BIBLICAL ASSERTIONS REGARDING THE CHOIR’S EXISTENCE
Dear Friend Eustace:
Having just read your blog in response to the doctoral student who wanted to interview you and publish your responses, I agreed with nearly every one of your observations as usual. However, I feel the need to take issue, in a friendly sort of way, with one statement you have made.
You suggest that the choir is biblical in just the way that the ‘trumpet’ is biblical. Not more nor less so. Meaning, as I take it, that the Bible is not to be seen as ‘prescriptive’ for the existence of the choir, in your view.
I would hold that there is significantly more in favor of the choir than that trumpet comparison.
You are well familiar with my teaching on the subject–hence, I am guessing that you have weighed my arguments and found them wanting.
Why put the choir in a separate category than that of the biblical trumpet?
First, the familiar-by-now scriptures in 2nd Chronicles which I have taught from for years: 2 Chronicles 5, and 2 Chronicles 20. In those stories, the choir is used by God in a pre-planned way to both usher in His presence, and to go before the armies in battle. As you know, I don’t see this as an accident. I see it as evidence that God values and has intended use for the choir beyond just the cultural and ‘accidental’ appearance in these settings. I see the choir as being God’s idea, suggesting that it has an assumption of permanence!
Second, my argument in favor of the choir is not that it be the exclusive nor even necessarily the primary worship leader of the congregation, just that it not be legislated out of existence.
Third, while various instruments come and go in the history of worship (the biblical trumpet being a ‘shofar’, a ram’s horn), and it would be hard to make the case that shofar-driven worship should be part of every church’s experience in the 21st century, the human voice in all of its flexibility, and with its obvious inclusiveness, remains a constant. The choir is but one biblical use for the voice, true, but it is an important and intentional one. While I see the concept of the ‘trumpet’ in worship being continued by not only the modern-day trumpet, but also strings and woodwinds and guitars and drums and whatever (Psalm 150, by extension), only the voice can carry on for the voice. And a massing of voices as in a choir is a unique thing, both biblically and practically, in potentially nearly every musical context. Simply put, I don’t see a distinct parallel between the choir and the shofar-trumpet.
I am surely open to correction. For instance, there is evidence to suggest that the choirs of both 2 Chronicles 5 and 20 were made up exclusively of men’s voices. But then in Ezra 2:65 the Bible talks about men and women singers returning from Babylon, and Solomon mentions both in Ecclesiastes 2. So I guess it’s OK to include the gals.
I want to dig deeply into this, but I fear I have an arranging deadline which cannot wait. I must admit that my heart was somewhat stricken to read your words, because they felt a little like “et tu, Brute?” as I read them. Nonetheless, I value your opinion, and count you as a friend, so I felt free to offer this little slice to you. If you’d like to continue the dialogue, by all means do so. I’d welcome it.
Blessings, friend.
Dave