Using organ in the church is a sin!

And the burden of proof continues to be on you as you show that praise and worship music is not worshipping in spirit and in truth.

So would you say the same thing about solos? What about someone singing a solo of, "Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee?" Are those disallowed for the same reason?

Nah. It doesn't dent my pride.

Okay. So this is found in Scripture... where?

Okay. Scripture?

Psalm 150. Full of different types of instruments. Not one mention of vocal praise.

And the proof is... where?

Okay. So what you are saying is that if you enjoy a hymn, such as Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee, you have crossed a line from intellect to sensual? That's kind of confusing. It is almost as if you want us to hate singing songs, as to not cross a line into singing sinful music.

Where are your stats for this? My guess would have been surfing the internet.

One thing I don't understand. You've placed hymns in the realm of finding meaning in the intellect. Praise and worship music often finds meaning in the soul. Don't get me wrong, it finds meaning in the intellect as well, but reaching the soul doesn't have much to do with the five senses.

-----

I think I will add a few verses from the Bible.

Psa 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Psa 150:3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.

Psa 22:26 The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.

Psa 149:3 Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp.

Let's see... We've got praise from what we see... praise from what we hear... praise from what we taste... and praise from dancing. Sounds like God doesn't mind praise that isn't strictly intellectual. He wants it to come from our entire self!

 

I read all of them. In my opinion, the author relies upon several logical fallacies, including hasty generalizations and arguments from silence, as well as ripping Scripture out of its context. I especially found humourous his "explaining away" of such psalms as 149 and 150, especially since we know that our entire lives are acts of worship. He doesn't even mention this, and instead provides a very interesting - and man-made definition of worship. But again, we can make a new thread concerning it, if you'd like. I hope that other people who listen to praise and worship music would read it, because it really helps me understand more how the anti-CCM crowd thinks. It's an awful lot like the KJV-only crowd thinks.

 

I am sorry that you did not feel that I gave them their due consideration. This is not the case, I can assure you.

Does it surprise you that this is the first time I had ever heard of him, after going to a Baptist college, taking several theology classes, and having a hobby of reading a wide variety of theologians?

There are several different reasons why Dr. Masters shows that he doesn't know everything. Here is one of his quotes:

"When Paul (1 Timothy 2v8) commands Christians to pray ‘lifting up holy hands’ he undoubtedly means this figuratively. To offer clean hands to God in a literal way, like little children showing parents that they have washed, would be preposterous. Here the hands represent our deeds, and Paul means that we should strive for holiness before we pray."

He is, quite simply, explaining away passages that do not agree with him. He offers no Biblical support, but offers an emotional appeal to get rid of Biblical support.

Another is this comment:

The first of these words is in 1 Corinthians 14v33 – ‘For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.’ In our English translation it may appear that Paul is simply correcting clamour and commotion. But that is not what he has in mind. The Greek word translated ‘confusion’ describes a situation in which people act on their own. It covers uncoordinated individualism (even including anarchy).

The Greek word is akatastasia. Strong's nor Thayer's agrees with Masters. Furthermore, the other uses of akatastasia would follow at all. This statement is completely unfounded by Scripture.

And the third point to address is his continual insistence that the church be as separated from the world as possible. This, as I've shown before, is something that is just not the model that is presented by the leaders of the early church.

It's not a matter of age. It's a matter of proper Biblical hermeneutic.

 

Absolutely. I've read much of what he has to say, and have read many of his sermons. Now, Spurgeon, he's a great theologian. This Masters guy, not so much.

It is Samford University, a university endorsed and supported by the Southern Baptist Convention. It is one of the top Baptist schools in the world. I am unsure why you say I do not understand Scripture, when you haven't shown anyone why.

Where have you shown this before?

Enda [/QB][/QUOTE]

Jesus Christ ate with the prostitutes and the tax collectors of his times. The Pharisees, in their most holier-than-thou voice said, "Look at this Jesus! What does he think he is doing by spending time with such sinners." Jesus didn't bat an eyelash, saying instead, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." Jesus Christ, in his very actions of ministry, did not believe in the separation that so many people today espouse.

