Those who love musical instruments enough to divide the church over them have to justify their use by taking on one of two mutually exclusive positions.

First, they can claim their guitar is an expedient to fulfill the command to sing. The heart since it is specified in the New Testament is itself therefore not an expedient, Eph 5:19. But, If the instrument is an expedient, by definition it is not a command. The problem with claiming musical instruments are an expedient is that singing requires no musical instrument. Singing requires numerous expedients, but not a single string, horn, or drum. The organ was added hundreds of years after Jesus started the church. That fact pretty much dismisses the notion of them being an expedient.

Second, they claim that musical instruments are commanded or implied for use in the church. If the instrument is commanded, then by definition it is not an expedient. If the musical instrument is commanded, then like with singing, all Christians would be playing an instrument. Just as everyone sings, prays, gives, partakes of the Lord’s Supper, so a command to pluck strings would apply to all. 

Of course no one ever claims that musical instruments are commanded. Since the church did not use musical instruments for hundreds of years until the Catholic church added them, it proves their use was never commanded.

Since musical instruments are not necessary for singing and since no command has ever been claimed, they are an addition to the Word of God. Adding to God’s word is sin that misty be repented of. The addition of indulgent to Christian worship has proven to divide and make impossible the unity Jesus prayed for, Join 17.

I hope you will worship this week just as God commanded by singing.

I offer this humbly.