How does God want Christians to profit concerning worship from Exodus 32:17-20?

I used the meme as a shorthand way to express my conception of what you have offered so far. You mentioned you cannot, as of yet, offer any practical implications beyond the fact that younger men ought to defer to elders (the basis behind my second meme). You have mentioned that you are still studying the implications of the passage, and have no conclusions yet (the basis of my first meme). When people do offer responses, you typically respond with questions and are generally reluctant to discuss implications (or lack thereof) that other commentators offer. In short, I do not yet know how YOU BELIEVE God wants us to profit concerning worship from Exodus 32:17-20. You clearly believe God does want us to profit, but you won’t tell us how (the basis for my latest meme).

I await specifics from you on how YOU BELIEVE God wants us to profit concerning worship from Exodus 32:17-20

[RajeshG]

Why do you continue to link to things in my blog that do not pertain to what this thread was intended to be? Is that a courteous way to treat another believer? Is this how you would want to be treated?

Your way is the way of folly! You are on a CCM rant!

Rajesh, this from you summarizes the madness of this thread which you began:

How about changing your approach from demanding answers from me and saying in detail what you think is the answer to the question?

If you began this discussion, I’m not sure why you won’t tell us what YOU THINK? Very strange. I don’t know why this is difficult for you.

Here is what I see:

• The Israelites were clearly being evil
• This evil involved loud music and dance, and I don’t know what these looked like - but they were wicked and evil, to be sure
• I’m not certain if the moral weight of their actions derived from the music and dance itself, or because it was done in celebration of a false idol. I tend to see the music and dance as fruit of the idolatry.
• I presume they learned this music and dance in Egypt, because that is the culture they came from

What is there for us today?

• Beware of importing cultural influences to our music and worship to God
• I wish we had a concrete set of musical theory to derive from the Bible. All music seems to be a product of a culture, at a particular place in time. How do we assign “good” moral value to some music, and “bad” moral value to others? My tentative answer has always been (1) the lyrics and (2) the intent of the worshipper.
• What does holy music “look like?” I have my own conception of this, but it’s subjective. We do traditional congregational singing in my church; the same plain-vanilla stuff you see at other fundamentalist Baptist churches. We’re considered very traditional by other churches. I think intent and lyrics are the best markers, but I’m open to hearing more.

[RajeshG]

Jim wrote:

RajeshG wrote:

Why do you continue to link to things in my blog that do not pertain to what this thread was intended to be? Is that a courteous way to treat another believer? Is this how you would want to be treated?

Your way is the way of folly! You are on a CCM rant!

No, you are one of the people who redirected this whole thread by linking to my blog instead of engaging yourself on a very legitimate biblical question.

You are going way beyond what the text states … looking for something not there

[RajeshG]

Jim wrote:

RajeshG wrote:

Jim wrote:

RajeshG wrote:

Why do you continue to link to things in my blog that do not pertain to what this thread was intended to be? Is that a courteous way to treat another believer? Is this how you would want to be treated?

Your way is the way of folly! You are on a CCM rant!

No, you are one of the people who redirected this whole thread by linking to my blog instead of engaging yourself on a very legitimate biblical question.

You are going way beyond what the text states … looking for something not there

If you hadn’t directed people’s attention to my blog, many people would never have engaged in an unwarranted assault on me that had nothing to do with discussing the text. This whole thread could have been so different …

Remember way way way back on this thread … Tyler asked you to answer some simple questions … no answers from you

2 promises from me!

1. I am out of here. Done with this thread. Done with Rajesh’s blog!
2. As soon as others quit commenting for 24 hours … I am closing this thread. I sincerely implore Tyler and Jay and Larry Nelson (whom I greatly respect) to move on to anything more profitable than this train wreck

Any comment after this that refers to either this post OR “Jim” (meaning “me”) will be unpublished

[GregH]

Kevin Miller wrote:

GregH wrote:

Maybe ridicule should not be happening but his “composite sound” and beatboxing stuff deserves to be just ignored for sure.

To be fair to Rajesh, he himself did not make any mention of beatboxing.