Paul, on one of his missionary trips, traveled to Athens. This city was as saturated with idolatry as one could be, according to the book of Acts. Paul first went to the synagogue to speak with the Jews, conversing with them in a very specific way. Epicureans and Stoics came to him and thought he was crazy. Paul did not run away. He did not get on his pedestal of religious indignation. Instead, he went to the pagan temple, in the court of the Areopagites, and spoke to them in a specific manner - using the vernacular that they understood. While some mocked him for that, several men and women believed, including Dionysis and Damaris.

Jesus, Paul, and other Christians leaders such as Phillip, did not separate themselves from the culture. They did not embrace it either. What did they do? They used culture to change culture. They were aware that the power of the gospel is greater than anything that the worldly culture could do. They were in the world, but not of it. They didn't back down.

There's your Biblical proof. I'd mentioned it before, but here you go, in more detail.

 

Funny, not a single Bible commentary that I found agrees with him.

There is nothing in Strong's or Thayers that even speaks of anarchy. I've got Strongs and Thayers in front of me, and it means nothing of the sort. If it does, then II Corinthians 6:4-5 make absolutely no sense.

Though we often use it to describe excitement and agitation, it is also properly used to describe just as Dr. Masters said, "uncoordinated individualism (even including anarchy)."</font>[/QUOTE]You cannot use an English dictionary to define a Greek word. That's just silly.

Let's be honest - you can't refute them, so you make such comments.

 

Whereas you have embraced the music of the world.[/quote]

What do you mean? Have you embraced the internet? Is that not worldly? Why would you say I have embraced the music of the world when you yourself use the internet? THis I do not understand.

I think it is clear how Paul and Jeuss Christ changed culture. One need only look at the response of the woman at the well to understnad that. Jesus Christ used parables and stories to illustrate about the Kingdom of God. Many people, who caught a glimpse of that, changed their lives forever. A culture of peace, instead of a culture of chaos.

You still have to show that music is a sin. You haven't done that, so the burden of proof rests on your shoulders. He did provide a remedy, but he used their language to tell him that. Praise and worship does the same thing - providing the remedy using the language of the world.

Argument from silence. Show me in Scripture where he used the bathroom. (It's not in there, but that doesn't mean he didn't "go.")

Again argument from silence.

And combining the two, we see that he preached Christ crucified in whatever way he could. IF it was in the manner of the JEws, that is what he did. If it was in the manner of the Greeks, he did that. INterestingly enough, you admit that you use hymns - is this preaching Christ crucified?

You still have to prove that in playing praise and worship, I am "compromising with the world." Unless you do that, your argument does not advance at all. That is the burden of proof that lays squarely on your shoulder. You make such statements, but cannot back them up.

 

You didn't look very hard. "It is the will of God that in prayer we should lift up holy hands: Lifting up holy hands, or pure hands, pure from the pollution of sin, washed in the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. I will wash my hands, etc., Ps. 26:6." (Matthew Henry)</font>[/QUOTE]And interestingly enough, Henry says nothing about "lifting" hands as figurative.

"In the Old Testament, we can see that Solomon, Ezra, Job, David, and Jeremiah were among those who raised holy hands. Solomon lifted his hands and changed positions during prayer. He began by standing and ended his prayer on his knees (1 Kings 8:22; 1 Kings 8:54). In Solomon's prayer of dedication (1 Kings 8:22-61), he prayed that the Israelites' prayers would come from their hearts and that they would spread their hands toward the temple (1 Kings 8:38). Many others also worshiped this way. Ezra fell on his knees and spread his hands out to the Lord (Ezra 9:5). Then, when Ezra praised the Lord, all the people lifted their hands and responded, "Amen! Amen!" (Nehemiah 8:6 NIV). Zophar the Naamathite advised Job to devote his heart to God and spread his hands to God (Job 11:13). In Psalms, raising one's hands to God is mentioned several times (Psalm 28:2; Psalm 63:4; Psalm 77:2; Psalm 88:9; Psalm 119:48; Psalm 134:2; Psalm 141:2; Psalm 143:6). Jeremiah told the Israelites to plead and lift up their hands to the Lord because of what they had done (Lamentations 2:19; Lamentations 3:41)." (Southall)

There are literal instances of lifting hands. To deny this is to deny the SCriptures.

