Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord

Ephesians 5:15-20 (TNIV) -

15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,19 speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord,

20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My thoughts -

I try to sing as often as I can. I sing to my children. I sing to wake them up in the morning. I sing to make them laugh when I get home from work. I sing to see them smile. I sing to annoy them. I sing to get them to sing.

I sing to my wife, too. One of the first things that she noticed about me is that I sing loudly. Too loudly, in her opinion. She did not like that about me at first. After all these years I'm not sure she likes it now, but she tolerates it better than she once did. A big milestone in our relationship when we were dating (for me, at least) was when I was able to gather the nerve to sing "My Best Girl" from the musical Mame to her. Yes, I like musicals. Get over it.

I sing at the church. I sing in worship. While I do the contemporary service at Trinity Hill I grew up in First United Methodist, which was at that time the flagship Methodist church in the area for traditional worship with organ and choir. I still enjoy singing hymns. I like singing from the hymnal and, as I can read music, I enjoy breaking off into parts and singing either the bass or tenor part, depending on the hymn. Sometimes for fun I'll switch back and forth. When I was a youth I was bold enough to break into head voice and sing the alto and occasionally the soprano part, too.

As I've said when going through the Psalms to prepare for worship, I like it when scripture tells me to sing. I doesn't require much from me. I was going to, anyway. I wonder though, what it is about singing that so connects us to God and to each other. I haven't studied the history of worship, but as far as I can tell we've pretty much always sung in worship. We sing Psalms still today that are over 3000 years old. We even do them in the contemporary service as if, by adding some electric guitar, bass, and drums we're doing something new. We're not. We're singing to God, just like we've always done.

As I read this passage I can't help but wonder why Paul wrote it. He's just laid out for the Ephesians how believers are and aren't to live. Paul is telling them (an us by extension) that they are to be wise and not foolish or drunkards. What does he replace getting drunk with? With singing. With giving thanks to the Lord in song. With worship. With praise.

Were these things mutually exclusive to the early church? Was there no getting drunk on Saturday night before church on Sunday back then? Honestly I don't know. I'm not sure what he's responding to. I don't have any real personal need to dig too deeply into this. I don't need any extra incentive to sing, and I don't need any more reasons to sing to God and praise God for all that has been done for me. Maybe I'm just wired that way. I don't know. But it seems to me that we've all been wired that way as a species. Again, I am ignorant of the history and could be way off base but it seems as though we've always done this; that we've always sung songs to God in worship.

Some of us believe that when we get to heaven that what eternity is, forever praising God in song. I could think of worse ways to be.