Sing the Gospel
“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.”
~Colossians 3:16
Introduction
Colossians 3:16 comes in the context of thankfulness and living in light of the gospel. In the beginning of Colossians 3 we have seen that we are raised with Christ (v. 1), hidden with Christ in God (v. 3), and will appear with Jesus in glory (v. 4). So we see Colossians 3:16 flows from the gospel.
We see that there are two primary ways that the word of Christ dwells in us richly: 1) teaching and 2) singing. Teaching is important but it’s not the only means that God uses to implant His truth deep inside us. God richly blesses various forms of singing. Singing can be used to make Christ’s word dwell in us richly.
Wow. That is powerful. Singing is important. Singing is serious.
We all know this. We all resonate with music. It can move us even when we don’t know why.[1] It can help us memorize memorable and meaningful lyrics but also obscure and corrupt lyrics.
What should we sing about when we’re gathered togehter?
“Word of Christ”
When we come together and sing to one another we are to have as our goal Christ’s word dwelling in us richly. That is, we want to focus on who Christ is and what He has done, His person and work. We don’t want to keep our eyes on the horizontal, on what we have done or are called to do. We want to keep our eyes on the vertical, who Jesus is and what He has done.
When we gather to sing we want to sing songs that display the glory of Christ Jesus, who He is and all He has done. We want to see Christ! We want to exalt Christ! That does not mean that there can’t be variety. It means that in all our variety we don’t want to forget to worship the Lord God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ.
Variety
We see we are told to sing “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” We also see variety in the book of Psalm. Psalm 46:10 tells God’s people to be still, Psalm 150:5 encourages loud clashing cymbals. Psalm 136 has simple and repetitive lyrics. Psalm 105 has more sophisticated and substantive lyrics. Psalm 51 is a humble confession and Psalm 103 is relentless joy. The book of Psalm, the great song book of the Bible, has variety in style and lyrics. This variety served Jewish people of old and it continues to serve us today.[2] Variety is good.
The issue is thus not new songs verses old songs, hymns verses choruses, or an issue of style. The issue is does it make much of and point us to God and His glory? Does it point us to Christ?
Although, we desire a variety of different songs and even music genres this does not mean that skill is not important. Skill is important. Remember, singing is serious and we should take it seriously. Notice Psalm 33:3 says, “Play skillfully” so that must be what we strive for no matter what type of music we play or sing.
Conclusion
It is our joy to sing but we are also commanded to sing (cf. Ps. 100:1-2). So let’s praise Jesus with joy. Singing is serious.
Sing praises to God, sing praises!
Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
~Psalm 47:6
Songs to Keep in Regular Rotation
- In Christ Alone
- Before the Throne of God Above
- Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
- Speak, O Lord
- Behold Our God
- Holy, Holy, Holy
- The Gospel Song
- Grace Greater Than All Our Sin
- Jesus Paid It All
- When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
- All I Have Is Christ
- O Great God
- We Will Glorify
- Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
- How Deep the Father’s Love for Us
- My Hope is Built on Nothing Less
- You Alone Can Rescue
- Man of Sorrows
- Your Great Name
- This is Amazing Grace
- Be Thou My Vision
- Grace Alone
What other songs would you add and why?
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[1] “It is indisputable that music is one of the most powerful media humans have at their disposal; how it mediates and what it mediates are notoriously hard to understand or explain” (Jeremy S. Begbie, Resounding Truth, 14).
[2] See Tom Olson, “Singing That Flows from the Gospel” 147 in Gospel Centered Youth Ministry. This document relies heavily on Olson’s chapter.
Singing, Sanctification, and Transformation
Why sing? Why are “psalms, hymns, and and spiritual songs” important? What does singing do?
In the world we live in
“There is a ‘downward pressure’ continually in operation, which seeks to take that which is penultimate, and make it ultimate… The antidote to such ‘downward pressure’ is the continual eschatological emphasis of word and sacrament, of prayer and praise, and of koinonia [fellowship] lived in the present in light of the age to come.”[i]
Truly, “unless there is within us that which is above us, we shall soon yield to that which is around us.”[ii] St. Gregory reportedly said something similar: “If you do not delight in higher things, you most certainly will delight in lower things.” Truly, “worship shapes individual and community character.”[iii] That is, all worship, good or bad, Christian or other, intentional or unintentional. Thus we must focus on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy (see Phil. 4:8).[iv] We must keep “the good,” the true good—God and His truth—the summum bonum ever before us.
Our ultimate love, the place where we rest our desire, has an ultimate affect. So, “moral decay doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is supported by the idolatry of the society at any given time, and expressive of its worship, even if such be completely unarticulated.”[v] Moral decay happens when something other then God is our ultimate good (cf. Rom. 1).
