05/06/2026
SHOULD WORSHIP BE ENTERTAINING?
Music Worship in this Modern Age ✝️🎶
What do you think about praise bands (equivalent to a rock/pop band w/ gifted singers) in Sunday morning worship services?
It is true that for many people, they are highly entertaining, engaging, emotionally stimulating and create a memorable experience! But is that what music worship is supposed to be, according to the Bible?
Obviously, people didn’t worship God like that in the first century church. Is that simply because they didn’t have the technology? Or is there more to it than that? 
Consider this perspective if you will. When Jesus delivered the sermon on the mount (Matthew, Ch. 5-7), He would often begin a lesson by saying: “you have heard that it was said” (Mat. 5:21) and then He would quote an Old Testament command, followed by a much deeper approach to the original scripture. Jesus occassionally mentioned a “tradition of men” in His sermon, wherein Pharisees and Scribes had piled additional requirements on top of a given law. This was an example of prideful men thinking they were improving upon God’s law. In other gospel accounts (Mark 7:7-13), Jesus condemns these “added” man-made traditions.
Many of you may not know this, but just 200 years ago, multiple churches (denominations) sang only a ca****la in Sunday worship. Go back even farther in history and you will see this all the more.
Did these 19th Century churches and earlier worship God a ca****la, simply because they did not have the funding to purchase instruments? Did you know that one of the most common arguments for “adding” instruments (ex. organ) in the late 1800s, early 1900s was to drown out people who sang off key? 😁🎶 In other words, “improving” upon God‘s original New Testament command regarding a ca****la music worship: 
Colossians 3:16 (NIV): "Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, SINGING to God with gratitude in your hearts."
Here is something else interesting to ponder. In the days of Martin Luther, one of the subjects he covered in his 95 Theses to the Catholic Church was that the church as a whole (all the people), should be praising God in song, not just an elect group of gifted instrumentalists and singers, which was the common practice in worship at that time.
Ephesians 5:19 (NKJV): speaking to “ONE ANOTHER” in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, SINGING and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
Listen, I love to sit back and listen to a great group of instrumentalists and singers, just like anybody else! But is that what Bible commands and examples show us being practiced in first century worship? No. In the New Testament Church, everybody sang in worship and man-made instruments were not a part of that practice. Old Testament, yes. New Testament, no.
If you and I wish to be pleasing to God in how we worship Him, musically speaking, we will humbly obey His commands and examples from the first century church. We will not pridefully try to improve upon the original method. 
Simultaneous a-ca****la singing of the entire congregation may not always be as beautiful or entertaining as a select group of highly gifted solo singers and instrumentalists, but it is the way God designated that He desires to be worshiped under New Testament law.
