The Christian Chronicle: Dan Dozier, Worship Forum Review

Dan Dozier: We need to be filled up, to be comforted, to be overwhelmed with wonder, and to be lifted up in the exhilaration of praise. Many of the terms used, such as holy laughter, call for the team to produce a mild or extreme form of ecstasy. All of these are charismatic effects produced by external effects on every nerve ending in the body. These views appear in the Christian Chronicle.

If you get nothing else please grasp that not among the Jews nor in the most vile pagan temples did the musicians enter into the Holy Places. Among the Jews, the Holy Place is a carnal type of the spiritual body of Christ. No Levitical musician could enter into this type of the church of Christ even to clean out the garbage.

The temple musicians in a "religious sense" (grouped with prostitutes in pagan religions) were in the court making a loud mocking noise during the sacrifice and burning of animals.

In fulfilment of the prophetic type, it was prophesied in Psalm 41 and fulfilled in the Dead Sea Scroll translation that Judas and the military musicians would attempt to turn Jesus into a coward. Click for some examples.

The Post-Modern, Post-Biblical repudiation of Inspiration fueling your young preachers at workshops, "christian" colleges and Boot Camps For Spiritual Terrorists in your own community each year! Click for several views. Paul said in effect to the Corinthians: "Fools love to be fooled." This is why you keep paying obscene salaries to men who destroy the core document of the Christian religion?

Why Males in the Post-Biblical Effeminate Church are Disguised as Empty Pews or Hostile Masculines: it Will Get Worse! "Of the Effeminate Willow-Creek "Holy Entertainment" System: "The cost of this approach is hard work and loads of strife with church insiders." Christianity Today

Giving Heed to the Word was the principle "act" of worship in the Christian Synagogue. "Preaching" Narrative Theology of cut-N-paste sermons was never an act of worship. Thomas Campbell and most older scholars define how the Word is the "Truth" of worship "in spirit" or in the mind which is the only kind and place God even bothers to look for. Outrageious Biblical illiteracy "among the scholars" is explained by Paul's teaching that "fools love to be fooled." Read how two people had to abandon churches built around pagan entertainment in order to discover the Word. Click and go down to where The Devil is Laughing to see how he and the watching world is not laughing WITH the new for-hire Bible Repudiators but laughing AT them and their followers just as the Israelites became a LAUGHINGSTOCK with their musical idolatry at Mount Sinai (Now the SCHOLAR'S pattern for worship and community.)
 

From cbti.FaithSite.com

It is not being judgmental to emphasize certain words so that you can see that what is called "worship" is really a deeply felt need. Undoubtedly some are more sensitive than others but emotions created by sight or sound is a product of an attack upon every nerve ending of the body or flesh and is not remotely related to the spirit. Something like the runners high. Sure, everyone sees the mountains and understands the majesty of God but we do not try to make this into a ritualistic, "act of worship" in an attempt to move the worshipers into the presence of God.

In this piece, as usual, non-musical churches are dismissed by the swat of a glove using the term "legalistic." A legalist is one who believes that he or she can intrude into God's presence and demand something. Calling someone legalistic is perhaps the most judgmental word in the English language. Legalism, if it exists, is applied to people just trying too hard when Jesus has removed the burden of "spiritual anxiety created by religious rituals" and invites us to come rest with Him beside still waters.

The more I am freed from legalism the less I try. That just makes sense. Conversely, those just trying to hard feel compelled to claim that trying to "ascend up to Christ" or "bring Him back from the dead" is a trip into space on grace.

The Christian Chronicle invites:

PLEASE SHARE YOUR VIEWS: The Chronicle seeks responses to this essay and to last month's essay by Jack Reese. A selection of responses will run in our Part III of the series, with the bulk of the remainder posted on the Chronicle Online. Send responses to: chronicle@oc.edu with the subject line: Worship Forum.

This review will go beyond "great job" so it has been posted my review in blue.

The I-We complex is a sign of the inward turn of denominations across the country involving mild or extreme ecstasy ["to stand outside of or transcend oneself, unification of one's being or will with the divine. Music and drugs were used to achieve the ecstatic state." Britannica ], holy laughter and other signs of dissociation. I-We have replaced the Christ-O-Centric theme of yesterday which still just meant that it is the Worship-Team-O-Centric. Jesus and John would be one of those "morose ones in the first service."

Authority of women in the stand-over or nonsedentary prohibition in Paul's letters was "sexual authority" which is totally apparent in any public performance of women called "worship." Therefore, it is not legalistic to, like Joseph, not put yourself in harms way.

Jesus had John write:

"Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. Re.2:20 (A prophetess is also a poetic singer with musical instruments).

"Ephesus was famous for its shrine of Diana, where thousands of sacred prostitutes believed fornication brought believers into contact with deity in much the same way the Gnostics used authentia (authority) to bind the flesh and the divine together. When these women converted to Christianity they had to unlearn these pagan practices.

That explains why the melody must be inward: singing was a secular or even pagan practice but chanting, reading or speaking to one another was a religious practice. Remember Ephesians 5?

'Virtually without exception,

female teachers among the Greeks were courtesans, such as Aspasia, who numbered Socrates and Pericles among her students. Active in every major school of philosophy,

these hetairai made it evident in the course of their lectures that they were available afterwards for a second occupation.

But the Bible teaches that to seduce men in such a manner was indeed to lead them to slaughter and the halls of death (cf. Prov. 2:18; 5:5; 6:27; 9:18).

The verb authentein is thus peculiarly apt to describe both the erotic and murderous." (Trombley, Who Says Women Can't Teach, p. 177).

See how they make "souls fly" or in Rubel Shelly's words "lead them into the presence of God."

It is doubly intresting, therefore, that in the new Gnosticism Sophia is called the serpent and ZOE is clled the beast. She is the "female teaching principle." She dominates little Jesus or Logos and forces the lesser jehovah into forming a musical worship team. Guess who they worship: of course they worship Sophia and Zoe as Zoe sits at the right hand on the throne doing the instructing.

This is not just later Gnosticism but the concept is documented in the Babylonian tablets which define the worship around the Towers.

Be doubly sure that you are not unwittingly being used to murder the church rather than to correct it by eliminating rituals. We should be careful about adopting those performed by what H. Bamford Parkes calls "the world's oldest profession" meaning prophets or prophetesses to lead you into the presence of God.

As prophetic of the end-times, many groups have learned how to merge commerce and religion but this Restoration theme seems clearly aimed at the musical pattern. You just cannot peddle the free Word of God.

The notion seems to be that if you are not musical, meaning sumphonia or a "concert of instruments," then you must hang yourself with the nearest harp string because you belong to that ancient tribe of legalists, and you know that legalists will go to hell.

Arnobius Against Heresies VII notes:

32. But let there be, as you wish, honour in wine and in incense , let the anger and displeasure of the deities be appeased by the immolation and slaughter of victims:

are the gods moved by garlands also, wreaths and flowers, by the jingling of brass also, and the shaking of cymbals , by timbrels also, and also by symphonious pipes? [Symphoniae . Evidently musical instruments ; but while Isidore speaks of them as a kind of drum , other writers call them trumpets and pipes.]

But, if you always wanted a chance to be a Martin Luther and put your career at risk of burning at the stake you can remember what he wrote:

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every part of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, then I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him.

Where the battle rages,

there the loyalty of the soldier is proved;

and to be steady on all battlefields besides

is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." Martin Luther.

It seems time for the real minister-servants to stand up and be counted or they will be counted out.

We will leave the comments of Dan Dozier in little boxes.

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Reprinted from Faithsite.com, cbti.faithsite.com from The Christian Chronicle All Rights Reserved.

Part 2 of a 3-part Series on Worship

BY DAN DOZIER

NASHVILLE, TENN.

You cannot describe God at any level and the attempt to do so with human words is ceremonial legalism. This is why God supplied the words for our teaching one another with the poetic material of the Bible.

When you do praise rituals five times you just get bored. Someone has decided that after singing a "worship song" five times we no longer even pay attention to the words: might as well look at the dandruff on the head in front of us or admire that lady singing a four-fold type of tenor which makes flesh crawl, or decide: "Steak or catfish?"

Our God Is an Awful God: not an Awesome God in the modern teenage sense:

Pastor Mike wrote: "My God is NOT an awesome God - He is an aweful God. Get out a dictionary and use the words correctly. God is Full of Awe - not just some. Modern bible version mentality in Christianity prevails nowadays and like Rev 3 says, God wants to spue it out!"

The song leader is "awesome." The words are awesome. In the highschool chat room everything is "awesome." "This song is an awsome song. I just sang it with our youth choir and loved it" "I love this song it is so pretty i could listen to it all day long!"

God is awesome. Get the point? No?

By Biblical and medical certainty when you are singing "awesome" songs and having a MOUNTAINTOP you cannot possibly come away with a better appreciation of God. As a medical certainty you are in charismatic ecstasy and your rational (spiritual) half of your person which is controled by spirit or mind is shut down! Shut down! Shut down! And you confuse what I feel with being spiritual because God is supposed in the Vineyard New Style Songs to be reaching the PEAK when you hit the PEAK.

