something boyfriend

46:31

Jesus music that isn't boyfriend Jesus music to somebody else. So yeah, I don't know. Sure. It is tough, but I will tell you this, and I've been wanting to say this as I keep forgetting to say it is,

46:41

I used to walk in the mornings, I need to get back to that. But, and to finish my walk, I would spend about 30 minutes praying and listening to praise music and kind of singing out loud, frankly.

46:53

And it was great. And I'll remember that one of the first times I heard So Will I, the song So Will I, I think it's

46:59

Hillsong song. And the lyrics and about the creation of the universe and all this stuff was just so powerful.

47:07

I had a real hard time. You know how you mentioned that feeling that just kind of comes on you, which some people might say, well, that's just dopamine or you're just getting hopped up on whatever, you know.

47:20

But when I've preached Eli, and I wonder if you've had this experience, oftentimes after I've preached,

47:26

I've felt that same feeling. And I didn't even want to like turn on the TV when

47:32

I got back to a hotel room or back to my house because I didn't want to disturb that sweet like presence that I felt, you know.

47:40

And I know that sounds really bizarre to people who aren't Christians who might be watching, but that's the experience.

47:47

And I've had that with So Will I. Now that may have had more to do with what my, you know, my situation before God than the song that I was listening to.

47:55

But that's just to say, I understand how powerful it can be. The sound of the music and the lyrics activated something in you that is closely connected with your relationship with God.

48:07

I think that's a good way to say it, yeah. Yeah. Now, let me, is it okay with you if I tell people what it is that I think actually might give us pause about just saying, no, no, no, we need to shut down with all this stuff and churches don't need to use it.

48:23

Okay, go for it. Yeah, cause I've been holding that like a carrot out there and I felt like I should say it. If you say anything that's off,

48:29

I'll just go back and edit it later and apologize. Yeah, that's fine too. You could do that. For these people that are listening now, it's too late.

48:35

It's too late. But you know, here's the thing. I don't wanna give like a consequentialist type of, well,

48:43

I'll say it this way. There are a lot of people to whom these songs that have already been released are very, very meaningful.

48:54

One thing I wanted to say is, regardless of what you think about these organizations, if you find out that someone is even attending one of these churches or listens to this music regularly, don't think that means you can't just assume that they have the same theological issues that the creators of that content have.

49:13

Because after all, we are here talking about this because many Christians in America of various denominations are listening to this stuff.

49:22

Precisely because of that, we gotta be very careful not to unnecessarily put a stumbling block in front of people.

49:30

There are some people that if they found out that some of this music that is very important to them wasn't there anymore, well, it doesn't mean that they would walk away from Christianity, but it could really hinder them and create spiritual hurdles and perhaps guilt and things like that at an unnecessary time.

49:52

In a moment where there's so much division in the church and unity is needed, I am right now live with you still trying to work through exactly what is the right answer to this.

50:02

Because unless we can see what is absolute heresy and not just a secondary doctrinal issue that we might disagree with.

50:10

Sure. Like I might write a song that was different as it relates to Calvinism or something, right?

50:16

But - I would love you to write a song called Tulips. Yeah, you can write a song called

50:22

Tulips. That'd be good. But seriously, we gotta consider the fact that we're not to put stumbling blocks in front of people.

50:34

So while I think that in my opinion, the greatest thing in favor of this is that in supporting it financially, we are indirectly funding organizations that are preaching false doctrine.

50:47

And I realize that we have to cut off our nose to spite our face when it comes to all of our other goods that we live with.

50:55

But when it comes to worship, I think there's something specific and more direct going on there that I think we should pay attention to.

51:01

But on the other hand, the thing that I think needs to give us pause is we are talking about a lot of people who may well decide,

51:10

I guess I can't attend this church anymore because they saw us talking about it and took seriously what we're saying here.

51:17

So I don't think that we should compromise, but the question

51:23

I think we should ask ourselves and you have to ask yourself as a viewer is given this information and given the things that we're discussing here, is it compromise to continue going to a church that has those songs?

51:35

Is it compromise for someone to listen to that and incorporate it as a part of their worship? And are there any songs from those groups that they can because they don't have problematic theology?

51:46

In one sense, I'm just restating the problem right back that we've been discussing, but I'm restating it back with the understanding that this has immediate kingdom implications and we just have to be more wise than,

52:02

I don't know, too knee jerk about this. And so I think there's reason to be cautious about it.

52:08

Yeah. So I know you said something about the importance of unity, but definitely you're not referring to unity at the expense of orthodoxy, right?

52:17

Right, that's right. There are issues that are worth dividing over. So if someone is concerned about this, which a young person approached me just a couple of weeks ago and said, hey, listen,

52:28

I think, and he's a new believer, he's solid, he's being discipled and stuff. He goes, you know what?

