| Original Message |
ECKlessens
Posted Nov 25, 2007 12:31 PM
It is nearly impossible to get anyone in the church today to listen to the negative testimony about music that is in the bible. Those who love music and the feelings it produces will not sit down with a bible and a concordance/lexicon to discover the implications that the original Hebrew/Greek words carry. None of the teaching ministries that pride themselves on their verse-by-verse "expositional" teaching style have any right to be proud of their record when it comes to teaching on the topic of music. There is a lot of information which is plain as day in the original languages, but this information is not evident in a translation. The "expositional" teachers will take every verse and word in a passage and explain it's original meaning, usage, associations, and the resulting implications that arise from this information, but they always seem to switch to bible study "lite" mode when they come across a passage that deals with a negative association to music. All of a sudden they don't "expose" so much in their "expository" teaching.
Those who demand from scripture a clear, explicit command forbidding the use of music - have you ever stopped to think that maybe God has purposely NOT given explicit commands in this regard? That He has put PLENTY of information in His word which is readily available IF you are willing to see it? One way that people who know each other well can communicate implicitly (without explicit statements or commands) is by spending a lot of time together and noticing what kinds of words and associations the other person frames their thoughts with. You learn how they feel about a certain topic by noticing what types of associations they make when talking about it, and the nature of the words they use. There is a lot of "indirect" (parabolic) teaching done in this way by God in His word. In fact, once you begin looking at the meanings and associations behind the original Hebrew and Greek words, and see how they are used, and the people and situatuions involved, it becomes clear that God is trying to say something to those who are willing to hear. This is where churches are failing today. Most modern
churches keep their members so busy with programs, "serving", and now with entertainment, that there is no time for, and no encouragement of, serious bible study to see if all of the "serving" is being done the way God wants it. Two tools are basically all a Christian needs to get started - a bible and a Strong's concordance/dictionary of Hebrew & Greek. Without these basic tools, you will never see through the translation barrier which hides a lot of the negative testimony on music in the scriptures. It's not that the translators did a bad job. There is just no way a word-for-word translation can convey all of the information from the original laguage to another without suffering what is called "loss in translation". I will give you an example from an experience I had during my personal bible study. It is one example of many which show that there are passages of scripture you can study over and over in an English translation and still never realize the loud and clear testimony which is contained in the original language.
I was reading in the book of Numbers and had read about Balak's dread of the approaching Israelites. He hired Balaam to curse them, but Balaam was forced to bless them instead. Since Balaam wanted to get paid, he slipped hints into his prophecies that told Balak how to get Israel to become vulnerable. Get Israel to fall into iniquity and become weak (Numbers 23:21). They did this by tempting the Israelite men with young Moabite women and getting them to join in their idolatrous worship rites, which included illicit sex. 24,000 Israelites fell to this ploy. I read through chapter 25 and tried several times to read on to chapter 26, but my eyes kept going back up the page to the name Zimri in 25:14. After 3 or 4 attempts to read further, and still finding my eyes back up on the name Zimri, I decided that maybe the Lord was trying to tell me that I should stop and see what is going on with this Zimri guy. He was one of 24,000 to sin in this matter. Why was he singled out for mention? Why were his and the Midianite woman's family ties recorded? Was it because they were from prominent families? Because they were so brazen in their actions? I felt led to look at what Zimri's name means in Hebrew. After finding out it means "musical" I had a feeling I knew where this all was heading. Below is the list of the names in Numbers 25:14 along with their meanings.
Zimri = "musical"
Salu = "weighed" (in the sense that a scale is
"suspended" or "hung up". The word
'selah' found in many of the psalms
is a closely related word which means
to stop or suspend an activity)
Simeon = "hearing" (an additional association between
the concepts of scales,weighing, and
hearing is the fact that Hebrew word
for the two plates in a set of scales
is the same word used for ears)
Cozbi = "false"
Zur = "rock, strength"
Midian = "strife, contention"
This passage seems like a simple genealogy in an English translation. But to someone who knows Hebrew, and the meaning of the names, it spells out a clear message, especially when viewed in the context of the Moabites efforts to keep the children of Israel out of the promised land. Music suspends your hearing and gets you involved in an illicit union with a false rock (strength, refuge, foundation) ,and with strife, and contention. It is noteworthy that the plague among Israel was not checked until Phineas nailed "music" (Zimri)and the "falsehood" (Cozbi)to the ground with a spear and killed them. I could have read my english bible for the rest of my life and not known there was any reference to music in the baal-peor incident.
Another discovery I made is that there are two well known bible characters who are both associated with music and funerals. One is Cain, the other is Judas. Cain's name in Hebrew is kah-yin, which comes from the root word 'koon' meaning "to strike a MUSICAL note,i.e. CHANT OR WAIL AT A FUNERAL".The Greek word for Judas's moneybag is glos-sok-om-on, meaning "a case to keep mouthpieces of WIND INSTRUMENTS in; by extension, A CASKET; or a purse".