All praise songs are boomer or self-directed. That means erotic. We talk TO God instead of ABOUT God. I feel awesome, she feels sad:

Dan Dozier: And what I ignored, or maybe not intentionally ignored but forgot was that my wonderful mountaintop was her tragic conclusion to something.

And without the teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, it's not their fault. It's not. And you know we need to go back and we need to say and look at her and grieve the fact you know

The NIV is written for casual reading: for the reader who wants the "story" without the facts. However, the NIV word "awesome" in the felt, climactic sense is not in the text. No. No. No. Teach all you wish but you are false, false, false.

But they were disobedient and rebelled against you;

        they put your law behind their backs.

        They killed your prophets,

        who had admonished them in order to turn them back to you;

        they committed awful (hostile) blasphemies. Neh 9:26 

Senior and godly men who say "thus saith the Lord" are still speaking as prophets and those who pray for a soon death or exit of the old BUILDERS so that we BOOMERS can take over are still murdering prophets.

Killing the prophets or quenching the Spirit is refusing to listen to God who admonishes you that your climactic experience is hostility to a Holy God.

Here is that passage about the awesome God in the NIV:

and confessed my sins and those of my people. "O Lord," I prayed, "you are a great and awesome God; you always fulfill your promises of mercy to those who love you and keep your laws. Daniel 9:4NIV

Here it is in the King James Version:

And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; Daniel 9:4KJV

If you don't care about the truth you will see the "music" as God's eternal sign or MARK that you are oppressing people and it is, in the Bible, always a sin without redemption: ignorance of the Word is no excuse.

Yare (h3372) yaw-ray'; a prim. root; to fear; mor. to revere; caus. to frighten: - affright, be (make) afraid, dread (- ful), (put in) fear (- ful, -fully, -ing), (be had in) reverence (-end), * see, terrible (act, - ness, thing).

The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy (teach)? Am.3:8

If the mountain happened to be God would you approve of a musical worship team or some hand-waver standing between you and the view? Or booms and clangs keeping you from hearing Him speak? God wouldn't appreciate it either. And Jesus said that He would be with us when we gather in His name without any other effort. However, when we gather in the name of the theatrical performers we can expect Jesus to be elsewhere.

"Johnson, a professor at West Texas State University, elaborates: When we speak of a mystical experience we refer to an event that is completely within the person. It is totally subjective . . . Although the mystic may experience it as having been triggered by occurrences or objects outside himself (like a sunset, a piece of music, a religious ceremony, or even a sex act), the mystical experience is a totally inner event. It contains no essential aspects that exist externally to him in the physical world . . . A mystical experience is primarily an emotive event, rather than a cognitive one . . Its predominant qualities have more to do with emotional intensity, or 'feeling tone' than with facts evaluated and understood rationally. Although this is true, it alone is a woefully inadequate way of describing the mystical experience. The force of the experience is often so overwhelming that the person having it finds his entire life changed by it. Mere emotions cannot effect such transformations.

"Furthermore, it is from this emotional quality that another characteristic results, namely, its 'self-authenticating' nature. The mystic rarely questions the goodness and value of his experience.

Consequently, if he describes it as giving him information, he rarely questions the truth of his newly gained "knowledge". It is this claim that mystical experiences are "ways of knowing" truth that is vital to understanding many religious movements we see today. [Our Sufficiency in Christ, John MacArthur, Jr., Word Publishing, 1991]

Aldus Huxley wrote: Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession.

Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process. From Source

One of the oldest fallacies was to worship the creature and believe that one worshiped the Creator. The emotion was created by the perception that the mountain was awesome. However, a different culture might see the mountain as Awful, dangerous and to be avoided as the abode of the gods.

The "feelings" dear friend are the same: created by endorphins or adrenalin. Endorphins produced by music are morphine-like but the high wears off. When adrenalin decays it produces something like mescaline or peyote with which the American Indians feel the presence of their gods. One "pastor" quipped that it would be much more economical to put LSD into the communion wine than do all of those musical productions.

The high was created by expectation, exhaustion or some other physiological reason.

Jesus said that "worship is in spirit" and that means in the mind. It is not possible for the priest to take along an attractive, talented praise team when he enters into the throne room typified by the mind where the Mind of Christ or Spirit of God dwells. So mountain-tops have always been favorite places to escape the rituals which Jesus warned just "create spiritual anxiety from religious ceremonial." John the Baptist was put on a rocky island to be "in the spirit on the Lord's day" and grasp the ungraspable. Obeying Christ John was worshiping or thinking about Christ "in his mind or spirit" and he was not inside of a divine person.

But Paul saw the Corinthians assembling for "me worship" with self-composed songs out of their own spirit and everyone speaking at the same time. Paul didn't use the word "worship" but that "you don't assemble to eat the Lord's Supper. It is not possible to remember Christ without using His revelation to us. It is not possible to feed on His Word and go ecstatic while singing modern songs with teams carefully calculated to "lead you into the presence of God." This was always a charismatic, sexual experience in the classics. Yes, with an acoustics background, we know that is a fact that sound tickles every nerve ending in your body!

Paul insisted that the way to speak or teach was with one voice in order to teach (preach to) one another. The only resource is the Word of Christ which is His Spirit (John 6:63). Therefore, there is no primary command to "sing" as a legalistic act of worship. In running from "them ole legalists" the charismatic church has grown more works-oriented: needing a team to jack you up into God's presence. That is neo-tower of Babel.

We noted that the "burden" laded by the Jewish clergy on the people like a team of pack animals was "religious ceremonial." So, if Christ died to give us rest there can be no ceremonial which we define as something owed or commanded or "God-controlling." One does not love out of a command.

Music (a secular term) was the most ancient practices of ritual obligation. From all of the "non-canonical" literature even before the time of Christ (book of Jubilees) and beginning before the flood. Reciting Psalms and other inspired Biblical literature is no more ritual than "preaching to the saved." The modern church has added the power-devices, instruments or inventions of mankind to facilitate His own power. Is that legalistic or what? When Jubal handled the musical instruments for effect, "handle" means "without warrant."

How would it be possible to know that a 95 year old lady wanting to take the Lord's Supper even as she knows that she is dying does not have her heart in tune with the Father? Just how can we know that not getting a drug high in order to get "in tune" with the Father is heart felt?

By the way, instruments were not used on the Sabbath because "getting them in tune" was defined as a work of human hands. If we cannot get in tune sitting on a stump by the waterfall then we just cannot get in tune.

Nothing is more related to appeasing God and paying dues than music. According to the Book of Enoch quoted by Jude, God will come with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment upon those who call people away from the Word with mixed-sex choirs and instruments. Yep! That's a fact. Jesus claimed parables as a way to hide the truth from commercial religion even from the foundation of the world, and Jude is speaking a parable and without Enoch, the book of Jubilees and other similar accounts you will just miss the point.

Those are old fashioned books but then so is the Bible. To exult in human songs explains why one would exult in humanistic sermons while the audience will never know the true story of the exodus even where Israel repeated the common pattern of falling back into idolatry with music.

The pattern of the Enoch story is that once you fall into the musical paradigm you have fallen and you ain't never gonna get up again. As far as we know, history knows of no one who has removed the instruments after the addiction is complete.

Now, the psychology always seems to say that "to clear away the weak-sisters who might object,

> let's define churches of Christ as preaching a legalistic theology.

> After that they cannot possibly object to the blowing winds of change

> because we have put the old legalists on notice

> everyone will think of them as legalistic if they don't attend a free church."

I know a fellow who was hobbled because the Navigator told members that anyone who objected to instruments was a racist: present, perfect tense. Now, it takes the courage of a Luther to stand up in public and object to the forced introduction of instruments after the group had been "facilitated" gradually with A Capella teams. But teams are still organic organs because the method is "organum" or "after the organ" and not truly A Capella or Ala Biblical. Therefore, a cappella as performance is a legalistic employment of the "works of human hands" or other body parts.

However, there is nothing legalistic about obeying the Words of Christ or even "singing" them. Legalism is proven when people invent and improvise believing that their own new "style" has some kind of magical power to lead the worshipers into God's presence. One could not imagine a more legalist theology than music to induce laughter and tears.

And the Lord saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein; Jeremiah 9:13

But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them: Jeremiah 9: 14

Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. Jeremiah 9: 15

I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them. Jeremiah 9: 16

> The "hand-washing" episode of the Pharisees is used as a proof-text to show that the Pharisees invented the practice and then imposed it upon the people. This, then, is used to condemn modern "sectarians" who make up their own rules.

> However, Jesus didn't condemn washing your hands before you eat. What He condemned was setting aside the Laws of God (1400 years old) in order to enforce their own worship rituals.

> Furthermore, Jesus condemned the Pharisees for actually taking the houses of widows just to get paid for their false doctrine.

