Col 3:16

Colossians 3:16 (ESV)

[16] Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Too often in our churches singing = worship and worship is about feeling close to God. That really makes worship about me rather than about God which means it isn't worship at all. But, that is an issue for another time. What I find interesting about the verse quoted above is that singing is not talked about in the context of worship, but in the context of teaching. "Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs..." According to these verses singing = teaching.

 

Clearly worship is involved as well. The sentence ends by saying, "with thankfulness in your hearts to God." But the primary force of the singing is related to teaching and admonishing one another. I think that we forget that songs are effective ways to teach. There songs new and old that teach deep theology. As a child I learned to worship by singing Holy, Holy, Holy. Not long ago I was in a church service in North Idaho and the worship leader taught a new contemporary song to the congregation that was saturated with sound biblical theology. Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs can be extremely effective in teaching our children and adults sound theology. They can also be effective in calling fellow believers to take their faith seriously, motivating them listen to the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit in their lives, and challenging them to address sin and the need for submission to the Lord. Church music is not just about worship.

 

It is amazing to me that churches that pride themselves in being solidly biblical miss this truth. I have heard bad theology proclaimed through "old favorites" and children's choruses in a church that would never dream of letting anyone teach that theology in their pulpit or classrooms. There are hymns that I love to sing, but because of their bad theology I have had to stop using them. There are hymns and contemporary Christian songs that teach great theology, but because we have never taken the time to look beyond what we know we never use them. There are songs that teach theology and biblical truth but because in our tradition they are associated with a particular season we never actually look at what they are saying. For example, Joy to the World is a hymn primarily about the coming millennial reign of Christ, but because we so associate it with the first Advent we never really pay attention to what it is teaching. What if we sang Joy to the World when we were preaching Revelation 20 instead of Matthew 1-2? What if we took the time during the Christmas Season to explain the significance of the words of Joy to the World and challenged each other to look beyond Christmas to the second coming of the King?

 

With every song we sing in church we are teaching each other something. We are teaching good theology or bad theology. We are teaching that songs mean something or that they do not. We are challenging one another to deeper faith and a deeper walk with God or we are allowing them to become more self-centered and self-focused because we make worship about the experience rather than about the truth. Music is powerful. It is time that we recognize that it is more than worship. It is also a primary teaching tool.

 

Father, thank you for giving us music and for building a love of art, beauty and music into each person. May we use these things for your glory and for the good of your people.

 

By His grace,

Rick Weinert


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