Church of Christ and Musical Worship

The Church of Christ never used instruments in worship: those who quickly came into the American Restoration Movement never used instruments as Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians or Catholics who never engaged in congregational singing with instrumental accompaniment. The Church of Christ has the Authority of the synagogue in the wilderness and evidence from Genesis to Revelation, all historic scholars and all founders of protestent groups.  The fact that most instrumentalists do not use the Bible for authority is the reason they cannot see the direct commands, approved examples and the necessary inference that you don't make noise in the school of the Bible where Jesus is our only Teacher.  There are no "music" or "instrument" words which are not built upon or point to Satan as the source, warriors creating panic, sacrificial instrumentalists who "made the lambs dumb before the slauther," prostitutes or Sodomites.

Lynn Anderson  Psallo justifies Instrumental Music and sowing of Discord.   This is just a small number of false teachings cused at Oak Hills Church (Ex Church of Christ). The plan was for quiet strings in an extra room: this has sowed massive discord and now arrived it its planned destination of a full Rock and Roll performance. The ex-congregation just stands in shock and awe.  Rick Atchley promised not to "have instrumental music on Sunday until Jesus returned" but being post modern that meant what he REALLY thought inside.

Next, we will look at the word PALLO which is the word Paul would have used if he wanted to leave any room for playing a harp.  The word PSALLO is primarily a warfare word, then a polluted word and only as a metaphor speaks of "shooting out hymns."  Making Melody is a nonsense.  In the Bible and all known literature if you want to play harrp you have to say "make melody" and add "upon a harp."

Is. 23:16 Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered. 

Amos 5:23 Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

This is not a short story: it provides links which you can use to do some word mining: every once in a while you break through into King Solomon's Mine and that is not likely to happen in Bible Seminary.

I know of no exception to the rule confirmed by MOST of the words which speak of PLAYING a harp or making music in pagan worship which does not pick a word which primarily means to make war or "making love" as with the case of Apollo who was the father of the twanging bow to shoot forth singing arrows intended to murder you. Or, he used his lyre to shoot forth hymns or "love arrows" intending to engage perverted rituals because he was also the father of "perversion in worship." He is also the father of thieves and liars.  In this paper we will link to the making war-making music concept in ALL instruments.

A. Enteinô, A.stretch or strain tight, esp. of any operation performed with straps or cords,

B. 2.stretch a bow tight, bend it for shooting, enteinamenoi tên harmonian pitching the tune high

You will have to use your head to follow this. 

All of these forms have relevance to Achilles, who was placed upon a fire to remove his mortal impurities, who was a renowned singer and harpist, and who was skilled with a bow. (Ironically, he was killed by a bolt directed by Apollo from the bow of Alexander.) The twanging of the bowstring suggests the sound of the harp string and the singing of the clear, high pitched voice of the youth.

What is a "musical instrument?"

It is probably that all musical instruments derived from making war: twanging bow strings, beating on clanging brass shield with your weapon (translates as instrument in Hebrew) or other noise making machines. To that thought the Old Testament never calls it music but noise.

Organon 1 [*ergô]

I. an organ, instrument, tool, for making or doing a thing, mostly of making war or creating the shock and awe of superstitious pagan religionism 
3. a musical instrumen , id=Plat.
        * II. a work, product, laïnea Amphionos organa the stony works of Amphion,
It points to Jubal who handled musical instruments meaning without authority.

Aristotle Politics 1341b and all the instruments that require manual skill. And indeed there is a reasonable foundation for the story that was told by the ancients about the flute. The tale goes that Athena found a flute and threw it away. Now it is not a bad point in the story that the goddess did this out of annoyance because of the ugly distortion of her features; but as a matter of fact it is more likely that it was because education in flute-playing has no effect on the intelligence, whereas we attribute science and art to Athena

And since we reject professional education in the instruments and in performance  (and we count performance in competitions as professional,  for the performer does not take part in it  for his own improvement, but for his hearers'  pleasure, and that a vulgar pleasure, owing  to which we do not consider performing to be proper for free men, but somewhat menial; and indeed performers do become vulgar, since the object at which they aim is a low one, as vulgarity in the audience usually influences the music, so that it imparts to the artists  who practise it with a view to suit the audience a special kind of personality 

See some more of the clanging and tinkling and the making warfare or love connection.