And yet, they people need someone to artificially stimulate their own tears:

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning (strike a musical note) women, that they may come; and send for cunning (artistic) women, that they may come: Jeremiah 9: 17

And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. Jeremiah 9: 18

Nahah (h5091) naw-haw'; a prim. root; to groan, i. e. bewail; hence (through the idea of crying aloud) to assemble (as if on proclamation): - lament, wail.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out. Jeremiah 9: 19

Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation. Jeremiah 9: 20

For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets. Jeremiah 9:21

The musical worship was not acceptable as long as they had a good mental attitude. Rather the ways in which they acted out their religious festivals were done unlawfully. Therefore, Amos demands:

Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Amos 5:14

Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph Amos 5:15 .

Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas alas! and

they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing. Amos 5:16

And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord. Amos 5:17

When Israel went totally legalistic under the Monarchy they, for the first time, added Canaanite forms of musical guilds "under the commanders of the army" because they were building a national capital and not a local "church." Synagogues always existed where the "private" part of the economy worked and worshiped while the "public" sector, especially the Levites, kept the common people out of the symbolic presence of God. There was no "praise service in the Synagogues" or churches of Christ

Next, we notice that when you join the band of merry men intending to rob from the poor to give to the rich (a reverse Jubilee) you begin to hallucinate. Our memories are always there but bits and pieces of them are used together with new data. If you major in listening to the "old and deleterious" your memory gets contaminated and what you think happened never happened. I remember that Gallup found that 80% of our first-person examples are just fabricated. I can even see things that happened to me when I was two!

I remember a critic of the old legalists who actually claimed that where he grew up "instrumental music was equated to premarital sex!" We suggest, charitably, a false memory. It is legalistic to say, "Johnny, don't jump off the building." We do need to be right without believing that jumping will be ok if you just have a good mental attitude. Laws are to keep us safe. We don't claim merit when we don't jump and live.

Now, lets those old legalists to intimidate those who certainly don't want to be legalists.

If the "emotion" causes the lightness of human hands seeking contact with a Holy God then perhaps you have been injected with a dose of endorphins (morphine within) which chreats the impulses of fight, flight and sex. If it causes the nerve endings in the body to "feel like worms crawling" inside and you body wants to jump you are engaged in body worship: look that one up on the internet.

One truly doubts that trying to be faithful to Christ is legalistic. I will tell you what legalism is: it is trying to tickle the glands of the "audience" to make them "feel" something which can be huckstered as "spiritual." That is the most ancient form of legalism. Eve was "seduced" and the pagan women wanted to exercise authentia: "sexual authority."

Perhaps the old decadent and deleterious elders knew that "church" is really "assembly" and, in the pattern of the Synagogue and the Greek Ekklesia, it was a meeting of the local people for business and education. To that the church of Christ adds the Lord's Supper. Where, oh where and which college learned them to hate the church and rational (spiritual) meetings. Doesn't that leave 167 hours a week to violate the rules and not be legalistic?

I simply don't know where you would find a pattern for "theologically correct worship" unless it is the grace of Christ which says: "Now, you can worship in the spirit or mind." I remember hating college chemistry. But I didn't go to chemistry class to get a a genuine encounter with Rutherford. It turned out that his "atom" was not correct. Synagogue/Church is school and not pagan worship center.

If you believe that synagoguing (that is what people did when they went to the ekklesia) is SOLELY DEVOTED TO WORSHIP then you are believing someone's lie told because they see "godliness as a means of financial gain."

Worship of the Jews and worship of the Christians is defined by the word "seeking." Or it is giving heed or "give yourself to the public reading of the Word to exhortaion and doctrine. David is not said to have "worshiped" when he sang, played, dance and stripped off naked. He is said to have worshiped when he "sought God."

So, give us some examples. If you want a "false memory" about what Scripture says about "worship" you may find that when you look at the text there is no command, example or even inference that the church came together to "worship" in the pagan sense of Corinth. Someone just made that up along with the CORE GOSPEL. The church was Synagogue with the addition of the Lord's Supper.

Worship in the Christian sense is not worship in the pagan sense: we worship God when we let Him do the talking, we do the praying and we honor Him without hiding Him behind a "praise team" claiming to be mediators to help you to think about Christ. But, you cannot think of two things at the same time so the worship team has taken the place of Christ. I know from my own rotten character that when beautiful talented women get up to sing I cannot and you, male, cannot think about God. Nope! Don't add lying to lust. This is why Paul outlawed female power as seductive and murderous and women "teams" are tokenized women and are being used in exchange for money.

Come to think of it, even ugly girls suddenly become attractive if they are talented singers. Don't you suppose that Christ knew that when He inspired Paul to warn us?

"Church" and "hymn singing" was always a very private time with Christ as worship. However, the preachers were told to go out and find disciples so that preaching is not "an act of worship." All history knows that when you try to suck in seekers of music you have invited in the most ancient and Biblical description of those who will take over your "venue" and make it into theater.

The Jews never "worshiped by singing with instruments." Instruments were "sounding devices" used to defeat the enemy and triumph over him, like David, as you had your feet on his neck. The king and "commanders of the army" reassigned the Levitical warrior musicians to the new Temple ritual which was just "like the nations" because that was their prayer and that is what God "turned them over to."

It is certain that there were no instruments or pseudo-instruments made up of a "team" in the Synagogue. It is also certain that "there was no praise service in the Synagogue."

Therefore, ekklesia and mowed were schools and not pagan-like worship centers. Education or edification is not remotely related to our feelings induced by "worship teams" as the ultimate oxymoron. In fact, connected to the "singing" law, Paul added "admonition" and no one gets "high" when being scolded by Christ. My arms don't want to levitate when I read Isaiah.

Someone has called such effort "the idolatry of talent" and talent is usually for sale these days.

Instruments to, in many cases, were the actual idols of worship. Jesus said "worship in spirit" and in "truth." That is meditating upon His words and not ours:

Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it. Habakkuk 2:19

But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him. Habakkuk 2:20

Defining Voodoo:

"They developed specific sigils which they would inscribe upon the ground,

and then use the remembered dances, chants,
and sacred musical instruments to call the Deities through the sigils like gateways.

The contact is only temporary- lasting as long as the rite itself- but it was enough to evolve an entirely new tradition known to us as Voodoo.

"Remember that even Agrippa admits that the Gods are never bound into anything- but are only invited (or "born") into substances which They find agreeable.

In any case, it should be readily apparent how our procedures parallel the older pagan ways.

Where they use dance and musical instruments to call forth their Gods, we simply use the vibration of Names and invocations of certain energies. It all boils down to the same thing, after all.

Because David authorized only things with "breath" to praise God, even in Psalm 150 the church Fathers see this as a song or poetic expression rather than a prose direct command.

We understand poetry poetically. Remember?

Jesus said that the Word was spoken in parables from the foundation of the world to hide it from those who would use it commercially (Mt 12; Isa 48). Then, when they use it they should be seen as fools trying to second incarnate parables back into "commands, examples and inferences." See Augustine.

Our mind is God's only holy temple: not the Asherah pole-flanked temples.

Here is the bull idol which went into Sheol with the king of Babylon (an early and end-time Whore king/queen representing Lucifer. Sure enough, it was quite decayed upon a "bed of maggots" along with the king and the buried-alive harpist and holy whore (female):

This is Thy God Oh Israel. Let it Speak to you Because you have rejected my Covenant.

It is common these days to claim that "knowing God personally" is a sexual term. And so it was among the pagans. However, the "goddess" looked amazingly like the prophetesses who had just sung to you out front. However spiritual and sincere one might be, you must know that Christianity has been described for two thousand years based upon the Bible. If one can dismiss it except for "five facts about Jesus" with God leaving the rest to use to supersede the apostles, they you must know that history declares that what you are doing is not Christian.

This was the earliest Seeker form of religion of Apollo (Appolyon, Abbadon). Apollo also used "navigating the winds" and women music to collect his ministers who then took up collections.

It comes as no accident that the NEW STYLE WORSHIP including the Vineyard song book and most other "look-alikes" have fallen for the world's oldest legalistic superstition: that God can be approached through praise. One writer as part ot the "anti-non instrumental" Praise does its work among humans as much as it does among the heavenly host.

The modern "praise cult" of crying Lord, Lord claims to "prophesy in His name" and their praise is what ENABLE the gods to keep on giving good gifts such as "Super Sunday Stacked With Seeking Sinners." The "praise leader" is the oldest known profession. In Babylon the "team" was the second oldest profession. Therefore, listen to your latter day MOTHER:

"After she (Carol Wimber) had a dream in 1976 of standing preaching to a large crowd a seven-point sermon on the gifts of the Spirit, at the final point,  'a sensation like hot electricity' hit her head, travelled down her body, then up and out of her mouth. She awakened speaking in tongues. The sensation of heat and electricity is typical of that experienced in the current revival.  She said 'Soon God stopped showing me what he had wanted to do in the past and began to show me what he was going to do in the future.   I had a strong sense of God's desire for his bride, for the whole Church - Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox.' (Riding the Third Wave - 1987)

In the article "Worship: Intimacy With God the philosophy behind the 'praise and worship' found in the Vineyard churches it is explained that there is a 'well-thought out philosophy' guiding how God is worshipped through music and movement in order to achieve the goal through "Worship: Intimacy With God" .

