John Mark Hicks reviewed by Al Maxey

Al Maxey reviews John Mark Hicks as the scholar who shows why we do not USE "machines for doing hard work" or for producing the "shock and awe" Jesus called the laded burden and Paul condemned as self-pleasure. However, being a nice man, Hicks does not condemn those who usually try to infiltrate and impose instruments as the Sectarian Discipled did along with the Baptists and other groups primarly after the radical upsed of the civil war and the northern churches had bundles of money in carpet-bags.

A Neo Pagan view of the trinity
http://www.piney.com/John.Mark.Hicks.Our.Triune.God-The.Wonder.of.the.Story.html

1.04.11 When people speak out of their own imagination instead of the Word as Spirit by Christ in the Prophets and Apostles, Christ calls it blasphemy. Of Hezekiah's Plague stopping exorcism used to say that "God commanded instrumental praise and we must not be disobedient" Christ calls them BLASPHEMERS.

See Christ defining Blasphemy of The Holy Spirit

For I spake NOT unto your fathers, nor commanded them
in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt,
   concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: Jeremiah 7:22
But this thing commanded I them, saying,
   Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: (CENI)
   and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, (CENI)
   that it may be well unto you. Jeremiah 7:23

Jer 23:17 They say still unto them that despise me,
The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace;
and they say unto every one that walketh
after the imagination of his own heart,
No evil shall come upon you. "You can SOW discord and steal from the owners"

Despise tthe Word of God of God and using your own words is:

Blasphēm-eō , pf.
A. “beblasphēmēka” D.18.10:—speak profanely of sacred things, “eis theous” Pl.R.381e; offer rash prayers, Id.Alc.2.149c; b. kata tinosutter imprecations against, Aeschin.1.180.

2. speak ill or to the prejudice of one, slander, “peri tēs emēs diatribēs” Isoc.15.2, cf. D.l.c., ib.82; “b. kata tinos” Isoc.12.65, cf. Arist.Fr.44; “hosa eis hēmas eblasphēmēsan” D.51.3; “b. tina” Babr.71.6, Ev.Luc.23.39, etc.: abs., Phld.Lib.p.8 O.:—Pass., to have evil spoken of one, “beblasphēmēmenous” Id.Vit.p.12 J., cf. 1 Ep.Cor.10.30.
3. speak impiously or irreverently of God, blaspheme, “eis ton Kurion” LXX Da.3.29(96); “eis to pneuma to hagion” Ev.Marc.3.29; eis ta theia Vett. Val.58.12; “tous theous” Id.67.20: abs., LXX 2 Ma.10.34, al., Ev.Matt.9.3.

A Gathered People: Revisioning the Assembly as Transforming Encounter by John Mark Hicks, Johnny Melton and Bobby Valentine. These people really lust to drag you back under the sacrificial system which was the worship of the starry host to which God abandoned them because of musical idolatry at Mount Sinai. LU is in big trouble. THE BOOK for your review.

Tulsa Workshop Lineup of Usual False Teachers. Why would people who lie to God and about God be honored?

Because Al missed the beginning of the synagogue as the church in the wilderness, he fails to grasp that both vocal and instrumental rejoicing were outlawed: minimal common sense because the synagogue was called ONLY for instruction. Al Maxey is a featured writer at Grace Centered Magazine.

Fred Peatross also defines A Spectacle of Worship which sounds more like withcraft than Christian.

Al Maxey: Dr. Hicks freely admits,

"Historically, the fundamental reason we have not used instrumental music in our worship assemblies is because they were absent from the worship assemblies of New Testament Christians."

This indeed is the argument that we hear most frequently from the proponents of a cappella music in the church.
The early disciples apparently didn't use instruments (as far as we know from the extant historical accounts ...
more properly from the silence of such sources), thus we don't use them.

Dr Everett Ferguson what history makes clear:

My assignment is to discuss the evidence of early Christory concerning the kind of music employed in the early church. The testimony of early church history is clear and strong that early Christians employed vocal music but did not imploy isntrumental music in their assemblies. Instrumental music Issue, Ferguson, Lewis West. p. 79

Christian authors not only referred to the practice of singing in the assemblies and cmade comments on how this was don and used psallo in reference to this singing, but they also made express statements about the Christian rejection of instrumental music in the praise of God. By the fourth century, Christiaan interpretation of the Psalms, reflection on the difference between Christian assemblies and pagan and Jewis cultic practice. p 93

Justin Martyr [a.d. 110-165] understood Amos

Ye who come to the evil day, who are approaching, and who hold to false Sabbaths; who lie on beds of ivory, and are at ease upon their couches; who eat the lambs out of the flock, and the sucking calves out of the midst of the herd;

    who applaud at the sound of the musical instruments;
            they reckon them as stable,
            and not as fleeting,

However, it is very vocal about even accepting for membership anyone who played a musical instrument.

