Which Musical Instruments Should be Used in Church?

1. What type of musical instruments should be used in church?
2. Music in church should be regulated like all of our other beliefs and practices: by the word of God.

            “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Mat 28:20)

            “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. 2)  Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.” (1Co 11:1-2)

III.   There are no musical instruments specified for church worship in the New Testament.

1. Old Testament verses about musical instruments do not apply in the New Testament since the OT is abolished.

            “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” (Heb 8:13)

            “For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. 12)  Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: 13)  And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: (2Co 3:11-13).

            If you want to use the OT as a basis for adding musical instruments into the NT church, then you better not show up to church with a shirt made of cotton and polyester, nor pick up sticks on Saturday, and your preacher better be wearing an ephod and a breastplate.

1. What does the NT say church music should consist of?

            “And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.” (Mat 26:30)

            “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;” (Eph 5:19)

            “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 hearts to the Lord.” (Col 3:16)

            “Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.” (Heb 2:12)

            “Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.” (Jam 5:13)

1. There is a church in the NT which uses musical instruments, but it’s not Christ’s church.

            “And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;” (Rev 18:22).

            “Here were the charms of music to allure them into a compliance and the terrors of the fiery furnace to frighten them into a compliance….Note, That way that sense directs the most will go; there is nothing so bad which the careless world will not be drawn to by a concert of music, or driven to by a fiery furnace. And by such methods as these false worship has been set up and maintained” – Matthew Henry commenting on Daniel 3.

VII.            If you leave me a negative comment, please include in it a verse from the NT which tells us to use musical instruments in church and details which ones are to be used; otherwise don’t waste both your and my time.