"To understand how we worship God, it is helpful to learn about our fellowship's history, which goes back to 1977. At that time my wife, Carol, was leading a small group of people in a home meeting that evolved into the Anaheim Vineyard. I'll let her describe what happened during that time.

"After we started to meet in our home gathering, I noticed times during the meeting -- usually when we sang -- in which I experienced God deeply... occasionally we sang a song personally and intimately to Jesus, with lyrics like 'Jesus, I love you.'

Those types of songs both stirred and fed the hunger for God within me... Thus we began to see a difference between songs ABOUT Jesus and songs TO Jesus. "About that time we realised our worship blessed God, that it was for God alone and not just a vehicle of preparation for the pastor's sermon. This was an exciting revelation. After learning about the central place of worship in our meetings, there were many instances in which all we did was worship God for an hour or two.

"At this time we also discovered that singing was not the only way to worship God. Because the word worship means literally to bow down, it is important that our bodies are involved in what our spirits are saying. In scripture this is accomplished through bowing heads, lifting hands, kneeling, and even lying prostrate before God. ... we are blessed as we worship him.

He visits his people with manifestations of the Holy Spirit. "Thus worship has a two-fold aspect: communication with God through the basic means of singing and praying, and communication from God though teaching and preaching the word, prophecy, exhortation, etc. We lift him up and exalt him, and as a result are drawn into his presence where he speaks to us."

"In the Vineyard we see five basic phases of worship, phases through which leaders attempt to lead the congregation.... as we pass through these phases we are headed toward one goal:

intimacy with God.".... The fourth phase is described as "God Visits His People when "Expression then moves to a zenith, a climactic point, not unlike physical lovemaking... We have expressed what is in our hearts and minds and bodies, and now it is time to wait for God to respond.

Stop talking and wait for Him to speak, to move. I call this, the fourth phase, visitation:"

[See Huxley's comments about emotional masturbation above. Like the "Holy Whores" in all paganism, these people actually believe that they have seduced God into fornicating with them.]

God's "song" in Isaiah 5 gives WINE from the near-exhausted Vineyard which God planted along with MUSIC as the cause of thorns which resulted in their being burned up with "thirst for the Word" so that "she was dead even while living." If you have sex in church with the "team" then you will surely get pregnant but:

You conceive chaff, you give birth to straw; your breath is a fire that consumes you. Is.33:11

The peoples will be burned as if to lime; like cut thornbushes they will be set ablaze." Is. 33:12

The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the godless: "Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?" Is. 33:14

He who walks righteously and speaks what is right, who rejects gain from extortion and keeps his hand from accepting bribes, who stops his ears against plots of murder and shuts his eyes against contemplating evil-- Is. 33:15

this is the man who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the mountain fortress. His bread will be supplied, and water will not fail him. Is. 33:16

All your pomp has been brought down to Sheol, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you. Is.14:11

At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king's life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute: Is.23:15

"Take up a harp, walk through the city, O prostitute forgotten; play the harp well, sing many a song, so that you will be remembered. Isa 23:16

At the end of seventy years, the LORD will deal with Tyre. She will return to her hire as a prostitute and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. Isa 23:17 [Become ecumenical]

Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the LORD; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the LORD, for abundant food and fine clothes. Isa 23:18

The king/queen represented or was Lucifer. Lucifer is quite identical to the ZOE "beast" who led the lesser "jehovah's" into musical worship. Lucifer was bisexual and could be "loved" by both males and femalses as he/she became their "female instructing principle."

The king/queen of Tyre was literally male but he/see while singing the song of the prostitute--which meant with harps--wanted to be "remembered as a male."

The king/queen of Apollo's Seeker Center (Abbadon, Apollyon) could, like Satan, make himself attractive by transforming himself into whatever form he/she needed. He/she set up the Seeker Center at Delphi with instruments, song, dance,theater, swimming pool, gymnasium, private rooms where the "priestesses" worshiped and everything the heart could desire. The errected phallic columns was the symbol of his theatrical power.

He/she, as in Tyre, claimed to be religious and of course the huge income was "dedicated to the Lord" but it wasn't dispensed to the poor. It was stored up and, in Hebrew became "Corban." However, part of the "overhead" was a huge salary which the Seeker Sire used for his own food and clothing.

Therefore, and naturally, the final phase of the Seeker Center is callled "tithing" or even MORE!

The fifth phase is called "Generosity "The fifth phase of worship is the giving of substance. The church knows so little about giving, yet the Bible exhorts us to give to God. it is pathetic to see people preparing for ministry who don't know how to give. That is like an athlete entering a race, yet he doesn't know how to run. If we haven't learned to give money, we haven't learned anything... " From Source

Therefore, along with the legalistic urge for music (of all forms because "music" is not a Biblical worship word) must come the urge for tithing to provide VENUE for REVENUE.

Never mind that only Israelites living in Canaan on fully developed free-rent land tithed and then only food produced on the free farms: rent. No wage earner tithed. Furthermore, Jesus paid the temple tax and Paul said that giving was not a command but an exercise in "in spirit" free-will giving.

Is it logical to claim that wanting to please Christ by doing it according to His will is legalistic? No. then is it logical to believe that not imposing our desires means that legalistic churches of Christ have no feeling about their worship. No. Clearly, this is passing judgment upon people and this, too, is the common psychological device used to navigate people from "your group" to "my group." I can really get excited by the Word of God but no one on the face of the earth could get me excited enough to go charismatic. Does this mean no feeling? Of course not. I strongly suspect or perhaps know that the most feeling people in the brotherhood are working outside the magical circles centered on Nashville or Dallas. Perhaps they are in a country where they don't know whether a rebel will kill them or kidnap them. I bet they cry a lot. Do you suppose that they have no feeling?

If you will remember, David could not return to the Tabernacle to inquire of God so he brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem where he built his own, new tent. David introduced the plague stopping ceremony repeated by Hezekiah using animal sacrifices and music. Therefore, in his lostness he cried out:

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

Later, when Solomon became king he went to Gibeon to the tabernacle to inquire of God. So, David was usually lost and in despair; constantly afraid that God would take His spirit (life) from him.

In Amos, the spiritual hunger and thirst was created by lack of knowledge of God's Word. David's first musical ark movement clearly shows that no one had consulted the Law.

In Philippians Paul knew that he wasn't going to ascend into God's literal presence until he died.

Nor did five contemporary songs with teaming up on God to create passion. We suggest there are probably easier and cheaper places to find passion. But then, so what? A pagan-like passion was in Paul's mind when he told the Corinthians: "Your assemblies do more harm than good." Why? Because they all tried to sing their own compositions which were out of their own spirit or mind.

Remember, we said that synagogue/church was for education and later observing the Lord's Supper and not for "worship" in the "meets my needs" or "rouse me to the top of the mountain" or "having sex with God" (Actually heard that once and had to follow it and make announcements! Oh, the shame of it all). So, the solution might be to make "church" into a school of the Bible so that our kids don't do time for 18 years and go away Biblically illiterate without knowing the grand Music-Versus-The-Word themes throughout the Old Testament. Going musical is just the obverse side side of the same old, self-invented system and is nothing new. It began in the garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel. It is a drug fix and when the fix wears off, churches under the domination of "women and children ruling over you" runs its course, you will be left unable to drink the water of the Word and be filled.

I don't think one can find a Biblical example of worship in the meet-my-needs with music sense. If you really look you will find some NEW WORSHIP CONCEPTS under "seeking God through His Word."

The problem with going ecstatic is that you feel no need to support your views with Scripture for mortal fear of going legalistic. The congregation of the people did not worship on the Sabbath with singing Psalms to instrumental music. It just did not happen. So it is high time that people in high places quite proof-texting the Monarchy. Under its Hebrew word, the synagogue always existed to meet the demands of teaching the Law of God.

When the elders repudiated God and demanded "set a king over us" instruments were added to the "like the nation's" sacrifices which were dedication or purification ceremonies for the temple-state. The people were put "outside the camp" to find God.

The Monarchy and the temple were central headquarters for a secular, like the nations temple-state. God assuredly authorized it but only after the elders had "fired" Him and demanded a king like the nations so that they could worship like the nations. God warned them that the kings would destroy the nation and they would go into captivity. Amos 5 and 6 shows a "contemporary" style of worship with wine, women and song but Amos 8 promises that the songs in the temple will cease, there will be wailing and the people captured by the nations (another denomination?) because the commoners hungered and thirsted for the Word but could not find it. They still cannot in most either musical or non-musical churches.