In the Apostolic Constitutions of The Church of Christ

If one belonging to the theatre

(1) come, whether it be man or woman, or charioteer, or dueller, or racer, or player of prizes, or Olympic gamester, or one that plays on the pipe, on the lute, or on the harp at those games, or a dancing-master or an huckster,

(2) either let them leave off their employments, or let them be rejected. If a soldier come, let him be taught to "do no injustice, to accuse no man falsely, and to be content with his allotted wages:"

(3) if he submit to those rules, let him be received; but if he refuse them, let him be rejected. He that is guilty of sins not to be named, a sodomite, an effeminate person, a magician, an enchanter, an astrologer, a diviner, an user of magic verses, a juggler, a mountebank, one that makes amulets, a charmer, a soothsayer, a fortune-teller, an observer of palmistry; he that, when he meets you, observes defects in the eyes or feet of the birds or cats, or noises, or symbolical sounds:

John in Revelation 18 defines the slick speakers, singers and instrument players as SORCERERS. To that agrees all musical terms which meant deceptive means to afflict the spirit.

Because the music which is called NOISE is proven to be "exorcism" serving only the priests in the not-commanded sacrificial system, and the sacrificial system had been dead or in the hands of Gentile pagans for several hundred years, and because it was excluded in the synagogue, and because it was always the mark of perverted paganism, not Bible student would be so mad as to impose music into the synagogue or school of the Bible. In the Apostolic Constitutions by a group calling itself The Church of Christ we see that John's claim that rhetoricians, singers and instrument players were sorcerers are all prohibited from being members of the Churchof Christ:

For all which things do we give Thee thanks through Christ,
who has given us an articulate voice to confess withal,
and added to it a suitable tongue as an instrument to modulate withal,
and a proper taste, and a suitable touch, and a sight for contemplation,
and the hearing of sounds, and the smelling of vapours,
and hands for work, and feet for walking.

(1) come, whether it be man or woman, or charioteer, or dueller, or racer, or player of prizes, or Olympic gamester, or one that plays on the pipe, on the lute, or on the harp at those games, or a dancing-master or an huckster,

(2) either let them leave off their employments, or let them be rejected. If a soldier come, let him be taught to "do no injustice, to accuse no man falsely, and to be content with his allotted wages:"

(3) if he submit to those rules, let him be received; but if he refuse them, let him be rejected. He that is guilty of sins not to be named, a sodomite, an effeminate person, a magician, an enchanter, an astrologer, a diviner, an user of magic verses, a juggler, a mountebank, one that makes amulets, a charmer, a soothsayer, a fortune-teller, an observer of palmistry; he that, when he meets you, observes defects in the eyes or feet of the birds or cats, or noises, or symbolical sounds:

let these be proved for some time, for this sort of wickedness is hard to be washed away; and if they leave off those practices, let them be received; but if they will not agree to that, let them be rejected. Let a concubine, who is slave to an unbeliever, and confines herself to her master alone, be received;

Al Maxey: The obvious weakness of this approach, of course, is that there are a great many things the early disciples didn't use or didn't do, and we today use them and do them anyway! The inconsistency of this is glaring to our religious neighbors.

Even if God was silent and depended on moderns to fill in the blanks, it is rational to EXCLUDE loud music during Bible Class but be able to include a roof to keep the rain and snow off. These would be AIDS to conducting Bible Class as Jesus' use of "houses" to teach confirms. No one can even hallucinate that rejecting the Words of Christ and making music is an AID to Bible study.

We know from the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai that it ignored the Word of God for which God turned them over to worship the starry host (Acts 7 etal). The direct INCLUSION of the synagogue or church in the wilderness was as "a school of the Word" and the direct EXCLUSION of vocal and instrumental rejoicing sounded pretty loud to historic scholars like Luther and Calvin.

There are libraries of material Al pretends may not exist including the historical fact that "singing as an ACT" was added about the year 373 in order to sow propaganda using self composed hymns to REPLACE the Word of God: that defines both Pharisee and Hypocrite. If trouble was brewed and we have a historical note that a thing BEGAN then we can be certain that it did not exist before. There can be silence as long as false teachers do not try to "come to the aid of God" which is the only meaning of "praise singing." Remembering that Harold Bloom would define the Disciples and Baptists as a "distinctly Gnostic American religion with no roots to the historic church":

"In Gnostic circles religious poetry arose to compete with the Old Testament Psalms. Some Catholics therefore distrusted the composition of hymns after this pattern, on the ground that they might smack of heresy. Yet from at least the second century hymns were written by the orthodox which, like their Gnostic counterparts, employed the forms of Greek poetry...
Until near the end of the fourth century, in the services of the Catholic Church
only the Old Testament Psalms and
the hymns or canticles from the New Testament were sung:
the other hymns were for personal family, or private use.
Gradually there were prepared versical paraphrases of the Psalms, hymns
with lines of equal length, and hymns which were acrostic." (Latourette, Christianity. p. 207).

That still does not translate to "making music."

