We Must Heed the Vital Message of 1 Corinthians 10:18-20

I’ve been observing this discussion from the sidelines and found this statement by Rajesh interesting:

I am not going to waste my time talking about such things that the Bible does not talk about directly.

That statement seems contrary to his entire argument.

[AndyE]

I’m not so sure about that. I’m not a musician and so I can’t define what makes a certain piece fall into a certain genre, but that doesn’t mean I can’t tell the genres apart. If you let me listen to a piece by Bach and one by Beethoven, I can normally tell you who wrote which one, even if I am not familiar with the pieces.

Andy, I’m no musician either, and like you, I can normally the difference between classical music periods, whether baroque, classical, romantic, etc., and often even different composers in those periods Beethoven is an interesting case, because he has written some late string quartets (not my favorites) that sound more like modern 12-tone music, and his early stuff is definitely more classical with his mid-period music being very romantic. I’ve seen his music used in trick questions on which period the composer belongs to, especially since as a transitional figure, his music often contains elements that typically describe more than one “style” of classical music.

Be that as it may, I certainly have read enough about music from those periods that there are definitely markers (things “well defined”) that characterize music from those periods. It’s fairly easy with the earlier music, though I would agree it’s far from exact. Trying to decide where music fits that comes after the impressionistic period is much more difficult, but I have heard attempts (like from Garlock) to define rock music. Those attempts inevitably fail when some of the elements describe other music that is generally agreed upon to be “good.” My point is that if someone is going to tell me that a certain type of music is wrong, they are going to have to demonstrate it, not just claim it. “The people that wrote that music say that it’s evil” is neither proof nor truly objective.

You and I have talked, and we would probably agree on much music that I personally would not listen to or use, let alone for a worship purpose, but I’m not yet convinced that an objective standard exists that I can use for that purpose. That’s why I said a subjective standard from someone else is useless to anyone other than the one holding it. Rajesh’s standard is certainly useful to him, as yours is to you, and mine is to me. But if neither of your standards can be objectively defined, they are useless to me. Given that, my standards will be different from yours or his, given I have different experiences, different associations, etc. It’s unfortunate that it seems that inexact, but I’ve never seen a convincing argument otherwise.

As to definition, all one has to do is to read Leviticus to see the different types of sexual immorality defined quite exactly. God wanted them to be very clear on what he considered immoral in that area, and he laid it out in what can seem to us almost excruciating detail that is difficult to read, but obviously he believed it necessary. Not only hasn’t he done that in regard to music, he hasn’t even given us one of the less-well defined commands about it, like “shun profane and vain babblings,” where we have to do some digging and application from our own experience and culture to understand what fits in those categories.

If there are types of music that in and of themselves are actually sinful (and I’m not claiming that there are not), then I really want to understand why and how music meets those qualifications so I can avoid it. However, I haven’t yet seen anyone able to break music down to show what fits. Your being able to tell what fits a genre without definition might work for you, but it certainly does not help me. Versions of that like espoused by Rajesh that we can’t even examine or study something enough to know why it’s evil help me even less.

I’ll agree that inability to define something doesn’t mean that there is no objective standard, but if one declaring it wrong can’t define or at least demonstrate what makes it wrong, I still say that he is making a subjective judgment.

[Dan Miller]

I would suggest that D is right that it makes it subjective. But he’s wrong that a subjective opinion is “worthless.”

Regardless, if Rajesh is right that the GCI should have taught the Israelites and us that there are evil music styles, we still have the problem that God never sought to:

• Refer to evil styles by names the Israelites would have known and been able to subjectively identify
• Refer to evil music elements that they and we could objectively identify in music.

Dan, I actually said “useless,” and I did qualify it to mean useless to anyone else (not to him). If he can’t define it for me, he is certainly welcome to use it for his own standard and find it useful, but without something concrete for me to understand, it’s not one that another human can impose on me. God can certainly tell us to avoid things without saying anything else about it. I take no such prohibitions from fellow believers using only their own subjective standard.

If you doubt this, find someone who used to teach freshman rhetoric in college, and tell him that you’re wondering whether one needs to define his terms in a debate. He will look at you as if you were insane, and possibly point you to Hobbes, who spent dozens of pages defining terms in his works. Of course you need to define your terms, and especially critical here is that if we are going to try to define rock & roll, we need to define it in a way that distinguishes it from country, blues, and the like.

And to that, I say “good luck”, because the classic bass line for rock & roll IS the 12 bar blues, to the point where a roommate of mine joked that the Beach Boys really had only one song with slightly different lyrics from time to time, and it’s not for no reason that most C&W of the past 20 years sounds like rock & roll with twang. I guess we could say that if you use a steel guitar, it’s OK, but Hank would be surprised you said that.

But really, let’s remember the main issue here; Rajesh’s argument really boils down to guilt by association fallacies and hasty generalizations, something our hypothetical freshman rhetoric professor also would have told us about. And as I noted a couple of months ago on this thread, you want to play guilt by association, game on, but it’s going to be awfully quiet in church if we do so consistently.

My perspective is this: yes you can have subjective opinions of value. Of course you can. It is completely legitimate for someone to say he is not comfortable with a particular piece or style of music.

That is not what we have here though. Rajesh presents himself as an expert in this area and gives dogmatic sweeping application that he believes all Christians should follow. As such, it is completely reasonable to ask him to actually know something about the topic of music and be able to answer questions such as:

1) What are the music components of rock music that are objectionable?

2) What are the other styles that derive from rock that are objectionable and what makes them objectionable?

3) If a few musicians talking about demonic influence poisons the well, how big is the well? Does it extend to just their songs? The songs of the specific genre? The songs of the broad genre? The songs of the time period? The songs that use the same chords? The songs that use the same rhythm? The songs that use the same musical form? In other words, where do you draw the line.

If these questions can’t be answered, Rajesh has an opinion that may be of value to himself but is pretty much useless as a prescription for anyone else.

Rajesh is a Frank Garlock wannabe. Garlock (b 1930) has largely passed by the scene. Like Garlock, Rajesh has ‘professional’ training from BJU.

Garlock had a career of pressing his views - that divided fundamentalism.

If I accept Rajesh’s assertions, then I must place all classical music (and anything derived from it) in the off-limits category. Why, you ask? Here’s why:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Devils-Trill

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/12/03/giuseppe-tartini-g-minor/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_Sonata_in_G_minor_(Tartini)

Talk about demonic influence, this is just one example of a classical work that its (earthly) composer attributes to the Devil himself! Ergo, since the Devil composes classical music, all of it must go!

(Oh, and since the Devil apparently plays the violin, churches must in all instances cease using those too…..just sayin’.)

[GregH]

My perspective is this: yes you can have subjective opinions of value. Of course you can. It is completely legitimate for someone to say he is not comfortable with a particular piece or style of music.

[…]

If these questions can’t be answered, Rajesh has an opinion that may be of value to himself but is pretty much useless as a prescription for anyone else.

Agreed. This is what I was trying to say. I may have been unclear, but “useless to anyone else” doesn’t mean “of no value whatsoever.”

I’m still not sure why it is completely useless. The very fact that we can use terms like rock, or jazz, or country, or classical means that some level we all know what we are talking about when we use those terms. That’s not to say there is never any overlap or ambiguity, but these are legit categories that people recognize even if we can’t explain musically why one piece belongs in one category and another piece in a different category.

[AndyE]

I’m still not sure why it is completely useless. The very fact that we can use terms like rock, or jazz, or country, or classical means that some level we all know what we are talking about when we use those terms. That’s not to say there is never any overlap or ambiguity, but these are legit categories that people recognize even if we can’t explain musically why one piece belongs in one category and another piece in a different category.

Here’s an example of when I would find a subjective judgment to be useless.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that you and I were discussing one of Beethoven’s pieces, and we disagreed about whether it belonged in his more classical period or more romantic period. If you could give me no concrete criteria, but could only tell me “it’s more classical because it sounds that way to me,” I say that’s a useless subjective evaluation. You’ve given me nothing with which to evaluate my own judgment and say whether I’m more right or wrong. It’s perfectly sufficient for you to make the classification, but useless for me. If you would go on to further say “Even if I can’t define it, you’re wrong,” then I’m going to say something like “We’ll have to agree to disagree,” and leave it at that.

Ultimately, if there is no moral difference between “classical” and “romantic,” then agree or disagree, it’s just a shooting the breeze conversation that doesn’t matter. If, however, you claim that romantic music is less moral than classical, then it becomes of more importance that we be able to define the differences and be exact in our evaluation. Because if at that point, your reasoning is still “it sounds that way to me,” I can’t use such “reasoning” to impact my perception of what is actually right and what is wrong.

Andy, it’s useless because (a) not everybody agrees what does and does not constitute rock & roll (most CCM does not IMO) and (b) Rajesh is telling us to flee from something he doesn’t even define. So we’re not talking about a valid personal preference, since he’s making a bigger argument.

Or really, worse than useless, since those who have the ill fortune to take his claims seriously are being trained in poor logic and rhetoric, from not defining terms to guilt by association, hasty generalization, personal attacks, and more. Just bad for the Gospel in general.

I already conceded the possibility of overlap and ambiguity among musical genres. That does not invalidate the ability of non-musicians like me to correctly (in many if not most cases) place pieces of music into their proper categories. The very fact that there are defined genres means that it is possible. It’s like saying we can’t distinguish between yellow, green, blue, and red because of the existence of transitional color shades. So, yes, there are going to be examples of music that don’t neatly fall into a particular category, and there will be some subjectivity involved in with those boundary-pushing examples, but that does not mean that *all* or even most musical evaluation can’t be objectively identified. Clemson and Tennessee both use Orange as a school color. One of those is a pretty sorry orange but they are both objectively orange.

Why do you believe that you as a finite human are able to understand what music made by humans under demonic influence signifies to demons?

I’m still waiting for you to explain this, Rajesh, from page 4. Is there a Google Translate for ‘human music’ to ‘supernatural sounds that only demons can hear’? Or an app that we download? Or some other way to know that the sounds of a trap set and an electric guitar equals Satan’s favorite chorus? (No offense intended for trap set and/or electric guitar players!)

You said in the very next post that these were sounds that no human could understand. So how do we know what they mean on the supernatural level? Perhaps more importantly, how do you know what they signify? Do you have a supernatural sense of hearing?

Rajesh said that I hadn’t used exegesis to deal with this topic. When I pointed him back to the GCI thread from December (thanks for linking to it, Rajesh!), he then said that I hadn’t done it on this thread. I knew it was more than a few weeks ago but didn’t realize that he’d been beating this particular topic since December of 2018.

Well, I have dealt with the text. The problem is that Rajesh builds a faulty interpretation of this passage based on a faulty interpretation of Exodus 32. I can’t exegete my way to the position that he holds in 1 Corinthians if his underlying premise is also faulty.

Well, yes, Rajesh, someone who (Young) makes his money playing guitar for songs like “Highway to Hell” and “Hells Bells” could be expected to say that. In the same way, track #1 of Van Halen’s first album is “Runnin’ with the Devil.” Roth was key in steering the Van Halen brothers to be more of a party band than a serious rock & roll band.

And sure, out of the thousands of people who have played rock & roll, you’re going to get a few that say some idiot things. In the same way, out of hundreds of men who have been professors at BJU, you’re going to get some idiot things there, too. But we don’t cast aside the whole enterprise because of an endorsement of segregation, a prohibition of interracial dating, or the suggestion that all modern music, especially African-American music, derives from, and continues to be influenced by, voodoo and demons. We don’t impugn the entire school of theology because someone takes verses wildly out of context and inserts concepts that clearly aren’t there.

Again, Rajesh, you want guilt by association, game on and sauce for the goose. I don’t think you’ll like where it goes, though.

[RajeshG]

LGCarpenter wrote:

I’ve been observing this discussion from the sidelines and found this statement by Rajesh interesting:

I am not going to waste my time talking about such things that the Bible does not talk about directly.

That statement seems contrary to his entire argument.

Anybody can pull a single sentence out of its context and try to make a point with it.

Can someone please let me know when Angus Young, David Lee Roth, John McGlaughlin, or Little Richard play worship music in a church? I’d like to know when it happens.

Thanks!

[Jay] Can someone please let me know when Angus Young, David Lee Roth, John McGlaughlin, or Little Richard play worship music in a church? I’d like to know when it happens.

Thanks!

Rajesh, you want to stand up and defend the ban on interracial dating, or BJ2’s endorsement of segregation? I would at least hope that even you would concede those were idiotic.

And yes, I include your sad excuse for exegesis in this category, too. Fact of the matter is the word for “play” in Exodus 32:6 that you make so much of, Strong’s 6711, means to laugh or make sport and has nothing whatsoever to do with playing music per se. You are reading your personal bias into the text. The root word means “to laugh” and is the same root for the name Isaac.

In other words, it’s a fact that your “exegesis” is completely lacking here. Shame on you for not even looking up the Hebrew word before starting this nonsense. Shame on you as well for ignoring the clear implications of 1 Cor. 10:25-27, and its permission for early believers to “touch the unclean thing” by eating anything sold in the meat market (almost all of it would have been temple sacrifices) without raising questions of conscience. In other words, the radical separation based on built by association is simply rejected in Scripture.

Seriously? We’re talking about Andy Stanley’s church as the norm in our circles?

This would have been a disgrace even without the lyrics.

No kidding. Did you need me, Rajesh, or 21 pages of discussion on SI to figure that out? I’m being serious.

[Jay] Seriously? We’re talking about Andy Stanley’s church as the norm in our circles?

Jay — you didn’t specify the norm in our circles. You said, “in a church.” So, yes, this type of thing occurs in church. And this is were the idea that music is amoral leads.

[Jay]

This would have been a disgrace even without the lyrics.

No kidding. Did you need me, Rajesh, or 21 pages of discussion on SI to figure that out? I’m being serious.

I wonder how many people here agree with you? Most of what I read here is along the lines of — if you can’t explain what makes the music wrong, you have no right to pass judgment on it, or you don’t have any objective standard to determine if any music is right or wrong, or show me in the Bible where this genre is off limits to the believer, or similar. I really hope you are right, but I don’t know how you are able to justify this conclusion, or how others can, based on what I have read on this thread.

Totally apart from whether modern music genre/rock & roll are appropriate as a base for Christian lyrics, it strikes me that a “tribute to boy bands” is a great way to tell the “XY” half of the congregation that they are not welcome. What’s next, Kenny G or the Chippendale dancers? And we all know that Andy Stanley has said some very foolish things about the authority of Scripture. If his congregation isn’t taking action on that, should we be surprised at this at all?

What Andy’s comment is, though, is a brilliant example of why it matters that we understand the genre we’re criticizing, at least to a significant extent. “New Kids on the Block” is not the same thing, for example, as AC/DC.

Regarding the music in particular, we can look up the lyrics to songs by groups, and we can ask the question of whether that particular song ought to be in church. OK, we would want to ape the words of a silly young boy in puppy love with a silly girl exactly….why?

Now let’s strip away the lyrics and ask whether the guitar/drum/etc. work underneath might be used, albeit with a somewhat different melody to avoid copyright issues. Well, why not? If the meter works with the lyrics, and the “mood” set by the key and instrumentation helps communicate the Word of God to the people of God, enabling them to return praise to Him, why not?

[AndyE]

And this is were the idea that music is amoral leads.

Of course it could lead there. But lots of things that are perfectly legitimate outside of church we don’t do in there either. We don’t fire guns, drive our cars, listen to a (good) song on our phones out loud, we don’t cheer for the Clemson Tigers, have a paintball game,… I could go on and on.

There are a number of things that would restrict what music we use in church beyond whether the music itself is evil or not. Personally, I don’t want my worship music to sound like “Stars and Stripes Forever,” or “Für Elise” either or pretty much any secular style that I might enjoy in other circumstances, yet I would hardly argue that the music to either of those named is immoral.

What I do want (and what I suspect most Christians seek) is an objective standard I/we can use rather than the least common denominator that can pass everyone (or at least everyone in church leadership) without offending someone. Unfortunately, even the “normal” genre classifications we use are also unhelpful, as we can’t cleanly put any of them (just by judging the music itself) on one side of the moral/immoral line or the other. It’s much more complex than that. But trying to draw a dubious conclusion by stretching a scripture way beyond what it’s trying to say is really not helping.

[AndyE]

Jay wrote:Seriously? We’re talking about Andy Stanley’s church as the norm in our circles?

Jay — you didn’t specify the norm in our circles. You said, “in a church.” So, yes, this type of thing occurs in church. And this is were the idea that music is amoral leads.

Jay wrote:

This would have been a disgrace even without the lyrics.

No kidding. Did you need me, Rajesh, or 21 pages of discussion on SI to figure that out? I’m being serious.

I wonder how many people here agree with you? Most of what I read here is along the lines of — if you can’t explain what makes the music wrong, you have no right to pass judgment on it, or you don’t have any objective standard to determine if any music is right or wrong, or show me in the Bible where this genre is off limits to the believer, or similar. I really hope you are right, but I don’t know how you are able to justify this conclusion, or how others can, based on what I have read on this thread.

Speaking for myself, I have never been more open to the “music is moral” argument than I am now. I am not quite there but I greatly appreciate the arguments. Actually, I would say that I do believe music conveys morality but the real argument is whether it is intrinsic or assumed based on cultural associations. I think the Bible is largely silent on this issue but that exact topic has been debated in secular philosophy for 2000 years without resolution by some very smart guys and I have enjoyed reading them. I do think that the second more relativistic approach is more in vogue right now but it seems that prevailing opinion has flipped back and forth over the centuries.

My big problem with this thread is not Rajesh’s conclusion but the way he gets there. As anyone reading can tell, he brings a huge agenda and goes through extreme contortions to try to curve fit the Bible to his bias. His approach is the opposite of what I think good thinking is and is just dramatically inferior to the arguments I have read elsewhere. Probably I should just ignore him but it is just too tempting to jump in from time to time.

[GregH]

Actually, I would say that I do believe music conveys morality but the real argument is whether it is intrinsic or assumed based on cultural associations.

Greg, that’s interesting, because your latter argument is where I find myself as well. I’m open to the idea that music could be proven to be intrinsically moral (though I’ve yet to see a convincing proof, and I don’t yet believe it), but I pretty much also believe that music conveys morality not of its own that it gains from culture and associations.

[dcbii]

There are a number of things that would restrict what music we use in church beyond whether the music itself is evil or not. Personally, I don’t want my worship music to sound like “Stars and Stripes Forever,” or “Für Elise” either or pretty much any secular style that I might enjoy in other circumstances, yet I would hardly argue that the music to either of those named is immoral.

[dcbii] What I do want (and what I suspect most Christians seek) is an objective standard I/we can use rather than the least common denominator that can pass everyone (or at least everyone in church leadership) without offending someone. Unfortunately, even the “normal” genre classifications we use are also unhelpful, as we can’t cleanly put any of them (just by judging the music itself) on one side of the moral/immoral line or the other. It’s much more complex than that. But trying to draw a dubious conclusion by stretching a scripture way beyond what it’s trying to say is really not helping.

[GregH]

Actually, I would say that I do believe music conveys morality but the real argument is whether it is intrinsic or assumed based on cultural associations. I think the Bible is largely silent on this issue but that exact topic has been debated in secular philosophy for 2000 years without resolution by some very smart guys and I have enjoyed reading them. I do think that the second more relativistic approach is more in vogue right now but it seems that prevailing opinion has flipped back and forth over the centuries.

[AndyE]

The same sort of conundrum exists with “let no corrupt communication proceed out of thy mouth.” What is the objective standard for our language? What euphemisms are OK and which ones are not? What constitutes a swear word or a dirty word, and how would you objectively define those with Scripture? Asking for an objective standard is asking for more than what the Bible gives us, I think. Yet at the same time I think we have to make decisions regarding our music. I get the feeling that no one is really of the “anything goes” and is OK for Christian worship mentality. For some reason, though, people feel like it is wrong to judge music when they have no problem judging verbal communication.

You are correct that we have to make at least some judgment calls about corrupt communication. However, although I hear this comparison all the time, I don’t think it’s completely analogous for a few reasons.

1. Language communicates much more clearly than music. All the words you are reading that I’m typing have fairly well-defined meanings, and even where they have more than one meaning, getting the meaning from context is much easier than for music. Again, I’ve yet to hear anyone take a musical phrase and tell me what it means (even if it would have multiple). You might misunderstand a little of what I write here, but >90% of the meaning I intend is going to be what the reader gets. Music is never that clear.

2. We understand that the sounds in the word don’t have any moral value of themselves, but are entirely assigned by their given meaning and context (something I believe is also true of music, but clearly many disagree). For example, take the word “hell.” We use that in several senses in English, but that word in German means “light.” So if I were to say in English, “It’s hell outside,” that, at least to many people, would be strong language. If I say in German “Es ist hell draussen,” all I’m saying is it’s light outside, a perfectly normal expression. In Germany, I would say that in church. In America, not so much. But the word itself (and the sound it makes) hasn’t changed. Only its assigned meaning. As you can see, the meaning of the word “hell” (or the way it sounds) is not intrinsic. For that matter, I’d bet that not even the sound of a “raspberry” means the same to all people groups on the earth. Like mine, your wife is also from a different culture, and I’m sure you understand this just as well as I do, if not better.

3. Even communication that would be corrupt in some circumstances would not be in others. For example, you might say things with your spouse that you would never say in public, and would be legitimately seen as corrupt if spoken to anyone else. But almost no one on the “music is absolutely moral” side of the argument would agree that music they think is evil is ever good in any circumstance.

Basically, you and I can come up with basic building blocks of language that we would agree are corrupt, even if there would be some disagreement. But those blocks wouldn’t be the same in every culture, whereas it’s claimed that intrinsically wrong music is wrong everywhere. As long as the meaning of a word or phrase can be assigned and agreed upon, then we can at least learn to know what corrupt communication is. With music, which is claimed to have intrinsic meaning (but what that meaning is we are never told, except in sweeping generalities), if we can’t learn what the building blocks mean, we can’t really learn what it means overall and hence trying to discern what is corrupt and what isn’t becomes a fool’s errand. At best we can make some guesses, but we still don’t understand.

Personally, for my own judging of music, I consider association and appropriateness to be far more useful, and they are in fact what I use. The problem is that others would not have my same concepts of appropriateness or the same associations, so it’s much more difficult for me to give them a musical standard than it would be to correct them when they use communication that is agreed by all (or nearly all) in our culture to be corrupt.

So, at the very least, I think there is morality based on cultural associations, as you suggest. To me there is no question about that. But, no big surprise, I lean toward the idea that the morality is intrinsic. What confirmed this to me was something that happened on our trip to the Philippines 10 years ago. We were treated to a cultural Filipino dance festival associated with the school where Daphne’s aunt was the president. They put this show on for us and most of the dance routines were performed (1) modestly by the performers and (2) accompanied by really good traditional folk Filipino music. Really nothing objectionable. But there were a few routines, where that was not true. They were depicting a more primitive, sensual, lustful situation — those routines feature both immodesty and music that I would characterize as bad and immoral. I don’t know if it was rock, or not, but it certainly was not like the other music and much more like the pop/rock sound that I would say is wrong. In short it seems that they matched the immoral music with the immoral actions/dress. This is just an example, but it helped confirm what I already thought about that type of music. That music best communicated what they were trying to communicate and it was not good. I”m not a musician and I can’t explain why that music did what it did, but I could feel it and understand it.

I actually agree with this as well. I think there’s too many variables in each situation to come up with one objective standard.

We have all different ages, all different nationalities, all different musicians (at all different skills!) and more when we talk about worship music. So why are we hung up on the particular styles or instruments used here in the US as what God wants in our music?

The bible doesn’t give specifics because people and culture (and the accompanying associations) have changed over the roughly 2000 years the church has been around. Maybe the Bible doesn’t argue that way because it is better to say “sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” and then let the reader decide based on the particular environment that they are in.

I am still working through these things but to me, it comes down to the philosophical buckets of foundationalism and relativism. Either there are some concrete standards regarding music morality or music can only become immoral because of outside agents in culture. So here are some things I am pondering regarding the intrinsic vs cultural association question:

1) Since philosophy/world views tend to fall more into the relativistic camp in present times, how affected are we by that bias in considering this issue?

2) Is a relativistic view at least on some things (not all things) compatible with Christianity which clearly requires a foundationalist philosophy in many areas?

3) How is it rationally possible for music to be intrinsically immoral if we have no evidence that it communicates beyond a primary emotion level?

4) If there is an objective, foundational set of rules governing morality in music, why did God not give that to us? You can see in this thread how hard some try to find those kind of rules and the futility of those efforts. They simply are not there.

I lean toward the relativistic argument on this based on evidence and I just don’t think relativism is always incompatible to Christianity. I think most Christians apply relativistic principles to some things when they stop and think about it whether it is dress or whatever.

[RajeshG]

I have repeatedly directed attention to the importance of 1 Corinthians 10:7,

1 Corinthians 10:7 Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

Anyone who asserts or implies that the specifics of this command are not what really matters, and that what really matters is that it is a prohibition against idolatry mishandles the passage.

Because of what Paul then later says in the passage, we know with absolute certainty that people who in a worship context eat and drink what has been offered to an idol in a worship context come into fellowship with demons and partner with them in their idolatry in a way that was not true of them prior to their consumption of those sacrifices.

Applying what Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 10:7 to Exodus 32:6, we know with absolute certainty that the people who ate those sacrifices in the GCI were in fellowship with demons and partnering with them in what they did subsequent to their consuming those sacrifices.

The Spirit explicitly records that the people who were engaging in idolatrous worship in the GCI were producing music in their demonically influenced playing (Exod. 32:17-18). Any Christian who denies that these verses teach us anything about worship music therefore denies what the Spirit explicitly says to us when He explicitly tells us that all Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for us (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

Because God has given us an explicit record of demonically influenced idolaters who produced music in their idolatrous worship, every Christian must decide what he is going to do with this revelation and what he is going to believe about demonically influenced music. God has provided us with revelation about the reality of demonically influenced music, and He wants us to profit from that specific revelation!

I doubt that anyone would argue for the use of any music that the composer/author said was written for demons. I don’t care if it is a rock musician or a classical singer- if they say that they wrote a song and dedicated it to Satan I do not want to use that music. I think we can find a lot of agreement on that.

The problem I see is that some want to claim that certain music styles are always dedicated to Satan. Unless we have clear scripture to show that, then we must be careful about our claims. I think the frustration that many are having with Rajesh is not his position that demonic music should be avoided, but rather his position that certain categories of music are demonic and yet he will not give us a standard for the criteria for his conclusions. That is understandable since the scripture is not specific on that either. That is why I am unwilling to be dogmatic on music styles even if I have my own preferences.

For the inspired record of what the golden calf episode is about, see the following passages:

• Deut 9:7-21
• Deut 9:7-21
• Deut 9:7-21
• Deut 9:7-21
• Deut 9:7-21
• Deut 9:7-21
• Deut 9:7-21