52:33

I don't know if I can continue going to this church because of this music thing. I mean, in his discipleship, in his personal studies, he's listening to sermons that are very gospel -centered, biblically based.

52:45

And then he's listening to music that he's hearing and saying, this doesn't seem right. Like, should I talk to the pastor about this?

52:51

Is it gonna cause unnecessary division? I mean, should I leave the church if this is convicting me?

52:58

And if I answer yes, if it's convicting you, go somewhere that, if it's that serious, then is it something we should address?

53:06

Like, hey, pastor, we should be more wise when we, you know, maybe the pastor doesn't know that some of these songs are connected to these churches that promote these false doctrines and things like that.

53:18

How do we navigate that? Because it seems like, on the one hand, we could say, well, we don't wanna cause division, but someone can make a very good argument that, well, given the theology that's coming out of the churches that produce the songs, we need division from that.

53:31

That warrants an appropriate dividing line because we're talking about worship.

53:37

We're talking about leading people before the presence of God. And when they see the name of the song and where it comes from, and people say, hey, man, that was a great song.

53:47

Now we're actually, that's the gateway. Don't we have a responsibility to really come down hard on that, even though it goes against the, you know, the fact that these songs are popular, that a lot of people have been impacted by the songs.

53:59

How do we navigate that? How serious should we be taking this? So my opinion on this, and this is tough waters where we're feeling our way through, but my opinion on that is, yes, we, you know, if there's an organization and an organization that is not doctrinally sound, you should not affirm that organization.

54:20

I agree with that. And the whole discussion here, of course, so yeah, we should not have unity with people that are teaching things that are not

54:27

Orthodox Christianity, right? And if any one of these songs, you know, was teaching something like the

54:35

Trinity is false or any, you know, these central fundamental truths of the Christian faith, then there's not even a question, right?

54:42

That's done, that's out. What I'm talking about is, since this music has so permeated the church and there are so many people there, and I've told you my concern,

54:51

I have a serious concern about this, and that is the funding of this thing. And so that's very concerning.

54:59

I think talk to your pastor about it. Talk to your pastor and see, because, you know, in seminary,

55:05

I don't know about you, Eli, but in seminary, I had to study a theology of worship. I mean, think about what the, you were just reading from the systematic theologian a moment ago about worship.

55:15

And that's why he and I gave pretty much the same answers because you learn all that, right? In seminary and stuff.

55:20

And so pastors should be prepared to talk about what they think about the worship and the worship leadership.

55:26

Now they won't all be, but they should be. So it's not your fault if you ask them and they don't have thoughts about this, that's on them.

55:32

And so it's perfectly fine for you to ask them and talk to them about this and get their opinion.

55:39

Now, it's a little bit ambiguous because we're talking about, in a certain sense, songs that aren't in front of us right now to go through line by line.

55:50

That's one side of it. And organizations that the three of them aren't exactly the same, right, of the ones we've discussed.

55:58

All of that, so we're kind of speaking in generalities. And so generally speaking, I think the biggest argument against this is the issue that, you know, the biggest argument to do away with it is because you're funding it.

56:10

The biggest argument to not do anything too hasty, necessarily, but follow your convictions is to say this has permeated our churches to such a degree that we need to understand that it's going to cause a lot of division, even among Christians who have nothing to do with those churches.

56:30

And all I'm saying is before you make that decision as a pastor or whatever, or as an individual looking at what church to go to, count the cost of it and ask yourself, is it compromise?

56:43

Is it compromise? If it's compromise, well, I think you can't do it. But if it's not compromise, that's a different question.

56:50

It could just be that it's just not our favorite kind of music or our favorite genre or something like that.

57:00

I don't know, we gotta be honest with ourselves. Sure, sure. All right, thank you for that. Now, my last question, and before we get to some of the questions, there are quite a few of them.

57:08

What do you think about contemporary worship versus the more liturgical kinds of churches that do sing the kind of the quote -unquote old stuff?

57:16

Now, I know that the old stuff used to be new stuff back in the day, and now it's old stuff, but we tend to think of Orthodox music as the older stuff, which is not always the case either.

57:25

But is there a value over the more contemporary context, going back to the more old -school way of doing things in terms of the more liturgical context of kind of the old -fashioned sort of churches that follow that more structure of everyone singing the hymns together, and it's more structured and contained as opposed to a lot of these free -flowing, uncontained, sometimes questionable theology worship experiences?

57:53

How would you compare the two? Well, I think there's two questions there, right? So there's the question of older, established music versus new, modern music, and then at the end, you mentioned questionable theology.

58:10

Now, that kind of puts a different, because there's, you know, I mean, those are two separate questions,

58:15

I think. Bad theology is bad theology. We don't want it in our old hymns. We don't want it in our new music, if we can help it.

58:22

Older stuff, now, there is a case to be made. Now, I don't think there's anything you can say, thus saith the Lord here about that, about your favorite genre of music, but what

58:30

I think we can say about it is there are positive cases to be made in both directions, okay, and so I think the best of both worlds.