Because "melody as tunefulness belongs to the 19th century" we can be dogmatically certain that they didn't sing as Al might hear it.
Because the Bible is NOT metrical in a "tuneful sense" we can be dogmatically certain that no one "sang" the biblical text. The word is 'cantillation' which is a style of SPEAK and we do remember that Paul commanded SPEAK which is so defined as to be the opposite of poerty or music. Everyone knew that anything lyric or metrical was INTENDED to deceive.

The Campbells would have grown up obeying the direct command to sing the BIBLICAL TEXT. And so were all human compositions including those of Martin Luther excluded.

From Ephraim the Syrian and Aphrahat the Persian Sage

To Ephraim pertains the high and unique distinction of having originated-or at least given its living impulse to- a new departure in sacred literature; and that, not for his own country merely, but for Christendom.

From him came, if not the first idea, at all events the first successful example,
of making song an essential constituent of public worship,
and an exponent of theological teaching;
and from him it spread and prevailed through
the Eastern Churches, and affected even those of the West.

To the Hymns, on which chiefly his fame rests, the Syriac ritual in all its forms owes much of its strength and richness; and to them is largely due the place which Hymnody holds throughout the Church everywhere.
And hence it has come to pass that, in the Church everywhere, he stands as the representative Syrian Father, as the fixed epithet appended to his name attests-" Ephraim the Syrian,"-the one Syrian known and reverenced in all Christendom.

From a few lines of Proba's work can be seen the problems with this approach:
        little of what was created could justifiably be placed alongside the great works of the past,
        and since that was an implicit target
        the failure to meet it was embarrassing;

And here is what all ancient writers think about singing as musical as by and for the lower classes and illiterates who could not handle prose and dialog:

more pressingly, such Christianisations did not appeal to the highly educated, who preferred to read the imitated originals,
and did not appeal to Christians who would not otherwise have read the originals, who needed something written to their own culture and not to that of a past elite. This kind of imitation had its brief flourishing at the time of the emperor Julian, who forbade Christians to teach pagan works, but had no lasting effect.

We have records of the early church assembly: they met to praise God with Psalms. This would not have been musical because the Bible is not metrical even when some of it is marked for reading accents. The word sing or ado further defines psalmos as "in Hebrew cantillation." That is SPEAK as in Pauls direct commands. They observed the Lord's Supper in a private room because neither reciting the psalms nor the Lord's Supper was a public spectacle. They sent the Lord's Supper to those not able to attend. They looked after the poor among them. Those who had prospered gave to the destitute but only if they were willing. They fed, housed and helped traveling evangelists (no other kind) on their way. You have to INFER when you add anything to that simple school of the Bible.

Al Maxey: Yes, brethren, the "fundamental reason" we have not employed instruments in our worship assemblies is historically based, NOT Scripturally based. Frankly, that is rather flimsy basis for the formulation of LAW. Indeed, it is no basis at all.

That has to be based on a purpose driven impulse to sow discord: the Bible is perfectly clear to anyone who cares to define words in terms of the culture. Many are specific identifying MUSICAL IDOLATRY at Mount Sinai as the "because of transgression" for which God turned them over to worship the starry host to which animal slaughter with exorcism noise was a part. How is it that Al is such a fanatic and doesn't know the meaning of the nation being ABANDONED to Sabazianism. Is there no curiosity about why Stephen connected the Jewish temple system to the idolatry at Mount Sinai and to the Amos condemnation of music?

Al Maxey: And yet, Dr. Hicks is completely correct in saying,

"The historic practice of the church ought to give us pause to wonder why the early church did not use instrumental music." He even admits that "it is possible that instruments were used, but since it was unimportant to the writers of the New Testament or they had no occasion to really comment on the practice, they did not mention their use."

Al Maxey: The biblical and historical record is simply inconclusive as to the universal practice of the apostolic church. It's at least possible that some Christians did make use of instrumental accompaniment.

If we have loud NOISE made about the sowing of discord when the ADDED singing as an act, we can INFER that they did NOT sing as a legalistic act before the discord. Because we have recorded history we do not have to INFER any silence.

"The first three centuries of the church witnessed many controversies; some of them concerned themselves directly with music. The most important of these issues were:

(a) organized versus spontaneous praying and singing;
(b) scriptural versus extrascriptural poems;
(c) fusion with Hellenistic music;
(d) vocal versus instrumental music;
(e) the rise of monasticism and its influence upon ecclesiastical chant." (Interpreter's Dict of the Bible, Music, p. 467).

The first problem occurred when the doxologies of the Bible which were like Psalms
were replaced by "a great number of spontaneous and highly individualized doxologies."
........ However, the non-Biblical responses were ratified and codified at the second synod of Vaison in 529.

However, sectarian introduction of any thing not Biblical is almost always based on commercial interest (more attendees, etc.)

"The large displacement of the Psalter by other matter of praise in the Protestant Churches during the last one hundred years has been due, no so much to the lack of appreciation of the Psalms,
........ as to the commercial enterprise of music publishers." (Int Std Bible Ency., Psalms, p. 2494B).

If we have recorded history of people imposing and then approving non-Biblical material we can INFER that they used the commanded Bible BEFORE they had to solve the division

We believe that Dr. Hicks misreads the history of instruments in the Old Testament. In any case he is not going to reach a Maxey conclusion. It is PROBABLY that man groups did man things: Layard's account of "Christian Devil Worship" in fairly recent Iraq history sounds very similar to the Cane Ridge "revival" which in earlier times would have qualified as witchcraft.

Because there is a vast amount of church history, we should be able to find ONE might have been. On the not silent side we can find vast quotations AGAINST being seduced into the musical performand of the theater and repudiating the always-present pagan impulse to go charismatic.

When singing was added as a ACT they assuredly commented on the practice and often condemned it. When instruments were added it assuredly created division. They MIGHT have had the naked priest do the ACT but someone MIGHT have decreed that they would HANG any preacher who came. They ASSUREDLY gave him two or three days and then sang "on the road again."

We know that Jesus identified the Scribes (preachers) and Pharisees as Hypocrites by pointing to Isaiah 29 and Ezekiel 33. This identifies performance speakers (preachers?), singers and instrument players. The changed the Word of God (sermonized) specificially so that they did not have to "teach that which has been taught" and delivered prayers (versified) to ride on the back of poor widows.

THAT IS WHY ALL PERFORMING CRAFTS WERE KNOWN AS PARASITIC and PROSTITUTES

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

And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the Lord will visit Tyre,
        and she shall turn to her hire,
        and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms
        of the world upon the face of the earth. Isaiah 23:17

Melody: H5059 nagan naw-gan' A primitive root; prop to thrum, that is, beat a tune with the fingers; especially to play on a stringed instrument; hence (generally) to make music:--player on instruments, sing to the stringed instruments, MELODY, ministrel, play (-er. -ing).

We have examined the CONTEXT of all of the literary examples used to USE the word Psallo to authorize instruments in the ekklesia or school of the Bible even though outlawed by the Spirit OF Christ in the wilderness. Without exception they identify prostitutes or Sodomites plucking the harp to seduce a "young" minister of the gods.

Melpô I. to sing of, celebrate with song and dance, melpomai to sing to the lyre or harp, to dance and sing, as a chorus, thanasimon goon Il.; melpesthai Arêi to dance a war-dance in honour of Ares,

All excitement-generated singing and instruments were called enchantment or sorcery.

GOON Goeteia (goetia), or "black magic."

And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, Malachi 3:5a
and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:5b

Latin Maleficus. 1.mălĕfĭcus , i, m., a magician, enchanter, 2.mălĕfĭcum , i, n., a charm, means of enchantment:

Carmen: a song, poem, verse, oracular response, prophecy, form of incantation, tune, air, lay, strain, note, sound
luciparens , entis, adj. [lux-parens] , light-bearing, light-producing: nox (because day follows it), Avien. Phaen. 853 infernus infernas umbras carminibus elicere, to raise the dead by magical incantations, Tacitus 2
From Tacitus, annales, 2 And certainly there were found hidden in the floor and in the walls disinterred remains of human bodies, incantations and spells, and the name of Germanicus inscribed on leaden tablets, half-burnt cinders smeared with blood, and other horrors by which in popular belief souls are devoted so the infernal deities. Piso too was accused of sending emissaries to note curiously every unfavourable symptom of the illness.

Hebrew: Kashaph (h3784)

1) (Piel) to practice witchcraft or sorcery, use witchcraft a) sorcerer, sorceress (participle)

Kesheph (h3785) keh'-shef; from 3784; magic: - sorcery, witchcraft.

Kashaph (h3784) kaw-shaf'; a prim. root; prop. to whisper a spell, i. e. to inchant or practise magic: - sorcerer, (use) witch (-craft).

Thus, Baal-aph, "lord of wrath," signifies "an angry man"; Baal-lashon, "lord of tongue," "an eloquent man"; Baal-hatsim, "lord of arrows," "an archer"; and in like manner, Baal-aberin, "lord of wings," signifies "winged one."

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Deut 18:10

Observer of times: Anan (h6049) aw-nan'; a prim. root; to cover; used only as denom. from 6051, to cloud over; fig. to act covertly, i. e. practise magic: - * bring, enchanter, Meonemin, observe (-r of) times, soothsayer, sorcerer.

Soothsayers: Anan (h6049) aw-nan'; a prim. root; to cover; used only as denom. from 6051, to cloud over; fig. to act covertly, i. e. practise magic: - * bring, enchanter, Meonemin, observer of times, soothsayer, sorcerer.

This points to RESPONSIVE SINGING and the worship of ANATH.

Nachash (h5172) naw-khash'; a prim. root; prop. to hiss, i. e. whisper a (magic) spell; gen. to prognosticate: - * certainly, divine, enchanter, (use) * enchantment, learn by experience, * indeed, diligently observe.

Nachash (h5175) naw-khawsh'; from 5172; a snake (from its hiss): - serpent.

DAVID'S AROUSERS: don't get upset: God turned Israel over to worship the starry host.

"In an inscription from Cyprus, in one from Rhodes and in several from around the district of Carthage, there are references to important personages who bear the title Mqm'lm which we can translate as AROUSERS of the god.'" (de Vaux, Roland, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, Doubleday, p. 247).

"We even have a mention at a later date of a similar custom in connection with the cult in Jerusalem, where certain Levites, called me'oreim, 'AROUSERS,' sang (every morning?) this verse from "Ps 44:23: "Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever." The Talmud tells us that John Hyrcanus suppressed the practice because it recalled too readily a pagan custom." (Roland de Vaux, p. 247).

Greek:
Goês A. sorcerer, wizard . epôidos Ludias, 2. juggler, cheat, sophist.

Epôidos I. singing to or over: an enchanter, Eur.: c. gen. acting as a charm for or against, Aesch., Plat. 2. pass. sung or said after, morphês epôidonc alled after this form,
II. in metre, epôidos, ho, a verse or passage returning at intervals, a chorus, BURDEN refrain
Epôid-os A. singing to or over, enchanter, e. kai goês, sung to music,
aoid-ê 1. art of song, autar aoidên thespesiên [divinely sounding], spell, incantation, croak as frogs,
aeidô
sing, Il.1.604, etc.: hence of all kinds of vocal sounds, crow as cocks, hoot as owls, twang, of the bow-string, 'to crow too soon', vie with one in singing, aulon ê luran sing to.

Sophist adept, expert, of diviners, poets, meletan, of musicians, rhetores.

goêt-euô, A. bewitch, beguile, fascinate, as a snake, play the wizard,

[2] Wherefore the Lord said,
        Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth,
        and with their lips do honour me,
        but have removed their heart far from me,
        and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: Isa 29:13

Nagash (h5066) naw-gash'; a prim. root; to be or come (causat. bring) near (for any purpose); euphem. to lie with a woman; as an enemy, to attack; relig. to worship;

Both Ezekiel and Josephus blame these SINGING LEVITES for the failure of their nation. In the idealized Temple or the church. The ultimate error was singers or musicians performing EXORCISM coming into the Holy or Most Holy place. That is the TYPICAL proof that any singer or musican who abominates in the Church of Christ is worthy of death.

And they shall not come near unto me, to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things, in the most holy place: but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed. Eze.44:13

Nagash (h5066) naw-gash'; a prim. root; to be or come (causat. bring) near (for any purpose); euphem. to lie with a woman; as an enemy, to attack; relig. to worship;

H5059 nagan naw-gan' A primitive root; prop to thrum, that is, beat a tune with the fingers; especially to play on a stringed instrument; hence (generally) to make music:--player on instruments, sing to the stringed instruments, melody, ministrel, play (-er. -ing).

Josephus 20: 6. Now as many of the Levites, (26) which is a tribe of ours, as were singers of hymns, persuaded the king to assemble a sanhedrim, and to give them leave to wear linen garments, as well as the priests for they said that this would be a work worthy the times of his government, that he might have a memorial of such a novelty, as being his doing.

Nor did they fail of obtaining their desire; for the king, with the suffrages of those that came into the sanhedrim, granted the singers of hymns this privilege, that they might lay aside their former garments, and wear such a linen one as they desired; and as a part of this tribe ministered in the temple, he also permitted them to learn those hymns as they had besought him for.

Now all this was contrary to the laws of our country, which, whenever they have been transgressed, we have never been able to avoid the punishment of such transgressions.

See the Catholic Restoration of the Levites.

[3] Plato in Republic Book III

"If a man, then, it seems, [398a] who was capable by his cunning of assuming
(pantomimic art) every kind of shape and imitating all things should arrive in our city, bringing with himself

Jesus called the HYPOCRITES which includes rhetoricians, singers, actors, reciters, dancers.
Imitating: mim-eomai II. of the arts, represent, express by means of imitation, of an actor, Id.R.605c, cf.Ar.Pl.291 (lyr.); of painting and music,

the poems which he wished to exhibit,
we should fall down and worship him as a holy and wondrous and delightful creature,
but (we) should say to him that there is no man of that kind among us in our city,

nor is it lawful for such a man to arise among us,
and we should send him away to another city,
after pouring myrrh down over his head and crowning him with fillets of wool (taring and feathering him)

It requires no proof that if you give heed to the singers and musicians you ARE worshiping them! They try to fool you but no one can think about the spiritual Word and the carnal "words" and performance of the theatrical performers. There is a studied INTENT to silence the Words of God..

but we ourselves, for our souls' good, should continue to employ the more austere and less delightful [that FRUIT word] poet and tale-teller,

who would imitate the diction of the good man and would tell his tale
in the patterns which we prescribed in the beginning,
when we set out to educate our soldiers."

Paul said SPEAK which is the opposite of poetry or music and the PATTERNISM was commanded to Teach, Admonish and Comfort one another. No one had to tell decent, civilized people NOT to play when someone came with important instructions. No, you cannot lead them into the presence of God: that makes you the fulfilment of the Abomination of Desolation.

[4] Apostolic Constitutions of the Church of Christ: If one belonging to the theatre [Sorry bout that but the PERSONA still adheres: why is there such a LUST to bring the hypocrites on stage?]
(1) come, whether it be man or woman, or charioteer, or dueller, or racer, or player of prizes, or Olympic gamester, or one that plays on the pipe, on the lute, or on the harp at those games, or a dancing-master or an huckster,

(2) either let them leave off their employments, or let them be rejected. If a soldier come, let him be taught to "do no injustice, to accuse no man falsely, and to be content with his allotted wages:"

(3) if he submit to those rules, let him be received; but if he refuse them, let him be rejected. He that is guilty of sins not to be named, a sodomite, an effeminate person, a magician, an enchanter, an astrologer, a diviner, an user of magic verses, a juggler, a mountebank, one that makes amulets, a charmer, a soothsayer, a fortune-teller, an observer of palmistry; he that, when he meets you, observes defects in the eyes or feet of the birds or cats, or noises, or symbolical sounds:

let these be proved for some time, for this sort of wickedness is hard to be washed away; and if they leave off those practices, let them be received; but if they will not agree to that, let them be rejected. Let a concubine, who is slave to an unbeliever, and confines herself to her master alone, be received.

An instrument player was identified as a PARASITE. Not that they were ALL evil but they did no productive work specificially to get food so that they did not have to go out like the rest of the people. That has always been considered evil and the producer of more evil. If we are too into "music" we should understand that we are probably addicted by a drug-inducer which shuts down the rational or spiritual mind. John identifies the rhetoricians. and instrument players as sorcerers in Revelation 18. Al wants to shut your mouth from telling the truth.

[5] In Jerome's Letter CVII. To Laeta.

4. Thus must a soul be educated which is to be a temple of God. It must learn to hear nothing and to say nothing but what belongs to the fear of God. It must have no understanding of unclean words, and no knowledge of the world's songs. Its tongue must be steeped while still tender in the sweetness of the psalms.

[6] The Iamblichus

There are some, however, who suppose there is likewise, the subject-race of a tricky nature, artful, and assuming all shapes, turning many ways, that personates gods and dæmons and souls of the dead like actors on the stage; and that through these everything that seems to be good or bad is possible. They are led to form this judgment because these subject-spirits are not able to contribute anything really beneficial as relates to the soul, nor even to perceive such things; but on the other hand, they ill treat, deride, and often impede those who are returning to virtue.

They are likewise full of conceit, and take delight in vapors and sacrifices.

5. Because the begging priest with open mouth attempts in many ways to raise our expectations. Note 13

13. The agurtes or begging priest generally belonged to the worship of Rhea [ZOE] or Cybele, the Mother. He is frequently depicted in a most unfavorable light. Apuleius speaks of a company of these emasculate priests in the eighth book of the Metamorphoses. They are also described in the Republic of Plato:

"Agurtæ and Mantics frequent the houses of the rich and persuade them that they possess a power granted by the gods to expiate,

by sacrifices and chants any unjust act that has been committed and that they induce the gods by blandishments and magic rites to help them.

They collected money in this way, and they also followed the selling of nostrums and telling of fortunes."

THAT IS WHY ALL SERMONIC PREACHING IS PARASITIC AND DESTRUCTION.

The direct commands of the Bible is to "sing that which is written" using one mind and one mouth as the only way to glorify or praise God. That educates--the purpose of the ekklesia--using the Bible as text.

"You might hear many poor wretches of sophists, shouting and abusing each other, and their disciples, as they call them, squabbling; and many writers of books reading their stupid compositions, and many poets singing their poems, and many jugglers (buffons) exhibiting their marvels, and many soothsayers giving the meaning of prodigies, and then a thousand rhetoricians twisting lawsuits, and no small number of traders driving their several trades.

"The Greeks were intoxicated with fine words; and to them the Christian preacher with his blunt message seemed a crude and uncultured figure, to be laughed at and ridiculed rather than to be listened to and respected. (Barclay, William, First Corinthians, p. 19-20)

Preaching began about the time of "singing as an ACT" and both were derived from paganism.

"The priests of the pagan temples had been paid from the purse of the Empire, but now Caesar was a Christian and the priests of Mars and Venus hastened to their baptisms.

For the first time in the history of the church, salaries were paid to Christians workers. Tradition has it that Constantine's mother was the first to give the money for the erection of a church building... All this (meetings in homes) was over now. The rags of persecution gave way to softer garments, and the church began to enjoy the feel of silk upon its flesh. Thus the Pergamos stage of church history came into being, the church was married to the world." (Barnhouse, D.G., Revelation, Zondervan, p. 52).