You must have missed this: https://apeopleforhisname.org/2016/11/beatboxing-exodus-32-and-the-ccm-debate/

I rarely comment here but have on this thread due to the horrific “interpretation” of Scripture that has been put on display. When I took hermeneutics, the professor spent the first couple of weeks asking questions about a text and then correcting our answers by saying “I don’t care what you believe, and I don’t care what you think…what does the text say?” It took some drilling into our head but we finally figured out that he expected our beliefs to be formed from what the text says instead of pressing our beliefs onto the text. Rajesh seems to mean well but he is certainly pressing his beliefs onto the text instead of letting the text form his beliefs. We do not need to read between the lines to figure out what the text is actually saying…we read what it actually says without seeking a mystical secondary interpretation.

“I don’t care what you believe, and I don’t care what you think…what does the text say?”

I think we can all agree with this. Out of curiosity, and since you raised it, what do you think the text says and doesn’t say?

(It’s interesting how many people claim it doesn’t say something but then have not said what it does say. In a thread about what a passage says, why chime in if you don’t have a view of what the passage says? There is no real need to say you disagree is there? Whether Rajesh is right or wrong, at least he has attempted to interact with the passage. It seems an awful lot of participation here has done nothing with the passage.)

[Larry] It seems an awful lot of participation here has done nothing with the passage.

https://sharperiron.org/comment/105159#comment-105159

The profit is that it’s bad to worship a pagan deity through singing.

https://sharperiron.org/comment/105157#comment-105157

Exodus 32 has everything to do with the object/person of our worship, and has nothing at all to do with music philosophy or practice.

Then much blather

[Larry]

(It’s interesting how many people claim it doesn’t say something but then have not said what it does say. In a thread about what a passage says, why chime in if you don’t have a view of what the passage says? There is no real need to say you disagree is there? Whether Rajesh is right or wrong, at least he has attempted to interact with the passage. It seems an awful lot of participation here has done nothing with the passage.)

It’s not illegitimate “participation” to ask why a passage is supposedly saying something, and what the arguments and reasoning behind that are, and it’s not valid to insist that the only good answer to those questions is “Why don’t you tell me what the passage means before I’ll give you any answers?” Or, “it requires much more study to say what it says, though I know for a fact it doesn’t mean X, but I can’t or won’t give you the reason why.”

[RajeshG]

I was attempting to do what every good interpreter of the Bible does: examining various levels of the larger context of these difficult-to-interpret verses to bring out their proper significance in their immediate context, the context of the book of Exodus, and the whole Bible. Such careful and thorough handling of these verses was not allowed to take place in this thread by what was said that (whether intentionally or unintentionally) diverted the discussion away from allowing the text to be treated thoroughly in its larger context.

I also mentioned that II Samuel 6 had trumpets playing, so perhaps Exodus 32 also had trumpets, which could have been confused for the sound of battle. You dismissed that as well, with a very odd dismissal from my perspective. You said “2 Samuel 6 is much later than Exodus 32” and “As it stands, you are reading back into a much earlier event something that took place much later.” Why does being later matter? A lot of the Bible took place much later than Exodus 32, but it is still the Bible. It seemed to me that you weren’t really interested in discussing the entire context of the Bible, but you only wanted to make certain points from Exodus 32 and nothing else. And that was all on the very first page.

So you can’t claim that other people were diverting the discussion from the “larger context.” You yourself weren’t allowing the larger discussion.

I was trying to bring in the context of the whole Bible on the very first page.

As was I on page 2, although I would have made the same points differently now, especially by removing the line about taking a hermeneutics class and making it clear that the reference to Numbers 25:2 is a cross reference instead of using the same word, as I originally thought. My apologies for those mistakes.

Exodus 32 contains divine revelation of a very intensely negative evaluation of the people’s dancing by the leading man of God in his day…

No, it doesn’t. Stop pulling verses out of context to support your ideas. Exodus 32 is extremely clear what the problem is, and it’s not dancing:

7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

There is no mention of music or dancing. God makes it very clear that idolatry is the problem. Furthermore:

9 When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. 20 And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.

