The Beauty of Variety in Music

Ephesians 5:19

As human beings, we have been created in the image and likeness of God, which means that God made us to reflect his greatness and goodness through our attitudes, words, and behavior. One special way that we do this is through the ability God has given us to be creative and communicate through music – and in particular, through a wide range of variety in music.

With this study today, I will challenge us to tune the collective conscience of our church to accept some increased variety in musical choices on the basis of knowing that God is most glorified in the church when our congregational singing reflects a good variety.

God the Father sings. (Zeph 3:17)

From this OT statement, we see that God sings in a loud, enthusiastic, and celebratory way in response to the deliverance of his people from their sins, their suffering, and their oppression.

Can you see how this glimpse of God singing about something (or the people) that he loves helps us understand why we as human beings sing? We’re made in the image of God and God sings about the people and causes he loves, so we do, too!

Jesus Christ (God the Son) sings. (Heb 2:12; Mark 14:26; Rom 15:9)

From these three statements we learn that like God the Father, God the Son sings, too:

Heb 2:12 quotes from Psa 22:22 to reveal that Christ sings not only because of the deliverance of his people but with the people he has delivered. By singing with us, he shows how glad he is not only to rescue us from our sins but to identify with us – who were formerly his enemies – as his brothers and sisters forever.

In Mark 14:26 (and Matt 26:30), we see an example of Christ doing this very thing (singing with his people) not only in heaven but with his closest followers on Earth in the final hours before his crucifixion. So, when we sing together as followers of Christ, we are following his example of singing, something which he continues to do before the Father today.

In Rom 15:9, Paul quotes from Psa 18:49, to show how Christ functions as a kind of worship leader (even one who plays an instrument while he leads) for all who follow him regardless of their ethnic background. Once again, we see how Christ joins with us in our singing (or rather we join with him in our singing).

The Holy Spirit sings. (Eph 5:18-19)

Knowing that God the Father sings and God the Son sings as well, does the Holy Spirit sing, too? The answer is yes but he does this through the church. How does this happen? When we gather together as a church to worship God, we are to submit to the presence and influence of the Holy Spirit – who is God – and a result of doing so is that we will sing!

Knowing that all three persons of the triune God sing, that this same God – our God – has shared this special ability with us, and that God is both the recipient and a participant with us in our singing, we should commit ourselves to singing together as a church.

Now, we’ve already learned from Eph 5:19 that when we gather together to worship God as a church, we should all speak to each other through music. When we do, our singing should be primarily verbal (with clear lyrics), accompanied by musical instruments, and presented from the heart (so, not superficial or without feeling). These truths underscore the importance of singing together as a church on a weekly basis, on Sunday – the Lord’s Day, just as churches have been doing from the first century until today.

As we recognize the importance of congregational singing, we should ask and answer the question of what kind of music we should sing to one another when we worship when we come together. We find the answer to this question right here in our text, Eph 5:19, and the answer reveals something else about the nature of God. Not only does he sing and desire our singing, but he values diversity and variety in our singing, too.

Diversity and variety glorify God.

Now, not all diversity is good. Good diversity excludes sinful diversity. For instance, using a variety of vocabulary words when we speak is a good thing to do, but not every possible vocabulary word is appropriate to use. A proper understanding of good diversity excludes sinful elements.

Having made this important clarification, we can see how God expresses his goodness and greatness through the diversity he displayed in Creation. He created many different kind of plants and many different kind of animals, for instance. And not only did he create people as male and female (only two genders which are assigned by God at conception), he placed within us the potential to reproduce a wide range of abilities, appearances, ethnicities, and personality types. And of this extraordinary diversity in God’s creation, he himself declared, “It is very good.”

As followers of Christ, we should graciously but firmly oppose any “diversity” that distorts or rebels against God’s authority, design, and natural order. This means, for example, that we cannot support an LBGTQ+ agenda, nor can we support doctrinal and theological diversity when a religious belief contradicts the clear teaching of God’s own words.

At the same time, we should be eager to accept that diversity which is good knowing that good diversity within God’s truth and natural order brings maximum glory to him. When we suppress the image and glory of God whether by willfully or ignorantly restricting our musical choices, for instance, to a very limited and specific set of forms and styles – which are generally those which we individually and personally prefer – then we limit God’s glory to our personal preferences, something we should be reluctant to do.

God intends to glorify himself through the church.

The church, of all things, should reveal God’s glory best of all for God has specially designed it to do so. In fact, Paul makes this point quite clearly and repeatedly through his letter to the church at Ephesus.

Through the church, Christ has “broken down the wall” which divided the nation of Israel from the other Gentile nations. He has “made both one” and “brought us all near” to one another by shedding his lifeblood for our sins (Eph 2:13-14).

