Nehushtan

A godly church is a church for everybody who loves the Lord Jesus, and it should do its utmost to hold the saints together unless that would involve a clear-cut violation of Scripture.

The Scripture has much to say about the content of what we sing in worship: in my view, a strong emphasis on the Psalms but not exclusively.

However, the style of music is Nehushtan -- you can sing the Twenty-Third Psalm, a cappella, to Belinda Jo Carlisle's "Heaven Is a Place on Earth," but I haven't tried it in morning worship. Yet it is this Nehushtan, something God once used, but which has now become an idol, that causes so much grief, strife and division. And as with all idols, it is an affront to the Divine Majesty. Nehushtan can be the kind of music we often associate emotionally with our "honeymoon days" as a believer, so it is always different for different people. Christian summer camp music does it for some, a rural brush-arbor with Stamps-Baxter for somebody else, and folk, rock or elaborate quartette, a cappella harmonization can each become a brass snake.

Whether it is musical style, alcohol, coffee, flip-flops and jeans as over against wing-tips and our Sunday best, we must press people that we cannot fully have it our way this side of heaven. Furthermore, we must teach people that we can never truly be satisfied in this world. There will always be something missing -- just as it is with that really selfish person each of us married. Sadly, even when we are most devotionally loving God, that very awareness crashes us with pride. In heaven our way will have fully become God's way, and we will at long last be fully satisfied, glorifying and forever enjoying him for whom we were made.

Until then we need to demand that both old folks and young folks, black folks and white folks, rich folks and poor folks, the musically sophisticated and those who despise musical intricacy, come together. The idea of planting a church for some to the exclusion of others is simply an appeal to those who already suffer from a narcissistic personality disorder.