Instrumental Music in a Church Assembly

by P. C. Key

The singing in assemblies of the Church of Christ should be just as edifying as we can make it. If instrumental music makes the singing more edifying, such music is surely justified and Scriptural. The mere assertion by certain people, however, that such music makes the singing more edifying is worth nothing at all, for it expresses only a human, and perhaps a prejudiced, opinion. There is only one sure way to decide correctly. If the scriptures positively endorse such music, of course it is justified; and if it is a useful, or at least a thoroughly harmless, nonessential, it is permissible. Conclusive scriptural answers to two questions, then, should settle the whole matter. First, does any passage of scripture teach that Christians should use instrumental music in a church assembly? Second, is such music a useful, or at least a thoroughly harmless, nonessential?

To the first question, we have an immediate and conclusive answer. We are sure that the Bible nowhere teaches Christians to use instrumental music in a church assembly, because we know that the apostles, who taught the whole truth (Acts 20:27), did not teach a doctrine and then reject their own teaching. Since the apostles rejected or refused to use such music, we know they did not teach Christians to use it. If by "psallo" (Ephesians 5:19; James 5:13) the writers meant "sing with an instrument", they knew that was what they meant, and would not have refused to practice their own teaching. The apostles not only knew their own doctrine but also knew the relation of any Old Testament doctrine or practice to the Church of Christ. From this argument alone it is certain that no passage in the Old or the New Testament teaches that Christians should use instrumental music in a church assembly.

Though the foregoing paragraph provides conclusive proof regarding the first question, many people still desire and perhaps need more information about the word "psallo". Thayer and Liddell and Scott define the word as follows: to pluck off to pull out, as the hair; to twang; to sing with an instrument; to sing. Which of these meanings shall we now adopt, or may we choose the one we wish? These meanings are equally authoritative; but since it would be absurd to introduce some of them -- for example, co pull out, as the hair-- into our church assemblies, there must be a sure way to choose the proper meaning. There is such a way. Each of these meanings applied during a certain period in the history of the Greek language; and if one meaning, and no other, applied during the period when the New Testament was written, that meaning is undoubtedly the one we should now choose, for it alone conveys the meaning of the writer.

Sophocles, a Greek, and a professor of Greek in Harvard University for 38 years [sic], traced the meaning of "psallo" through the different periods. He says that from 146 B.C., or about 200 years before Paul and James wrote, to 1100 A.D., the word "psallo" uniformly had only one meaning - to sing. The word had meant "to sing with an instrument" but since for about 200 years before the New Testament was written it had meant only "to sing", we are sure that in the New Testament the word means only "to sing" Thayer, moreover, a famous and dependable authority, gives "to sing" as the only New Testament meaning of the word. If one still insists on singing with an instrument in a church assembly because "psallo" once meant "to sing with an instrument", another might for the same reason insist on adopting the meaning "to pull out, as the hair," because "psallo" once had that meaning. To avoid absurdity, one must conclude that in the New Testament "psallo" means only "to sing".

It is true that the Jews used instrumental music in praising God, especially since the days of David, about 1000 B.C. They were told to praise the Lord with instruments of music and with dancing (Psalms 150:4). No doctrine or practice of the Jews, however, is binding on Christians unless it is restated in the new covenant. If any doctrine or practice now applies to us merely because it applied to the Jews, then every Jewish doctrine and practice now applies for the same reason. Since the Jews had many things not now permissible -- for example, the Sabbath, animal sacrifices, polygamy -- we know that no Jewish practice is now permissible merely because the Jews practiced it. The new covenant is our only guide.

There are types in the Old Testament; but if people will call whatever they wish a type and then apply it as they please, all certainty is gone and we have no dependable authority. We should remember that no Old Testament arrangement or practice may be considered a type usable as proof unless the Bible says it is a type. Among the Jews the Lord permitted divorces for various causes, instrumental music, and polygamy, but no scripture suggests that either of these is a type or model for Christian practice. The use of instrumental music and dancing by the Jews, then provides no proof that Christians may play and dance in their church assemblies.