Strong's uses the word "commotion." I defined commotion for you. Dr. Vine uses the word anarchy.

Thayer uses the words disorder, dissensions, seditions, tumults or commotions of war.

In short, anarchy.</font>[/QUOTE]I do not have Vine's, so that is why I said, "Nothing in Strong's or Thayer's even speaks of anarchy." And you have even written what Thayer uses. And he doesn't use anarchy. Strong's does not use it either.

I looked up Vine's, which is not a lexicon but a dictionary - (there is a difference). His primary definition for the passage in question is: "a state of disorder, disturbance, confusion, tumult." He uses the anarchy definition to clarify a verse in James, not the one in question.

For anarchy to be meant in this case, there must be more evidence than this. Masters' burden of proof is much larger if the two greatest Greek lexicons and a well-known expository dictionary disagree with him.

I'm saying that Masters is probably stretching the truth, if he must translate a passage as he does without proper documented support. And Dr. Vine is not mistaken - those who are using him as support need to read a little closer.

And when we are backed into a corner do we always use ad hominems? Again, the word in question is not an English one - it is a Greek one. For us to understand a specific word or phrase from the koine NT, we cannot use a dictionary to define the word that a person or committee has translated. To do so is folly, and any basic class on hermeneutics agrees.

I do know Greek, as I have completed all the way up to the second semester of Advanced Greek. I also know how to use the resources of those who are greater than me. Masters fails that test, and with an absence of documentation, someone must provide that, or his argument fails.

I am still waiting on further arguments for the other points.

I also am understanding the "Roll On September" thread a lot more now.

 

So we have men lifting hands in worship in the Old Testament. We have men lifting hands in the New Testament. Nothing is mentioned specifically in Scripture about a change. And you assume that the New Covenant somehow changes this? The Bible specifically talks about the changes of all these other rituals in places such as Hebrews, but there is nothing that says that "Oh, wait! We don't have to lift hands anymore!" That kind of argument is logically fallacious.

Yes. We read Paul writing about lifting hands to God. That's a pretty good apostolic source, I would say. The First Letter of Clement states: "with zeal for the good and devout confidence, you stretched out your hands to almighty God" at the movement of the Spirit. After quoting a psalm, Clement adds: "We must, then, approach him with our souls holy, lifting up pure and undefiled hands to him." In the context of OT worship in the psalm, he cannot mean this as a figure of speech. It is, undoubtedly, literal.

Because of this, we must conclude that I Timothy 2:8 is, indeed, a literal act of worship. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that provides even the slightest of chance to be seen to the contrary. If there is, you must present it. And go ahead and print the source. You stated that apostolic and non-apostolic literature agrees with you. I've shown from both Paul and Clement (both kinds of literature) that hands were literal. In the absence of a contrary Scripture, your side cannot be held as Biblical.

Not true, as Clement has shown us.

It's a bad paraphrase. I still stated that neither of the lexicons support your position. You haven't disagreed with that here, so we must take it as a given. Even Vine's, in explaining the word commotion does not give "anarchy" as a possible meaning for the Corinthian passage. Quite simply, your side loses again.

Here is what Vine's says, ""instability," (a, negative, kata, "down," stasis, "a standing"), denotes "a state of disorder, disturbance, confusion, tumult," 1 Cor. 14:33."

James 3:16 says: "For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice."

In one passage (James) we have "anarchy", because of selfish ambition. That makes sense, although I would agree more with Strongs and Thayers here. In the other we have the opposite of order, which is specifically disorder, which is agreed to by Strongs, Vines, and Thayers. How are they the same usage again?

If these are the interpretations that support your view of worship in Scripture, may I add that you are missing out on an abundance of blessings?

 

To be completely fair, the Church went about 1300 years without the organ. The passage in psalms refers to something completely different from the organ that we think of today.

And I have never heard of the organ called the King of Instruments. WHere did that come from?