Music—God’s Mysterious Gift: Its Power to Influence Humans and Its Role in God’s Kingdom

By James L. Brauer

People hear and enjoy music but seldom consider how great a gift it is. God made human minds and bodies able to respond to musical sounds. Because each brain interprets the signals based on personal experience, reactions vary. Neuroscience is learning how a brain handles the melodies, rhythms, and chords and how they penetrate a person's memory. With easy delivery of digital files one musical selection links to a similar one. Who can know what a nearby listener fancies? Personal choice is a lonely search for truth and for music.
What role did God give to music in Israel's life and ritual when priests were to play trumpets or rams' horns and Levites, appointed by David, were to use lyres, harps, and cymbals to lead worshipers in song? How did Jesus want music to be used? Did Paul identify the best use of music when he instructed disciples to raise their voices in thanksgiving so the Spirit could use their songs to build each other up in faith and service to God?
God's gift of music benefits everyone. Listeners enjoy the sounds. Music lovers share selections with others. Believers use songs to become stronger followers of their Lord.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Sep 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666781458

James L. Brauer

James L. Brauer is emeritus professor and former dean of chapel at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Previously, he served as a professor of music, training educators and church musicians, then was executive director for the commission on worship of The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, helping others create Spanish language and African American worship resources. He is the author of Meaningful Worship and of Worship, Gottesdienst, Cultus Dei: What the Lutheran Confessions Say about Worship.

Book preview

List of Abbreviations

EBCD Encyclopaedia Britannica on CD

IDB The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible

LSB Lutheran Service Book

NHDM The New Harvard Dictionary of Music

OCM The Oxford Companion to Music

TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged

WDB The Westminster Dictionary of the Bible

Introduction

Music has the mysterious power to fascinate and engage humans. Listeners delight in hearing favorites again and again. To master it, musicians practice endlessly. People use it to express feelings, celebrate a cause, or praise God. It can unify a gathering of individuals or a stadium of fans. Every culture finds a way to employ it.

Music may be wondrous, but it is hard to describe. Seconds after a sound cloud of music passes, it is only a memory, yet it has the mysterious power to change heart rates and alter moods. Why do those tiny sound waves have such an influence on us? How do they do it? Music lovers, both listeners and musicians, wonder about this. If they are Christian listeners or musicians, their interest goes beyond musical sounds. They give thanks to God for music and want to know how God wants them to use it.

God made everything and governs it all. Since the fourth century, followers of Jesus have confessed in the Nicene Creed: "I [We] believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible" (emphasis added).¹ Does all things include music? The great reformer, Martin Luther (1483–1546), thought so.² He had high regard for the gift of music. In fact, in his introduction to a collection of sacred motets, he observed that next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.³ For Luther, nothing was more precious than God’s word and its message about Jesus. So, when he says that the next greatest gift after God’s word is music, it is a breathtaking assertion. Why would he say that music deserves almost as much praise as God’s word? He compared two gifts that arrive at our ears, music and God’s word (spoken or sung).⁴ Each gift sends signals to human ears and creates reactions in people.

Luther observed that music had the power to hold people’s attention and change their moods. Undoubtedly, he had experienced it himself. He also knew that the word of God has the power to turn a person from running away from God to someone who trusts and serves God. As a biblical scholar, Luther was aware that when God speaks, it—anything he declares or promises—happens. For example, at creation, God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light (Gen 1:3), and in a boat on the lake during a storm, Jesus awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, they ceased, and there was calm (Luke 8:24). St. Paul would connect this power of God’s word to the message about Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection when he wrote, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor 1:18; emphasis added). So, God gave each gift, music and his word, an ability to influence humans through sound. If the word of God and musical patterns arrived as a single package of vibrations, the result would be a more powerful influence. The combination could address mind, body, and soul. Lutheran theologians and musicians acted on this notion and over succeeding centuries produced a vast library of hymns and choral works to deliver God’s word in musical form.⁵

Luther’s insight deserves exploration and verification. How could we explore it? We could search his writings for more evidence of his thinking, but others have already done this.⁶ Or, we could do a fresh investigation to see how music influences us and how God’s word is able to change us spiritually. To better understand what God created, we would gather modern evidence for music’s power over human minds and bodies. We would examine the scriptural evidence that God wanted to use musical sounds to assist people in trusting and serving him. I propose, then, that we take a fresh look at Luther’s insight by examining 1) how musical sounds impact human minds and bodies and 2) how God uses music to foster people’s trust in their creator and redeemer. Thus, this study is not about Luther, the history of church music, organizing music in parish life, or what musical style is best. It is about understanding the power of music and the power of God’s word, matters that contribute to any Christian discussion of music. Hopefully, it will help disciples who are listeners or musicians make wise choices about music in daily life and the Lord’s work. And it will foster a greater appreciation for God’s two gifts: music and his word.

