Why the "Silence of the Scriptures" Argument Just Doesn't Cut It.

The Quail Springs church of Christ has made news in conservative Oklahoma City yet again. Last time, it was because they were “yoked with unbelievers” when they , shame of all shames, held a forth of July fellowship with the Baptist church with whom they share a parking lot.

But now they have committed an even worse crime. They have decided to begin an instrumental service on Sunday morning. They will retain a traditional, a cappella service but will also have a service in which a small band will accompany the music service. This has, of course, kicked off a rash of embarrassing public debate between churches of Christ in the area. These arguments range from the tired old arguments to the strange ones that even over-educated guys like me can’t understand.

The most common argument against the use of instruments in the worship service stem from a method of biblical interpretation based on close examination of the Bible’s text (in English) and the text alone. It is a method that stresses an exclusion from consideration any non-textual theology. This argument also comes from the belief that the institution of the New Testament abolished all legal value of the Old. Because the New Testament does not explicitly command the use of musical instruments, Church of Christ thinkers have argued that instruments are in fact forbidden. Thus the “silence of the scriptures” on the issue is in fact a proscription. My favorite explanation of this is one that I was once given: “If I tell you to go to the store and buy bread, that does not mean that you are to buy bread AND butter. In the same way, we are told in the New Testament to sing. We are not told to sing AND play instruments.

The problem with the “silence of the scriptures” argument is that it fails to consider the culture that the bible was written in. Dr. Neale Pryor, one of my favorite professors at Harding University, used to tell his students, “Remember, the Bible was written FOR you. It was not written TO you.” The difference is subtle but important. I should note that Dr. Pryor wasn't talking about this issue when he said this, but what Dr. Pryor suggests is that, in order to understand and properly interpret scripture, it is important to consider the people that the scripture was written to. This means that the type of close textual-study that the C of C has valued so highly may be a very irresponsible way to come to a clear and complete understanding of scripture. We must, instead, look very carefully at the history of culture as well as extra-Biblical source material to truly understand the text. With that in mind, it might be helpful to look at Christian hymnology in the first century in order to interpret the New Testament’s silence on this issue.

Let’s consider things that we know about the first-century church and their attitudes toward instrumental worship. The oldest Christian hymns in existence date from the early second century. Interestingly, they contain instrumental interludes. This means that by the early second century, instruments were clearly in use in Christian churches, not just as accompaniment, but as featured soloists. It’s reasonable to assume that this practice did not grow full fledged after the end of the first century.
We also know that Jewish Christians patterned their worship after the synagogues, which saw the use of instruments as mandatory. We must assume that the Jewish churches would have retained the use of instruments in worship as well. In fact, there was a great variety of worship styles in the synagogues and presumably in early churches as well. Temple worship included expensive, melodic instruments while the poorer synagogues often used only tambourines and cheap drums. But it is clear that they used at least these small instruments. This fact, more than any other, complicates the “silence of the scriptures” argument. This is because the New Testament writers are constantly chiding the Jewish churches for elements of the old law that they kept that were either no longer acceptable or no longer required in the new Christian church. However, they never corrected the Jewish church’s use of musical instruments. Instead, it seems that the practice was allowed to continue. The leaders of the early church clearly do not proscribe the use of instruments. If anything, then, the New Testament’s silence on the issue supports, rather than restricts, the use of instruments in the worship service. Knowing that the practice was going on, the apostles (Jewish Christians all) remained conspicuously silent on the issue. Our best educated guess is that many first century churches remained a cappella for financial reasons if for no other, while others would have carried on using instruments of different varieties depending on the individual congregation. We know for certain that worship in the first century was infinitely varied and the apostles saw no need to homogenize them. Instead, with few and important exceptions, churches carried on worshiping as they saw fit.

At the least, the silence of the scriptures suggests that the issue is totally unimportant. This possibility is almost as frightening as the last. This is because, if the issue is not as completely pivotal as we think it is, I have this horrible fear that before the judgment seat of God, my savior may say to me, “What have you done? People were dying all around you and I was begging you to go to them. But you were too busy arguing over trivialities.”