Musical Instruments in Worship

Musical Instruments in Worship

Phillip Kayser
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Table of Contents

Musical Instruments in Worship

  • 1. God’s Delight In Instrumental Music
  • 2. To mandate a cappella worship is to violate the Regulative Principle of Worship
  • 3. Dealing with a cappella’s first pillar
    • A summary of the argument: the claim that instrumental music was purely Levitical, ceremonial, and tied to the temple
    • Problem one – Non-Levites were clearly authorized to play musical instruments in worship
    • Problem two: David’s booth/tabernacle (a form of synagogue worship that foreshadowed New Covenant worship) had instrumental music without sacrifices or ceremonial law.
    • Problem three: the only musical instruments that were distinctively Levitical were the two silver trumpets.
    • Problem four: While some Levitical functions ceased with the death of Christ, it is simply not true that all Levitical functions do.
    • Problem five – Where does the Bible describe musical instruments as a ceremonial type?
  • 4. Dealing with a cappella’s second pillar
    • A summary of the argument: the claim that instrumental music cannot be found in the New Testament
    • Ephesians 5:19: Does it command the use of instruments or forbid the use of instruments?
    • Other New Testament evidence
  • 5. Dealing with a cappella’s third pillar
    • A summary of the argument: the claim that instrumental music was not used by the early church and that the early church interpreted the Bible to teach a cessationist perspective on instruments
    • Preliminary contradiction of the a cappella thesis
    • Church fathers who either played musical instruments themselves or who (while opposing instruments in their own local churches) admitted that the true church used instruments in worship (AD 70-680)
    • The real reason that opposition to musical instruments arose in the late third century and following – the Greek philosophy of asceticism
    • Some of the non-instrumentation citations prove too much
    • What about the Reformers?
    • What about the synagogues – Were they instrument free? And does it matter if we hold to RPW?
  • 6. Conclusion
  • 7. About the author
  • Notes
Musical Instruments in Worship/Overview

Musical Instruments in Worship

Course overview

Is it okay to play instruments in church? What did church fathers say? What does the Bible say?

8 chapters
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The Book

Musical Instruments in Worship8 chapters

Begin ›
  1. 1. God’s Delight In Instrumental Music

  2. 2. To mandate a cappella worship is to violate the Regulative Principle of Worship

  3. 3. Dealing with a cappella’s first pillar

  4. 4. Dealing with a cappella’s second pillar

  5. 5. Dealing with a cappella’s third pillar

  6. 6. Conclusion

  7. 7. About the author

  8. Notes