Thus, it is important that we temper our hearts variously through singing, community, and the absorption of God’s word. That’s how we’re shaped biblically and practically. The more we have our chief end in view, through various means, the better we will live to that end.
We need deep and substantive reflection and celebration. We need to work at fostering transformative experiential worship where we can taste and see that the LORD is good. We need God to restore to us the joy of our salvation. We need God to open the eyes of our heart, we need the Spirit to move, we need God’s strength to comprehend His amazing love that surpasses knowledge.
Truly
“It is… superior satisfaction in future grace that breaks the power of lust [or addiction]. With all eternity hanging in the balance, we fight the fight of faith. Our chief enemy is the lie that says sin will make our future happier. Our chief weapon is the truth that says God will make our future happier… We must fight [our sin] with a massive promise of superior happiness. We must swallow up the little flicker of lust’s pleasure in the conflagration of holy satisfaction.”[vii]
Where do we turn for this? “The role of God’s Word is to feed faith’s appetite for God. And, in doing this, it weans [our] heart away from the deceptive taste of lust.”[viii] Therefore, we must feast on Scripture. And singing is an especially useful tool to help the word of Christ dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16).
Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and being involved in Christian community is very important because, as C.S. Lewis said, “What is concrete but immaterial can be kept in view only by painful effort.”[ix] We need each other, we need music, we need preaching to shake us awake to unseen realities. That’s why we’re told—commanded even when we don’t feel like it—to make a joyful noise to the LORD (Ps. 66:1; 81:1; 95:1, 2; 98:4, 6; 100:1).[x]
We’re told to sing because when we sing with our voice our whole body, and I would argue, our whole self (i.e. our heart) reverberates with the truth of what we sing. When we sing lyrics, whether good or bad, they get into us and shape us. We are essentially preaching to ourselves, teaching ourselves, telling our self what we should desire, we are holding up a vision of prospering and “the good.”[xi] If we are driving down the highway listening to Taylor Swift, Blink 182, or Eminem it has a very real potential to shape us. We, at least, very often, internalize what we are singing. We imagine and feel not only the rhythm and tone but what the whole artistic message is putting forth. Music shapes us by implanting seeds of desire.[xii]
We are to be filled with the Spirit, instead of being drunk with alcohol or high on drugs, in part through singing (Eph. 5:15-20). Thus,
“Worship is one of the most transforming activities for us to engage in as Christians… When we become duly impressed with God our lives change because the things that matter to us change. We no longer want some of the things we previously desired. An overridding and overwelming passion for God himself, God’s people, and God’s kingdom purposes in this world replace those desires. True worship happens when we get a glimpse of God–who he is and what he is about–and just stand there in awe of him, being impressed and transformed down to the very depths of our being by the magnificent vision of the glory of our heavenly Father.”[xiii]
Truly, “Reality is simply far too great to be contained in propositions. That is why man needs gestures, pictures, images, rhythms, metaphor, symbol, and myth. It is also why he needs ceremony, ritual, customs, and conventions: those ways that perpetuate and mediate the images to us.”[xiv] We must use a collaboration of means to remind ourselves that it is the LORD God, the Maker of heaven and earth alone, that can meet our every need. We must use good songs, good stories, the Bible, Christian community, logic, etc. to stir up our (correct) desires for the LORD and all the good He is and has for us. We must take care least there be an unworthy thought in our heart (Deut. 15:9). We must pursue things that bring light and life and reject what is rank in ruin and worthlessness (see e.g. Ps. 101).
Truly, wherever our treasure (i.e. desire, view of “the good,” or our view of the good life) is, our heart (“heart” in Scripture has to do with our whole self; cognition, volition, emotions) will be also (Matt. 6:21; Lk. 12:34).[xv] Thus, we must work at fostering worship of the one true God.
Singing sinks God’s truth deep within our souls. Singing works because it leads us to worship. Singing teaches us what we should truly desire. Singing tunes our hearts to sing God’s praise.
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[i] Doe, Created for Worship, 236.
[ii] Christian worship: it’s Theology and practice, 81
[iii] Doe, Created for Worship, 234.
[iv] Cf. Payne, The Healing Presence, 140.
[v] Doe, Created for Worship, 236.
[vi] Ibid., 235 see also Jonathan Edwards very important book Religious Affections.
[vii] Piper, Future Grace, 336.
[viii] Ibid., 335.
[ix] C.S. Lewis, Letter to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963), 114.
[x] “Worship isn’t merely a yes to the God who saves, but also a resounding and furious no to lies that echo in the mountains around us. The church gathers like exiles and pilgrims, collected out of a world that isn’t our home, and looks hopefully toward a future. Our songs and prayers are a foretaste of that future, and even as we practice them, they shape us for our future home” (Mike Cosper, Rhythms of Grace: How the Church’s Worship Tells the Story of the Gospel [Wheaton: Crossway, 2013] 104).
