Isaiah 28:23-29 is a passage that provides illumination that has a profound significance for a proper Christian understanding of how Christians are to approach their understanding of acceptable music for corporate worship.
Isa 28:23 Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech.
24 Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground?
25 When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place?
26 For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.
27 For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.
28 Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.
29 This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.
This passage teaches that the farmer’s God teaches him how to engage properly in the various tasks involved in his work. Not stated but clearly understood in this passage is the reality that the plowman is not knowingly seeking to rebel against his God in whatever he is doing.
What is also clear is that there are not numerous right ways that the various tasks are to be done. It is also important that the passage does not say anything about special revelation given by God to the farmer so that the farmer accomplishes the tasks properly in the way that God wants him to do them.
The passage ends by highlighting that God’s directing and instructing the farmer to do what is right without giving him special revelation about what to do is a manifestation of the glory of the Lord of hosts who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.
Arguing from the lesser to the greater, God certainly is able to teach those who are His and who are not seeking to rebel against Him how to play instrumental music that is pleasing to Him and played the right ways that He accepts in worship. Moreover, God is able to do so without having given them special revelation about the specifics of how He wants them to play instrumental music when they worship Him.
As believers, we do not need to have special revelation from God that provides specific information about how to play music that is acceptable to Him in corporate worship. Provided we do not rebel against any of His directives, such as by conforming ourselves to the musical perspectives and practices of this present evil world, we can be confident that He will guide us by His Spirit’s working in us to play music that pleases Him.
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