Captain Edward Johnson, in about 1631, wrote on what became Harvard University. The learned, reverend, and judicious Mr. Henry Dunster had received a patron for establishing a college. And he notes:

"And as in all the other passages of this history the Wonder-working Providence of Sion's Saviour hath appeared, so especially in this work, the Fountains of learning being in a great measure stopped in our native Country at this time, so that the sweet waters of Shilo's streams must ordinarily pass into the Churches through the stinking channel of prelatical pride, beside all the filth that the fountains themselves were daily encumbered withal, insomuch that the Lord turned aside often from them, and refused the breathing of his blessed Spirit among them, which caused Satan (in these latter days of his transformation into an Angel of light)

to make it a means to persuade people from the use of learning altogether, that so in the next generation they might be destitute of such helps as the Lord hath been pleased hitherto to make use of, as chief means for the conversion of his people and building them up in the most holy faith, as also for breaking down the Kingdom of Antichrist."

That a man not dedicated to teaching that which has been taught and who know not and cares not about the context or story line from which he gets hate fodder, is paid to predictably destroy the ekklesia or school of the Bible and deliberately sow discord is put into perspective:

"The pastor is not a necessity. He is a FUNGUS GROWTH upon the church, the body of Christians, DWARFING its growth, PREVENTING its development of its members; and until the church GETS RID of him it will NEVER prosper as it should. In the Bible we can find all the necessities.

"I can testify from my own observation that a good eldership will lose its efficiency, and its members become both UNABLE and UNWILLING to do the work of elders, in a very few years after the employment of a pastor. And if under the pastor system a good eldership has ever developed, I have never seen or heard of the case. I don't believe that has or ever will be done." --James A. Harding, Gospel Advocate, May 20, 1885

Al Maxey: It's at least possible that some Christians did make use of instrumental accompaniment.

It is also POSITIVE that Al Maxey would be given two or three days of food and housing to tell them what HE knew that they did not. Then, a Phoeby type would find him a job or a ticked on the next ass heading out of town. John Calvin would probably have John Mark burned at the stake--with dry wood if he tried to become a professor in Geneva.

It is a fact that Maxey is not aware of: that the Catholics NEVER did "congregational singing with instrumental accompaniment." The Catholic Encyclopedia defends the congregational singing as Biblical and desirable. There problem was that the CLERGY had to be the musical precentor (the first heresy largely pervading the church says McClintock and Strong) and He cantillated ONLY the Psalms until other other material as LITURGY was added. The organ was not added by the church but by others and used primarily by professionals. The Monks and professionals "fiddling" round began to develope simple harmony after the year 1200. The organ did preludes, intermissions and recessionals.

The fact is that "there was no praise service in the synagogue" based on a direct command and universal practiced as the synagogue existed to QUARANTINE the people from the Military-Civil-Priestly Sacrificial system. This system was IMPOSED with the prophecy that the system would carry out the captivity and death sentence imposed at Mount Sinai.
The Israelite Temple system had been dormant for up to three hundred years: within a hundred years after the Return, the temple is not heard from for a hundred years. Then it was in the hands of foreigners. The Israelite young men would not be able to "wear linen garments" and serve as singers without "wearing the hat of Hermes." This meant that the Temple was in the hands of young men who functioned as singers, musicians and prostitutes in the Temple itself. That is why Jesus refused to speak the gospel to them.
Jesus furthered the synagogue or ekklesia which EXCLUDED all of the performing arts (Hypocritic arts) in the Civil PATTERNISM. Both Jesus and Paul used clear direct commands which EXCLUDED the use of musical instruments--if you have eyes. Jesus DID cast out the Musical Minstrels "like Dung." Jesus DID consign the pipers, singers and dancers to the polluted marketplace where they had the music and sold bodies and radishes. There are many clear direct prohibitions if these guys could read.
You would have to be a legalists and find a LAW which directly commanded what the Spirit OF Christ had outlawed in the "church in the wilderness." If church is in Paul's use of words, a synagogue, it is the synagogue or ekklesia which is the PATTERNISM. The synagogue never had a "praise service" because of the direct command and minimal common sense: you don't DO music in a school of the Bible or a house of prayer. Preaching or allegorizing was outlawed: sorry, Al.
Paul's use of SPEAK outlaws poetry or music which was not even allowed in indecent rituals. All of the hypocritic or histrionic arts were identified as PARASITIC. Only idle people have the need for music to dull their spirit and give them a drug high. Nothing has changed.
The historic church did not SING until about the year 373 and then to sing human compositions which violated the direct to sing "that which is written." They literature is FILLED with reasons why there was NO MUSIC in the assembly because they were Biblically and ethically literate enough not to blow flutes when the church met AS A SCHOOL OF THE BIBLE.
That is why you find no music in the historic church populated by people with minimal Bible knowledge and decency. That is why even the festive meals out of church all but the harp are OUTLAWED and then the harp is allegorized.

