To begin my weekly posts about finding the right music that pleases God, I would like to talk about finding the right kind of songs, minus the artist. What I am about to say may be somewhat controversial. If you disagree and want to share your opinion, then leave a comment. I don't mind at all.
Unless you have a personal conviction to stay away from secular music in general, then I believe that you can sort through secular music with an open mind, and find songs and artists within the secular media that do not turn away from the guidelines set into place by Philippians 4:8, which paraphrased says: Everything that you think about should be true, right, honorable, pure, lovely, excellent, and worthy of praise.
In other words, there should not be a deceitful or wrong message in the lyrics of your selected song, and the message should be honorable (so random sex, drugs, and clubbing should be out of the picture). The song should be pure- or innocent- so if it is going corrupt your thoughts, it needs to go. Lovely and excellent: a song that goes like this (and I'm making this up as I go along), "I want to die, I want to scream, I always kill you in my dreams..." probably isn't a good choice. And finally, the song needs to be worthy of praise. This doesn't necessarily mean that it is has to be a praise song, but it should be a song that you can praise to others and say, "Hey, I like this," without feeling a twinge of shame at the truth behind the junk you're shoving into your ears.
While I am talking about specific songs, without any regard to the music artist behind them, you may feel the conviction to judge the music you listen to by more than just the song itself. You may not feel comfortable judging a song by only its lyrics without including the person or band who performs it, and that is okay too. On Saturday, I will be including the artist in my search to find the "right" music, but during the next few days, I will be looking at each specific song's message, without any influence from its artist or the other songs in the album.
Now that we have our guidelines, I would like to divide the different types of secular songs into four different categories:
1. The Good Song
2. The Neutral Song
3. The Almost Good With A Tiny Bit of Bad Mixed In Song
4. The Bad Song
Every day for the next few days, I'm going to talk about each category of song, list a few examples, and then ask you to challenge yourself: do you believe that it is okay for you to put this into your mind and into your heart? I'm going to try (and I emphasize on try) not to preach at you and tell you what is right and what is wrong. It is ultimately up to you to decide what you will listen to when it comes to music. Music is a huge passion of mine, and I want to give you the facts so that you can choose for yourself what you believe to fit the guidelines of Philippians 4:8.
Philippians 4:8 can be applied inclusively or exclusively. You've decided to apply it exclusively:
ReplyDelete[T]here should not be a deceitful or wrong message in the lyrics of your selected song, and the message should be honorable (so random sex, drugs, and clubbing should be out of the picture).
I encourage you to also consider the inclusive application. Here's what Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama wrote about Philippians 4:8 in his book Waterbuffalo Theology:
When I become a Christian, should I discard all Japanese 'whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just'? Should I reject them saying that 'whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just' of Japan is 'not true, not honourable, not just' in the light of Jesus Christ? A tragedy of immense proportion takes place whenever a community of Christians underestimates, ignores and rejects 'whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just...' of their own community. Theirs is a 'ghetto' existence among their own people! (44-45)
Instead of using Philippians 4:8 to keep culture out (exclusively), Koyama uses the verse to include culture (inclusively). Instead of saying a Christian shouldn't watch such-and-such a movie or listen to such-and-such song because it isn't pure and noble, maybe we as Christians should look for what is pure and noble in that movie or song and see what we can learn from it.
I know you're discussing music here, but I would also recommend Jeffrey Overstreet's (former Christianity Today film critic and one of my favorite film critics) three-part series, "Wrong, Right, and R-Rated":
"Part 1 - Naked Truths"
"Part 2 - Who Gives a #$&*?!"
"Part 3 - Killing the Violence"
I agree that you should look for God and noble/honorable/etc things within everything, similar to what David Crowder talks about in "Praise Habit." On the other hand, I'm not going to knowingly put ungodly things into my head and thoughts just so that I can search for something good within the mess. And I don't think lyrics about clubbing, sex outside of marriage, drugs, and cussing should be considered "culture." I consider it to be trashy.
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