58:41

Why not use a little of both? Something that reflects the culture in which you live musically and something that reflects the past.

58:47

Now, the value of the past and having hymns as you no doubt know, and many people will be quick to point out, is, okay, if the theology's better, then the theology's better.

58:57

I'm not necessarily sure about that, but let's just say the theology's better. Okay, that's a point in favor of it, but a point in favor of it would be there's something that becomes a familial thing that we pass on from generation to generation that we continue, that kind of binds me to my grandfather, that we both sang this same song, this same worshipful song to God out of a book, very much like the one

59:22

I'm holding right now, you know, the same kind of hymnal, and we sang this same song. My grandfather sang these same words, or my grandmother.

59:28

You know, there's something to that. I think it's the faith of the fathers sort of thing being passed down, and I can appreciate that.

59:35

On the other hand, to the extent that, I'm not even gonna make the case because I don't really know if I buy it, but where people feel like there was, that some,

59:46

I shouldn't say, I'm just gonna leave it at that, because I feel like what I'm about to say next, I need to let ruminate a little bit before I say it.

59:54

So I'll just leave it there. There is a positive case for hymns that if the theology's better, and that there's a string like that of connectivity from your past family members and heroes of the faith in the past.

01:00:07

I guess one could say this, if someone experienced trauma or was in a denomination that was, that didn't treat them right, or didn't represent

01:00:18

Christ well, and they associate certain songs with those churches, perhaps newer music or different music allows them to start over.

01:00:27

I think sometimes, and I don't wanna be unfair to people who have experienced that, but I think sometimes that can be, that can be exaggerated.

01:00:35

But to the extent that that's a real thing, you know, there's a book from a long time ago, about 20 years ago, called

01:00:40

Worship Evangelism by Sally Morgenthaler. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but it talks about how, you know, after the boomers generation, people brought in, people in the nineties, let's say, started trying to attract the boomer generation and the current generation by going into movie theaters and making atmospheres that didn't look like traditional churches and no stained glass window and all those kinds of things.

01:01:05

And that did seem to attract some people, but overwhelmingly what it seems like, according to Sally Morgenthaler's book, is that even those boomers who left church because they got hurt in church or something, they found something comforting about the trappings of a place of worship that were most typically associated with traditional churches.

01:01:27

Sure. Okay. Well, thank you for that. Well, I hope everyone's been enjoying this discussion. We're now gonna transition to taking some questions and hopefully the questions are somewhat on topic, but we'll see what's what.

01:01:40

Okay. So Martin Luther, of course, not the Martin Luther that we're all thinking about. Oh, okay.

01:01:45

So it's a pre -sup question. All right. Not on topic, but we'll kind of go through this quick. And if you wanna hear more stuff on pre -sup, then definitely join me when we have that pre -sup round table because you won't just get answers from me, you'll get answers from a bunch of other people.

01:01:59

Maybe that'll give you a kind of a fuller understanding, but just real quick. So Martin Luther says, I've heard some pre -sup people say that if the argument for the

01:02:06

Christian God is not definitive, rather than a probabilistic argument, it will leave the unbeliever with an excuse.

01:02:12

Is that true? Well, there are a couple of things that need to be teased out here. As a presuppositionalist, I have no problem using probabilistic arguments and appealing to evidence.

01:02:21

The presuppositionalist believes that everything is evidence for God. And so everything encapsulates the concept of probability.

01:02:29

So probabilistic arguments, we would argue, have to presuppose the reality of the triune God and his revelation anyway.

01:02:35

Now, how do we tease that out? I won't tease that out here because that would require some time, but I would argue, and of course

01:02:42

Braxton and I have talked about methodological issues here and we're not gonna debate it here, but I would, to close this question off,

01:02:50

I would echo the words of Dr. Scott Oliphant, who is a professor there at Westminster Theological Seminary. He said that presuppositionalists are eminently evidentialist in that we think that everything is evidence for God.

01:03:01

And we could argue in that way, presuppositionally, and it would be no different even if I appeal to probability arguments,

01:03:08

I would argue they have to presuppose God for their intelligibility and cogency to begin with. So I'll leave it at that.

01:03:14

Hope that's useful and helpful. Let's move on. Thank you so much, Martin Luther, for your question.

01:03:20

All right, so Arthur Bear asked the question, if a church is biblically sound, is it okay if they use worship music from Hillsong, Elevation, and Bethel considering the known strange, false teachings from those churches?

01:03:32

So we kind of covered that, but why don't you just kind of briefly address that question here and now? So in summary, currently,

01:03:40

I'm just going to say, Eli, you can, don't feel like, you know, I mean,

01:03:45

I know you know you can disagree with me about this and it's your show. So don't feel like you have to do a different episode and talk about this.