Historians of the time said that Dionysus or Orpheus was the "god of the Jews" and they expected that he would be the promised Messiah.  Dionysus and Zeus were also the gods of the Jewish and Samaritan temple worship as the Abomination of Desolation.

2 Maccabees 6

1 - Not long after this, the king sent an Athenian senator to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their fathers and cease to live by the laws of God,

2 - and also to pollute the temple

> in Jerusalem and call it the temple of Olympian Zeus,
> and to call the one in Gerizim the temple of Zeus the Friend of Strangers, as did the people who dwelt in that place.

Musical worship is defined as IMPURE religion:

"Nor are these Thracian orgies, from which the word Worship (threskia) is said to be derived; nor rites and mysteries of Orpheus, whom the Greeks admired so much for his wisdom that they devised for him a lyre which draws all things by its music."

Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, Col.2:18

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this mans religion is vain. Ja.1:26

Threskos (g2357) thrace'-kos; prob. from the base of 2360; ceremonious in worship (as demonstrative), i.e. pious: - religious.

On the other hand:

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Ja.1:27

The Jerusalem clergy looking for Dionysus as their Messiah, tried to pervert Jesus into the song and choral dance of Dionysus. They also expected that John the Baptist would be wearing SOFT clothing of the king's catamite. Dionysus was the god of the NEW WINESKIN.  A very old image!

# Chorous men: for the omission of the article cf. ix. 88. 1; i. 194. 4; ii. 402, &c. The worship of Dionysus was popular with the common people and favoured by the tyrants. Pisistratus founded the city Dionysia at Athens, or at least the dramatic performances. Periander of Corinth was the patron of Arion, the great maker of choric song (i. 23 n.) Text

Choruses would be appropriate to Adrastus, whether as originally a Chthonian [the dead] deity (Welcker) or as a guardian hero. For the connexion of tragic choruses with the worship of the dead cf. Ridgeway, Origin of Tragedy, pp. 26-39; and for the change of 'heroes' Thuc. v. 11.

(Ariôn). A Greek poet and musician, of Methymna in Lesbos, who flourished about B.C. 625. In the course of a roving life he spent a considerable time at the court of Periander, tyrant of Corinth. Here he first gave the dithyramb (q.v.) an artistic form, and was therefore regarded as the inventor of that style in generalchoros

I. a round dance, used at banquets and festive occasions, Hom., Hes.:--at Athens, the choros kuklios performed round the altar of Dionysus, 

In many city states the people thought of boys as warriors and began training them by removing them from the mother like one might remove a pig. They were trained to be brutal terrorists and the way to impart the skills needed in stalking and cutting the throats (for graduation exercise) they were trained in music and dance.  We will look specificially at the phrase SONG MAKERS for one of manny connections between making war and making music.   The Church of Christ has existed in all ages and always rejected musical isntruments as being specificially outlawed in the church in the wilderness and never changed.

# Plato Protagoras [326b] the song-makers, while the master accompanies them on the harp; and they insist on familiarizing the boys' souls with the rhythms and scales, that they may gain in gentleness, and by advancing in rhythmic and harmonic grace may be efficient in speech and action; for the whole of man's life requires the graces of rhythm and harmony. Again, over and above all this, people send their sons to a trainer, that having improved their bodies they may perform the orders of their minds, [326c] which are now in fit condition, and that they may not be forced by bodily faults to play the coward in wars and other duties.  [Or: And when they are released from their schooling the city next compels them to learn the laws and to live according to them as after a pattern. Now, they are ready to make war on their neighbors]

This is what people do, who are most able; and the most able are the wealthiest. Their sons begin school at the earliest age, and are freed from it at the latest. And when they are released from their schooling the city next compels them to learn the laws and to live according to them as after a pattern,

[326d] that their conduct may not be swayed by their own light fancies, but just as writing-masters first draw letters in faint outline with the pen for their less advanced pupils, and then give them the copy-book and make them write according to the guidance of their lines, so the city sketches out for them the laws devised by good lawgivers of yore, and constrains them to govern and be governed according to these. She punishes anyone who steps outside these borders, and this punishment among you and in many other cities