21 He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”

22 “Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. 23 They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ 24 So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

Again, Moses’ fury is directed at the calf, not the music or the dancing. There are no commands anywhere in this passage about stopping their music or their dancing. It’s all about the calf.

Also:

So because a commentator says that a word suggests something and gives no Bible references to back up what he says it suggests, that makes it so?

No, but when a Hebrew word is used to indicate fornication and sexual immorality elsewhere in the OT (Numbers 25:2), I think that’s pretty good ground to stand on.

Seriously, Rajesh, you need to take a hermeneutics class. This is basic stuff.

And Tyler? Now you’ve quit preaching and gone to meddling.

And just for the record, I did include the line about the dancing, but that is subordinate to the entire issue of idolatry, as 1 Cor. 10:7 points out and Rajesh acknowledged at some point in this monstrosity. This is not a passage that offers guidance for 21st Century worship practices unless someone wants to put a golden calf in the sanctuary. Hopefully we can all agree that is not a Biblical principle!

I’m bowing back out now. May this thread die a quick and merciful death.

[Larry]

“I don’t care what you believe, and I don’t care what you think…what does the text say?”

I think we can all agree with this. Out of curiosity, and since you raised it, what do you think the text says and doesn’t say?

(It’s interesting how many people claim it doesn’t say something but then have not said what it does say. In a thread about what a passage says, why chime in if you don’t have a view of what the passage says? There is no real need to say you disagree is there? Whether Rajesh is right or wrong, at least he has attempted to interact with the passage. It seems an awful lot of participation here has done nothing with the passage.)

No problem. The passage speaks to the idolatry of Israel. The “sound of war” comment is simply noises from the worship of the idol. The text doesn’t give any other indication of any type of music that was used. It doesn’t give any indication of teaching on music. The passage simply speaks to the idolatrous worship of Israel in one of their many failings. Many others have said the same thing in this thread but there is my added 2 cents since you required me to add it in as well.

Moderator note - this thread will be closed at 3pm EST on Friday 12/21

Of course Rajesh may open a new thread if he wishes.

“good news of great joy” has a double meaning here (image below)

Praise God this joy will be to all people …

The “sound of war” comment is simply noises from the worship of the idol.

Thanks. If I didn’t know better I would think you were trying to prove my point because you didn’t deal with the text. What in the text lead you to believe this? How did you determine this? The words used are often used of singing. On what exegetical basis do you determine them to mean something else? Furthermore, there are distinct sounds (triumph, defeat, and something else). Doesn’t that give some indication of the nature of sound? They were dancing to this noise. Doesn’t that seem to indicate some sort of music beyond “simply noises”? When you think about the vast breadth of music, think about what kinds of music produce the atmosphere and dancing described here.

It’s not necessary to do all this, but without it, all we have is your opinion and that is not a reason to accept something.

Many others have said the same thing in this thread but there is my added 2 cents since you required me to add it in as well.

I didn’t require you to add it. I wish I had that kind of authority. This thread would be a couple of pages at most.

My suggestion was that if people want to engage, they should do on the basis of the text, rather than unanchored personal opinions. Others have said the same thing you did and much in the same way, that is, without dealing with the text. I don’t think that will be helpful at all in understanding the text and whatever meaning it might have.

Music discussions are often silly for reasons illustrated here. Sides are formed too quickly and easily without listening.

It’s not illegitimate “participation” to ask why a passage is supposedly saying something, and what the arguments and reasoning behind that are, and it’s not valid to insist that the only good answer to those questions is “Why don’t you tell me what the passage means before I’ll give you any answers?” Or, “it requires much more study to say what it says, though I know for a fact it doesn’t mean X, but I can’t or won’t give you the reason why.”

Dave, I agree with all of that.

But I return to the basic premise that a lot of interaction here has had little to do with the text. Rajesh, whether right or wrong, has tried to interact with the text. There are people who are adamant the text doesn’t mean what he says, but they haven’t said why and they haven’t given any alternative.