Since each gift involves listening and each has its peculiar mysteries, our investigation will draw from several disciplines. One gift, music, requires methods that measure and explain temporary changes in human minds and bodies. The other gift, the word of God, concerns spiritual responses with eternal significance—a domain where God’s word establishes the nature and work of God. When we investigate both gifts, we get a full picture of how music and God’s word can work together. These are not everyday discussion topics, yet they relate to everyone’s personal experience. Those who have little or no concern for the God dimension only want to know, What does music do for me? Informed Christians, however, are aware that styles keep changing and that in different times and cultures the church has employed many types of music.⁷ Today there are new complications since people have easy access to a global digital library of music and listen privately, primarily through headsets. People can fabricate their own digital communities. Who can know for sure what sort of music a neighbor enjoys? Thus, by exploring anew Luther’s insight about the praiseworthiness of music and the power of God’s word, music lovers, both listeners and musicians, will see more clearly the place that music has in their world and in the kingdom of God.

Has someone already explored this? Many books discuss issues of music in Christian worship and give valuable insights. But how many of them talk about music as a gift from God, and how many set forth Luther’s understanding of how God’s word accomplishes divine purposes?⁸ If this book does not exist, am I the one who should attempt it? Indeed, I am curious about these matters. I have been trained and gained significant experience in music and theology, perhaps enough to take up these questions.⁹

The goal, then, is to assemble information from music, science, and theology to show how great the gift of music is and what God directed his people to do with it. Experts in each field could provide greater depth and precision than a small work that presents the basics. I want to help the reader recognize how wonderful the gift of music is and gain insight into using it wisely. I invite the reader to consider the power and place of music in the world, the kingdom, and personal use.

For the World

Chapter 1 discusses the basics of hearing and what sounds musicians manipulate. If the process of hearing and responding to music is something our creator gave us, how can we consider the musical experience ours when we have done so little to have the ability to enjoy it? Chapter 2 asks how music engages the mind and body and how composers intend to influence listeners with the soundscapes they design. Chapter 3 reviews recent discoveries about what happens in our brains when we hear music. How do the tiny vibrations, received by our ears and instantly processed by our nervous system, impact our thoughts and emotions? Finally, chapter 4 asks why individuals find it difficult to share music as each tries to find what is best for them in religious truth and music. Cultural differences and conflicting ways of discerning truth make difficult the lonely search through never-ending options, including choices about music.

For the Kingdom

Chapters 5 and 6 take up key theological questions. What commands did God give Israel for using music to make and keep them holy, that is, fit for being his people? Through Moses, God gave specific directions for using instrumental sounds and, through David, for employing song in Israel’s temple rituals. What instructions did Jesus give his disciples for using music to make and keep them holy, righteous, and fit for being with God eternally? Paul’s letters reveal that when Christians sing God’s word, they build each other up in Christian faith and living.

For Personal Use

Chapter 7 reflects on a personal question: how will I, God’s creature and a disciple of Jesus, make use of God’s gift of music? I can use it for my pleasure, in my daily activities and with family and friends, and for sustaining my faith.

Birds and whales, fellow creatures of God, make sounds that seem musical. But people use human breath, tubes, pieces of wood, strings, and stretched skins to generate rhythms, melodies, and chords—sounds that we call music. It is a mysterious method of communication where human creativity uses natural laws and materials (things that God provides) to make sounds that affect our minds and bodies. When rightly connected to God’s word, music delivers many blessings. Unfortunately, the world may see music as just one more consumer choice. Christians, however, perceive music and God’s word as gifts—to be used for their benefit. Indeed, music is one of God’s greatest gifts.

1

. LSB,

158

.

2

. When Luther explained the Apostles’ Creed, he made it personal: "I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them" (emphasis added), LSB,

322

. One of those senses is hearing, which includes interpreting the sounds from words and music.

3

. Luther, "Preface to Rhau’s Symphoniae. The original Latin: Musicam esse unam, quae post verbum Dei merito celebrari debeat, Luther, Vorrede," xv.