01:03:52

You can say if you disagree with me, but all I feel comfortable right now saying is, listen, the fact of the matter is that that's a decision

01:04:03

I think you're going to have to make under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and see how God leads you about that.

01:04:09

Unless what is being sung is obvious heresy or something like that, then talk to your pastor about this.

01:04:19

Just the, now the fact that it is from these organizations, I have concerns about that too.

01:04:24

I'm telling you, I have concerns about that. I'm just not yet to the level where I think that I can tell people to quit going to a church just because they're doing that music.

01:04:37

I would agree. I also think it's very important that we don't respond in extreme ways.

01:04:43

So like, you know, you listen to a Justin Peters, you know, video. I know Justin Peters often speaks out against a lot of these sorts of things.

01:04:50

And I really appreciate the stuff he has to say. I'm not disagreeing with him. I agree with a lot of what he says on this topic. But you don't, you know, and you listen to a

01:04:57

John MacArthur sermon and you're like, oh my goodness, you know, we got to fight against this. And you just run into your pastor's office and you make a big mess.

01:05:03

You have to understand that music is something that is very embedded in the culture of a church. And so sometimes it takes a strategy and love and patience in kind of helping the church shift in a direction that is more in line with scripture.

01:05:18

If the issue is that these songs are not in line with scripture or they're singing songs associated with, you know, churches that we would find questionable.

01:05:25

So I think we should take a very patient and loving approach, but at the same time, an uncompromising approach and making sure that we are speaking with the pastor.

01:05:35

Now here's the defense of the pastors. Pastors are aware of the theology of worship, but that doesn't mean your pastor is automatically savvy to the, about the churches of which every song your worship leader is singing on Sunday.

01:05:48

So you gotta, you don't condemn your pastor right away. I mean, he's got a lot on his plate, okay? You know,

01:05:53

I've worked in ministry before, you know, pastors aren't sitting in their offices twiddling their thumbs. There's a lot going on in the ministry of a pastor.

01:06:00

So he might not be aware. However, I think these issues are important enough that they weren't bringing it up to him and working together to make the necessary changes in a way that respects the congregation, respects the fact that people are at different levels and that this might require a little time to shift into instead of just doing a complete overhaul right away and starting a revolution and creating division unnecessarily.

01:06:27

Now I say that on purpose, because I do believe division needs to be created in certain contexts, but you wanna be careful how you go about that.

01:06:33

I hope that makes sense and answers your question there. I'm gonna put this here.

01:06:39

It might be a kind of the same question. If it is, we'll move on. But Kayla Henderson says, what should a person do if their church is sometimes singing modern worship songs with problematic lyrics?

01:06:48

Okay, the pastors are already aware. Some of us are concerned with lyrics. Well, again, so if pastors are aware,

01:06:54

I mean, yeah, that should be a conversation that should be had. I mean, do you agree with that? Yeah, and in fact,

01:07:01

I'll tell you, again, follow your conviction here.

01:07:07

I don't wanna tell you different than how God would lead, but I'll tell you what I have told.

01:07:13

I'll tell you, you're a Calvinist. I'm not a Calvinist. We've already said that. But I have had people call me over the years or message me on Facebook who

01:07:23

I don't even know and say, hey, you preached at my church years ago, blah, blah, blah. I trust your opinion.

01:07:30

I'm not a Calvinist, but we just got a new pastor and he's a

01:07:35

Calvinist. And we disagree on this and it's an issue. And should

01:07:41

I say at this church or should I leave? And what I always tell them is, I don't see any reason you should leave your church unless,

01:07:47

I mean, I could worship in a church with you, Eli. I personally think it's silly that people can't worship together like that.

01:07:54

But in any case, no one's required to agree with me about that. But I've told them where you should leave the church is if it's such an issue for you that you're gonna cause a problem over it that isn't necessary.

01:08:07

And in fact, there are issues that there might be issues. I don't think I would or somebody like you would, but there are issues that Christians will be so passionate about that is a secondary matter and they can't stop causing problems.

01:08:25

And it's not even coming from a bad place. It's coming from a love for the Bible and for theology and all those kinds of things.

01:08:31

Now, it may be that the things in some of the songs that we're talking about aren't a secondary matter. And if they're not a secondary matter, don't sing those songs.

01:08:37

But the use of songs from churches that are questionable seems to be what we could call a secondary matter right now.

01:08:45

That is churches that would all affirm each other or brothers and sisters might disagree about using that.

01:08:51

So I think if you're gonna divide the church over it, then that might be something to consider, finding another church where you can worship in unity.

01:09:01

Right, and I just wanna highlight the fact that you said, when you say secondary matter, to say something that is a secondary matter is not to say that it's unimportant.

01:09:08

Oh, that's good point, Eli. But at the same time, secondary matters are secondary matters. So there's a specific context and a specific way that we address those as opposed to say matters that are more of more primary importance.

