Foy E. Wallace, Jr.
The argument for instrumental music in the church has offered nothing more than a course of repetitions, intimations, inferences, and anti-climaxes, all of which add up to a series of inconsistencies.
We are told in one moment that instrumental music is right because it is a natural talent; we are then told that it is a command. But if natural talent makes it right, why argue for a command?
Then we are told that it is right because of the references to it in the Old Testament. Well, if the Old Testament had not mentioned it, would natural talent make it right? If so, why go to the trouble of trying to justify its use by the Old Testament? Next it is argued that the instrument in the worship is not specifically condemned; then we are told that it is approved. But if it is right because it is not specifically condemned, why try to prove its use by approval and endorsement?
They meet themselves coming back on every point which they attempt to make. The long use of various sorts of instruments in Jewish worship where it was often mentioned, is one of their major points; but the fact that there is no mention whatsoever of its use in New Testament worship would by the same token prove the exact opposite now. How account for the fact that the Jews used their instrumental music in Jewish worship, but the same Jews did not use it in “Christian worship”? They search to find it in Jewish worship; they think they find it in heaven; but there is an unaccountable absence when they try to find it in the instructions to the churches on how to worship God in the New Testament, and that is the very place where we should expect to find it, if it belongs in such worship.
How can any man conclude that the New Testament approves anything that it does not mention? So there is no need of all this careening around all over creation on this subject—a New Testament precept or precedent would settle the argument.
