Much has been written to answer the oft asked question “Why do we sing?”  Simply stated, people sing because it is an intrinsically human thing to do. We sing because we are the image bearers of God and God sings (Zephaniah 3:17). As a church, we gather to exalt Christ in all His glory and our songs are a reflection of that purpose. For us, the redeemed, the singing of praises to our Lord and Savior is an outpouring of joy in the knowledge of who He is and all that He’s done.  It is both a cerebral and visceral response of worship to the reality and nature of God.

From the time of Moses, the gathered people of God sing together. The apostle John tells us that Jesus sang a hymn with His disciples just prior to His arrest and crucifixion.  Paul instructs us to sing together in letters addressed to two early churches.  Clearly, singing is an essential element of corporate worship. Why is this so?  Why is corporate singing important, and what does it actually do?  While there are countless personal benefits to be derived from engaging in this, I have here outlined four things Scripture teaches that come from our singing together.

Singing together expresses the condition of the heart, and ministers to the soul–

Singing together brings the full spectrum of human emotions into harmony with God’s inspired Word.  Joy, peace, sadness, despair, fear—all these can be expressed and scripturally aligned by the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

For example, Psalm 42 is a psalm of desperation. It was written by a worship leader who is in the midst of deep despair. Yet, he is determined to offer continual praise to God. Throughout, the psalmist repeats this refrain:

Why are you in despair, O my soul?

And why have you become disturbed within me?

Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him

For the help of His presence.

Although by the end of the psalm his despair is not lifted, it is his constant praise and the reminder of God’s presence that serve to give him the strength to endure.

Similarly, in Psalm 59, David expresses great fear of men sent by the king for the purpose of killing him. At one point, David describes these men as dogs, hungry for his blood. But at the end, David expresses his trust in the power of God, his refuge.

But as for me, I shall sing of Your strength;

Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning,

For You have been my stronghold

And a refuge in the day of my distress.

O my strength, I will sing praises to You;

For God is my stronghold, the God who shows me lovingkindness.

From this psalm, we see that the simple act of praising God can lift our hearts and tune our emotions in accordance with God’s character and attributes as revealed in His Word.

Singing together teaches and admonishes according to Scripture–

Colossians 3:16 tells us to “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”  Ephesians 5:18-19 is similar, telling us to speak to each other with singing as we are filled with the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that illumines Scripture to us. As His truth is expressed in the songs we sing, God’s Word is indelibly written on our hearts. From there, we carry it with us as we engage a sin-saturated world.  The Word of God cast in melody writes His truth on our hearts in a manner that few things can.

We also see in these passages that singing praises takes our focus off of ourselves and places it where it should be.  By singing from a thankful perspective we acknowledge God’s sovereignty and power, recognizing our total dependence on Him.

Singing together builds and demonstrates unity of the body–

The contexts of both New Testament passages above (Col. 3:16 and Eph. 5:19) speak of building and preserving unity in the body of Christ. Singing together in corporate worship unites the church under a single banner. When you consider a typical worship service, singing is one of the few, if not only, proactive expressions of unity that we collectively engage in. Certainly, the exposition of Scripture requires an active and engaged mind on the part of the hearers. However, at that moment, we are individually receiving and responding to what the preacher has studied and prepared.

When the church sings together, we become a choir engaged in joyful expressions of worship. Although the level of engagement may vary from person to person, and we are not all blessed with the same vocal ability, when we collectively sing we are unified in our proclamation of that which binds us together. The more we sing, the more unified we become.

Singing together pleases the Lord–

This is, perhaps, the most important reason for our singing together.  Psalm 69:30-31 tells us that singing praises to God pleases Him more than the sacrifices that He Himself had prescribed as the nation’s expression of worship.

I will praise the name of God with song

And magnify Him with thanksgiving.

And it will please the Lord better than an ox

Or a young bull with horns and hoofs.

More than anything else, it should be our deepest desire to please God in our corporate worship. This is accomplished by worshipping Him in the manner that He has prescribed in His Word.  With God’s pleasure as our purpose, we bring Him praises in song.

