New Testament Church ITS MUSIC IN WORSHIP
By R. L. Wilson
As published in TRADITIONS OF MEN versus the WORD OF GOD

A STUDY ON MUSIC IN HIS CHURCH “click here”

     That the early Christians had music in their assemblies for worship goes without saying. Indeed, they had the very best. It was vocal music accompanied only BY THE HEART. There were no mechanical instruments to mar the beautiful melody of the early saints. Mechanical instruments were first used in church about 700 years after Christ.

       When God's people sing praises to Him today in their assemblies for worship they are carrying out the orders of the Holy Spirit. There is never any question about this. Christians need not apologize for, nor explain why, they worship God "in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:19). This is exactly what the apostle Paul, guided by the Holy Spirit, enjoined upon all Christians. And again: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord" (Colossians 3:16).

       If the Lord had wanted us to have ice cream and cake on the Lord's Table He would have told us so. In like manner, if He had wanted us to use mechanical instruments of music in our worship, He would have told us.
In our efforts to follow the Lord Jesus Christ we are not governed by what He did not forbid, but by what He has authorized. In that great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 7:2 1). We can only know the will of the Lord from the reading of His Word. When the Lord asks us to do something, then it is His will that we do it. But if He does not, then it is presumptuous to make it a part of our worship.

         The fact that the apostle Paul specifically mentioned "singing" without generalizing upon the type of music we are to make to the Lord excludes any other kind. Had we merely been told to "make music" WITHOUT ANY MENTION OF THE KIND, then we would have been at liberty to sing, to play upon an instrument, or to do both. But when the New Testament specifically mentions the kind of music we are to make, then it would be presumptive on our part to add something thereto, just as it would be presumptive to add meat to the elements on the Lord's Table.
When Paul said to sing and MAKE MELODY did that imply the use of a mechanical instrument?
It is true that the original word from which this term comes does signify an accompaniment. Etymologically, the term meant to "PLUCK." It might have signified the plucking of a hair from the tail or mane of a horse, or from the head of a person, or the plucking of a flower. But we can only determine the thing that was to be plucked by the use of the term.

        Since no word is used with the "pluck" the context makes it evident the thing plucked in Christian worship was not a mechanical instrument but the vocal chords, used to make melody unto the Lord. The early church thus praised God with their "lips" (Hebrews 13:15).

       It is true that the early Christians sang with an accompaniment. But Paul was quite specific in naming the accompaniment. It was that of the heart (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). The instrument that accompanies our singing in Christian worship today must likewise be the heart. If the heart is not in it, then it is not spiritual worship. Thus Paul could write: "I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also" (1 Corinthians 14:15).

        Instruments were introduced into the worship not as an "aid" for the doing of what God commanded, but rather an excuse for our failure to carry out our Lord's divine requirement, that of "singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord."