Stringed instruments are more important in corporate worship than are wind instruments or percussion instruments

Concerning the main subject of this thread, it seems that there are a limited number of possible positions that believers could take:

1. No kinds of musical instruments are important in acceptable corporate worship.

2. All kinds of musical instruments are equally important in acceptable corporate worship.

3. One kind of musical instrument (stringed, wind, or percussion) is more important than the others in acceptable corporate worship.

4. We do not have the needed information to decide what is the correct position, so everyone must decide for himself and keep that view between him and God.

Others?

As with all of my threads about music, my goal in this thread is not an endless, specific musicological discussion about musical instruments, styles, genres, etc.--it is in-depth and intensive discussion of divine revelation about the subject. God's wisdom is perfect, and giving Him the full weight in this and every matter of intense controversy among His people requires unstinting attention to all that He has said. Whatever God has said is the perfect information that we need.

In His perfect wisdom, the Spirit has given us explicit revelation about the use of musical instruments in the worship in heaven:

Revelation 5:8 And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. 9 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; 10 And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.

This passage explicitly mentions only harps and does not say anything about any other musical instruments. It also speaks about heavenly beings singing a new song.

We can say with certainty that heavenly worship that is perfect features heavenly beings having stringed instruments and singing heavenly songs.

So is the reasoning here that the "importance" of a particular instrument type is due to the number of times that instrument type is mentioned? Is the frequency of being mentioned the characteristic that gives the instrument importance, or is the importance due to something specific about the instrument itself?

It seems to me that if an instrument is frequently mentioned, it could be due to that instrument simply being a commonplace instrument rather than having some specific "importance" attached to it. I would need to have more information, other than a frequency of being mentioned, to know if any instrument type had more importance in God's eyes than any other instrument type.

I am not following your thinking here. I have only treated one passage so far and stated what it does and does not say explicitly, so what made you think that I was making a point about "the frequency of [its] being mentioned"?

Of course, the harps mentioned in Revelation are heavenly harps, which means we know almost nothing about them except for the fact that probably resembled harps on earth. For all we know, they have settings like a theatre pipe organ that allow the player to create almost any sound by plucking the strings. Of course, that’s really thinking in earthly terms too. Perhaps the player can simply imagine what sounds they want to come out and they do.

Honestly, I figure that heavenly music will be so far above what we know here that it will be hard to compare with earthly music. Rev. 5:8 tells us that the 24 elders have harps. Beyond that, we can’t make any assumptions that the fact that such harps are mentioned means that “stringed” instruments (do violins really count the same as harps for this purpose?) are more important in earthly worship.

Hmm. I see several serious difficulties with these remarks.

First, the Spirit inspired these words to profit their original audience in the first century AD. Noone at time would have understood these words to mean anything other than harps; they certainly would not have thought that they were some kind of heavenly "synthesizers" that could make the sound of any and all instruments.

Second, the Spirit speaks in Revelation multiple times of trumpets being sounded in heaven. According to your suggestions, who knows what kinds of sounds those trumpets produced. In fact, why would there be any need for any other instruments other than harps if the harps could just as well make any and all possible musical sounds?

Third, in the next mention of harps in Revelation, the Spirit explicitly speaks of John's hearing heavenly harpers harping on their harps:

Revelation 14:1 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. 2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: 3 And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.

There is profound emphasis in this passage through the use of 3 different but related Greek words that specifically have to do with stringed instruments: harpers, harping, and harps. There is no way to make this revelation mean anything other than exactly what it says--John was able to recognize what he heard as harpers who were harping their harps to play harp music.

To my knowledge, there is not any other passage in Scripture that so profoundly emphasizes the playing of a specific musical instrument.

Fourth, like Revelation 5, this passage mentions only harps and does not mention any other instruments. The Spirit, therefore, has here again emphasized to us that the worship music of heaven uses stringed instruments to accompany singing in heavenly worship. We can have utter certainty that the worship music of heaven features singing accompanied by the playing of stringed instruments.

Sure, John heard the players playing their harps. We don’t know exactly what he heard, but in the next verse you quote, it was a “new song,” something that could be learned only by the 144,000, which doesn’t sound to me like something he would have been able to hear played by regular 1st-century harpists.

John saw many things in the visions granted to him by the Lord, and he described them as best he could, given his 1st century knowledge. I don’t disagree that he was able to the hear the harp players, but it’s not at all clear it had to sound anything like harps he knew on earth. And further, he could easily have identified what they were playing as harps because he had no other words he could use to describe them.

Even if you are correct that the harps he heard were exactly equivalent to harps he knew (and I don’t believe that must be the case), I don’t think your quotes of those passages generalize those harps to other stringed instruments used today. By your arguments, a church orchestra should be mostly harps, if they are the most important. And not the harps we use today — they should be the 1st century versions.

Do you really think that the Holy Spirit does not know how to communicate or is incapable of communicating that the sound being produced was the sound of string music being played by stringed instruments? He used three specific words that all have to do with the playing of stringed instruments:

Revelation 14:2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.

Revelation 14:2 καὶ ἤκουσα φωνὴν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, ὡς φωνὴν ὑδάτων πολλῶν, καὶ ὡς φωνὴν βροντῆς μεγάλης· καὶ φωνὴν ἤκουσα κιθαρῳδῶν κιθαριζόντων ἐν ταῖς κιθάραις αὐτῶν.

If the sound was something like the poundingly percussive sound of "bongo-ers" "bongo-ing" their bongo drums, He had other words available to Him to signify that the sound that John heard was the sound of percussionists playing their percussion instruments, but that is not what He inspired.

Furthermore, you have not characterized properly what I said. I did not say that what John heard was "exactly equivalent to harps he knew." The composite sound that John heard did not have to be exactly equivalent to what he had heard before for him to know that it was harp music that he was hearing.

Revelation 14:2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps:

The Spirit here revealed that John heard two heavenly voices:

The first was "as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder." Plainly, this voice was recognizable to John precisely because it was not totally dissimilar to sounds that John had previously heard.

Likewise, the second was similar to what John was familiar with and could recognize as being such--"the voice of harpers harping with their harps." What John heard was harp music that he could recognize as being harp music by his hearing it.

Revelation 15:1 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God. 2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. 3 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. 4 Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.

This passage is the third passage in the book of Revelation about heavenly worship music that speaks explicitly only of harps and not about any other musical instruments being used in that worship. The strength of the explicit biblical data in these three passages teaches us that it is undeniably true that the Spirit has profoundly emphasized the use of stringed instruments in the worship music of heaven while not mentioning anything about the use of any wind or percussion instruments in that worship.

I didn't say you had already made a point about frequency. I was simply asking you a question. Your post was dealing with "importance," so I wanted to get a sense of how you would be determining "importance" from the Biblical data. What is your reasoning for deciding that something has more importance than something else in the Bible?

I could have just asked you that question, but I wanted to make sure I clarified my question by making it more specific. The "frequency of being mentioned" seems to me to be a logical possibility for how someone might determine importance in regards to a matter. I didn't want to just assume that that might be your reasoning, so I decided to ask. Being "first in a list" is also a potential signal that something is more important than the rest of the things in a list, but that possibility didn't seem as likely for your reasoning so I didn't ask about that. So how does one determine importance?

What sound interpretation of the Bible comprises is a central point of importance that has been a major focus of mine for more than three decades. You might not have noticed that I had as one of the tags for this thread as being "interpretation." I believe that the data itself must foremost guide us about how to assess what is important. That is one of the main reasons in all of my threads that I continually seek to focus the discussion on the texts of Scripture themselves. Frequency of mention is one indicator of importance.

The strength of the explicit biblical data in these three passages teaches us that it is undeniably true that the Spirit has profoundly emphasized the use of stringed instruments in the worship music of heaven while not mentioning anything about the use of any wind or percussion instruments in that worship.

So here you are explicitly using a "frequency of being mentioned" reasoning in regards to stringed instruments. To me, that shows a potential importance to stringed instruments, but there could also be other reasons for the frequency of mention. As I said in my first post in this thread, "It seems to me that if an instrument is frequently mentioned, it could be due to that instrument simply being a commonplace instrument rather than having some specific "importance" attached to it."

My argument so far has not been primarily about frequency of mention--it has been about exclusivity of mention. None of the passages in Revelation that reveal anything about the worship music of heaven speaks of any wind or percussion instruments; they only mention stringed instruments.

The discussion would be different if one passage mentioned one kind of instrument, but others mentioned other kinds of instruments. That is not what we have here.

Another key aspect of my argument so far is the setting of these passages. All three passages are worship in heaven. The worship of God in heaven is perfect worship where only God's will is done. On that basis, what the Spirit has chosen to reveal matters all the more.

RajeshG:

My argument so far has not been primarily about frequency of mention--it has been about exclusivity of mention. None of the passages in Revelation that reveal anything about the worship music of heaven speaks of any wind or percussion instruments; they only mention stringed instruments.

Kevin Miller:

It seems to me that an argument based on silence is much, much weaker than an argument based on frequency of mention. That doesn't make it necessarily wrong, it just seems weak to me.

My argument is not just based on lack of mention--it is based on the uniform exclusivity of the direct mention of only harps in every passage. That exclusivity of mention has to be explained.

Suppose that an arts reporter for a world-class magazine goes to the concerts of a world-famous choir. Everyone knows that their concerts feature world-class symphony orchestras accompanying the choir.

In every case, however, his report of the singing in those concerts is something like the following:

"I went to their concerts, and they played harps and sang gloriously."

Not only would all the other musicians in those symphony orchestras take offense, but all the people would wonder why he only mentioned people playing harps when in fact there were a few dozen or more instruments that were actually used.

How do you explain that the Spirit uniformly inspired only the mention of harps in every passage about heavenly worship that mentions musical instruments (Rev. 5, 14, and 15)?

But does it really matter in regards to our application in using music for corporate worship here on earth? We are not in heaven yet. God has given us instructions in the New Testament for our worship in our churches here on earth, and none of those instructions to the church included mention of musical instruments. The New Testament only commands us to sing. Since you consider "exclusivity of mention" to be a strong support for your reasoning, wouldn't that reasoning also apply to the fact that the New Testament excludes mentions of any musical instruments in local church worship?

Is proper exegesis of the Bible just about contemporary application? If that's your primary interest, you will have to wait quite some time in this thread . . .

Furthermore, you are initiating such a discussion when the actual biblical data has not been fully discussed for what it shows.

I don't think the other members of the orchestra would have a problem with it at all if the name of the "world class magazine" was Harps Digest. One would then expect that the point of the article would be about harps and not about the other instruments.

This response does not work because I specified that he was an arts reporter, not a harps reporter.

More importantly, neither the Bible as a whole nor the book of Revelation in particular is anything like a "Harps Digest."

I seem to hear this in just about every thread that you start and we rarely end up getting to the applications. We just keep amassing information. Isn't amassing info without applying it like looking in a mirror and then walking away without dealing with what one sees?

If you want to know where I am going to go with the applications in this thread when I get to them, look carefully at the 2nd and 3rd sentences in my opening post.

So why might the Spirit inspire only the mention of harps. Perhaps because harps would be symbolic of praise in general. There is a lot of symbolism in the book of Revelation. Let's take a look at Revelation 5:8 again. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.

Not only were the elders holding harps, they were also holding bowls of incense. The harps and the incense seem to me to be symbolic, that is, they are representing something. The passage explicitly tells us what the incense represents, which is the prayers of the saints. A commentary I read mentioned that the harps would represent praise, so we have symbols representing both prayer and praise. Now, we don't have indication in Rev 5:8 that the elders were playing the harps at that time, so the passage isn't specifically dealing with some musical importance of the harp as a specific instrument. (After all, it would be pretty hard to actually play the harp while prostrating oneself before the Lamb while also holding a bowl of incense.)

The Spirit continues the use of that symbol for praise in general throughout the other passages you mentioned. The mention of harps as a symbol for praise does not mean that the sounds of other instruments weren't present. They could have been, but we just don't have that information. What we do know is that the sound of praise was present and the Spirit felt that using one instrument as the symbol for praise was sufficient.

Sorry, this "interpretation" that the harps merely symbolize praise is absurd to me for many reasons. I will detail those reasons in future posts.

Are you saying that music is not a part of the arts? I don't understand your objection at all. Of course an arts reporter can write an article for a magazine devoted to harps. There isn't even any such thing as a "harp's reporter." Are you just trying to be argumentative?

My point was that a magazine would have a particular focus and individual articles within that magazine would reflect that focus.

I am the author of that group of sentences, so you do not get to say what I had in mind when I used the expressions, "arts reporter" or "magazine." In my scenario, the reporter was not writing for a magazine specific to harps nor was he writing a specific article about harps in some arts magazine. He was reporting on the concerts and not just about the harps.

A book of the Bible has a particular focus and individual passages would reflect that focus. The focus in Revelation is not on describing every particular instrument sound that may be conveyed in heaven, so trying to parse out some "exclusivity" principle of one kind of instrument having "more importance" in heaven than other instruments is ignoring the broader context in order to make up a declarative assertion that isn't in the passage.

Says who? This is mere assertion. You have to prove what you assert here that details of the text do not matter.

RajeshG said:

Sorry, this "interpretation" that the harps merely symbolize praise is absurd to me for many reasons. I will detail those reasons in future posts.

Kevin Miller said:

So the passage can specifically say that the bowl of incense represents something, but you consider it "absurd" to think that the harps could also symbolize something. It's absurd to me that you would consider that absurd. It's not like I said the harps didn't actually exist.

The Spirit explicitly specified that the incense represented something. He did not do that with the harps. Your statements are reading into the text to make things symbolic that the text does not say are symbolic.

According to this method, the singing in each passage is not actually singing. For all we know, it symbolizes grunting and groaning and proves that there is grunting and groaning in heaven. What's more, they are not speaking what is sung--they are actually using sign language.

So your application is that you don't have hatred toward other instruments and you don't have personal bias against modern music? How is that an application?

Of course, these are proper applications. Answering false claims and accusations made against people by showing how the Bible refutes those false claims and accusations is a fully legitimate application of the Bible.

RajeshG said:

According to this method, the singing in each passage is not actually singing. For all we know, it symbolizes grunting and groaning and proves that there is grunting and groaning in heaven. What's more, they are not speaking what is sung--they are actually using sign language.

Kevin Miller said:

And you thought what I suggested was absurd? This comment is ridiculous. It makes me think you don't seriously want to have a conversation about the passage or about the topic in general. I specifically said that I wasn't suggesting the harps aren't real, and then you IMAGINE that I'm saying that the singing isn't real. How did you even come up with this assessment of "my method"? It doesn't make sense and totally misrepresents what I was saying.

Earlier, you said:

Not only were the elders holding harps, they were also holding bowls of incense. The harps and the incense seem to me to be symbolic, that is, they are representing something. The passage explicitly tells us what the incense represents, which is the prayers of the saints. A commentary I read mentioned that the harps would represent praise, so we have symbols representing both prayer and praise.

So which is it? Are the harps symbolic or are they real? If you claim that they are both, that claim is unintelligible to me.

[RG]So which is it? Are the harps symbolic or are they real? If you claim that they are both, that claim is unintelligible to me.

[KMiller] With all your years of Bible study, I can't believe you've never come across a situation where an object is real but also has a more expansive, symbolic meaning to it. Consider this phrase from the Lord's Prayer - Give us this day our daily bread. There is a reality to the bread that is asked for, but there is also a more expansive, shall we say symbolic, meaning to the phrase in that we are not just to be asking God for mere bread alone but for ALL of our food. The bread, real as it is, is representing more than just bread. In fact, according to John Calvin, it represents more than just food. His commentary that deals with this phrase says, "Again, a very frequent Synecdoche occurs in the word bread, under which the Hebrews include every description of food. But here it has a still more extensive meaning: for we ask not only that the hand of God may supply us with food, but that we may receive all that is necessary for the present life."

Your claim that every mention of the use of only harps in Rev. 5, 14, and 15 is figurative language that does not establish anything about the greater importance of stringed instruments vs. other kinds of instruments is something that you have to establish textually. I have already countered your claims by pointing out how the Spirit explicitly indicated to us what was figurative language in Rev. 5 and what was not.

Again, if harps are "real" and "symbolic" of "praise" by all kinds of instruments, as you seem in effect to assert, what all the does the singing in Revelation 5 symbolize besides singing and who decides what all different things singing symbolizes?

If you counter by saying that the singing is not symbolic of anything other than singing, how is it legitimate to say that the harps are symbolic, but the singing is not?

Based on your stated applications, are we to understand that this thread is not really about the importance of stringed instruments, but is really about showing people that RajeshG doesn't have hatred toward other instruments nor a bias against modern music? You still haven't explained how correcting false statements about your attitudes can be a "fully legitimate application of the Bible." In what Bible verses are you even mentioned?

Really? Using the Bible to defend the views that I (and many other strongly musically conservative believers) hold about acceptable music for corporate worship is a perfectly valid and vitally necessary application of Scripture. I do not have to be mentioned by name in Scripture to do so.

In order to make those biblically valid applications that I intend to make, it is necessary first to establish biblically what is true about the Bible's teaching about whether all kinds of instruments are of equal importance in corporate worship that is acceptable to God, or one kind is more important than the others.

I said that something could be real and symbolic at the same time and you were confused. Does my example of asking for bread in the Lord's prayer and having that bread mean more than just bread relieve your confusion? After all, God doesn't tell us explicitly that asking for bread means more than just bread, but we can still understand it to be true. Right?

Or are you still disagreeing that something can be real and symbolic at the same time. It doesn't seem logical to talk about further possible symbolisms if we aren't in agreement about this foundational point.

Suppose you pray for daily bread and God gives you a steak for each meal that day from an anonymous giver. Did God give you literal bread, or did He give you a steak? Did "bread" in your prayer mean literal bread or did it mean "food"? It did not mean both at the same time; in fact, it did not mean literal bread at all.