There is also a long running connection in the bible between music and the concept of "striking" which stretches all the way from Cain (his name is closely associated with both music and striking) to the garden of Gethsemane. (Look up the word Gath [#1660]along with it's root word [#5059]and then the word Shemane [8081]. It should shed some light on what kind of pressure was causing Jesus to sweat as He did. Jesus quoted Zechariah 13:7 just before entering the garden - "STRIKE the Shepherd and the sheep will be scattered". It is interesting that the word for strike here is naw-kaw, and one of the synonyms for Cain's name is kaw-naw. The Hebrew letters used are not the same in both words, but Hebrew often uses similar sounding words in word play to draw attention to something)
Music is also associated with stealing from nearly cover to cover. The musical being described in Ezekiel 28 who most people agree is Lucifer (or Hey-lel in Hebrew), is also the first being to steal something. He stole glory that was due God to himself. The serpent, or nachash, in Genesis 3 is strikingly similar to the description of Lucifer in Ez.28. He used his the sound of his "hissing" timbrels and the sight of his "shining" pipes (the pipes mentioned in Ez.28:14 are gemstone mountings or sockets) to "enchant" Eve and steal her life. (as a verb, nachash means "to hiss", as a noun it means "shining one", and the primitive root word means "enhanter or sorcerer". When you look at the fact that a timbrel makes a "hissing" sound, and the gemstone mounting "pipes" would obviously be made of "shining" metal, there is a pretty strong thematic connection between Ez. 28 and Genesis 3) The connection of music to thievery is also found in the new testament with Judas stealing from the glossokomon, and also the Greek word for flute - aulos, which is in turn derived from the root word ah-ayr. Ah-ayr (air) has as it's primary concept the ability of air to lift things and take them elsewhere. Stealing is closely connected to this word and many of it's derivatives.
Both the old and new testaments are full of many more of these kinds of derogatory associations that link music to all kinds of evil characters and occurances, but it is like pulling teeth to get people to even look into it. Most will accuse anyone who tries to bring this large amount of information to them of being legalistic, mean-spirited, blow hards who have nothing better to do than write long posts. And to defend their love of music they hold up David and the references to music being commanded in the psalms, but refuse to look at the fact that:
#1. If you read the bible accounts dealing with the institution of the monarchy it is plain as day that it was NEVER God's desire for Israel to have a king other than the Messiah. Nonetheless, there are many places where God COMMANDS that a certain person be annointed king. How do you reconcile these two facts? Many times you need to look at when,how, and why God commands a certain thing, and also when and how that command is to be carried out. If you look at the psalms that command instrumental music, in all of them there are unmistakable referrences to things that will only occur during and after the millenium. Just as God has always planned that the LORD Jesus would be King over His people and yet nonetheless COMMANDED that kings be annointed in the old testament, He also has commanded musical praise for Himself, but this praise music spoken of in the psalms is not what "worship leaders" and "praise services" are offering to Him today. God does not have eardrums that vibrate when the "worship team" starts making the air vibrate with their instruments. That is how human ears hear things, but not God. He hears in spirit. "The LORD IS my strength and MY SONG and He has become my salvation" is a part of scripture everybody knows. How many think about what that is really saying? The word "song" used in the occurances of this phrase is Strong's 2176 zim-rawth - "from 2167, instrumental music; by implication - a praise song". The LORD does not need my musical songs, HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE MY MUSICAL SONG. It doesn't say "The LORD is the focus, or the subject, of my songs. It says the LORD IS my song. He is the only music we need.
#2.If the musical references in the psalms are referring to literal music being a command/ or allowance for the church, then those same psalms are commanding/allowing us to bring animal sacrifices and to keep new moons and feast days, which is clearly not in keeping with the teaching of the new testament. How can one claim that the references to music are literal but those for sacrifices and feast days are fulfilled in Jesus Christ and no longer literal and necessary? By that line of reasoning, the commands for music in the psalms have also been fulfilled in Jesus since "The LORD IS my strength AND my SONG".
#3. One thing I have never heard anyone bring up is the fact that altough the WORDS of the psalms that were used in the temple worship were preserved while Israel went into captivity in Babylon, the music was not. If music is such an important a part of worship, why did God not preserve the accompanying music, or the design and construction of the instruments? Today if you want to fulfill a command for playing literal musical instruments as outlined in the old testament, you are in quite a quandry, because no body even knows what the instruments listed in those commands looked or sounded like. I suppose most people think it would be okay to just substitute whatever kind of instruments tickle their fancy. You don't want to get TOO literal you know, just pick and choose the parts you like.
I'm sorry if this what I am writing sounds harsh, but God has given us His word for a reason, and before we can claim to be obeying it we should study it closely for ourselves. And no, I do not think I am obeying God perfectly, but I do know that music has no edifying effect in the SPIRITUAL life of a believer.
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