3) The worship of singing was the practice in New Testament times. Heb. 2:11-12; Mark 14:26; 1 Cor. 14:26; Acts 16:25.
a) Heb 2:11-12: prophesied that Christ would not
simply speak but would also SING praise to God.
b) Mark 14:26: Christ and His disciples sang the
Passover hymn.
c) 1 Cor 14:26: What then shall we say,
brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of
instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be
done for the strengthening of the church.
d)
Ac 16:25:
Paul & Silas singing in prison (do you think they could do it there, but
when in assembly of believers they had to only sing in their hearts?)
4) The worship of singing has been the constant
experience of the church throughout history.
a) 4th Century: during Arian controversy, public
singing moved from Psalms only to include hymns.
b) 1523: Martin Luther, in Ordering of
Worship, emphasized the centrality of preaching in public worship, but
encouraged great freedom in the details of worship.
i) Martin Luther: I have no use for cranks who
despise music, because it is a gift of God.
Next after theology I give to music the highest place and the greatest
honor. Next to the Word of God only
music deserves to be extolled as mistress and governess of the feelings of the
human heart.
c) Thru the 17th century music and worship were
nearly synonymous.
i) J. S. Bach was the last of the truly great
composers whose emphasis was "music for worship.”
ii) Bach composed over 300 pieces for use in the
church year.
iii)
For 27
years he was music director at St Thomas' Church & School in Leipzig where
he composed mini-cantatas for worship on an almost weekly basis.
d) From the Dictionary of Church History,
here is an accounting of worship music in the USA...
i) The religious music of the United States
largely parallels that of Great Britain but has enjoyed a degree of freedom
from official restraint. Here the folk tradition of the Baptists surfaced and
reached print in the shaped-note publications of the South, and the
singing-school movement of post-Revolutionary times produced simple
congregational music with a distinctive flavor. The "Gospel song"
carried to Britain by such figures as Ira D. Sankey adapted the popular idiom
of such writers as Stephen Foster to capture the ear of the unchurched multitudes and became the normal style of large segments of the less
institutionalized churches of Protestantism.
This music possesses optimistic rhythms and exceedingly simple harmonies and lends itself readily to highly improvisatory performance.
ii) An account of the religious music since World
War II is almost impossible at this proximity. It remains to be seen whether
the present trend toward popularization in religious music will continue, with
the acceptance of a closer and closer identification with pseudo-folk and
"rock" idioms, not only among younger Christians of evangelical
persuasion, but in the larger historic denominations and in the Roman Catholic
Church.
iii)
While
much functional church music which goes little beyond the idioms of the late
nineteenth century continues to be written, many professional church musicians
are composing in styles closer to the early twentieth century. That these are difficult for any but highly
trained musicians must be conceded.
"Serious" professional composers of secular art music have
never before been so far removed from the general listening public. There is beyond question a need for devoted
and gifted composers to provide leadership in this as in all eras, so that the
scriptural mandate of singing "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs"
may be fittingly fulfilled.
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