01:09:20

All right, Kayla Henderson has another question here. Would you be worried about raising your kids in a church where music from bad ministries is sang?

01:09:27

What if this leads to kids doubting everything about God if we compromise on this? What do you think about that,

01:09:32

Braxton? If you feel like you're compromising, then don't compromise. This is, again,

01:09:38

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I'll tell you, for me, where the line would be crossed for me with my kids in worship is if they say things that deny the gospel or deny one of what almost anyone would consider the fundamentals of the faith, things like the death, burial, and bodily resurrection, the virgin birth, the

01:10:00

Trinitarian nature of God, all these kind of things. If they aren't,

01:10:07

I mean, these are the unequivocables, things like that. And so, yeah,

01:10:13

I think on these other things, I think there's grace. I may have lost where the question is again. I'm sorry, it's getting late.

01:10:20

No worries, no worries. Oh, raising kids. So with my kids, I don't worry about that because here's why,

01:10:26

Eli. I teach my kids theology at home. I teach them Bible at home. We do devotions.

01:10:32

I want them to know what their daddy thinks about what the word of God teaches and why he believes it and why he thinks it's true.

01:10:40

And the great men and women who've gone before me who have taught those things and how it connects and where it's taught in the Bible. That's what

01:10:45

I wanna do. So when my kids, if they hear something that supports, let's say, baptismal regeneration, the idea that water baptism is necessary for salvation, something that I absolutely do not affirm.

01:11:00

But if that something that seemed to imply that was in a song, it wouldn't be the end of the world for me because I know that I'm gonna have a conversation about that song with my kid later and we talk about this stuff all the time.

01:11:11

I understand that not everyone is a seminarian or anybody feels that they know these things well enough to talk about them, but you can still endeavor to do that at home and I think that's important.

01:11:23

All right, thank you. Kayla strikes again. I'm going in order. So she kind of has a couple of them here. I think it's a good question.

01:11:28

So is it better to go to a theologically excellent church with no children's program at all or a church with Bible teaching and ministry, but bad music and she has there the sinner's prayer.

01:11:38

And I think it's the idea that, it's kind of the casual idea that if I say a prayer, that means I'm saved. And I know that from our different perspectives,

01:11:45

I think we both agree that you're not saved by simply uttering words there. So we don't have that issue, but how would you speak to that?

01:11:53

Well, believe it or not, this is something that I'm considering right now.

01:11:58

And I'll tell you why, because the church I go to is very doctrinally sound, but actually both of my kids are wanting to one night a week go to a different church that is a different denomination that believes differently than I teach my kids on at least a couple of important secondary issues.

01:12:22

Is it a Calvinist church? It's not a Calvinist church. And so I'm trying to make that decision, but I have so far let them go to this other church.

01:12:35

Now what they're teaching again is Orthodox Christianity, don't get me wrong, but on secondary matters, they differ from me.

01:12:42

And I have so far been okay with that for the same reason I just gave before. I am teaching my kids the truth so that when they encounter a counterfeit, they know it.

01:12:52

Okay, all right, thank you for that. Philip Waddell, I hope

01:12:58

I said that right. Do you have trouble pronouncing people's name on your show, Braxton? I do,

01:13:03

I just go with it. Okay, just go with it. It sounds like I'm speaking in tongues. That's another video. Anyway, how does the psychology of music and the idea that a certain musical construction produces a certain emotion relate to the psychology of worship?

01:13:17

How does one navigate emotionalism in music? That's an excellent question, Philip. Thank you so much. Well, I mean, a part of how

01:13:25

God made us is we are emotional creatures. And so while I think that some Christians emphasize the emotional side of things far too much, and some

01:13:33

Christians emphasize the intellectual and doctrinal side of things to the exclusion of emotional connection to God in our relationship with Him and in our worship,

01:13:44

I think He created us with both of those capacities. And I think that they're both important and there's room for the expression of both.

01:13:51

But I think that the commenter makes a good point in his question, and that is that we should have a balance and we should be aware that emotion can move.

01:14:01

I'll tell you, it's funny, because I just had someone spoke at our church recently, it's a friend of mine, just this past Sunday, and he was talking about how people can use emotion to convince you of things without giving you reason to believe those things.

01:14:17

And this person played a commercial from a car company, it was a Chevy commercial. And it was so perfect for this because the car wasn't in the commercial maybe like two seconds out of the whole minute long commercial.

01:14:32

And you never saw like the full car, but you saw a golden retriever and a guy hugging the golden retriever and a little girl sitting in front of the fire with her daddy and all that.

01:14:42

And it's a Chevy commercial. You didn't tell me anything about the car. What you should have done is give me a reason to think

01:14:48

I should buy this car. You didn't do that. And what you did was you sold me Americana, you sold me a father and daughter, you sold me a golden retriever.