Don't you get it, the musicians never got into the temple proper but stood by the altar to make a great crashing sound while the animals were being sacrificed. In the "like the nations" sacrifices this was believed to keep the evil spirits from attacking the priests. The Levites served the priests and not God nor the people. Israel's priests even did the same thing while offering children to Molech at Topheth -- the king's music grove. If we are going to find Jesus we are going to have to "go outside the camp" to find Him. Except the stationary men representing the people, the true spiritual congregation would be off to the left outside the gates. They prayed to God while on their face and God, surprise, surprise, surprise, heard from heaven and did not "land on the musical worship team."

In: Lucian Syrian Goddess: Jesus only spoke parables to the "multitudes" who are never interested in Spirit.

50 - And on set days the multitude assembles in the sanctuary, and many Galloi (emasculated priests) and the religious men that I spoke of perform their ceremonies; and they cut their own arms and beat one another on the back.

And many stand there playing flutes and beating timbrels, and others sing inspired and holy songs.
        This is done outside the temple,
         and they who perform it do not come into the temple.

51 - And on these days Galloi (castrated priests) are made. For while the rest are playing flutes and performing their rites, frenzy soon enters into many, and many there are who just came to watch who subsequently perform the act. (In Hebrew, flute, pollute and prostitute come from the same word.)

Alexander the Oracle maker understood that the frenzy of music made people loose their thinking ability and so they truly got involved with the ecstasy. Didn't Paul hope that the Jews who had gone Dionysus-like go the full trip and "emasculate themselves?"

The musicians were not in the holy place (church) nor in the most holy place (heaven) in any pagan temple ritual after which the Jerusalem "like the nations" worship was performed.

When there was no temple, there were no animals sacrificed and without sacrifices the Jews gave up instruments until 1815 in a liberal synagogue which sowed discord among the Jews.

While Jesus was being betrayed and sacrificed, the Jews mocked Him with musical instruments as a Judas-like prophesied (Psalm 41) attempt to triumph over Him. The trumpet is the "triumph" or "alarm" instrument not to be used to call assembly (Numbers 10:7) but only for signaling or panic creation.

If you stand by the altar, or move it into the foyer, and play musical instruments you are repeating the sacrificial system and mocking Jesus who finished animal sacrifices once for all. I would quit blowing or giving permission for others to use any form of charismatic music.

The Monarchy and temple-state are examples of What Not To do when you have the True Sacrifice already paid: you no longer have to legalistic try to jack yourself into the presence of God with chicken soup sermons and self- composed songs (latter-day scripture). The worship in Athens was much like contemporary "praise" worship with the prophetesses and priestesses "presiding over" the temples. Paul warned them that "God is not far from all of us." So, it is legalistic to go trying to find or, like David, arouse God, or like the prophets of Asherah or Baal trying to get their god's attention as Elijah chided: "perhaps he is busy taking a leak."

The radical difference in the Christian system is that one can pray without ceasing and hear God speak directly through His Word. An infinite God incarnated Himself into a human being: He can incarnate His Spirit in His own Words. This answers to the direct choice of Jesus that we worship "in spirit and in truth."

The common people as congregation did not worship in Jerusalem. They never collected as "church" to sing congregationally with instrumental music or any of the following practices of lostness.

No, a thousand times, no! The like the nations worship of the king, princes, clergy and representatives of the people (stationary men) was such a secular affair, where only adult males were "mustered," that the gates were closed and the people "put outside the camp" before the sacrifices with music began.

"I have often seen a man (actor)-- and have been amazed to see, and the amazement has ended in contempt, to think how he is one thing internally, but outwardly counterfeits what he is not--

giving himself excessive airs of daintiness and indulging in all sorts of effeminacy;
somethines darting his eyes about;
sometimes throwing his hands hither and thither

I have no mind to stand agape at a number of singers, nor do I desire to be affected in sympathy with

a man when he is winking and gesticulating in an unnatural manner."...

"Why should I admire the mythic piper... We leave you to these worthless things; and do you believe our doctrines, or, like us, give up yours." (Tatian to the Greeks, Ante-Nicene, Vol. II, p. 75).

I have no mind to stand agape at a number of singers, nor do I desire to be affected in sympathy with

a man when he is winking and gesticulating in an unnatural manner."...

"Why should I admire the mythic piper... We leave you to these worthless things; and do you believe our doctrines, or, like us, give up yours." (Tatian to the Greeks, Ante-Nicene, Vol. II, p. 75).

For if people occupy their time with pipes, and psalteries, and choirs, and dances, and Egyptian clapping of hands, and such disorderly frivolities, they become quite immodest and intractable, beat on cymbals, and drums, and make a noise on instruments of delusion." (Clement, Instructor, Eerdmans, p. 248)

When anyone is said to "worship" they fell on their faces.

It was both punishment but an act of grace that God imposed the Levites to protect the people in general from the "like the nations" animal sacrifices at the temple. If they wanted to sacrifice it was after the official sacrifices were over and they did so without help from the Levitical musical team.

This is another example of a constructed, collective memory by the clergy who still love the old proof-text method and care nothing about the context of the quoted sermon fodder.

The singing of Psalms was not for "worship" but for education. To minimize them by misstating or ascribing an out-of-date status aims deliberately to Take Away the Keys To Knowledge as Jesus warned.

When the temple was dedicated, the musicians played during the animal sacrifices, the temple filled with blackness so that the human priests could not minister. Not to worry! The people, outside the camp, prayed directly to God without priests and He, amazingly, heard from heaven.

So what is hallucinated as a "worship center" along with its priest craft was totally bypassed by God and the general population. At the time of Christ there was no more than about six thousand connected with the temple still the civic-center while the people went to "church" or assembly in the synagogue to listen to the Word read through from end to end. The synagogues were afflicted with perhaps another six thousand.

Still looking for that pattern!

Lucian of Samosata--still misused to interpret Psallo--explained why choirs are used before the sermon:

The scoffer Lucian pours out his sarcasm in a passage in which he speaks of the fraudulent prophet Alexander of Abonouteichos, who kept choir boys in the service of the gods with him:

Choirs were used because "Thus they led the simple into error and sought to bewitch the ears of lay people, who are easily led astray by hymns and melodies."

Lucian notes that the false prophet Alexander selected the right place for his trickery, Phaphlagonia above Abonouteichos, where the inhabitants were agape and believed that they beheld heavenly beings--

"if a man who prophesies from a sieve appeared with a flutist and a cymbal player.

Alexander the ORACLE MONGER (sermon peddler of that which cannot be sold without music) knew that you could seduce the "fat heads and simpletons" with a song and a flute player.

A cappella was the Pope's introduction of castrated male "organic pipe organs" for the Sisting Chapel where instruments were not played in the Pope's presence.

All musical instruments used for religion were actual dwellings or "mouthpieces" for the gods. The sieve was like the witch of Endor's "familiar spirit" (empty, hollow wineskin) or the booming bronze vases condemned by Paul to the Corinthians.

See my reviews (by request) of the sermons which, fittingly, is now using the Exodus as a paradigm for Christian community and worship. The Exodus theme seems to have replaced the new wineskins paradigm all across the Web. However, there is no redemption in the Exodus but only the promise that a time will come when people will hear God.

Don't intend to judge, but if you cannot get that lump while doing something useful such as reading the Word then it is drug-induced. It will flood out of your system before you get home, you will feel worse than before the drug high and you won't really have to repent because if you don't feel the need you won't.

Only one at a time please in the Throne Room with no music. A Spiritual Escort Service will just get someone killed literally or spiritually!

Contrary to Dr. Rubel Shelly a musical worship facilitator (manipulator) cannot lead you into the presence of God. Lord Jesus Christ Who had only One Incarnation has already taken that Job. He couldn't do it unless He was actually God. Therefore, those who claim to be mediators between man and God have died or are trying to die spiritually.

As believers we are in Christ and virtual high priests. The high priest went in to the Throne Room in absolute silence to meet God. No one ever escorted the priest. The Levites "ministered to the priests" and not to God. They were left out where the sacrifices were offered at the altar. If we cannot get into the Throne Room which is the human Spirit where we meet the Spirit God all by ourselves without being transported upon a litter carried by a praise them then we need to go back and be, like Peter, converted.

Israel, practicing the idolatry of nationhood, worshiped like the nations because this is what they wanted when the elders fired God and said: "Set a king over us." God permitted it but insisted that the kings (human pastor) would destroy them. In none of the like the nations temples were the common people or musicians allowed to enter the temple. Again:

And many stand there playing flutes and beating timbrels, and others sing inspired and holy songs.

This is done outside the temple,
and they who perform it do not come into the temple.

This was also true in Egypt another of the universal Babylon models. Not even in the deepest dye of paganism did the musical noise makers come into the holy place (church) or into the most holy place (naos) where we come to God in our mind (nous).

A Levitical singer so beyond redemption as to escort the priest into either area of the temple would be thrust through with a sword just as the modern "praise teams" have assuredly been thrust through with the Sword of the Spirit.

