Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 5:17-21.
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord (Ephesians 5:19).
In last Lord’s Day morning’s sermon we noted five essential
aspects of wise Christian living as presented in Ephesians 5:17-21, including (1)
Understand the Lord’s will (v. 17); (2) Be filled with the Spirit (v. 18); (3) Sing
in your heart to the Lord (v. 19); (4) Give thanks always for all things (v.
20); and (5) Be submitted in the fear of God (v. 21).
Regarding v. 19, we noted the exhortation for believers to
sing praise. This passage, along with Colossians
3:16, is one of the most important prooftexts in Scripture to justify singing
as an element in corporate worship.
Can
you believe that there was once a great controversy among early Particular
Baptists as to whether singing was part of Scripturally sanctioned worship?
Eventually singing was affirmed, in part by appeals to Ephesians 5:19 and
Colossians 3:16.
We
strive to follow the Regulative Principle of worship, meaning we want
everything we do in worship to be something God has commanded in his word.
Notice
at least four insights in Ephesians 5:19 regarding singing:
First,
there is a horizontal aspect to singing:
“Speaking
to yourselves….” Congregational singing offers mutual exhortation, comfort, and
edification to the saints.
Second, we are to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Some say this means, “Psalms, Psalms, and Psalms” (“hymns” means
Biblical Psalms and “spiritual songs” means inspired by the Spirit, according
to this view).
At the least, it means we should include canonical Psalms (from
the book of Psalms) in our singing.
We hold that there can also sing songs drawn from other places in
Scripture (beyond the Psalms), and that we can sing uninspired, yet sound,
songs of praise, if they are Biblically faithful, just as we can offer prayers
and preach sermons whose words are not inspired, but yet, are still edifying. Still,
we ought also to sing the Psalms. With singing uninspired texts we always run a
risk of saying things in error.
Third, singing must come from the heart.
The standard is not musical excellence, but singing sincerely and faithfully
“in your heart.”
Fourth, there is also
a predominant vertical aspect to singing.
Although, as noted
above, there is a horizontal aspect to singing, in the end, our singing is not
merely for man, but it is directed “to the Lord.” As Psalm 96:1 exhorts, “Sing unto
the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth.”
Grace and peace,
Pastor Jeff Riddle
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