God has told us how we are to worship Him. He has prescribed to us those elements of worship which are essential and non-negotiable. Among those things are the public reading of Scripture, prayer, exposition of God’s Word, and the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. These elements, from pure hearts, join together in spirit and truth to make worship that is a pleasing aroma to our holy and sovereign Lord.  This kind of worship is the church’s highest purpose.

The people whom I formed for Myself

Will declare My praise, (Isaiah 43:21).

An article appeared in the New York Times, written by a couple of neuroscientists from Canada, lauding the findings of their research into the physiological effects of music on the brain.  In it, the authors attempt to pinpoint why music is important to us.  The conclusions they arrive at are quite telling of their particular worldview.

Their findings, which I do not doubt, are as follows:

…listening to what might be called “peak emotional moments” in music — that moment when you feel a “chill” of pleasure to a musical passage — causes the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, an essential signaling molecule in the brain.

When pleasurable music is heard, dopamine is released in the striatum — an ancient part of the brain found in other vertebrates as well (emphasis mine)— which is known to respond to naturally rewarding stimuli like food and sex, and which is artificially targeted by drugs like cocaine and amphetamine.[1]

In addition, they found that this reaction happened, not only during these moments in music, but also just prior to these moments, during what they call the anticipation phase.  From this data they conclude that the reason music is so important to us is that it incites this chemical reaction in our brain that we interpret as pleasure.  Their train of logic can be reduced to something like this:

1. Humans value certain kinds of music, or certain passages of music.
2. Upon hearing these passages of music, a chemical reaction occurs in the brain that we associate as pleasure.  So…
3. This chemical reaction causes us to highly value music.

Wait… what??

The argument as presented is immediately shown to be invalid.  What the researchers are leaving out is their predisposition to naturalism as a worldview.  Naturalism is a belief system that clings doggedly to the notion that the totality of all that exists is encased within the confines of the “natural” world.  Anything outside of what is empirically discernible becomes reduced to myth status.

While we should never look to the worldly and Godless for spiritual insight, it certainly doesn’t take a master logician to recognize the fallaciousness of their argument.  Even if one believes that we are simply bio-mechanical organisms randomly bouncing around the planet, one must recognize that their argument is unsound.  Even for a pagan, it makes more sense to conclude that the emotional reaction to music causes the chemical reaction, rather than the other way around. Although the world of science is very adept at acquiring useful data that serves to inform us of what happens, problems arise when, by interjecting their naturalist worldviews, they attempt to tell us why something happens. In so doing, Drs. Zatorre and Salimpoor have moved from writing a scientific article to penning a religious opinion piece.  Their preferred worldview, or religion, is naturalist atheism disguised as science.

Music brings us pleasure. This is undeniable.  But, the reason we love music is because God, our eternal and infinite creator and sustainer, loves music.  Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that God, a victorious warrior, expresses His joy by singing.  “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”  Imagine what that must sound like.  The creator of all that exists sings as a response to joyful emotion; and, He has infused music into His creation for the primary purpose of bringing Himself glory and giving us pleasure.  When those two functions are combined, music fulfills its intended purpose.

All through Scripture we see this truth demonstrated. The children of Israel responded to the awesome demonstration of God’s power at the Red Sea by singing (Exodus 15:1-21).  Then, Miriam and other women worshipped with timbrels and dancing (might need to be another article).  When the thirsty nation was given water, they sang (Num. 21:17). In order to calm the furies of the king’s spiritual torment, David was brought in to play music (1 Sam. 16:23).  When given to celebration over military victories, the people sang (1 Sam. 18:6-7).  Then, as king himself, David established singing as an integral part of Hebrew worship to God (1 Chronicles 15:16-22).

I could go on and on.  All this serves to show us why music is an essential element of God’s creation; and an essential element of humanity.  We sing because God sings. We love music because God loves music and made us to love music.  When we sing His praises, we are doing what we were made to do.

[1] Robert Zatorre and Valerie Salimpoor, “Why Music Makes Our Brain Sing,” The New York Time Sunday Edition, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/why-music-makes-our-brain-sing.html?_r=1&.