[xi] “Music gets ‘in’ us in ways that other forms of discourse rarely do. A song gets absorbed into our imagination in a way that mere texts rarely do… Song seems to have a privileged channel to our imagination, to our kardia, because it involves our body in a unique way… Perhaps it is by hymns, songs, and choruses that the word of Christ ‘dwells in us richly’” (Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 171).
[xii] Even Nirvana communicates; even if it’s emptiness or aggression that they put forward. However, realize that I am not saying that we cannot listen to Garth Brooks or Bruno Mars. Though I am not sure how or to what end those and other artist will shape you. I would say that “For Today,” a Metal band that is explicitly Christian, would have more of intentional transformative affect upon me then most artists. This is, I guess, both because of the content of their lyrics and the package in which they are wrapped (i.e. often very active and passionate singing and yes even screaming). However, Garth Brooks could perhaps have a transformative affect for some people as well (I am not one of them). Bruno Mars may be close to a-formative. Yet, as humans, I think we are similar to water. If we are not moving, i.e. being transformed, then we are stagnating, being deformed. Our bent, since the Fall, is away from our creator. Thus, perhaps, if we listen too much Bruno Mars and the like, a-formative music, we will stagnate. If we are left to our own devises and don’t have a gaud we do not progress. Our default is digression.
[xiii] Richard E. Averbeck, “Spirit, Community, and Mission: A Biblical Theology for Spiritual Formation,” 38 in the Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care). I think Eph. 5:17-21 is noteworthy here. See also “Singing, in the Body and in the Spirit” by Steven R. Guthrie in JETS and “Being the Fullness of God in Christ by the Spirit” by Timothy G. Gombis in Tyndale Bulletin.
[xiv] Payne, The Healing Presence, 146 cf. 148.
[xv] “Disordered action is a reflection and fruit of disordered desire” (Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 177)
The Breadth and Width of Musical Expression
It’s important for a painter to paint with a full pallet; yellows, reds, and blues and various types of hues; orange, green, and pink, in short, a full panorama of colors. This allows one to do better justice to reality. If a painter paints for very long and very well, he will eventually use the full range of colors.
Shouldn’t it be the same for musicians? Should not they, at times, have clashing symbols, bludgeoning bass, and frantic whispers? Is not there a time for aggression as well as joy? Soprano singers have their place, that’s true; but left to their own devices they won’t be able to communicate the breadth of the human condition and reality. We need waltzes and swing, we need metal and Mozart, we need jazz and, surprised to say, we need pop. However, that is not to say that all forms or types of music are good. That is not true in the artistic or moral sense. What I mean, rather, is that human experience is so broad that we need lots of “colors” and “easels” to express it. Look at the Psalms. Or look even just at David’s Psalms. David would have understood (and perhaps wrote) pop praise songs akin to what we hear on the radio as well as laments. David did not paint with broad bland strokes but used the appropriate “brush” for the appropriate picture.
I think we see a parallel also in the breadth of literature or genres in Scripture. One genre or form of literature simply won’t do in the communication of truth.[1] In the same way, contemporary Christian music in the vein of CCM, won’t be able to communicate the full breadth of truth in Scripture.[2] There are things worth screaming over and musically weeping over. I, for instance, am personally convinced that Christians need double-bass “fight” songs from time to time. I would argue that some heavy music is better than a lot of the stuff we hear on Christian radio (see here and here).
Popular contemporary Christian music tends to paint with brood bright strokes, using mainly happy and poppy major chords. Dark colors and minor keys seem to be all but forgotten. It’s like they’ve remembered redemption but forgotten the Fall. There are reasons to rejoice. But there are also reasons to weep, and scream. Christianity offers a full-orbed worldview. It deals with the pain and paradoxes of life. Much of contemporary Christian music doesn’t. A lot of secular music deals with angst; and that, that I can relate to. The world has much good in it, yet much bad, we are vying for meaning and redemption, and we have a thirst that can’t be quenched here. Much of contemporary Christian music, through lyrics and arrangement, doesn’t deal with or admit angst. It often seems ingeniune.[3]
Witness the realness and struggles of the Psalms. They are not always just poppy and happy. Sometimes they are, but not always. They incorporate a richer view of what it is to be: Blacks, browns, grays as well as pinks, yellows, and light blues; they use minor as well as major cords. They sing and scream. They cry and rejoice.
“When all Scripture references to music making are combined, we learn that we are to make music in every conceivable condition: joy, triumph, imprisonment, solitude, grief, peace, war, sickness, merriment, abundance, and deprivation. This principle implies that the music of the church should be a complete music, not one-sided or single faceted.”[4]
The Psalms and the Bible broadly communicate and speak to the human condition and I hope more and more Christian art will as well.