4

. In Luther’s day most people could not read, and they had no Bibles in their mother tongue. In fact, Luther himself translated the Bible into German and urged that schools be created for all boys and girls so they could read.

5

. The story is ably told in Friedrich Blume’s Protestant Church Music,

1

–

315

.

6

. The literature about Luther is voluminous, centuries deep, and much of it is in a foreign language. Schalk’s Luther on Music is one collection of quotations in English. It shows that Luther understood that music was important, that he knew music and participated in it, and that he saw a role for music in the church’s ministry.

7

. Wilson-Dickson’s Story of Christian Music illustrates the numerous musical styles that Christian traditions have used.

8

. Although Luther authored a library of books, if we want to know what he considered the basics of the Christian faith, we need only to look to his Small Catechism (an explanation of the Ten Commandments, Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, Holy Baptism, Office of the Keys and Confession, and the Sacrament of the Altar for the head of a family to teach others). Luther’s Large Catechism is a longer explanation for households and for pastors.

9

. The reader perhaps deserves to know what that training and experience is. Since I was in high school, I have been playing the organ for church services in rural, inner-city, and suburban settings on some very modest and some very grand instruments; for many years I participated in choral groups and led church choirs. I studied Lutheran theology to a pastoral level and beyond (MDiv and STM from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri). I was trained in church music by renowned practitioners (SMM from Union Seminary in New York City; when I had completed this degree, the music faculty from Union Seminary, because the seminary no longer wanted to offer credentials in church music, took the program to Yale where it became the Yale Institute of Sacred Music). I was schooled in music history by internationally recognized scholars (PhD in Music from City University of New York), culminating in a doctoral thesis that explored aspects of cultural exchange between European traditions of sacred music in the seventeenth century. I taught college courses in music theory and music history to future educators and church musicians (Concordia College, Bronxville, New York). As Executive Director of the Commission on Worship for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod I worked with others in preparing hymnal resources for African-American, Spanish, Chinese, and Hmong congregations. As a faculty member and dean of chapel at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri I taught various worship topics to pastoral students and graduate students of theology, including some from foreign lands. I got to explore numerous issues related to worship, music, and culture with scholars from around the globe in study groups of the North American Academy of Liturgy.

Section I

For the World

Chapter 1

Music: a gift

For centuries we Christians have confessed that God created us and that everything we have comes from God. But seldom, when we listen to music, do we think about how it applies to music. Nothing we have done makes us able to hear the music and enjoy the sound waves governed by nature. There is more gift here than we realize.

God gives everyone the ability to hear. It alerts us to what is going on around us. Some sounds put us at ease, while others warn or frighten us. Our bodies may feel some sounds, but only our ears capture the multitude of nuances in the sound waves. The vowels and consonants of our mother tongue carry precise meanings, but pitches and rhythms in musical messages are relatively ambiguous. No one had to teach us how to listen to music. Music heard at home and school shaped what we learned to appreciate. Unfortunately, we take all this for granted unless our hearing does not fully function because of misuse, disease, or accident of birth.

Musicians use their imaginations to create blowing, scratching, striking, and speech sounds to signal other humans whose ears capture the sound waves and whose brains assign meaning to the patterns they hear. If a Christian wants to know how best to think about and use music, there is a lot to unpack. It will involve natural laws, items found in nature and manufactured tools, brains and bodies, customs and cultures, and divine revelation. This chapter begins the exploration of mysteries surrounding God’s gift of music. It reviews how our ears get musical signals to our brains, how God’s laws of nature govern the making and moving of sound waves, and how composers shape four musical elements to make patterns that catch and hold our attention. But first, we should acknowledge our human tendency to think of music as something that belongs to us.

My Music

Consider how much we take music for granted, especially when we use a phrase like my music. In previous centuries composers used the phrase to refer to their compositions or performers to identify what pieces they had learned to play. Today it usually references recordings—digital files, long-playing records, or compact discs. It focuses on the listener’s library of pieces.

The easy distribution of digital recordings lets us focus on what we like. It turns music into a commodity, an everyday object bought and sold, like socks, tires, or raisins. It pushes composers and performers into the background, ignores those who did the work of capturing, editing, and distributing the pieces, and overlooks what online libraries did to arrange permissions and payments due to producers and performers. So, when we call our recordings my music, we surely overstate ownership.

We also turn a