The Christian Musician: What's Music For, Anyways?

Recently I bought a music history book with an unusual twist. It's called Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys by David W. Barber, who delights in inserting the most hilarious composer facts and cutting remarks on standard music history into his book. Definitly a good book for hard-to-find and completely irrelevant facts, showing off the quirks of the famous composers. It's also definitely a 'mature-reader' book. 

Here's one example that caught my attention immediately and made me think. In the preface, Anthony Burgess remarks, “I mean, we know what hamburgers are for . . . but we don’t know the purpose of music.” 

The purpose of music? How much time and thought have you given recently to the purpose of music? Isn't beautifying the world enough purpose? 

Hmm. Let's get back to basics for a moment. When an object has a purpose, there had to be a creative mind behind the purpose. Something that happened by accident won't have a purpose. But music did not happen by accident. We don't usually think of this, but music is God's invention. It's a reflection of His nature that He imbedded in us. With that being established, we can conclude that music does indeed have a purpose! 

   I suspect music may have a greater purpose than we are aware of. I suspect that we're not aware of what music does in our lives personally. Yes, even musicians. But there are things we can know from the Bible about the purpose of music. These points that I'm giving you are taken from a class I took in 2015 at a youth retreat, "Principles of Godly Music." According to the teacher (whose name I have forgotten, but I'm sure I must have it somewhere), these things ought to motivate us to make music:
  • Praise and worship (Revelation 5:9-10)
  • An amazing experience or testimony (Exodus 15:1-2)
  • Encouragement (Matthew 26:30)
  • Rememberance of what God has done for us (Deauteronomy 31:19. 32:44)
  • Instruction (Colossians 3:16)
  • As a witness (Acts 16:25)



So there you have it. Six good reasons to sing. Six good purposes for music.

Go give your music some purpose. Use it to praise the Creator of music!

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