Craig, in his last post, gives a very helpful example of this very thing. Tyler and Ken S both made one line assertions with absolutely no interaction with the text. In direct response to my comment above, Ricky Horton responds likewise with a one line assertion with no reference at all to the text. Might they be right? Sure. But they gave no reason other than their own mind to accept. They gave no textual reason to accept their claims.

Tyler later made sort of an attempt an an “exposition” by copying the text and inserting a sentence or two of explanation, but he really didn’t deal with the text and he skipped some key portions of it. That won’t suffice in a discussion about text. Jay just above, references his comments on page 2 and, as you can see, there is very little interaction with the text.

My point is not agree with Rajesh. He and I see things differently. My point is to say that we have interact with the text. If all these people who didn’t want to interact on the text had stayed out of it, this thread would be two or three pages long.

I just think we could do better than this.

https://sharperiron.org/comment/105159#comment-105159

The profit is that it’s bad to worship a pagan deity through singing.

https://sharperiron.org/comment/105157#comment-105157

Exodus 32 has everything to do with the object/person of our worship, and has nothing at all to do with music philosophy or practice.

Then much blather

Those are great examples of my point. Simple assertions with no reference to the passage and what it says.

Drawing legitimate and necessary implications from a biblical passage is an important aspect of properly profiting from it.

No debate about that from me.

Who says that I am making vv. 17-18 “a preeminent point in the passage …”

Some here seem to think that. But I didn’t say that.

[Larry]

The “sound of war” comment is simply noises from the worship of the idol.

Thanks. If I didn’t know better I would think you were trying to prove my point because you didn’t deal with the text. What in the text lead you to believe this? How did you determine this? The words used are often used of singing. On what exegetical basis do you determine them to mean something else? Furthermore, there are distinct sounds (triumph, defeat, and something else). Doesn’t that give some indication of the nature of sound? They were dancing to this noise. Doesn’t that seem to indicate some sort of music beyond “simply noises”? When you think about the vast breadth of music, think about what kinds of music produce the atmosphere and dancing described here.

It’s not necessary to do all this, but without it, all we have is your opinion and that is not a reason to accept something.

The text actually says that Moses was angry when he saw the calf and dancing. He then destroyed the idol. He went to Aaron and the conversation was about the people asking Aaron to “make us gods.” Moses then asked the people who was on the Lord’s side. Moses went to the Lord and said “the people have sinned and made for themselves gods of gold.” The only place singing is mentioned is the conversation between Joshua and Moses. He didn’t address music with the people. He didn’t mention music to God. It doesn’t even say anything negative about the singing…it focuses on the idolatry. This is why I have a big problem with creating a doctrine about music over this passage. Since music (singing actually) is virtually a passing remark in the text, I don’t think my position is just opinion…of course, that is my opinion on opinions!

[RajeshG]

Thank you for continually trying to make this thread about the text. The lack of engagement with the text and the repeated declarations that I am mishandling the text without setting forth evidence to support the declarations have been deeply disturbing to me. Whether someone agrees with me or not, a lot more courteous text-based interactions would have been so much more edifying.

Rajesh, you are asking everyone to address music in the text, but it is basically non-existent in the text. We can’t write a dissertation on a passing comment. Music in the text has been addressed, but you keep pressing the issue. What more can we say other than you are trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill! If I were doing this with another topic, I would expect Christians to tell me, “you are trying to pull something out of Scripture that just isn’t there…stop trying to interpret Scripture that way.” That isn’t being discourteous, it is being biblical. Now, the way that is addressed should always be done in the right manner, but there is also an expectation that Christians should listen to the admonishment of other Christians! If you have a lot of people saying they believe you are pressing your beliefs onto Scripture, perhaps you should consider what they are saying. As I said before, I think you have good intentions but it appears you are sticking to your beliefs in spite of what Scripture says (or doesn’t say), not because of what Scripture says.
I actually held similar beliefs as you quite some time ago. I got to a point where I realized that I didn’t really know why I believed what I believed. I actually made it a point to toss MY beliefs out the window and then go back to Scripture to let it form the beliefs for me. I didn’t come to this position on music lightly. It was a lot of digging and reading and praying and struggling. It took me a long time to break free of what had been hammered in my head for so long, and I finally saw that the text doesn’t address music like so many had been teaching. Music is a tremendous gift from God but Satan sure does like to use it as a wedge.

