Someone may well ask, “Why do you folks in the church of Christ not worship with instruments of music?”
It is not because they cannot be afforded. According to apostolic command and example, the church makes up a collection on the first day of every week (1 Cor 16:2). Money is not the reason.
Human tradition is not the reason we do not worship with instruments of music. Whether or not our parents, grandparents, relatives, or friends worshipped with an instrument has no bearing on the question. What our teachers in the faith did or did not do is not a standard.
It is not because of what we may learn from secular history. Whether or not historians document the use of mechanical instruments in worship in the past, whether in the first century or any time since, does not decide the question.
A personal dislike or lack of enjoyment of the sound of an instrument of music is not the reason. When discussing worship to God, we are concerned with what God accepts (1 Peter 2:5), so whether you or I like a thing is irrelevant. But if God “likes” a thing, we will decide to like it.
It is not because we do not believe and accept the Old Testament. We do believe all of the word of God, and that includes the Old Testament. Instruments of music can be found in worship to God in the Old Testament, as well as burning of incense, lighting of candles, and offerings of all kinds, both meat and grain. But there has been a change of the law (Heb 7:12). The old law of the Old Testament has been abolished (Ephesians 2:15), and all men are now under the authority of the law of Christ (1 Cor 9:21).
Then why don’t we use instruments of music in worship to God?
The reason we do not worship using instruments of music is because they are not authorized in the gospel. There is no direct statement, command, approved example, nor necessary inference of their use in the New Testament. The only music authorized in worship to God in the gospel is singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16).
When the specific class of music – singing – is given in the New Testament, and no other is given, then we have no right to add another kind of music to our worship. Nadab and Abihu had no right to add another fire “which He not commanded them” (Lev 10:1), teachers had no right to add circumcision as a requirement to be saved (Acts 15:1ff), and Corinth had no right to add a common meal into or alongside the worship of Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:20-34).
Don’t let others tell you that singing without instruments in worship to God is simply your tradition. It is an issue of the authority of Christ, which means it is an issue of the law of Christ, which means it is an issue of eternal consequence (Matthew 7:21-23).
-Larry Jones