Instrumental Music in the Church

Instrumental Music in the Church

Use of the word Psallo

By Carl O. Cooper

            It is certainly no secret and it is very well documented as historical fact, musical instruments were not used in church worship until well over a thousand years after the church started in AD 33. In fact, even after the reformation movement and denominations separated from the Catholic Church, almost all of the famous well known reformers of denominational churches were very much against the introduction of musical instruments into the worship of the church. This too, is well documented in history and is not even disputed anywhere as far as I can determine.

            It is interesting to note that the early church had copies of Scripture that told them precisely what type of music God had told them to present to Him in worship. It was clearly understood by the early church that God had instructed the New Testament Church to present worship to Him in the form of music as acapella singing only. This form of music was presented to God during the worship of the church for over 1000 years and was so normal and so understood that the term acapella was coined to describe “church music”. The term acapella means “church music”.

            Today almost all denominational churches use many types of mechanical instruments in their various forms of worship to God. Only members of the mainstream and traditional church of Christ even care what the Bible has to say about the type of music we present to God as worship. We still use acapella music without instruments in our worship, just like the original church used acapella singing without instruments. This is the type of music we find recorded for us to use in the Bible in the New Testament. God’s word is binding on this subject.

            However, it is very hard, and for some people almost impossible, to continue to follow a path that is so counter cultural to the society in which we live. It is just human nature to want to follow the crowd. The average person can be quickly overcome with “peer pressure” and just cannot bear to be or to look different than the rest of the people around them. And so there is a great desire to use musical instruments in the worship of the church of Christ and to be like all the denominations around us. And therein comes into our midst the attempt to redefine words and phrases to try to find some way for the Bible to “authorize” the use of instruments in our worship.

            A common way that this has been done is to take Greek words and look through history to find meanings that can be used and manipulated to appear to make the Bible say the things you want it to say. Now it is commonly known that Greek words, (just like English words) have multiple meanings depending on the context where they are used. One part of the Bible where this is done is in Ephesians 5:19. “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”  Now for over a thousand years the New Testament church understood what this meant. To “speak to one another” uses the voice and not mechanical instruments. “Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”, tells us the types of songs we are expected to use in our worship. That rules out rock and roll and dance music and “making melody in your heart to the Lord” tells us that our emotions are involved in our worship to God in song. So it was understood for over 1000 years that the Bible only authorized acapella music in the worship to God.

            But along came the instrument, eventually. But even so, it took several hundred more years for this desire for the instrument to affect the church of Christ. But, alas, eventually it did. Of course there was rebellion over its introduction into the worship of the church. So much so that the church of Christ had a major split. In 1906 “The Christian Church” was recognized as a definite new religious group because of their use of instruments in their worship. Of course there were many other differences but this was the most recognized and notorious differenced in the two groups.

            But the “non-instrumental” church of Christ stood firm and strong for many years after this split. Unfortunately, in recent times a new group has begun to emerge. A group who would consider themselves highly educated and progressive. It has been their mission to introduce the instrument into our worship services and to do it under the cloak of superior education and learning. They love to quote the Greek and they can do it so effectually that the common member of the church just has no defense or counter explanation for their explanations.

            In using the words found in Ephesians 5:19 (which have been so clear for more than the first 1000 years of the church), a search was done and a new definition of the Greek word “psallo” was used to alter the Scripture to make it appear to authorize the use of instruments in the worship of the church. There are several definitions for the Greek word “psallo”. It can mean “make melody” (which is how it is translated in Eph. 5:19) but there are other definitions for the word as well, depending on the context where it is used. One definition can be “pluck strings”. Now we know that would not harmonize with the first part of the verse that says “Speaking to one another”. There are no plucking strings when you are using the voice. And yet the “well educated teachers of false doctrine” have been very successful in convincing the members of the church that the proper use of the Greek word psallo in Ephesians 5:19 means “to pluck strings” that they are trying to find any way they can to make “pluck strings” “fit” this context and still forbid the use of musical instruments. Unfortunately they have fell in to the trap set by the false teachers and they have defined psallo as to pluck the “strings of the heart”. This becomes indefensible since the heart has no strings.

            The following is an example of why this sleight of hand with the definition of words is not proper exegesis of the Scriptures.

            Suppose there was a recipe written in a book that said “This cake is made from scratch”.

We all know what scratch means in this context. But there are many definitions of scratch. It could mean “to scratch off a list”. It could also mean “a sports game without using a handicap”. It could even mean “a scratch on your car’s paint”. There are many other definitions of the word scratch depending on the context where you use it.

            Now, suppose 2000 years went by and someone in another country with a different language tried to translate this recipe. How would they translate this word “scratch”? Suppose they picked the wrong definition. They might say,”This recipe was never used for cooking” because it was “scratched off of the list” and never used.

            This is just a simple example and the consequences of a mistake here does not make much difference in anyone’s life. Not so with the definition of the Greek word psallo. This mistake creates a major problem for many people’s lives. It has the potential of altering the worship of the church which God, Himself, has designed.

            Isn’t it amazing that during the first 1000 years of the church, Christian people had the same words of Scripture we have today and it was written in the original Greek language which they spoke and understood very well. And although the Bible was not written using numbered verses like we see today, the same words were there in Ephesians 5:19 and they were well understood by the church. The Greek word Psallo was there and it was very well understood that the music designed by God to be presented by the worship of the church was to be “make melody” using the voice and acapella vocal singing. The other definitions of the word psallo were never a problem and the church did not translate psallo to mean “pluck strings”. It has taken another 1000 years for men to decide that they were more educated about the Greek language than the original church and to “place the meaning of psallo as plucking strings into the Scriptures of Ephesians 5:19”.

            Don’t let someone deceive you by placing meanings on Greek words that do not fit the context.

Carl O. Cooper