So that was a rabbit trail but perhaps it will help you understand that some of us don’t arrive at this position lightly and without digging in the text. Thanks for listening…reading…whatever!

Rajesh said:

The value of this passage for us as believers far surpasses merely telling us not to be idolatrous or not to sing in worship to a pagan deity.

Could you please summarize the value of this passage that far surpasses merely telling us not to be idolatrous or not to sing in worship to a pagan deity? Even if you’ve already said, may I ask you to repeat it? Please. It seems that would give you a good final word in this matter.

I believe you are either incapable or unwilling to answer direct questions. I have respect for BJU’s PhD program, so I suspect you are quite capable of being specific. You have chosen to not be specific, for reasons known only to yourself:

This is not a generic command against being an idolater. Exegeting this direct quote from Exodus 32 fully and then bringing it to bear on what Exodus 32:17 ff. says about what took place on this occasion unlocks the value of the passage in a way that is truly remarkable. I encourage you to probe what solid exegetical commentators have to say about both parts of this statement that the Spirit puts His omniscient spotlight on from the passage.

That is not an answer. This is an abstraction. This is why you are not being taken seriously and why people are exasperated with you.

Rajesh. You didn’t answer my question as Tyler pointed out.

In closing I would like you to consider how many people along with Tyler and I have pointed out to you that you continually fail to directly answer questions. Please don’t dismiss them. They may have a point.

[Larry]

Tyler and Ken S both made one line assertions with absolutely no interaction with the text.

Larry, I’ve stayed out of this discussion once I realized it was fruitless, but since you brought my name up I will respond. You are right that my first response was a one line assertion:

[Ken S]

In my opinion, Exodus 32 has everything to do with the object/person of our worship, and has nothing at all to do with music philosophy or practice.

I gave that response because Rajesh specifically asked about what we can understand about proper worship music from the Exodus 32 passage. My point in my reply is that there is no interaction to be done with the text concerning worship music since the text is not about worship music and is not teaching about worship music. Yes, that is my opinion, but I think I am not in the minority. I’m not sure why you would expect more than one line since it’s not possible to interact with the text on the requested topic of worship music.

However, if Rajesh wanted to interact with the text, he could have given some responses addressing my other post (longer than one line, by the way).

[Ken S]

Rajesh, I think most who have commented in this thread do not accept the premise…that Exodus 32 has anything to do with proper worship music. Because of that it will be very difficult to engage on the topic.

Even if I grant that your premise is true and this passage has to do with proper worship music, it still doesn’t allow me to engage very much because:

We would have to assume that they had two (or more) styles of music, one being holy and the other unholy, and that they stopped using the right style and started using the wrong style. But there’s no reason for us to assume that they changed music styles. Rather they changed the object of their worship.

We don’t know what the improper music sounded like (the actual music, not referring to the sound of war…I’ve also heard that at children’s birthday parties).

We don’t know what the proper music would have sounded like.

We don’t know what would have been the specific elements of the music that were unholy.

In short, there’s nothing for us to engage on musically in this passage. It doesn’t help me in any way determine what holy music would be versus unholy. I do see that the passage speaks to worship, but not to worship music, and therefore there’s not much to engage on if you are looking for a discussion on music.

[RajeshG]

Actually, divine inspiration of the passage guarantees that what it reveals about their worship music on this occasion has profitability for our understanding about worship music ( 2 Tim. 3:15-17).

I haven’t been unkind or rude to Rajesh, just giving my opinion that we should not be asking questions about worship music from this text. He had the opportunity to respond and show me why the text IS about worship music, but chose not to (and in fact gave me a one line answer that didn’t interact with the text).

I don’t think you should be expecting a great deal of interaction with the text on the topic of worship music from people who don’t think the text is dealing with worship music.

I’m not planning to respond further on this thread. It’s time for it to come to an end, I think.