Had a wonderful bible study on praise this past weekend. I was thinking to myself, “oh, okay on praise.” I wasn’t too thrilled at first because I really wanted get into the “deeper” things of God. But the bible study leader is pretty consistent in teaching us these deep things of God so I remained patient.
I was not disappointed.
Psalm 150 was one of several scriptures used describing praising God, but this one I want to focus on because of its use of musical instruments, something that is sometimes controversial in the Church. But here it is with its entire chapter – all six verses of it!
Psalm 150
Let All Things Praise the LORD
1 Praise the LORD!
Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty firmament!
2 Praise Him for His mighty acts;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!
3 Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;
Praise Him with the lute and harp!
4 Praise Him with the timbrel and dance;
Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!
5 Praise Him with loud cymbals;
Praise Him with clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD!
Praise him with the trumpet, the lute, the harp, timbrel and dance, stringed intruments and flutes, loud cymbals, clashing cymbals! Wow, all instruments to God’s glory!
When I was young and went to grandma and grandpa’s church (we weren’t church goers in my home with dad an agnostic), I remember distinctively the talk of guitars and drums as being sinful. These days, that has been replaced with hip hoppers, rappers and praise dancers as being sinful by some.
But as I’ve glanced through some videos of today’s Christian rappers and hip hoppers they are using instruments in the praise of God. These days the instruments can even include the fascinating use of computers in music. Take a look from this scene in the “Fighting Temptations,” a movie that although wasn’t high on my list of good movies, but this scene caught my attention when it came to the mixture of old time gospel and modern synthesized hip hop music. Very interesting!
“To Da River” T-Bone, Lil Zane, Eddie Levert, Montel Jordan in Fighting Temptations