01:14:57

And now when I think about Chevy, I have those warm feelings, at least that's what they want to be the case. So I think we just keep those things in balance and be aware of that.

01:15:07

Now, it is interesting that there has been some neuroscience that has indicated that when people are in a state of worship like that, in a corporate worship service, there are demonstrably unique things happening in their brain.

01:15:21

The naturalist wants to say about stuff like that. Well, see, that just means this is completely naturalistic.

01:15:27

And I say, no, it just shows that there's also a natural side of it. And it kind of shows that God maybe made us for worship.

01:15:34

Yep, yeah. If we're experiencing, if we're having an experience with God, that experience is also manifesting in a physical body, which is having all sorts of things happening.

01:15:44

So if you measure the physical things that are happening, it's kind of like when we talk about the brain, where does thinking occur?

01:15:52

Well, if man has an immaterial mind, the thinking occurs in the immaterial mind, but that doesn't mean there's not corresponding physical activities that can be measured going on in the brain.

01:16:00

It's just not an either or. I think the same thing, we can have a genuine experience with God and we could have corresponding physical things happening in our bodies.

01:16:09

So yeah, I think that's important to keep in mind. Now, I know it's late. Can we do just a couple more and then we'll wrap it up?

01:16:17

Yeah, let's do it, man. Okay, so Andrew Majeste, sorry.

01:16:24

I think I'm just gonna go with that. Thoughts in spontaneous worship moments, not talking about tongues.

01:16:30

I know sometimes this has added so much beauty to the moment that it gets integrated into the official lyrics.

01:16:36

I'm not sure. Are they talking about kind of just when you're singing a song and instead of going to the next verse, they kind of just have this spontaneous like, everyone lift up their hands and they kind of go off this riff.

01:16:47

What do you think about those things? You know what he's referring to? I'm struggling. It almost seems like maybe what

01:16:53

Andrew is talking about is a moment where you just are suddenly aware of how grateful and all those kinds of things you should be toward God and worship.

01:17:06

I've certainly had that. It's strange because you'll even run into unbelievers like the world's most famous atheist,

01:17:14

Richard Dawkins, has said very similar things that it's like you want to worship or it's like you want to express gratitude to something or someone, but there's no one there.

01:17:25

And I think that is just the world we live in and everything. I agree with you. You may be a pre -sub positionalist.

01:17:32

I may be a classicalist, but the fact is, I agree with you that every object and concept in reality can be used as part of a great reason to believe that there is a

01:17:41

God. It's all evidence for God. And I can look at the world around me and sometimes just walk out of my house on a great day with great weather and I just look around at the green trees and grass and the blue sky and I'm just caught up in a moment of worship.

01:17:56

I think that's real. Maybe that's what he's talking about. Bought with a Price says, has

01:18:01

Braxton seen or heard of avoiding songs that sound tulipy since he did mention it or the other way around for Eli?

01:18:09

So have you ever heard a song that sounds kind of Calvinistic and you're kind of just apprehensive about it or maybe you don't care?

01:18:17

And then I'll share my thoughts also. It doesn't bother me one bit. If I, I mean, because first of all, a lot of the music that I might say, oh,

01:18:24

I think a Calvinist wrote that or something like that. A lot of that kind of music, they're using language that as you know,

01:18:33

Christians and Calvinists often can affirm. Like for example, you can certainly agree that man is free, right?

01:18:41

You just frame all that up a little bit differently than I do, or a lot of it differently, but differently, right?

01:18:47

On the other hand, I just had one in mind that, oh, we still believe that God is sovereign and we believe that God is in control and we believe in providence such that we can say about the church raising the funds they need for whatever.

01:19:04

Look what God did. God did that. And I believe that God did orchestrate things such that outcome obtains.

01:19:11

So since we can kind of use each other's terminology a little bit, it doesn't bother me. And I'll tell you a better reason it doesn't bother me is a lot of people end up sounding

01:19:18

Calvinist because they want to emphasize the power and control and sovereignty of God in their worship.

01:19:24

A lot of people sound like open theists in their worship too because in trying to describe God, they sound anthropomorphic, but I don't freak out over that either, so.

01:19:34

I like tulipy sounding songs. T -U -L -I -P, that's the song for me.

01:19:39

I believe in the sovereign. I'm just kidding. Hey, if it's tulipy, I'm down. Tulipy sounds like it could have something effeminate going on with it, which is what you said you were not supposed to do.

01:19:49

Oh, maybe. I was just thinking tulipy, that's right. Go on, I'm just kidding.

01:19:54

What's the next one? Yeah, I don't make a big deal out of it. If it's talking about salvation, that he died for all and things like that, like, yeah,

01:20:02

I'll have different ways of hashing that out, but am I going to nitpick in the context of like a service and singing that song and be like, oh,

01:20:08

I can't sing the song? No, I wouldn't. Again, there are certain hills that I would die on and there are certain hills that I don't die on.

