A Note on Music

"The music we listen to often carries the message of the world, and the world uses the medium of music to squeeze us into its mold. And a Christian cannot help being gradually influenced if he continually listens to the world's music"

~Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness

I don't like this quote. I don't think many Christians my age would be prone to defend its reasoning. I do wonder, though, how Christians who don't actually listen to worldly music would respond. They have less at stake, and so perhaps slightly less bias.

I am challenged, and I challenge you: what are you allowing to shape you? Scripture? Then how? Is your decision to engage secular culture by buying its music and memorizing its lyrics a part of your pursuit of godliness? Have you filtered your CD collection through the grid of God's revelation?

The attitudes expressed in much music--about love, about revenge, about the meaning(lessness) of life--are we really immune to subtle persuasion?

1 John 2:1 says "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin." Will not sin. Do we live like that's what we want? Jerry Bridges, at one point in his life, realized that all he wanted was "not to sin very much." Do we settle for this unbiblical standard?

James 1:26 says, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

In both of these passages, we are addressed as children as we are exhorted to pursue, or desire, holiness. I do not recommend that we publish a list of acceptable bands, or promote an all out ban on any music not labeled CCM. But I do think we should ask ourselves...would we obey if that's what God wanted? Do we even want to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world? Is that desire on our emotional radar screen? Is our father's standard of holiness important to us?

I have to say that often, for me, it is not.

One final thought--the other day the parable of the talents from Matthew 25 came to my mind. In the parable, the master returns and finds that the servant to whom he entrusted one talent has done nothing with it...he has merely buried it. The master's reaction is harsh: "you wicked, lazy servant!" That servant was wicked. He didn't lose what he'd been given. He didn't waste it, or squander it. He merely saved it. And he was wicked.

Many of those privileged to grow up in "sheltered" Christian homes have been blessed with innocence and instruction. And I'm scared--I'm scared that, worse even than the wicked servant, we aren't even protecting those gifts. I'm scared that we're throwing them away.

Life under the Son

"Of course, we do not use the word cool to describe true greatness. It is a small word. That's the point. It's cheap. And it's what millions of young people live for" (John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life).

The writer of Ecclesiastes speaks of "life under the sun"--that is, a world without God. Now whether or not this book has come to us from the hand of king Solomon -- a man blessed with extraordinary wisdom -- or some other prudent character, is not really that important. The indisputable fact remains that the author has demonstrated, in frightfully clear terms, the end result of life without God: meaninglessness.

There's a lot one could say about this. We could examine the relevancy of the the author's experiences to our current lifestyles. We could launch into a chilling description of the sinner's true state of godlessness. We could beg and plead with our fellow Christians to throw off their preocuppation with self and live a life worthy of their calling, to recoil from living a life under the sun without life in the Son.

But what good would it do? Honestly, assuming my experiences are at least relatively close to the norm, how far can such discussion go? Passion fades. Resolve deteriorates. Vision clouds.
When we allow our pleasure to supercede our purpose, how can anything truly great, noble, or good move us?

When we allow our perspective to morph into a Christ-less, self-centered vision, joy cannot last. Without the life of Christ in the soul of man, our world is reduced to a land of missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential; a land of incompletion and imperfection; a land of agravating almosts and disappointing endings. If disappointment is slow in coming, we need only wait a little longer. It's coming. Only the infinite God can fully satisfy.

There's so much more to say. But the writer of ecclesiastes gives a good summary of the correct response to such a potentially meaningless lifestyle: fear God, and keep his commands; remember your creator in the days of your youth.
Such a life cannot be invoked by passionate pleading or clever rhetoric. Only the life of Christ in the soul can produce a life in Christ. And for that, you must go to the cross.