The role of music

Call To Prayer 

Title: The role of music 

By: Njuacha Hubert 

Date: 13-01-2024 

But now bring me a musician.” And it came about while the musician played, that the hand (power) of the Lord came upon Elisha. 2 Kings 3:15 

Today I would like to share some of my thoughts, based on my current understanding of scriptures, on the role of music and hopefully clear some misconceptions about music.  

In our opening verse, we see how Elisha called a musician to play before he started his ministration. In 1 Samuel 16:14-23, we see how music was recommended and it worked perfectly to drive away an evil spirit from king Saul. From these examples we see that music creates an atmosphere that enables or facilitates a spiritual activity such as ministration, prayer, praise and worship etc. So don’t get it wrong; the music or melody is not the spiritual element but what you do with it. The music is innocent or neutral. By music here I mean, melody without lyrics. A kind of melody can help you get calm and solemn and even focused. Another kind can help you get excited. The next part that comes which is the lyrics is what determines whether the outcome is good or evil, whether God is being glorified or displeased; this becomes the determining factor of a music being classified as godly or worldly.  

Based on the above understanding that music or only the melody is just an enabler, we cannot just classify a genre of music as ungodly. For instance, you can’t say rap music is ungodly or pop rock is ungodly. However, in a church service or mass, different genres of music are suitable for specific parts of service depending on whether we need to be solemn and contemplative or excited and on our feet. This seems like explaining the obvious, but it is to clear the false judgement of some Christians that a genre of music is bad. Ask what the message or lyrics is, then you can safely make a judgment.  

So once again, a godly song is one that glorifies God. What is it that glorifies God? Are you sinning against God when you relax without committing sin? When you go for a swim for instance. Music that glorifies God is music that is in alignment with God’s will. It means it is not exclusive to music where the name of God is mentioned and praised directly. It means music that promotes justice, peace and even sinless relaxation also glorifies God, as they are part of God’s will (3 John 1:2, Philippians 4:8). It also means not every love song is a worldly song because the love between a man and woman is godly (Songs of Solomon). However be watchful of what leads you in particular to sin (Matthew 5:29-32).

Prayer Point:  

Let’s thank God for this word today. Let’s pray for continuous growth in wisdom and not be enslaved by man-made laws or religiosity that have nothing to do with the purity of heart that God desires.