Tag Archives: Articles on Music

Torah for the Heart

Torah for the Heart

This entry is part 5 of 13 in the series Musing on God's Music You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Living in a wicked world presents challenges for people attempting to walk the way of righteousness. We are constantly bombarded with competing images of the good life, and the wicked often appear to be flourishing. For this reason, God’s people must delight themselves in God’s Word, meditating on Scripture to the degree that our hearts… Continue Reading

Imagination Formed by Scripture’s Music

Imagination Formed by Scripture’s Music

This entry is part 4 of 13 in the series Musing on God's Music You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

The way that you live will be controlled ultimately by your image of the good life—what it means to really flourish and prosper, And, in particular, your image of what it means to flourish in relation to God’s rule is what controls your life. This is what we have been seeing from Psalm 1 over… Continue Reading

Aesthetic Correspondence

Aesthetic Correspondence

For a couple weeks I have been developing the idea that in order to disciple people through corporate worship, our corporate worship must be shaped by the means God has given us for such transformation—Scripture. This means both that our liturgies must be shaped by Scripture and our music must be shaped by Scripture. There has… Continue Reading

Scripture-Formed Music

Scripture-Formed Music

Last week I mentioned the fact that there has been a resurgence of sorts in recent times of emphasis on the disciple-forming power of gospel-shaped worship. What has not yet been recovered in my opinion is a recognition of the disciple-forming power of Scripture-formed music. In fact, both Bryan Chapell and Mike Cospers explicitly deny music’s… Continue Reading

Music That Is Intrinsically Good

Music That Is Intrinsically Good

The “worship wars” have now ceased, and many people are mostly happy about the cessation. Some of us are less happy, however, because those wars—like many non-metaphorical wars—settled nothing. There was neither victor nor vanquished, neither winner nor loser; there was simply a Nixonian “peace with honor,” in which two unreconciled combatants withdrew (honorably?) from… Continue Reading

A new book from Calvin Johansson

A new book from Calvin Johansson

I’ve always appreciated Calvin Johansson’s books on church music, Music and Ministry: A Biblical Counterpoint and Discipling Music Ministry: Twenty-First Century Directions. I especially find helpful his emphasis upon accomplishing our God-given mission of making disciples through the music we choose to use in corporate worship. Johansson’s insights into the goal of Christian maturity necessitating the… Continue Reading

Secular Culture

Secular Culture

In blog posts over the last several weeks, I have been trying to help us understand what kinds of influences and values have converged to produce the culture in which we Christians in the West now find ourselves. I’ve explored some of the worldview values that have shifted; today, I’d like to begin exploring how… Continue Reading

Psalm 130 in the Hands of the Great Composers

Psalm 130 in the Hands of the Great Composers

I recently walked through Psalm 130 with the congregation I pastor. Psalm 130 My Soul Waits for the Lord A Song of Ascents. [1] Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! [2] O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! [3] If… Continue Reading

Why equating culture with ethnicity is inherently racist

Why equating culture with ethnicity is inherently racist

Despite my many protestations (including a whole book addressing the topic), it is still quite common within Evangelical circles to equate culture and ethnicity. I was recently reminded of this when a popular evangelical leader argued in a well-publicized conference that in order to repair what he believes to be systemic racial divides within evangelicalism,… Continue Reading

The Unproven Premise Strikes Again

The Unproven Premise Strikes Again

The Gospel Coalition recently published an excerpt from a new book by Brett McCracken in which he makes a very common argument about music in worship that may sound pious at first glance, yet has a fatal flaw. Here is the core premise of McCracken’s argument summarized in two pull quotes from the post: “We… Continue Reading

Using Song to Shape Hearts of Repentence

Using Song to Shape Hearts of Repentence

This entry is part 11 of 13 in the series Out of the Depths You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Up to this point in our study of Psalm 130, we have talked only about the poetic part of a song, but Psalm 130 wasn’t read; Psalm 130 was sung. So I’d like to address the music side of things. Clearly the music—the melody, the harmony, and the rhythm—doesn’t make a clear statement like words… Continue Reading

Pastors – Become Literate in Christian Culture

Pastors – Become Literate in Christian Culture

When the topic of music and worship comes up, a favorite slap-down argument against thoughtful discrimination of music is that pastors need not study music to be faithful pastors. It is beside the point to say that pastors need not become art critics. If their vocation is that of shepherding the flock, it is manifestly… Continue Reading

Fittingness

Fittingness

This entry is part 5 of 6 in the series Biblical Authority and the Aesthetics of Scripture You can read more posts from the series by using the Contents in the right sidebar.

Last week I argued that if we believe in verbal-plenary inspiration, then the meaning of the aesthetic forms we employ in our contemporary worship must accurately correspond to the meaning Scripture’s aesthetic forms had in their original context. What we need to concern ourselves with is what both Kevin Vanhoozer and Nicholas Wolterstorff call “fittingness.”1 Wolterstorff defines fittingness… Continue Reading

Loud Clanging Cymbals

Loud Clanging Cymbals

In the last issue, I wrote about a speaker who deviated from his topic to deliver certain remarks—apparently extemporaneously—in defense of contemporized worship. I am not interested in indicting the speaker, but I am interested in evaluating the soundbites that found their way into his address. Last issue I discussed his suggestion that we are… Continue Reading

A New Song?

A New Song?

It is possible to disagree with people whom we respect. I had that experience earlier this year when I heard a speaker try to defend several aspects of contemporized Christianity. His name doesn’t matter, but what he said does. While I genuinely appreciate some of the leadership that this speaker has shown, his remarks in… Continue Reading

Calvin Johansson’s Foreword to Measuring the Music

Calvin Johansson’s Foreword to Measuring the Music

As I write this foreword we are halfway through the last year of the last century of the second millennium A.D. Far from being a warmed-over cyclical version of previous epochs, this century of centuries birthed much that was genuinely new: unparalleled advances in science, technology, computer systems, and powerful media cartels for both the… Continue Reading

Why music should be central in your homeschool

Why music should be central in your homeschool

My goal in this essay is to convince you that it is important that music be a part of your homeschool. My goal is to persuade you that music is essential to your children’s educational development. For you this may not be necessary — you recognize the benefits of music in the lives of your children. But perhaps you view music… Continue Reading

Do origins matter?

Do origins matter?

One common argument used today in defense of using pop music styles for Christian purposes is that origins and associations don’t matter. Christians can redeem something that comes out of a sinful lifestyle and instead use it for good. I do agree that the sinful origins, roots, sources, or associations of something do not automatically… Continue Reading

The Culture of Humanity

The Culture of Humanity

One of the cornerstones of arguments in favor of musical relativism is that musical interpretation is culturally conditioned and therefore subjective—one may not expect someone else with different cultural conditioning to interpret music the same way. So, the reason I interpret a particular musical form in a certain way is only because I have been culturally conditioned… Continue Reading

How Music Naturally Carries Meaning

How Music Naturally Carries Meaning

It is important in any discussions about music to understand how music carries meaning naturally. I highly recommend Stephen Davies’ Musical Meaning and Expression, which clearly articulates where the most basic meaning does and does not lie: It is not a system of conventional symbols, like a language. It is not depictive, like representational paintings. It is… Continue Reading