The Importance of Multi-Generational Worship, Part 2

“One generation shall commend Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.” – Psalm 145:4

Music is vital to both Old Testament and New Testament worship. One cannot read through the book of Psalms, itself a hymnbook, without seeing the obvious emphasis on music both vocal and instrumental. While the New Testament is fairly quiet in regards to music in the corporate worship service, there are two mentions of its use. I think some will be surprised at the emphasis both of these citations make.

Both references to music in the New Testament Church are echoes of one another by the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians and the Colossians. In his letter to the Ephesians, in chapter 4, in a short section on “walking in love,” Paul ends by commanding that the church be “filled with the Spirit” (vv. 2,17). One of the ways this fullness of the Spirit is evidenced is that people are “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with [their] heart” (v. 19). So, as a sign of our walking in love with one another, we are filled with the Spirit, and as a sign of being filled with the Spirit, we are to sing! But notice the direction of the singing, “to one another.” Again, in a section concerning “bearing with one another,” Paul tells the Colossian church to 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 [their] hearts to God” (Col. 3:16). Keep reading