01:20:15

Now, if the worship, the singer who's singing the song, I get into a conversation with them and we ended up talking about limited atonement, then yeah,

01:20:21

I'm going to defend limited atonement, but I'm not going to nitpick the lyrics of the song. And by the way, don't do that to your pastor either when he's preaching and he says something that you know he wasn't trying to emphasize and it was just their impact.

01:20:34

Don't nitpick your pastor like that. It seems like you've been nitpicked before and you're now lashing out.

01:20:40

Actually, you know what? I have been blessed not to be nitpicked in years, but I've seen some guys get nitpicked.

01:20:46

Okay, this is true. I have seen that as well. Scott Terry says, should we consider dress and attire during worship as part of the worship?

01:20:54

This is the Hawaiian shirt versus suit coat debate. What do you think? Why don't you answer that?

01:21:02

This is your channel. I want to know what you think. It doesn't matter to me. I do think that there's a certain level of quote unquote appropriateness, but that's a very gray line.

01:21:13

I wouldn't press it too much. I know there's some people who come really, they come really strong down on like, nope, it's worship.

01:21:19

You need to have the shirt and tie. Listen, Jesus walked around with a first century robe and sandals and talked to people.

01:21:25

And when Christians met in the church and they just dressed, they came just as they were. Okay, now again, that doesn't mean that there isn't a certain level of inappropriateness, but I don't think that we should be too legalistic on that.

01:21:38

I think we should address appropriate. What does that mean? You could have different perspectives there, but I do think generally speaking, for the most part, people know that, eh,

01:21:49

I don't think I should be wearing this if I'm going to worship. What does that look like? It may look a little different.

01:21:54

So that's where I don't make a huge deal out of it. I get it. Someone who wants to wear a tie and I totally get it.

01:22:00

And I don't have anything against that. But I do have something against when someone says it's sinful or rebellious to come to church with a

01:22:07

T -shirt and jeans or something like that. That's just me. If you were with me on a mission trip,

01:22:14

I would want to know, or maybe ask Scott, if we were on a mission trip in a third world country and we attended a church there and people were dressed in rags, or they sang different style music, or maybe they were dressed really fancy, but the style was completely different.

01:22:32

We see that sometimes at Trinity in graduation. We have people coming over from African countries and they wear all the clothing that they wear and worship over there.

01:22:40

And it's very colorful and it's very fancy, but it's not what Americans wear. Well, what's going on there?

01:22:45

Culture's going on there. We'd all be okay with that because there's a cultural difference and it's appropriate within the context of that culture.

01:22:51

Now, you gotta be careful because people can use that as a loophole to get away with whatever they want to when it's not things that's going on in the culture.

01:22:57

But the truth is churches have cultures too. And I expect to see things that are a little bit different in the church that my grandparents used to go to that a bunch of little old people there, than I see in a young, let's say minority church in a city.

01:23:13

Those are very different cultures and it's just gonna be different. I think that important things to keep in mind through all of this is you want to make sure,

01:23:21

I know this isn't popular to say, but you wanna make sure you're not trying to intentionally draw attention to yourself and certainly not in a sexual way, right?

01:23:31

I mean, I'm just saying, there's a reason this stuff has been said for so long cause it's just true and we just need to be able to say it.

01:23:36

And so you wanna dress modestly, I think, just in life in general, dress the way you think

01:23:43

God leads you to dress. And I think at the same time, you may be perfectly appropriate, but you might be intentionally dressing flashy just to get people's attention.

01:23:54

So I think all these things are things that need to be weighed and I think Christians should be charitable to the fact that this can be conditioned a little bit culturally, because like you said,

01:24:07

Jesus probably wore sandals and a robe or whatever, right? So the fact of the matter is that's a cultural difference between where we're at now and where Jesus was.

01:24:17

Sure, yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Braxton. This was excellent. I thought you did an excellent job and I know from the comments that I passed over,

01:24:26

I allowed the comments to remain in reprobation. I passed them over and did not address all of the points there.

01:24:32

I think people are finding this conversation really useful and so I really appreciate it. I think we should conclude this interview with a singing song.

01:24:40

Let's sing the old rugged cross or... Are we gonna sing it? Are you serious? Or come just as you are.

01:24:46

I'm totally kidding. On a hill far away I stood and hold rugged cross

01:24:56

Sing it brother, sing it. Do you know the words? I don't know the rest of the words. The emblem of suffering and shame.

01:25:09

Now we can collect offering so you can send your super chats or not. Oh, that was awesome.

01:25:18

Dude, I don't think you... Is this the first show you've ever sang in? Am I? Maybe, it might be.

01:25:25

He's like, I don't remember. Maybe I might've sang somewhere else. That is awesome. Well, where can people find you if they wanna get more of what you are serving?

01:25:33

Because before you say that, I highly, highly recommend to visit the YouTube channel that loves atheists.

