The Bible plainly teaches us that there is wisdom that is not from God that is earthly, sensual, and demonic wisdom: “This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish (James 3:15).”
Is there any such wisdom about musical instruments and instrumental music?
To rightly understand the answer to this key question, consider the following excerpt from a book relating the experience of missionaries to cannibals in Irian Jaya:
While the men were preoccupied with the butchering, the women . . . took down drums . . . and began to dance back and forth . . . Sustaining a high-pitched rhythmic chant, they pounded in steady unison on lizard-skin drumheads glued on with human blood. Their heavy grass skirts flounced in time to the brooding thunder of the drums.
—Peace Child by Don Richardson, page 34
The evil that this information conveys to us shockingly makes known to us that certain evil humans have made drums that have drumheads “glued on with human blood” and that some of their people employed these drums while preparations were being made for them to engage in cannibalism. Is it not plain that such musical instruments are intrinsically evil products of earthly, sensual, and demonic wisdom about musical instruments?
Moreover, what are we to hold about the musical activity described in this account that these cannibals engaged in? Surely, any honest believer can understand unmistakably that such musical activity is not the playing of instrumental music with the wisdom of God that is from above.
Yes, there is earthly, sensual, and demonic wisdom about musical instruments and instrumental music.12
Photo of coconut trees in Indonesia by Tamba Budiarsana on pexels.com
- See also my posts, Can Music (without Lyrics) or a Photograph Ever Be Inherently Sinful?, How “Inventors of Evil Things” (Rom. 1:30) Applies to Our Assessment of Certain Musical Styles, “Why Human Skull Drums Matter,” Can a Work of Art Ever Be Intrinsically Sinful?, and Can a Beverage Ever Be Sinful to Drink in Any Quantity? ↩︎
- For much more information about what believers should know and believe about music, see my post Resources That Provide Answers to Key Issues concerning CCM. ↩︎
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