Within the church, among those who have believed on Christ, there are no “foreigners” or “outsiders”; we are all “fellow citizens” of the same everlasting kingdom and “equal members of the family of God,” with no favored or preferred personal, social, or ethnic background (Eph 2:19).

God desires to bring “glory” to “himself” “in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations,” and that time span includes today (Eph 3:21). He accomplishes this as we depend upon him to love one another and serve him together as one united family within the church.

We bring glory to God when we worship and serve Christ together as “one body” in which every member contributes as God has uniquely equipped each one of us to do, in special, different, and unique ways through love (Eph 4:16).

And one way that we contribute to a unified body which magnifies the greatness and goodness of God is through the songs that we sing together.

The church glorifies God by singing a variety of songs. (Eph 5:19)

How would you answer someone who says, “I won’t be part of a church which sings anything else besides hymns?” The simplest answer is a very basic biblical one. The apostle Paul himself taught us, through words which the Holy Spirit of God inspired, that we should sing at least three kinds of songs together as a church: psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. This statement alone answers that hypothetical statement. And it’s this sort of beautiful variety which glorifies God.

Psalms were primarily Old Testament songs which emphasized the nature of God and his plans for his people.

It’s remarkable that Paul urged the members of this church (and of all churches by extension) to sing OT songs written by Jewish believers many years before then and composed – from a musical standpoint – in a Jewish style. This is remarkable because this church, as with so many others, consisted not only of people from an ethnically Jewish background but perhaps even more of people from a variety of non-Jewish backgrounds.

We can conclude from this simple observation that we should be eager to sing songs from a former era of time and in a style which may differ from our particular cultural preferences. Doing so glorifies God by acknowledging his involvement in past history. It also glorifies him by acknowledging his involvement (and ours) with people who have come to faith in Christ from many ethnic backgrounds, not just our own.

We should also acknowledge that the OT psalms feature a wide range of emotional expression as well.

Some psalms focus squarely on the nature of God while others feature a lengthy expression of personal feelings towards God.

Some reflect a more repentant, perplexed, or discouraged tone (at least to begin with) while others reflect a more celebratory and energetic tone.

We should appreciate and express a similar range of emotional expression in our own musical worship because doing so acknowledge the full range of emotional expression with God has created us to reflect for his glory. Reverent musical worship should not exclude reflective or celebratory songs; it should include them.

Furthermore, we should acknowledge that by singing OT songs we should accept the use of a variety of instruments in our worship as well, including stringed instruments, wind instruments, and percussive instruments.

And of course, we should acknowledge our need to, well, sing OT psalms! As fond as we may be of good Christian songs from the past plus century, whether more traditional or contemporary in nature, we have to admit that we haven’t done a very good job of emphasizing OT psalms. That’s why I appreciate a more recent renewal of interest in doing so by songwriters and musical worship leaders.

Hymns were primarily newer songs of praise which focused on Jesus Christ and his work of salvation.

Just as God expected church members to sing OT songs from a Jewish cultural background, so he also expected Jewish believers in the church to sing newly written songs that praised God from both an OT and NT perspective.

To glorify God most completely, we cannot ignore what the OT teaches but neither can we limit ourselves to the OT either. We need both OT and NT truth, and we should reflect this need not only through a healthy diet of reading, studying, and teaching which emphasizes both halves of Scripture, but by singing and writing songs which do the same.

We should also acknowledge that hymns written by the church would not necessarily be written in a distinctly Jewish style but would be written in a variety of other styles which will reflect a variety of other cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Our singing should avoid the mindless, sensual, or entertaining nature of a drinking party or the worship of a pagan idol or false god for sure (“not drunk with wine,” Eph 5:18), but not all musical styles which we don’t individually prefer are of this nature. They are simply different but a good kind of different.

Apart from such general principles a this, since Scripture does not clearly describe any particular style of music as right or wrong, we should be humble enough to acknowledge that the most important element of the songs we sing should be the lyrics. We must insist on lyrics that are doctrinally sound, and which communicate clear biblical truth, since a purpose for singing together as a church is not to entertain one another but to instill biblical truth about God into our hearts so that we will carry these truths into our lives.

That said, we should acknowledge that there likely is a wider range of diversity in acceptable musical styles than we may first expect, for God’s creation features a wide range of good diversity which glorifies him. Just as we don’t each appreciate or enjoy all the food which God has created and provided for us to eat but prefers a small menu suited to our individual tastes, so we all tend to appreciate a smaller range of musical styles tailored to our individual tastes as well. But a church should not be limited by such personal preferences.

We should be wary of this individualistic tendency, for instance, when we are choosing where to worship and serve as a church. We should value a balance and blend of musical choices that communicate solid biblical truth but through a variety of musical styles. When a church singles out and elevates a very limited range of musical style, it fails to glorify God through appropriate diversity.

