O Say, Do You Sing?

To whom do you sing?

When you gather to worship, what do you sing? When do you sing? Why do you sing?

We gather on Sunday mornings for a celebration. We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

We can worship any time and anywhere. Those who use this as an excuse for not attending worship have a point.

But they miss the greater points.

Number one: We are told not to forsake the gathering of ourselves together.

If the Word of God tells us not to do something we should not do it. You cannot argue with me on this point, because I arrogantly refuse to hear your arguement.

Number two: It is difficult to celebrate something alone.

I have no issue with people who want to meet on some day other than Sunday. Colosians clearly tells us not to fuss at one another over a special day. So let's not fuss.

However, the early church met on Sundays for the express purpose of remembering and celebrating a living Christ.

Celebrations are typically cloaked in song.

"Happy Birthday to you..."

"For he's a jolly good fellow..."

And so, we sings songs of celebration as well as worship when we meet on Sundays (or any other day).

The Psalms are replete with songs (you DID know that they were songs...right?) of worship and praise.

Great writers have written hymns of praise, doctrine, worship, and focus on Christ.

Since the early days of the church there have been shorter, easily learned and sung songs like the choruses many of us sing today.

Scripture tells us to use all of these.

Consider Eph 5:19 "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;... "

I take psalms to be scripture songs, hymns to be poetry with a spiritual point put to music and spiritual songs to be like choruses and such.

According to the verse in Ephesians, to whom do we sing?

Most people, I think, would say, "Why we sing to God, of course."

But wait!

The verse says, "Speaking to yourselves in psalms...."

Other translations use the words each other.

Clearly, this fits with the Biblical principle of edifying, or building up, one another and giving each other encouragement.

When Paul and Silas were in prison, they sang.

Surely they were worshipping, but they were also giving each other the courage to face what was surely ahead.

In our church, we meet on Sundays. As Worship Leader, I try to keep before the congregation that we are there to celebrate the resurrected Jesus and to worship Him, but also to encourage one another.

Sometimes we hold hands as we sing.

Sometimes we lift up our hands when we sing.

Sometimes we clap as we sing.

Always we celebrate and worship.

I hope you do, too.