"Guru Bwagwham Shree Rajneeshru tells one of his followers in his book, "Dance Your Way To God," 'just be joyful . . . God is not serious . . . this world cannot fit with a theological god . . . so let this be your constant reminder - that you have to dance your way to God,

to laugh your way to God' (p. 229).

Rajneeshru is referred to as being 'drunk on the divine,' and encourages his followers to come and 'drink' from him.

His spiritual 'wine' was often passed along with a single touch to the head.  Rodney Howard Browne who has passed the holy laughter on to others calls himself a Holy Ghost bartender dispensing the new wine."

From a New Wineskin of course.

Reverent worship in a literal sense means "cringing before a Holy God like a dog licking its masters boot." I would be wary of a dog which gets too excited. Christ died to replace that "cringing fear" with the ability to enter into the Throne Room and be taught by Christ Himself: if we are not giving heed to HIS words then we are not worshiping but just having a charismatic, sexual encounter with a charismatic performer.

Again, this is induced by people who are psychologically trained in mind-altering rituals. This makes you happy and you validate their ministry and payday comes around although not authorized by Christ. The "trumpets" or collection plates in the "temple" get filled, yea, even with widows mites and "widows houses stolen as pledges."

Therefore, this is what the LORD says: "See, I will defend your cause and avenge you; I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry. Jer 51:36

Babylon will be a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals (the dragons), an object of horror and scorn (hissing derision), a place where no one lives. Jer 51:37 (dead while she liveth)

Her people all roar like young lions, they growl like lion cubs. Jer 51:38

But while they are aroused, (heated, self-inflamed) I will set out a feast (from a new wineskin) for them and make them drunk, so that they shout with laughter--then sleep forever and not awake," declares the LORD. Jer 51:39

I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and goats. Jer 51:40

"(Cf. 1Cor. 14:33,40). The Scriptures nowhere speak of a "spirit of play" or God causing one to be as if physically drunk and without self-control. The opposite is true. Even in the days of miraculous gifts individuals were expected to act properly and could maintain self-control even while under the influence of the Spirit (1Cor. 14:26-33; see also the fruit of the Spirit, Gal. 5:22-23).

Miraculous works have ceased, but even in the days when they existed never was there anything as "holy laughter". The Lord demands that we set a proper example in all things and that we teach the truth (Mt. 5:16; 1Tim. 4:12; 2Jn. 9), The doctrine and practice of "holy laughter does neither."

In Luke 6:21 Jesus says "blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh." In Luke 6:25 Jesus says, "woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep." James 4:9 tells us not to laugh but to "be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness."

It may come as a grave loss but John wasn't talking about collective worship in church to meet felt needs.

The musical worship in heaven is symbolic of freedom of the faithful (virgins) who have no earthly responsibility. To the Greek reader the harp was something they gave to the dead to keep them occupied and happy. However, the living are never seen playing the harps along with the "beasts." The angel to the living had a message: "Preach the gospel." Perhaps "she is dead while she still liveth" can be said of the end-time Babylon worship:

And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. Rev 4:5

The "spirits" don't get into your flesh and make you want to dance, laugh or cry. Rather the seven spirits promised to Messiah who said "My words are Spirit and Life" (John 6:63) are:

AND there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: Isaiah 11:1

And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; Isaiah 11: 2

And shall make him of quick understanding (spiritual) in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: Isaiah 11: 3

But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. Isaiah 11: 4

Peter said that the Spirit of the prophets was "The Spirit of Christ" 1 Pe 1:11) and to neglect the WORD of Christ is to quench the Spirit and just stir up "the spirits."

And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Rev 19:10

"The musical instrument in the dead person's hand -- usually a lyre or tambourine --

is meant to signify that the deceased no longer leads an earthly life but is already taken up with the affairs of the other world.

Judging from her demeanor, the seated woman can be none other than the dead person. In her hand she holds a lyre, and she has just stopped playing so as to receive an offering from a relative or friend."

Get it? In the Greek world who would understand the book of Revelation, the musical people were DEAD.

"The fact remains that the persons depicted as approaching the deceased on Greek ointment jars are never playing their instruments.. In another jar the person bearing the cithara is stretching out his hands toward the gravestone on which the dead man is sitting as if he wished to offer the later the instrument. The cithara is thus a votive offering for the deceased." (Quasten p. 155)

"Jingling, banging, and rattling accompanied heathen cults, and the frenzying shawms of a

dozen ecstatic cries intoxicated the masses. Amid this euphoric farewell feast of a dying civilization,
the voices of nonconformists were emerging from places of Jewish and early Christian worship ..." (Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1971 ed., s.v. "Music")

Don't be too proud of celebrating a feast with and for the dead! This was the Marzeah celebrated in Israel and defined by Amos 5 and 6. The dying civilization was hungering and thirsting for the Word of God but could not find it (Amos 8).

If you are still in the land of the living you may make a fatal mistake if you act like the dead and refuse to preach the gospel:

And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,14:6

Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. Rev 14:7

Don't be caught worshiping or the musicians because they cannot get into the throne room. Isn't it a total shame that people fall into the Amos-condemned "worship of and with dead ancestors" and, consistent with many Biblical examples, tell God to get lost.

The Spirit of God or Mind of Christ is the Testimony: singing Psalms is teaching Jesus and not some sentimental song writer who knows nothing about the Word. Again, note that unless you are worshiping in the sense of "giving heed" to the Words of Christ then your charismatic feelings are for the creature and not for the Creator:

And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Revelation 19:10

Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. 1 Peter 1:11

If you are substituting your own songs and sermons then you are denying the Spirit of Christ. If you don't lay your crown down then you cannot get there (later). If you don't "hold" your harps then you are not welcome. In John's world the living held the harps but are never seen playing them on tombstones.

See what the Harps in Revelation really mean. Those on earth are to preach the gospel.

His Name is not "Father, Son and Holy Spirit." His name is Jesus, Joshua or "Jehovah-Saves."

Enjoy: "to have for use or benefit, have as advantage, to have a good time, to have pleasure."

Not a chance: the Spirit of Christ told us how to draw close to Him. He is not lost. He does not need to be "drummed up" to violate the law against trying to "ascend" or "descend."

Jesus said that God is only looking for (and at) those who can and do worship "in spirit" and "in truth." Yes, giving heed to the Words of Christ written with ink on paper we can worship. "In Spirit" means "in the human spirit" or MIND (the nous) which is the Holy Place (naos) of the temple which can only accomodate the "priest and God" at the same time: you cannot let the Levitical Musicians attempt to lead you into the Holy Place because that will get them killed.

Because Peter and John have declared that only the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit which can make changes, Peter also wrote:

And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it,

as to a light shining in a dark place,

until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 2 Pet 1:19

Paying attention to the word of the prophets through the Spirit of Christ is actually defined as worship:

Proserchomai (g4334) pros-er'-khom-ahee; from 4314 and 2064 (includ. its alt.); to approach, i.e. (lit.) come near, visit, or (fig.) worship, assent to: - (as soon as he) come (unto), come thereunto, consent, draw near, go (near, to, unto).

Now, put that together with the absolute direct statement that God only seeks those who worship Him in spirit (in the mind) and in truth (using the revealed Word for song and sermon). So, you may be seeking God through drug-inducing rituals but He may not be looking for you.

Neither the song nor the method are "dealer's choice." Specificially to get around old traditionalism which always involved instrumental music, Paul issued a way to "sing" the Biblical text. When we don't do it we dishonor Christ the Spirit and fail to educate and allow the Spirit or Mind of Christ to develop in our spirits.

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Rom 15:4

Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: Rom 15:5

That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Rom 15:6

This "singing" is called teaching in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3. The purpose of "worship" therefore is not EMOTIONAL MASTURBATION but it is inculcating the Mind of Christ. When we reject that "style" of song we clearly REFUSE TO HAVE GOD IN OUR MINDS and therefore get involved in self body worship.

Why would we single out churches of Christ for condemnation. Isn't it possible to read and know that CCM, Rock and Rap for which churches provide "venue" divides all groups. How about a poor Methodist church which has five musical sects in one building.

Music is not an operative WORSHIP word in the entire Bible. Music was the arena of women camp followers, prostitutes or just innocent children's play. Even then, Job 21 associates music with telling God: "We will not listen to you." It needs no proving: if you replace "speaking" or preaching with "group singing" and the Word of Christ (Spirit) with your own improvized songs like David then no one, for that period, can get their eyes off the team and onto Jesus Who is worshiped ONLY in the spirit or mind. You tell Christ: "We have better words and better methods than listening to your morose presentation and Biblical truth."

In paganism SEX or PERVERTED SEX and MUSIC were always connected: in the worship of a Holy God music is not suggested by "instruments" any more than by "music" on a washboard.

It cannot be debated.

Music in the classics meant "singing and dancing" and in the New Testament is "symphonia" which is never applied to a WORSHIP SERVICE. It is applied to a secular party with singing and dancing and with the end-time Babylon Harlot Worship defined by a mixture of theater, commerce and music. Like the ancient literal king/queen of Babylon who went into hell along with his instruments and musicians, the end-time harlot will see the ultimate silencing of her MUSIC.

