October 24, 2014 (Friday)
Jeffrey Kranz lists 185 songs found in the Bible. Most of these are in the Old Testament. You can see his list for yourself, if you like. ( Click here )
In the New Testament, Paul advises the churches of Ephesus and Colosse to use psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in their worship (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). The psalms are those already in the Old Testament, which the Hebrew people sang in worship, with musical instrumental accompaniment, and Christians are now encouraged to keep on praising God in this way. The hymns were composed by Christians and an example of such is found in 1 Timothy 3:16:
“Christ was revealed in a human body
and vindicated by the Spirit.
He was seen by angels
and announced to the nations.
He was believed in throughout the world
and taken to heaven in glory.”
The spiritual songs included all kinds of music that aided worship. Paul further advised that the singing be done from the heart, meaning that the singer really believed that the words represented the singer’s beliefs and feelings. *
Music is very much a part of Christian worship in our churches today. The music takes many forms, and there is scarcely a type of music that cannot be heard in some church, somewhere, on any given day of worship. Next time you’re in church, be sure to join in the singing, no matter how you sound. Try it. You’ll like it.
* The movie, “The Robe (1953)” presented a scene of First Century Christian worship and portrayed an early Christian song created for the movie, a song which in all probability could very well have been a type of music described by the Apostle Paul:
(numbers from the movie soundtrack):
01:07:45 The Son of Man must be delivered
01:07:49 Into the hands of sinful men
01:07:57 And be crucified and rise again, rise again. ”
01:08:06 “The Son of Man must rise again. ”
01:08:14 And lo, Jesus appeared to us