How they prepare the wealthy young men to make war on their neighbors.
[326b] kitharismata enteinontes
Kithar-isma A.that which is played on the cithara, a piece of music for it, Pl.Prt.326b, Max.Tyr.7.6, Ach.Tat.2.1, D.C.63.26; k. ek Bakchôn Euripidou
Bakchê A. Bacchante, A.Eu.25, S.Ant.1122 (lyr.), Ar.Nu.605, Pl. Ion534a, etc.: generally, Bakchê Haidou frantic handmaid of Hades, E.Hec.1077; b. nekuônId. Ph.1489 (lyr.).
Remembering that the Bible is not lyric poetry and has no meter:
Pl. Ion534a, Plato, Ion [534a] just as the Corybantian1 worshippers do not dance when in their senses, so the lyric poets do not indite those fine songs in their senses, but when they have started on the melody and rhythm they begin to be frantic, and it is under possession--as the bacchants are possessed, and not in their senses, when they draw honey and milk from the rivers--that the soul of the lyric poets does the same thing, by their own report. For the poets tell us, I believe, that the songs they bring us are the sweets they cull from honey-dropping founts

1 The Corybantes were priests of Cybele or Rhea, [zoe] mother of Zeus and other Olympian gods, and she was worshipped with wild music and frenzied dancing which, like the bacchic revels or orgies of women in honor of Dionysus, carried away the participants despite and beyond themselves. Cf. Eurip. Bacchae on this site

[120] O hallowed haunts in Crete, that saw Zeus born, where Corybantes with crested helms devised for me in their grotto the rounded timbrel of ox-hide (lifeless instrument), mingling Bacchic minstrelsy with the shrill sweet accents of the Phrygian flute, a gift bestowed by them on mother Rhea, to add its crash of music to the Bacchantes' shouts of joy;

Auleô, of tunes, to be played on the flute, ho Bakcheios rhuthmos êuleito X. Smp.9.3 KERAS Horn, bow, musical instrument, horn for blowing.

Rev 17:3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

kat-auleô
A. charm by flute-playing, tinos Pl.Lg.790e, cf. R.411a; tina Alciphr.2.1: metaph., se . . -êsô phobôi I will flute to you on a ghastly flute, E.HF871 (troch.):--Pass., of persons, methuôn kai katauloumenos drinking wine to the strains of the flute, Pl.R.561c; k. pros chelônidos psophon to be played to on the flute with lyre accompaniment, Posidon.10 J., cf. Call.Fr.10.3 P., Phld.Mus.p.49 K.
but frantic satyrs (homosexual priests) won it from the mother-goddess for their own, and added it to their dances in festivals, which gladden the heart of Dionysus, each third recurrent year.
Enteinontes: used of putting prose into metrical form, or adapting verses to musical rhythm and melody. Cf. Phaedo 60 d enteinas tous tou Aisôpou logous kai to eis ton Apollô prooimion.
Psa 77:9 Lxx uioi efraim enteinontes kai ballontes tocois estrafhsan en hmera polemou
Psa 78:8 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
Psa 78:9 The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.
7198 qesheth, keh´-sheth; from 7185 in the original sense (of 6983) of bending: a bow, for shooting (hence, figuratively, strength) or the iris:—x arch(-er), + arrow, bow((-man, -shot)). 6983.  koshe; a primitive root; to bend; used only as denominative for 3369, to set a trap:--lay a snare.
Enteinô, A.stretch or strain tight, esp. of any operation performed with straps or cords,
2.stretch a bow tight, bend it for shooting, enteinamenoi tên harmonian pitching the tune high
II. Metap;hor, strain, exert, phônên enteinamenosAeschin. 2.157
2. Intensify, carry on vigorously, excite
Poliorkia siege of a city, metaphor: besieging, pestering
IV.stretch out at or against, plêgên e. tinilay a blow on him, X.An.2.4.11,
       Plege A blow, stroke, stroke of lightening, strokes of axe or sword, beating the breasts,
       impression of the ears and eyes.
PLATO, TIMAEUS [67b] and the causes whereby its affections are produced. In general, then, let us lay it down that sound is a stroke transmitted through the ears, by the action of the air upon the brain and the blood, and reaching to the soul; and that the motion caused thereby, which begins in the head and ends about the seat of the liver, is “hearing”; and that every rapid motion produces a “shrill” sound, and every slower motion a more “deep” sound; and that uniform motion produces an “even” and smooth sound and the opposite kind of motion a “harsh” sound;
Rev. 18:1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven,
        having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
Rev. 18:2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon  the great is fallen,  
[Chaldean, Astrology] Daniel 2:[27]  Daniel answered before the king, and said, The secret which the king has demanded can neither wise men, enchanters, magicians, nor soothsayers, show to the king
is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
Rev. 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
Daimonion the favors of fortune Pl.Epin.992d
[202e] “‘Well what?’