The debate, sectarianizing and sowing discord by deliberately using "prayerful brinkmanship" is caused by introducing "worship" practices from the charismatic denominations solely in the belief that it will suck in the seekers. Once this happens then people "debate" at times to keep the new people from using the law to steal your property.

The Catholic Encyclopedia admits that she got music from the same place she got most of her "worship" rituals: directly from paganism.

Then, those who object are served in the middle of the night with the ancient Guilt Clause claiming that, as in The Second Incarnation, "those being invaded suddenly turn and attack the questioners." The Pope even tried to use that on John Calvin.

"To Lamar goes the credit for phrasing the 'guilt clause' which became a cardinal refrain of the organ apologists. The organ was in the churches to stay. The next move was to fasten 'guilt' upon any person or church who would commit one of the 'seven deadly sins' by dividing the church over the organ." (p. 32). [That is, those who opposed the forced introduction caused the discord or the debate.]

There simply was no debate until the late 1800s when instruments were forced in.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) "Where the Bible Speaks."

Letter LV. or Book II-VII. of Replies to Questions of Januarius. (a.d. 400.)

while the play-actors may interfere with our mentioning the harp in the book of Psalms.

Let them therefore say, if they please, that,
because similitudes for the exhibition of the mysteries of God's word are taken from the things which I have named,

we are chargeable either with consulting the omens given by the flight of birds, or with concocting the poisons of the charmer,

or with taking pleasure in the excesses of the theatre,-a statement which would be the clime of absurdity.

XVIII: 34. I am surprised at your expressing a desire that I should write anything in regard to those ceremonies which are found different in different countries, because there is no necessity for my doing this; and, moreover,

"one most excellent rule must be observed in regard to these customs,

> "when they do not in any way oppose either true doctrine or sound morality,

> but contain some incentives to the better life,

[But once they have been introduced they become the rule and to try to return to true doctrine is to sow discord]

 

viz., that wherever we see them observed, or know them to be established,

we should not only refrain from finding fault with them,

but even recommend them by our approval and imitation,

unless restrained by fear of doing greater harm than good.

"In such a case we ought by all means to adopt it,

> especially if it be something in defense of which Scripture can be alleged:

as in the singing of hymns and psalms,

> for which we have on record both the example and the precepts of the Lord and of His apostles.

 

This, dear Campbell critic, means Command, Example or Precept!

That was how you played the blame game 1600 years ago. Elijah knew something about the attack of the musical prophets of Baal and Asherah under Jezebel, another end-time patternism.

"We have won. We have forced musical performance and instruments into the church. Forcing all of those people to leave and many of the remaining ones to be "offended little ones" was necessary because Machiavelli and Hitler told us that you "have to crack some eggs to make an omlet." Or Navigating the Winds of Change has done "prayerful brinkmanship" until we have won without getting fired.

But now, it is done. Things have settled down--in OUR group. You had better just sit down and shut up. "Numbers are up" and the temple with towers (phallic symbols) is getting paid off and this proves that OUR paradigm is lots better than Christ's PATTERN.

If you keep on trying to teach us what Bible 101aaa makes perfectly clear to "those with ears" then YOU are sowing discord.

In the interest of not doing more harm then we have to "take an axe to the non-instrumental legalistic doctrine." See Dwaine Dunning's Battle Plan.

This was Dr. Rubel Shelly's thesis at ACU. To keep from being fratricical (brother killers) one must not only affirm that instruments are correct but recommend them by fellowshipping or meeting with instrumental churches. Bunk! Psychological violence.

Never mind that instruments were added in those groups which had their roots in Catholicism, Church of England, Anglicanism, Episcopal, Methodist, Christian Connection.

The revivalistic music invented for or because of the "Awakenings" where mind manipulation was required to get the high-five from God that one was predestinated to salvation, was derived from African protest songs (don't let people know what we are saying), country music and a huge dose of Voodoo. And so much of so-called Charismatic religion can be found in deepest Africa including the view that the gods lived in the musical instruments.

"In cultic action music was used in preparation for prophecy. Julius Firmicus Maternus refers to this fact in his remarks on an African cult.

With the air full of flute music, the priests would put on women's clothing (ephod like David) and then call on their goddess so that, filled with a wicked spirit, they might predict the future of foolish men. (Quasten, p. 39-40)

Augustine continues to say that:

"In this religious exercise (singing Christ's Words, not yours), so useful for inducing a devotional frame of mind and inflaming the strength of love to God, there is diversity of usage,

and in Africa the members of the Church are rather too indifferent in regard to it; on which account the Donstists

> reproach us with our grave chanting of the divine songs of the prophets in our churches,

> while they inflame their passions in their revels by the singing of psalms of human composition,

> which rouse them like the stirring notes of the trumpet on the battle-field. (1 Cor 14)

You cannot use songs of human composition and meet Jesus' absolute demand that worship must be "In Truth."

You cannot have a "team" attempt to lead you into God's presence with external noise you are not worshiping In Spirit."

Does Augustine in ad 400 sound like the whiny-piney hearts reproaching as legalistic the singing of the old songs while they inflame their passions with human compositions and voodoo-like singing? No. Let the judgmentalism flow because it becomes a crooked stick by which straightness can be measured.

Appealing to the Book of Revelation for authority is appealing to a "feast with and for dead ancestors."

Speaking of the instrumental music in worship condemned by Amos and others:

"The marzeah had an extremely long history extending at least from the 14th century B.C. through the Roman period. In the 14th century B.C., it was prominently associated with the ancient Canaanite city of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra), on the coast of Syria... The marzeah was a pagan ritual that took the form of a social and religious association... Some scholars regard the funerary marzeah as a feast for--and with--deceased ancestors (or Rephaim, a proper name in the Bible for the inhabitants of Sheol)." (King, Biblical Archaeological Review, Aug, 1988, p. 35, 35)

"These five elements are: (1) reclining or relaxing, (2) eating a meat meal, (3) singing with harp or other musical accompaniment, (4) drinking wine and (5) anointing oneself with oil." (King, p. 37).

"With the wine-drinking (which is the literal meaning of the Hebrew for feasting), went music and dancing." (Heaton, E. W., Everyday Life in Old Testament times, Scribners, p. 93)

"Worship was form more than substance; consequently, conduct in the marketplace was totally unaffected by worship in the holy place. Amos spoke from the conviction that social justice is an integral part of the Mosaic covenant, which regulates relations not only between God and people, but also among people." (King, p. 44).

"In pagan traditions, musical instruments are invented by gods or demi-gods, such as titans. In the Bible, credit is assigned to antediluvian patriarchs, for example, the descendants of Cain in Genesis 4:21. There is no other biblical tradition about the invention of musical instruments." (Freedman, David Noel, Bible Review, Summer 1985, p. 51)

Satan always knew that. He would not be caught dead trying to explain one of his deep mysteries to the logical mind. But, he can whip you ten times out of ten with music.

Contrary to the almost-universally held but erroneous view, God didn't give us the gift of music for worship any more than He gave us the gift of getting high on drugs. To those with eyes and ears the Old Testimony equates instruments to ignoring the Word of God: deliberately.

Satan knows that. Charming and enchanting always connected the soul of the dead to that of the living on "a spiritual level." That is, musicians were enchanters which means that they were MEDIUMS. Again, Rubel Shelly says that the "musical worship minister" can help "lead the worshipers into the presence of God." That means, just as in witchcraft the praise leader is the mediator.

The historical theologians note that as there are "lords many and gods many" you have to be careful when sweeping out the mind or "house" with music because evil spirits often steal in. Because there is no hint that God operates through the charismatic senses aroused with carnal means, you truly have to be careful about "testing the spirits." Since music (sound or noise) strokes every never ending (every one) this "spiritual high" has always been associated with sexuality in pagan religions.

Music connects to the glands but not to the rational (spiritual) nature God created as a meeting place. Whatever you FEEL it is NOT SPIRITUAL. Any doctor could inject you with Naxolone and your "spirituality" would fall like a pricked baloon. You are on a drug high and attributing music as a very addictive "drug dispensing method" to a Holy, Rational or Spiritual God.

The psalmists actually wrote a poetic version of the Israelite history. He had no intention of "arousing" anyone into a sexual-like ecstasy. In fact, even with instruments, the poem was chanted and the harp marked a pause to think about the words. Quite often, Psalms repeat the Exodus Pattern to show why Israel was lost. Music was added later and a chart shows why it is not a fact that they were used for worship in a collective sense.

A thousand years later Jesus still chanted hymns at the Passover, never "sang" a tune in His life as far as we know, repudiated the clergy children playing games as they piped trying to get Him into the effeminate Dionysus chorus with singing and dancing. Jesus tossed out (more or less violently) the musical worship team trying to appease the spirit of the dead girl. Paul even later still gave them as the only resource for teaching the Words of Christ or Spirit where the primary command was not singing but teaching/preaching.