The Bible also speaks of harps in heaven (Revelation 14:2), but they were evidently not material instruments of any kind. Some think they were angelic voices. The language describing the visions is highly figurative and symbolic, and evidently proves nothing regarding the use of instrumental music in the church today.

When Christianity began, instrumental music in divine worship stopped. There must have been a reason. For more than 1,000 years preceding the Christian era, the Jews had used such music. The law of Moses did not require it, but the Lord permitted it. When the Church of Christ was established, however, such music immediately and completely disappeared from divine service to appear no more for about 700 years. Since the infant church desperately needed everything that would assist the work, we feel sure that if such music had been an aid, it would have been continued; and if it had been even a harmless nonessential, there would have been no reason for stopping it so suddenly and completely. Instrumental music was evidently excluded from the church because it is detrimental to Christian worship; and what the Lord has excluded, no man should presume to introduce.

Another fact on which we all should agree is that the Lord always starts things right. One of Christ's most effective arguments was "In the beginning it was not so". This is proof that the beginning was right. Many things have gone wrong, but it is unthinkable that the Lord ever started anything wrong, for such a wrong would necessarily have been deliberate and willful. Though the arrangement for the first Adam was soon corrupted, it was started just right. Likewise God, through Christ, the second Adam, started the church just right. To start a thing right, moreover, one must include all essentials, and must exclude nothing that is really helpful. The fact, therefore, that in the beginning the Lord excluded instrumental music from the church is proof that it is not an aid, and that the church is just right without it.

This brings us to an important distinction which may greatly clarify the whole matter in the minds of some. The distinction is between the things which were available to the apostles and their helpers. and the things which were not available to them. Of course, they lacked nothing vital to salvation, yet many modern things such as trains, four-part songs, radios, and individual song books were unknown to them. If one of these had been available to them and they had used it or had refused it, we would surely have known what to do about it now. Since we are necessarily without apostolic example regarding such things, we can judge each of them only by the way it lines up with Christian doctrine, work and worship.

Regarding things available to the apostles, however, the case is different. Among these things were the gospel, instrumental music, prophets, prophetesses, men, women, and children. The apostle could not use what they did not have, but they surely knew and did the best thing with what they did have. We are sure they wanted the singing to be just as edifying as possible, yet they refused to use instrumental music or women teachers in any church assembly. This is clear evidence that both should be excluded from any church assembly. Of the two dangers, it seems that women teachers in a church assembly is the greater, for they are excluded not only by apostolic example, but also by clear divine precept. It is strangely inconsistent that some will divide the church rather than accept the less danger and then divide the church again, rather than do without the greater danger.

Since it was not custom that excluded instrumental music and women teachers from use in church assemblies, custom cannot now justify their being included. It was their fundamental nature and influence that kept them out and their nature and influence are basically the same now as then. People are surely wrong who believe they can put in what the Lord refused and thereby improve the singing or the teaching. They may increase the worldly interest, but will surely lose spiritual effectiveness.

Many seem not yet to understand that Christ in the beginning did all things not only well, but for the best. First, the New Covenant provided the perfect law of liberty, which had been in reservation from the foundation of the world. Second, inspiration enabled the apostles to distinguish perfectly between things helpful to Christian work and worship, and things neutral or detrimental. They chose what was helpful (Acts 20:20), permitted what was neutral (I Corinthians 9:20-23), and by thus choosing and permitting, they rejected only what was detrimental. The rejection of instrumental music, then, proves it to be detrimental.

When this perfect system was set in working order, one might think the Lord's initial task was finished, but it was not. The Lord had yet to prove, and during the next 30 years did prove, that this perfect arrangement would really work in practice. It did work, and worked so well that within 30 years the gospel was preached to every creature under heaven. No plan before or since has ever done so much in so short a time, and all this was accomplished by churches which refused to use instrumental music and women teachers in church assemblies. The Lord's way will still work, and no one should feel justified in breaking up a church rather than to use the plan divinely demonstrated to be the most practically effective the world has yet known.