Symposium: Apollodoorus 202e

“‘As I previously suggested, between a mortal and an immortal.’
“‘And what is that, Diotima?’
“‘A great spirit, Socrates: for the whole of the spiritual1 is between divine and mortal.’
“‘Possessing what power?’ I asked.

“‘Interpreting and transporting human things to the gods and divine things to men; entreaties and sacrifices from below, and ordinances and requitals from above: being midway between, it makes each to supplement the other, so that the whole is combined in one. Through it are conveyed all divination [mantikos Apollon] and priestcraft concerning sacrifice and ritual

Pseudo-Apollodorus

[1.9.7] Salmoneus at first dwelt in Thessaly, but afterwards he came to Elis and there founded a city. And being arrogant and wishful to put himself on an equality with Zeus, he was punished for his impiety; for he said that he was himself Zeus, and

he took away the sacrifices of the god and
ordered them to be offered to himself;
and by dragging dried hides, with bronze kettles, at his chariot,
he said that he thundered,
and by flinging lighted torches at the sky
he said that he lightened.
Lebes or kettle of bronze III. basin used as a cymbal or drum, Hdt.6.58; of the gong at Dodona,
Heredotus 6.LVIII. The kings are granted these rights from the Spartan commonwealth while they live; when they die, their rights are as follows: Horsemen proclaim their death in all parts of Laconia, and in the city women go about beating on cauldrons. When this happens, two free persons from each house, a man and a woman, are required to wear mourning, or incur heavy penalties if they fail to do so...  [6] When these and the helots and the Spartans themselves have assembled in one place to the number of many thousands, together with the women, they zealously beat their foreheads and make long and loud lamentation, calling that king that is most recently dead the best of all their kings
Dodona see  prophecy was given by signs was that of Zeus of Dodona from the sound of a brazen cymbal.
Astraptô (cf. straptô), of persons, to be brilliant, consp;icious, consume with lightening. hurl epithets of Zeus, 

katachalk-os A.overlaid with bronze or copper drakôn A. dragon, serpent, Il.11.39, al.; interchangeable with ophis,

Rev . 20:2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev. 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.  

Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris Chorus

Lovely is the son of Leto, [1235]  whom she, the Delian, once bore in the fruitful valleys, golden-haired, skilled at the lyre; and also the one who glories in her well-aimed arrows. [1240]  For the mother, leaving the famous birth-place, brought him from the ridges of the sea to the heights of Parnassus, with its gushing waters, which celebrate the revels for Dionysus. Here the dark-faced serpent [1245]  with brightly colored back, his scales of bronze in the leaf-shaded laurel, huge monster of the earth, guarded Earth's prophetic shrine. You killed him, o Phoebus, while still a baby, [1250]  still leaping in the arms of your dear mother, and you entered the holy shrine, and sit on the golden tripod, on your truthful throne [1255]  distributing prophecies from the gods to mortals, up from the sanctuary, neighbor of Castalia's streams, as you dwell in the middle of the earth.

Chalkeos Chalkes hupai salpingos a war trumpet metaphor for thunder, 

Euripides, Electra Chorus

The story remains in old legends [700]  that Pan, the keeper of wild beasts, breathing sweet-voiced music on his well-joined pipes, once brought from its tender mother on Argive hills [705]  a lamb with beautiful golden fleece. A herald stood on the stone platform and cried aloud, “To assembly [aroga], Mycenaeans, go to assembly [710]  to see the omens given to our blessed rulers.” . . . and they honored the house of Atreus.

then goddesses of song in genera. They are all female and are considered goddesses dwelling in Olympus, who at the meals of the gods sing sweetly to the lyre of Apollo. They are the nine daughters of Zeus. [Apollo is at times the sun god or Saturn. Saturn's Chaldee (sounding brass, astrology) number is 666.

