 |
| R Kelly at one of his shows |
The Bible warns us in James 1:22 not to just be hearers of the word only but rather do what it says. It also calls those that only listen; deceivers of themselves. In other wards listening to the word of God alone and not doing anything about it is deceiving one’s self. Then someone might ask; why listen to it anyway in the first place.
Now if only listening to God's word makes one a deceiver what does listening to secular music make me? It probably makes me many things but what I am certain of is that it doesn't make me whatever the singer is singing about. Why? It is because am just listening!
I am still trying to figure out why Christians have invested so much time in criticising and categorising music as if that was part of the great commission in Matthew 28:19-20.
What makes up music*? Lyrics and a beat, period! Therefore our judgement of music should be based on those two but even more on the lyrics because the beat could be used for another set of lyrics all together. The other things that people talk about, no one can prove. Christians coming up and classifying certain musicians as devil worshippers and they forget that anything done against God (sin) worships the devil is ironic. It is like the story told in the Bible of the two guys that had things in their eyes but the one with the log was claiming to be seeing the speck in his brother's eye so clearly. Who told you that the lies you tell, the corruption you practice, the lust you have, etc worship the Lord? By practicing any of these things, you are worshiping the king of liars; the DEVIL.
I am aware that just like church music has an effect on most people by making them feel God's presence in that particular place so does some secular music as it makes some feel like they can now indulged in all forms of sin. I also know that for some people certain songs bring certain memories that might not be pleasing before the Lord or they are trying to forget and in that case since the Bible asks us not to stumble each other, we need to be sensitive to each other as Paul illustrated in 1 Corinthians 8:13. In situations such as that however, I feel that you who is affected has to take a step and may be ask a brother not to play certain music otherwise just like gospel music is meaningless to the pagans, so is some secular music* to some Christians. All they want to get from the song is the beat and just a little dancing. For some people it is about the voice of the musician or the instrument while for others it is the message. And about the message, you cannot honestly tell me that any song that doesn't talk about Christ is bad, no way! One time I asked a friend that confronted me in high school over this issue whether the 'Happy birthday' song is good and she said it wasn't Godly. May be she was right, it isn’t Godly but hey some things on earth are just earthly like the food you eat. It is just earthly period!
If you are great consumer of music, you will agree with me here that some music is just beautiful and irresistible from the way the singer blends in with the beat etc. It is all beauty, just another gift from the Lord who gives talent. Some music on the other hand is for particular occasions e.g. weddings, birthdays, funerals etc. Even the Bible is not just about the character of God though it was all inspired by Him. In His wisdom He took time to put in the Proverbs, Song of Songs, Chronicles just to help us appreciate different components of life and that is what some music does.
Don't get obsessed by beliefs that there are some people who go and worship the devil and so blah, blah, blah…all you should hold onto is the fact that you know who you worship. Some of these musicians just know that people will get interested in something that appears or sounds to be from out of the world and so they package themselves in a way that will get the people’s attention. Actually they also know that for most of us, we are obsessed by the devil more than God and so they appear like those paintings we have tried to create of the devil. Who told you that the devil looks the way they make him appear in pictures? Have you forgotten that the devil is a spirit?
Just so you know, by sending all these emails, PDF attachments, videos, name it about whoever you think is a devil worshipper, all you are doing is creating fame for these people. Spending a minute reading about Lady Gaga is a lot of time that you could use for so much more but there you are reading about someone who is also just trying to find answers to life’s toughest questions.
Why make a whole DVD or spend a whole day talking about a personality also trying to find their way to heaven as if we don’t have a perfect model (Christ) to talk about. We all have our burdens to carry so leave whoever to carry his burden, you have yours. Galatians 6:5
I recently listened to a pastor criticise "He saved me" by R. Kelly saying it is not gospel in any way. He also added that not every song that has the name Jesus mentioned somewhere is gospel and I agree but hey what is wrong with that song. Unless you want to tell me that you are judging the personality who is just a fellow sinner. Who said that every song about Christ has to have the name Jesus somewhere? There is something called art and poetry and I think that is what R. Kelly used here. If you are not artistic enough to appreciate art and poetry in music that is another issue you have to deal with yourself. And even that music you so credit as gospel, I personally know over 30 songs that I can clearly critic as non-gospel though they have been sang by re-known gospel artistes and are categorised as gospel songs. So who should be castigated, the sinner that sings about God and worships Him or a Christian that comes in the name of the Lord and yet is not worshipping God?
The Bible tells us in Mark 7:15 that what makes a man unclean is what comes out of him/her and NOT what goes in. If you were passing a place where people were hurling insults a at each other, would you feel a sinner because you have listened to bad words?
Some songs are dirty either by their lyrics, their video or both but this debate about music is one about minors in our Christian faith. Listening to gospel music will NOT take you to heaven, neither will listening to non-gospel music take you anywhere. These are just earthly things which unless you deliberately decide to follow what they are telling you, they are just sounds.
Preach Christ and repentance and stop making Christians feel holy because they are not listening to 'secular' music (as if listening to it is sin) and help them focus on the sin in their lives.
If you are working on a ‘Christian’ radio FM or TV station and you want to create market for gospel music, advise the singers to come up with quality and nice music and people will tune in.
*The music and talking about here is strictly audio
a I am not in any way condoning the act of hurling insults