Christian music as a role should take into account the major plot turns of Scripture. Neither stuck in the Fall or New Creation. To do justice to Scripture and reality, much of Christian music must expand its scope to include the Fall and the tragic pain and loss that humanity now suffers as a result.
“Modern and postmodern art often claim to tell the truth about the pain and absurdity of human existence, but that is only part of the story. The Christian approach to the human condition is more complete, and for that reason more hopeful (and ultimately more truthful). Christian artists celebrate the essential goodness of the world that God has made… Such celebration is not a form of naive idealism, but of healthy realism. At the same time, Christian artists also lament the ugly intrusion of evil into a world that is warped by sin, mourning the lost beauties of a fallen paradise… There is a sense not only of what we are, but also of what we were: creatures made to be like God… Even better, there is a sense of what we can become. Christian art is redemptive… Rather than giving in to meaninglessness and despair, Christian artists know that there is a way out.”[5]
Hopefully there will be more and more Christian artists that deal with the damning affects of the Fall. That will deal with the angst and anger we often feel. But also the amazing promise of hope, redemption, and shalom through Messiah Jesus. This world is fallen but we must not forget the future, the coming reign of Christ, or what He has already accomplished on the cross.
True Christian expression should take into account the dark night of the soul, the melancholy madness we sometimes feel, as well as exuberant joy. It should recall our suffering Savior on the cross as well as His coming reign in which He’ll slay unrepentant sinners. It should at times acknowledge doubt and affirm belief. It should encompass the whole range of human emotions, various genres of Scripture, and the full sweep of the Christian story and the end (telos) of it all should be the glory of God through the exaltation of Christ.
This then would be real, rich, and weighty musical art. Music that strives, obtains, aches, yearns, realizes, weeps, and rejoices. Music that is accurate and true; music that is richly diverse and leaks over into other genres. Music that reflects the great story that we all find ourselves in—the creation of all things good, the Fall and thus futility we all reckon with, the redemption offered in Christ, and the Judgment and New Creation that awaits. Music that is rich, hopeful, and honest. Music that is hard and peaceful. Music that does justice to the world we live in, in all of its beauty and pain. Music that offers hope and redemption but that’s not naive about pain and pointlessness and suffering.
Music has a distinct ability to distill, channel, and focus truth and beauty into a unified whole so that the result is a type of laser that cuts into our core to wreak havoc and heal. As Augustine said, sounds flow into our ears, and truth streams into our hearts. Music is important and it shapes us.[6] It is thus important that it is done well and shapes us well, to the right end (telos).
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[1] “When the psalmist says, ‘Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for passages throughout the Psalms refer to all four main forms of music: strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. The ascriptions to the Psalms also contain evocative references to musical tunes, such as “The Death of the Son’ (Ps. 9) and ‘The Lily of the Covenant’ (Ps. 60). The Bible is full of many kinds of music. And as for literature, what further endorsement is needed beyond the Bible itself, which is the world’s richest anthology of stories, poems, historical torical narratives, romances, soliloquies, psalms, laments, prophecies, proverbs, parables, epistles, and apocalyptic visions?” (Philip Graham Ryken. Art for God’s Sake: A Call to Recover the Arts [Kindle Locations 180-185]. Kindle Edition.)
[2] “By continuously ‘praising the Lord’ the CCM artist rarely shows evidence of a comprehensive worldview. In fact, the world is not viewed at all. What is viewed is personal spiritual experience and usually only its more beautiful peaks. The valley of the shadow of death is rarely traversed, nor is the valley of indecision” (Steve Turner, Imagine: a vision for Christians in the arts, 52).
[3] “The problem with some modern and postmodern art is that it seeks to offer truth at the expense of beauty. It tells the truth only about ugliness and alienation, leaving out the beauty of creation and redemption. A good deal of so-called Christian art tends to have the opposite problem. It tries to show beauty without admitting the truth about sin, and to that extent it is false-dishonest about the tragic implications of our depravity. Think of all the bright, sentimental landscapes that portray an ideal world unaffected by the Fall, or the light, cheery melodies that characterize the Christian life as one of undiminished happiness. Such a world may be nice to imagine, but it is not the world God sent his Son to save” (Ryken, Art for God’s Sake, 242-246).
[4] Harold M. Best, Music Through the Eyes of Faith, 186.
[5] Ryken. Art for God’s Sake, 217-227
[6] “Music gets ‘in’ us in ways that other forms of discourse rarely do. A song gets absorbed into our imagination in a way that mere texts rarely do… Song seems to have a privileged channel to our imagination, to our kardia, because it involves our body in a unique way… Perhaps it is by hymns, songs, and choruses that the word of Christ ‘dwells in us richly’” (Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 171).
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