Facing the Music

On a recent cover of The Economist I was surprised to see, “Why We Love Music.”  I immediately turned to the article and read some fascinating theorizing as to why we like music. 

Before long, author Charles Darwin appeared on the scene, who, of course, postulated the theory that we evolved into what we are now through a process of natural selection. In a later book he explained that we developed out of an intense desire to propagate the species by needing mates, and in order to attract mates we developed sexy attributes, and singing is one of them! So, music evolved out of a pressing need to perpetuate the species! I was interested to read the penultimate sentence of the article: “The truth, of course, is that nobody yet knows why people respond to music.”

Edmund Burke said, “Man is by constitution a religious animal; atheism is against not only our reason, but our instincts.” The evolutionary biologists have a point when they speak of man’s sexual, societal, and survival instincts, but they ignore what Burke insists upon. Man has spiritual instincts, too. Are they in any way related to music? Could music be part of the created order – a gift of God? I believe we have answers to these questions.

Let’s look at an understanding of the world totally different from Darwin’s and his disciples. It goes like this: This world was created by a transcendent God to be stewarded by human beings who were created capable of relating to the Creator worshipfully and in adoration that no other part of creation could. We all know this idyllic situation was ruined by human stupidity, but redeemed by the Creator donning humanity, suffering the consequences of human perfidy, and restoring repentant men, women, and children to a relationship with Himself. But how were redeemed human beings to express this wonder? Music can express what we find inexpressible, stir responses deeper than we knew we felt, and do all this not only to other humans but towards God Himself. Among the many ways that God made human beings capable of responding to His self-revelation, He gave us music.

The ancients knew this. Three thousand years ago, King David of Judah practiced his harp on the hills outside Bethlehem, composed songs of praise and lament, petition and longing, because he enjoyed singing to the Lord, David exhorted the people to join him: “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord... and extol him with music and song” (Ps. 95:1- 2).

A thousand years after David, the apostle Paul encouraged the Ephesian Christians to “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:19). Individually and corporately, the people of God are called to use music as a means of expressing to the Lord their untold delight in Him. In addition, they are to use music to “speak” truth to each other because it is not only a vehicle of praise; it is also a teaching tool. 

This presents a tricky situation to those of us who are responsible to encourage others in worship. What we sing should be genuine, without guile, carefully thought through, and a valid expression of the reality residing deep in our hearts. So often, we suffer from a human tendency to concentrate more on the music we like rather than what pleases God. We need to sing “to the Lord” - for an audience of One. The other side of the issue is that we will need to use the language of the people we are speaking to if we want to communicate truth to them – and that means the kind of music they listen to. It was Martin Luther who not only re-discovered the Biblical principle of the “priesthood of all believers,” but he logically determined that the singing of praises should be done as a priestly activity by all believers, too. Two hundred years later composer Johann Sebastian Bach, the producer of prodigious amounts of music, inscribed each piece when finished with the words, “Soli Deo Gloria” - “for the glory of God alone.”

We need to encourage and train people to appreciate music as a gift of God, to be used for the glory of God, while the evolutionary biologists continue to theorize about why we like music. If only they knew, they would join us!