I would argue that worship is best when it reflects a balanced blend of musical types and styles – psalms and hymns written in various styles because a church should not reflect the preferences of one particular group or faction or another, or of one particular person or another. It should reflect the sort of diversity which God has placed within that church and within that community.

When a church embraces a very specific cultural identity through its musical choices, for instance, it encourages people to choose churches which revolve around a very particular point of view rather than around the diversity which God expects a healthy church to reflect. I will speak more about this in a future sermon when I preach about “mutual submission” (Eph 5:21).

Before moving on, I’d like to ask whether there are any examples of NT hymns in the NT itself. Bible students who focus on answering this question look for certain clues to help determine whether a passage of NT Scripture was actually the text of an early NT hymn. Such clues include parallel statements, vocabulary words that are unique to the author, an increased use of pronouns, and language is more formal and elevated than usual.

Clues like these lead us believe that at least the following passages were the texts of early NT hymns: Phil 2:5-11, Col 1:15-20, 1 Tim 3:16, Heb 1:1-3, and 1 Pet 2:21-25. It’s fascinating to read these passages and to envision what tunes they would have paired with these words. It’s also fascinating to compare these lyrics to the songs we sing today.

Spiritual songs are more challenging to define but most likely refer to a wider range of songs which expressed all kinds of biblical, spiritual truths as well as the testimonies of God’s people.

So, this description serves as a kind of “catch all” which psalms and hymns didn’t already include, since the word songs is more generic and less specific than the former two words. However, it can be observed that whereas psalms were associated primarily with a Jewish background and hymns were of a more distinctly Gentile or Greek nature, the word songs(though more generic) may feature a more casual style to be distinguished from the more religious or formal style of the previous two kinds of songs, reflecting the everyday singing of people in their homes than the formal, dense, or complex stylistic singing of people at the Temple.

This description also emphasizes spiritual songs, which makes clear that the songs which we sing should come from within our hearts and should be the result of God’s Spirit working in us rather than the result of the uncontrolled impulses of our sinful flesh. As such, we should sing from a deep, internal reality, belief, and conviction of Christ’s salvation and the truth of God’s Word.

We should also recognize that a person who has not believed on Christ alone as God and Savior cannot sing in a genuine and understanding way. John MacArthur says this about the music we sing to worship God:

“The unsaved person has no comprehension of the praises we sing, because he has no presence of God’s Spirit within him. He cannot sing the song of redemption because he is not redeemed. Christian singing is an expression of individual and corporate worship, of celebrating life together in Jesus Christ.

For over a thousand dark years of its history (c. 500–1500) the church in general did not sing. From shortly after New Testament times until the Reformation, what music the church had was usually performed by professional musicians. The music they presented could not be understood or appreciated by the average church member. In any case, they could only sit and listen, unable to participate. But when the Bible came back into the church during the Reformation, singing came with it. Martin Luther and some of the other Reformation leaders are among the greatest hymn writers of church history. Where the true gospel is known and believed, music is loved and sung. God’s Spirit in the heart puts music in the heart” (Ephesians, 258).

Finally, this type of song likely refers to songs which speak about and acknowledge God’s work in our lives through a more informal “testimonial” style, written from the perspective of the singer in a personal way, in contrast to the more distinctive, formal doctrinal expression of a hymn.

In summary, I deeply appreciate what Clinton Arnold says about this passage in his commentary in his excellent exegetical commentary on Ephesians:

“Paul commends a diversity of musical styles and forms. One may legitimately infer from the expression ‘psalms, hymns, and songs’ that a diversity of forms and styles is in view (see the explanation section). Paul does not answer some of the questions that we may bring in terms of how this should be structured into the services, but it does represent a nudge away from a homogeneity of forms. In Paul’s day, the forms used in a particular house church may have been reflective of the diversity of cultural backgrounds of the people present” (Ephesians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the NT, 362).

As a church, we should savor the opportunity to sing together old songs and new songs, old styles and new styles, and a variety of cultural expressions, too. By doing so, we follow Paul’s most specific instructions in the NT about music in the church.

Will you worship God wholeheartedly with your church through a variety of good songs?

With this study today, I’ve challenged us to tune the collective conscience of the church to accept some increased variety in musical choices because God is glorified through such musical variety in the church.

Therefore, I am challenging us to glorify God by not only accepting but wholeheartedly singing a variety of songs, from a variety of eras, from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and with a variety of lyrical content – all of which must be biblical of course. This variety of lyrical content should include OT truths, NT truths, and less formal personal testimonies of God’s working in our lives.

All such songs are important for us to sing together for such a variety in songs “glorifies God through the church throughout all ages” by reflecting the diversity that God has brought together as one in the church. After all, singing together as a church is not the time to elevate my personal preferences or even my personal conscience but it the time to elevate the diverse goodness and greatness of our God.