01:25:40

There are a lot of excellent videos and content and review videos over at Braxton channel.

01:25:46

Why don't you tell folks briefly what's your channel all about and where can they go to find you? So my goal is to see people come to the

01:25:53

Lord Jesus Christ as their savior and king and come into God's kingdom. And I'm an evangelist first and a

01:25:59

Christian apologist second. And so apologetics is only a part of what I do because it is in my tool belt to reach people for Jesus.

01:26:09

And principally on this YouTube channel, I've been focused on atheists, although we have a whole playlist for world religions and another one for cults and things like that too.

01:26:18

So you can check all of that there, but it's apologetics. But then I also have a Bible commentary, an audio and video commentary through the

01:26:26

Bible, keeping theology and apologetics in mind. So we go off on every rabbit trail.

01:26:33

And if you say, well, I don't know if I agree with you, I'm more agree with Eli. Well, that's fine. I try to cover all the major issues from each perspective when that's relevant to do.

01:26:42

Although it is true that I'm not a Calvinist, so your model may vary. Right now we're in the book of Jude and there are already 30 something hours on the book of Genesis.

01:26:50

So if you're into Bible, then we'd love to have you over at Trinity Radio. And you can get there by going to youtube .com

01:26:57

slash Braxton Hunter. Hmm. Yeah. Scott, Scott says here, I'm gonna put this up here.

01:27:03

Oh, where was it? There we go. It just reminds me of that, that girl, the environment, she talks on it.

01:27:09

What's her name? That girl. How dare you? Yeah. The environmentalist girl.

01:27:14

Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, I don't remember her name. He says, how dare Eli have a classicalist on his show?

01:27:19

They're joking, of course, but. You'll have to repent after this is over. That's it. We'll sing the old rugged cross.

01:27:25

Well, just a couple of things. If you guys want to continue to follow Revealed Apologetics, we have the YouTube channel.

01:27:31

Obviously, if you're here, there's the podcast and believe it or not, I actually, against my better nature,

01:27:37

I actually started a TikTok account. Okay. Oh. So I have content on there that is not on here.

01:27:44

So if you wanna follow Revealed Apologetics on TikTok, that'd be super helpful. That's one of the ways you can support me.

01:27:50

I am on Instagram. I'm on Twitter as well. And so I would appreciate, if you guys are enjoying the

01:27:56

YouTube channel, you go over to those formats. I'm gonna really try to put some more content out more consistently.

01:28:02

I'm shooting. I got big, big goals. My summer vacation's coming up soon. The end of the school year is almost over.

01:28:08

And so I wanna try to put out at least one of these live streams or a teaching once a week. And some of those mini videos,

01:28:16

Facebook posts, and even just trying to get some articles up on the website, working on all that. So hopefully that will be something that I'd be able to do a little bit more consistently.

01:28:25

One very, very helpful way that folks can support Revealed Apologetics is through signing up for those classes.

01:28:32

So if you're interested in learning Presuppositional Apologetics in a more disciplined and structured way, you can support

01:28:39

Revealed Apologetics by signing up for that on revealedapologetics .com. It's called PresuppU. And if you can't do that, write a good review on iTunes or something like, iTunes,

01:28:49

U -Tunes, I don't know where that came from. I would greatly appreciate your support. And so that's all for this episode,

01:28:56

Braxton. Once again, thank you so much. You survived. You look super tired. I'm so sorry. Well, honey, real quick,

01:29:01

Eli, I wanna say to anyone that watches this, I so admire you, Eli. And we have conversations usually about every week.

01:29:09

And I know people have heard us talk about this, but seriously, stay with me just a second, because I just wanna tell you, Eli has been so gracious with me.

01:29:16

We've disagreed. On one occasion, we disagreed very straightforwardly.

01:29:23

And I even publicly apologized to Eli. But the reason I tell you that is because with him, he's one of a few people that I really have a brother -in -brother type relationship with where when

01:29:34

I'm talking to him, I know that he loves me. I love him. We both respect each other. And man, you're at the right channel.

01:29:41

Folks that are here, you should be on this channel. And if you're my follower and somehow you got here, subscribe to Eli's channel, please.

01:29:47

Well, I appreciate that. And I would encourage folks to do the same as well. And I feel the same way about you, man. I appreciate that.

01:29:53

And the great thing about it was when Braxton gets upset, he says, sorry, by giving really good super chats.

01:30:01

I remember we got into an argument and then when I was going live, it was like $20. I was like, whoa.

01:30:06

I don't wanna disagree with you. It cost me $20 when I upset Eli. That is awesome.

01:30:12

Well, Braxton, thank you so much for coming on, guys. Thank you so much for listening. I really hope you guys enjoyed this discussion.

01:30:18

Stay tuned for, I will let folks know when the next live stream is going and I'm looking forward to doing that and being back on.