The Word Unleashed - Radio

In 1 John the apostle John is teaching us that believing the right things about Jesus and His gospel, simply believing those facts to be true, does not prove that anyone is a Christian. But rather, genuine Christians also demonstrate a pattern of obedience to Christ in the way that they live: Christians deny sin and pursue righteousness.

The New Testament provides several compelling arguments that call churches and church leaders to install biblically qualified elders to govern their churches.

It is absolutely critical for us as Christians to understand a biblical model for church leadership. Sadly, many leaders oversee their churches like businesses instead of the “household of God.” But the Bible presents a clear pattern of leadership that is built on a plurality of godly men.

Jesus Christ believed in absolute truth. In fact, He affirmed the Old Testament to be the truth, His own teaching to be true, and He pre-authenticated the authors of the New Testament to write the truth. At the same time, Jesus affirmed that truth can be comprehended. In other words, Jesus believed in a standard of truth, and He was fully confident that people would be able to understand it.

The culture outside of Christianity has many ideas about truth—they teach it is relative; that there is no absolute truth; that if there was truth who could ever know it. Sadly, such ideas have crept into the Christian church. But the Bible claims to be truth, the objective standard of truth that was given directly by God Himself.

The New Testament teaches that true worship is that which flows out of the heart of every believer. As Christians, when we sing to the Lord on Sunday mornings, we must not only do so audibly, but also from the heart—it should be wholehearted, focused singing. And second, we must direct our music and singing to our Lord Jesus Christ—we have to intentionally direct our worship to Him.

God not only commands that music and singing be part of worship, He also prescribes several resources that enrich and support music in worship. This includes various musical instruments, orchestras, choirs, vocalists, music directors, and congregational singing.

Should churches sing traditional or contemporary songs? Is it ok to sing both? Sadly, music style has becoming increasingly divisive in the church, mainly because of a misunderstanding about what the Bible teaches about “styles” of music. But both the Old and New Testaments give clear teaching about styles of music and what is appropriate for the worship of God.

The Bible teaches that there are three primary purposes for music in worship: personal, horizontal and vertical. Personally, in the sense that we as Christians must be actively engaged in remembering the truths of Scripture. Horizontally, as Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5 teach, we must sing biblical truths to one another. And vertically—most importantly—we must express our hearts to God.

The second commandment teaches that God alone has the right to prescribe how His people are to worship Him. This very much includes the music we play and sing at church. We as Christians must follow the biblical pattern of singing songs that have God-centered lyrics that bring praise and honor to Him.