Augustine still spoke of commands and examples authorizing the Psalms 1400 years later. So, the will of God, once pronounced does not grow old and decay just because we are bored hearing the Words of God.

Again we need to emphasize--to counteract the propoganda of the end-time, old time Babylonian worship that MUSIC is not a worship word in either the Old or New Testament.

A "praise team" comes from Nimrod at the food of the old crooked tower. Click Away.

Nimrod USED his praise team also. It was just like that defined by The Book of Enoch, The Book of Jubilees and a half-dozen ancient versions including the Babylonian Tablets. Taking over thre "gift of the eldership, the gift of playing musical instruments, singing, and perverted sexuality" is one of the oldest records we know of: dating to about the time of the flood. Enoch and Jude says that God will come with ten thousand of His Host to execute vengeance upon exactly these people working for Lucifer, the ZOE of Gnosticism.

They identify the work of the fallen angels trying to take away glory from God. No. It cannot be disputed: you look at the "used team" and their sexuality and enjoy the "idolatry of talent" or you steal away just like Jesus commanded and patterned to seek God in private places. You know, Jesus never spoke to MULTIDUDES without using parables? That was to hide the truth from those who had rejected the Word and were beyond redemption. Songs or poems are "parables" speaking the performer's message which is often at odds with what Christ said in His Word.

"Women and girls from the different ranks of society were proud to enter the service of the gods as singers and musicians. The understanding of this service was universal: these singers constituted the 'harem of the gods'." (End of Quasten)

Nothing which has been stimulated or stroked into existance throug the external senses--the lust of the ear, the lust of the eye--can be defined as "worship." You are "giving heed" to the Sister Singers and you are performing body worship.

So, excathreda, we pronounce that you have our permission to leave deleterious and decadent and legalistic and traditional churches of Christ and meet with us at Woodmont next Sunday. If preference was the divine authority one wonders why Paul diatribed so forcefully against the pagan form of singing and demanded "in spirit" worship as we teach or preach from the Biblical text?

Worship is falling on your face as you read about the majesty of God but only after gaining a clear-conscience (and consciousness) after submitting to Him in baptism pledging that He is the Master Teacher and we are the disciple. Women in worship teams actually preside over the flock with a tune but we legalistically say that she cannot preside over the flock without a tune. The word is more than silence: it means "sedentary." When women stand to preach with a tune they are therefore the pastor-teachers for the moment. This is a clear violation of the Word of God if one has eyes and ears. Paul didn't think that it was a matter of preference. Female authority was always "sexual authority" in Paul's choice of words.

Proof-texting and looking for worship which does something magical for me means that we are still alive and we have not turned to Christ. That is the meaning of looking for styles in all of the wrong places. It is a me, erotic, inward turn of a few churches who need to be wholesale converted from self to Christ as the crucified, vile criminal, despised and rejected of men model for our pilgrimage through a dark valley plagued with Beast People populating the earth.

After defining the old church of Christ as legalistic because it does five acts of worship rather than six or seven, the psychological manipulation is in place to lay claim to a unique place in each city where your "non-legalistic" needs can be met.

If Christ didn't command it or inspire it then you can choose any style which helps you into a drugh high. But, Jesus did say with the right to Direct Commands:

But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Matt 15:9

The operative word is not "singing" but "teaching." To prevent division among people who came out of diverse musical paganism in Romans 14, Paul absolutely commanded that we teach the revealed Word "with one mouth." He said the same thing in Ephesians and Colossians. The resource is the Word of Christ or Spirit or Prophetic material which came by the Spirit of Christ (1 Peter 1:11).

Because one can make literal "melody" by grinding up bread into SOP, or twanging a bowstring to send an arrow to "make melody" in the literal heart, or one can psallo by whacking the enemy across the neck with a sword, Paul absolutely restricted the "melody" or "grinding into a fine power" to the heart or mind or spirit. There is no music connected with the worship of God and there is no MELODY in the musical sense. The synagogue goal was as "school" and not pagan worship center always identified by music.

Because Jesus repudiated "music" in two examples and did not command "music" then "making music" is by the commandment of men and musical worship is VAIN WORSHIP.

Worship is not remotely related to "meeting my needs." Worship is giving up of self and the stroking of the nerve endings. It demands that "when God is in His Holy Temple we must come before Him in silence." That was the meaning of the Temple: no music was ever allowed in the Holy Places. Only God in dark silence and the one (and only one) priest.

Sorry, but it will have to be with no Biblical evidence. The historical scholarship has no respect for worship with men and women engaging in musical performance. The women were suspect and the male, theatrical performers were beyond suspect.

It will be a pure, me-based worship which is symbolized and denounced in Revelation 18. Jack Reese will approve of Amos 5 and 6 as long as one's heart is right with God. But we believe we see Amos in its context of repeating the Mount Sinai, golden calf worship which could not be performed without wine, women and song. Furthermore, we have about 55 pages of scholarly quotations which confirm that God through Amos shows that "the form by which they acted out their worship was wrong as a result of a wrong spirit." A father and son going in to the same temple prostitute would never be acceptable as long as they had a good mental attitude.

When Israel heard the Covenant Word, God gave them the 40 days testing. They turned back to their old Egyptian musical worship of Osiris under the golden calf. God then "turned them over to worship the starry hosts" which was Saturn, Remphan or Chiun in Amos and Molech at Jerusalem.

This was "musical idolatry" and caused the pemant loss of the Covenant for all but a tiny remnant of the nation of Israel. It is still musical idolatry because we worship our own carnal senses, the team and honor their words rather than Christ's Words.

A clear conscience means more than freedom from guilt feelings; it means a co-perception or the ability to grasp the Spirit of God, the Mind of Christ, because our spirit has been swept clean of the old bull demons which still closed the eyes and ears of the Jews because they had not truly turned to Christ (2 Cor. 3).

Because Lucian was ridiculing a Seeker Center just like Apollo's (Apollyon, Abbydon) at Delphi, let's repeat him:

The scoffer Lucian pours out his sarcasm in a passage in which he speaks of the fraudulent prophet Alexander of Abonouteichos, who kept choir boys in the service of the gods with him:

Choirs were used because "Thus they led the simple into error and sought to bewitch the ears of lay people,
who are easily led astray by hymns and melodies."

"Philodemos considered it paradoxical that music should be regarded as veneration of the gods while musicians were paid for performing this so-called veneration.

Again, Philodemus held as self-deceptive the view that music mediated religious ecstasy. He saw the entire condition induced by the noise of cymbals and tambourines as a disturbance of the spirit. (Paul called it mad or insane. If you FEEL it then you have gone charismatic: jerked into a climax by theatrical performers according to the Vineyard Mother.)

He found it significant that, on the whole, only women and effeminate men fell into this folly."

"According to Philo, the gods of the pagans exploit this weakness of men. For the sake of a better effect,

and with the intention of more easily cheating their devotes,

that they have set their lies to melodies, rhythms and meters.." (Quasten, p. 52)

I suggest that times haven't changed and Paul told the Corinthians: "Fools love to be fooled."

Similar opinions may be found in the writings of Philo. On one occasion he spoke of the Jewish "Feast of Fasting," used by the Greeks for the Day of Atonement:

"Now, many a man from the false religions, which are not ashamed of criticising what is noble, will ask: how can there be a feast without carousing and overeating, without the pleasant company of hosts and guests, without quantities of unmixed wine, without richly set tables and highly stacked provisions of everything that pertains to a banquet, without pageantry and jokes,

bantering and merry-making to the accompaniment of flutes and citharas, the sound of drums and cymbals
and other effeminate and frivolous music of every king,

enkindling unbridled lusts with the help of the sense of hearing. For in and through the same [pleasures] those persons openly seek their joy, for what true joy is their they do not know.

Women's singing was a vital part of all pagan worship. In very early times women became priestly singers of the gods in the temple.

Again: "Women and girls from the different ranks of society were proud to enter the service of the gods as singers and musicians. The understanding of this service was universal: these singers constituted the 'harem of the gods'." (End of Quasten)

See The Bacchae or Bacchantes By Euripides This is how the Jewish clergy tried to seduce Jesus by "piping."

The tragedy is that we are too much caught up in "worship" rather than edification and our children go naked into the world when the true world of reality hits them in the face. Some of us olders also feel that we have been failed and therefore have failed our children and others. We were just too slow to catch on to the need to make disciples of them.

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Dan Dozier and his wife, Jane Lee, worship at Woodmont Hills Church of Christ in Nashville, Tenn. He is the author of Come Let Us Adore Him, published by College Press.

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The Christian Chronicle is bound to stir up more debate by not allowing a balanced view. Of course a balanced view takes up a lot of "chemistry" to remove the one drop of "blank ink" put into a glass of "white milk."

This is why the view is so damaging: the pro music issue appeals to the sensual delight especially of the young who, at the same time, are least likely to have not been crippled by the "sound byte" syndrome.

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