Hicks: While there are a few references to the use of musical instruments in the Old Testament prior to the reign of David (cf. Exodus 15:20-21; 1 Samuel 10:5; see also the role of trumpets in assembling the people, Numbers 10:2,8-10; 29:2),

I will not go into detail but Maxey / Hicks missed the meaning of the Serpent in the garden of Eden as a "musical enchanter. Isaiah and Ezekiel will identify the LUCIFER figure (overpowering with light and sound) as "the singing and harp-playing prostitute" in the garden of Eden.

They missed the Jubal message of using musical instruments without authority. All of the family of the "evil" Lamech are metaphors for those who use weapons, magic and music to steal people's property and then sell them back.

Then, of course they both missed the Laban / Jacob contest where Laban seduced Jacob with a musical wedding where he was so drunk he didn't know which lady he "tented." Afterward, Laban tried to cheat Jacob out of his inheritance with a musical "going away party" without, of course, the wives and cattle.

Maxey especially missed the Miriam "parable" just across the sea and I have posted a review. What happened to her is repeated closely by Amos to explain that Isreal was continuing the Musical Idolatry of Mount Sinai. Isaiah 5 agrees with amos that it was the wine, women and music which caused the people to hunger and thirst for the Word of God but could never find it.

They missed the meaning of "rising up to play" which was the musical idolatry of the Egyptian trinity. For that terminal sin, God removed The Book of the Covenant and "turned them over to worship the starry hosts" as readers of Acts 7 and many other recountings make clear.

And they missed the NUMEROUS proofs in the Psalms and Prophets that MUSIC marked a fatal fall from Grace.

In the Numbers 10, reference they BOTH DELIBERATELY just flat skipped Numbers 10:7 probably because neither knows the meaning of the ALARM. Maxey tries to deny that the synagogue was commanded in the Bible; because they violated the law of silence that gives us authority to violate the law of silence. However, almost none of the apologists for "violating the law" understans that the synagogue began as the church in the wilderness and outlawed both vocal and instrumental rejoicing;

The church #1577 ekklesia - assembly, called out ones, set apart ones, congregation; in Hebrew this word is #6951 qahal (kahal) - a "synagogue" (E. W. Bullinger, Commentary on Revelation, p. 165-166), an assemblage, congregation, company from the root #6950 qahal meaning specifically a coming together, an assembling, a convocation, congregation; this word is used mostly for religious purposes (see William Wilson's Old Testament Word Studies, p. 92)

The LXX uses the word ekklesia to translate the Hebrew qahal. Qahal means to call, to assemble, and the noun form means a congregation or assembly. Solomon is called koheleth the Preacher, translated by the LXX ekklesiastes. The earliest known occurrence of the word is found in Job 30:28, ‘I cried in the congregation’. In the books of the law, qahal is rendered by the Greek word sunagoge, showing that the synagogue is the beginning of the New Testament church. Stephen in his speech which ended in his martyrdom referred to the history of Israel, and dwells for considerable length upon the one great leader Moses, saying in Acts 7:38:

‘This is he, that was in the CHURCH in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sinai’. The people of Israel, looked upon as ‘a called-out assembly’ were ‘the Church’ of that period.

Job 30:[8] They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.
Job 30:[9] And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.

Negiyah (h5058) music (of stringed instrument) Neginoth 6, song 5, stringed instruments 1, musick 1, Neginah 1
nagan (h5059) play 8, instrument 3, minstrel 2, melody 1, player 1: to play, player, minstrel

Job 30:[10] They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.

Num 10:7 But when the congregation is to be gathered together, ye shall blow, but ye shall not sound an alarm.

The prophecy of Judas as the Familiar Friend was that he would try to TRIUMPH OVER Jesus. Isn't it possible that spiritual nakedness is the purpose driving the hiring of professional musicals to try to triumph over Jesus Chrsit and HIS Words?

Melody is a word which was the sound of the twanging bow string sending the "singing" arrow to break your heart into pieces. See the Twanging background here.

By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me. Psalm 41: 11

Teruwah (h8643) ter-oo-aw'; from 7321; clamor, i. e. acclamation of joy or a battle-cry; espec. clangor of trumpets, as an alarum: - alarm, blow (-ing) (of, the) (trumpets), joy, jubile, loud noise, rejoicing, shout (-ing), (high, joyful) sound (-ing).

No humanoid can dispute it: when you sing human compositions and "split the ears" with vocal and instrumental NOISE, you INTENTIONALLY set out to TRIUMPH OVER the Words of God: that defines both a Pharisee and a Hypocrite. Do you need a law which saith: "Thou shalt NOT be a hupocrite?

The BAG defined along with the SOP (a music root) was always attached to a flute case. In the image of a Judas figure the BAG is the little box attached to the spotted flute case of the always drunk "Judas" character. There is no exception in the PSALLO proof texts that they point to "new wineskin" god worshipers and alwas gender-diverted. Paul speaks of them when he hopes they slip and emasculate themselves.

> At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort. Eze.21:22