êôs

2. day, Il.1.493, al., Od.19.192, Theoc.12.1, Call.Aet.1.1.1; ê. de moi estin hêde duôdekatê, hote. . Il.21.80 ; katêïen es dusin ê. Musae.110; mesatê ê (arbitrator). Orph.A.649.
3. Life
II. pr. n., Êôs the goddess of dawn, Il. 11.1, Hes.Th.372,378, e

Thespian

E. Thespias , a(dis, adj. f., Thespian: Musae (a muse, one of the nine Muses, as dwelling on Mount Helicon), Ov. M. 5, 310 ; also called, absol., Thespiades, Varr. L. L. 7, § 20 Müll.; Cic. Verr. 2, 4, 2, § 4; Plin. 36, 5, 4, § 39.

hêlios II. as pr. n., Helios, the sun-god, Od.8.271, identified with Apollo,
2.Hêliou astêr, of the planet Saturn,
lucifer , fe(ra, fe(rum, adj. [lux-fero] , light-bringing: itaque ut apud Graecos Dianam, eamque Luciferam, sic apud nostros Junonem (Juno) Lucinam in pariendo invocant, Cic. N. D. 2, 27, 68 : pars Lunae, Lucr. 5, 726 : equi,the horses of Luna, Ov. H. 11, 46 : manus,i. e. of Lucina, id. ib. 20, 192 .-- Poet., bringing safety, Prud. Psych. 625.-- Hence,

II. Subst.: Lucifer , feri, m.

A. The morning-star, the planet Venus: stella Lucifer interdiu, noctu Hesperus ita circumeunt, Varr. R. R. 3, 5, 17 : stella Veneris, quae Phôsphoros Graece, Latine dicitur Lucifer, cum antegreditur solem, cum subsequitur autem Hesperos, Cic. N. D. 2, 20, 53: si dormire incipis ortu Luciferi, Juv. 8, 12 ; 13, 158; cf. Plin. 2, 8, 6, § 36; Tib. 1, 10 (9), 62; Ov. Tr. 1, 3, 71.--

B. The fabled son of Aurora [Eos] and Cephalus, and father of Ceyx, Hyg. Astr. 2, 42; Ov. M. 11, 271; 346; acc. to others,a son of Jupiter, Serv. Verg. A. 4, 130 .--

C. Poet. transf., day: memento Venturum paucis me tibi Luciferis, Prop. 2, 15 (3, 12), 28: omnis, Ov. F. 1, 46 : tres, id. ib. 3, 877 .

zôê-living, i.e. one's substance, property

zeidôros , on, zea-giving , zeidôros aroura, some authors derived it from zaô,= biodôros , life-giving, Aphroditê Emp.151 ; Êelios. Lucifer is the Hebrew heylel, from brightness.

zeidôros used with pherô (Locr. pharô burden). hêlios, êelioio to see the light of life, Helios, the sun-god. Hêliou astêr, of the planet Saturn (Number is 666). Heliacal Rising is about the end of September. but also eis phôs ienai to come into the light, i.e. into public,

But Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt, and wiped out the city he had founded with all its inhabitants.

Note: In the traditions concerning Salmoneus we may perhaps trace the reminiscence of a line of kings who personated the Skygod Zeus and attempted to make rain, thunder and lightning by means of imitative magic. See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i.310, ii.177, 180ff. Sophocles composed a Satyric play on the subject (The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. ii. pp. 177ff. ). 19) Pseudo-Apollodorus Library 1.9.7 (Loeb

Rev. 18:8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. 
Enteinô,  
b. of the strings of the lyre, tês neatês entetamenês
V.stretch out at or against,plêgên e. tinilay a blow on him
2. esp. put into verse, set to music, poiêmata eis ta kitharismata
2.157  Aeschines, 2. [157] “How outrageous that when a man whose business it is to act the parts of a Carion or of a Xanthias1 showed himself so noble and generous, Aeschines, the counsellor of the greatest city, the adviser of the Ten Thousand of Arcadia, did not restrain his insolence, but in drunken heat, when Xenodocus, one of the picked corps of Philip, was entertaining us, seized a captive woman by the hair, and took a strap and flogged her!”
1 Satyrus, the comic actor, would often take slave parts, for which Carion and Xanthias were among the traditional names.

Aeschines, Speeches Against Ctesiphon

But when a man who is made up of words, and those words bitter words and useless--when such a man takes refuge in "simplicity" and "the facts," who could have patience with him? If you treat him as you might a clarinet, and take out his tongue, you have nothing left!

Home Page
Musical Worship Index
Church of Christ Index