Biblical Texts Support the use of Drums in worship

The Implications of Biblical Texts Support Rhythmic Worship Practices.
By Matthew Todd
“Drums! Percussion! Noise! Who needs it?” Especially since the 1980’s churches have been using more drums. Why has the Church in the West only recently become friendlier to the percussive arts in church practice? More importantly, what is the biblical basis for this?
Various perspectives influencing particular time-periods have affected the Church’s interpretation of bible texts touching on the percussive arts. One of the constraining factors in the Church’s historic interpretive tradition has been methods of exegesis. Allegorizing, selecting, and redefining are some of the common strategies of interpretation that the Church has traditionally employed.
The New Testament’s silence on percussive art in worship has left some with the impression that we cannot be certain on how we should interpret or think about percussive art. Because the Church has historically employed suppressive arguments against the use of the percussive arts, two problems need to be addressed:
1) the treatment of the Old Testament as irrelevant to the New Testament era; and
2) the assumed silence of the New Testament on the use of the percussive arts.
Second Timothy 3:16 states that, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching…and training in righteousness.” The early Church did not have a complete version of the New Testament; therefore, the scripture that the early Church engaged with, and held authoritative (relevant), was the Old Testament (referring to Old Testament narratives; 1 Cor.10:11 says that “these things…[are] examples…for us”, NASB). Paul encouraged the early Christians to use the guidance of the Psalms to exalt God in Col. 3:16 and Eph. 5:19.
Part of the reason for the New Testament’s silence on percussive art would have been that the Old Testament affirmations of a sovereign God, a good creation, natural and spiritual gifting, divine inspiration, and a holistic approach to worship never ceased to be authoritative. The canon speaks of the percussive arts directly in thirty-seven texts. We now turn to some of the specific narrative references and propositions that directly affirm the use of the percussive arts for worship.
A. Old Testament:
At least thirty specific references in the Old Testament directly refer to and affirm the percussive arts used in a variety of religious worship occasions and liturgical functions. Ten of the references make a specific mention of percussion, in particular cymbals (plural), used for liturgical purposes inside the temple, and played by male Levites and priests only. Some of these Levites were “singing percussionists. Their names were Asaph, Heman, and Ethan (1 Chron.15:16-19), and they…kept time for everyone playing the cymbals.” Two additional instructions certainly indicate liturgical purposes and may well have been for both the priests and musicians in the assembly. Six references refer to mixed genders of various stations playing with full-bodied expression, using a variety of percussion in worshipping God during religious celebration. One reference makes specific mention of hand drums being used by male percussionists in the school of the prophets. Six references refer to women percussionists playing hand drums, often in conjunction with a musical procession and dancing. Four of these six are religious celebrations of triumph and victory in God and the other two are linked with corporate and liturgical worship, evidence that women were included in some of the liturgical and religious festive music.
Braun claims that the latter period of the monarchy was one in which “drums and rattles became to a certain extent a mass instrument.” Terra-cotta figurines and reliefs depict the instruments’ spiritual status and cultural symbolic association in the motifs of female drummers in iconographic materials.
A closer scriptural look at the genre, linguistic meanings, and archaeological variety of the percussion instruments supports the argument that God intended a literal application of the use of percussive arts in worship practice. Only a small portion of scripture uses percussive language to communicate a metaphorical or abstract idea. In some worship contexts, percussive sounds were a symbolic ingredient in epiphanies in which musical art was associated with the realm of the prophetic. In these sacred contexts percussion awakened a holy sense, through embodied praise, that led to divine encounter and interaction. One possible conclusion that can be drawn from the Old Testament is that playing percussive instruments is just as forcefully commanded as singing, because praising God is a requirement of all of creation (Pss. 148,150).
B. New Testament:
Calvin assumed that the percussive instruments were to be “banished out of the Churches by the plain command of the Holy Spirit when Paul in 1 Cor. 14:13 [gives the] rule that we must praise and pray to God in a known tongue.” Many American churches have resonated with the logic that “only what God directly commanded can be used in his service, where the scriptures speak we speak, where they are silent, we are silent.” Paul’s metaphorical use of instrumentation and the percussive arts (1 Cor.13:1; 14:7-8) makes it difficult to determine if they are appropriate for the liturgy.
Percussion generates uncertain sound and has no capacity to articulate intelligible language. Gaebelein suggests that Paul was not denigrating instrumentation but making metaphorical use of what was familiar from scripture concerning temple worship (1 Chron. 13:8; Ps. 150:5) with a primary address to the excessive emphasis placed on other gifts (1 Cor. 13). Gaebelein also argues that 1 Cor. 14:6-19 is simply referring to music of temple worship that the Jews would be acquainted with, which means that sounds can be important if they are understood. Braun emphatically states that “it is an over-interpretation to…[take 1 Cor. 13:1 as] evidence of a hostile attitude towards any sort of instrumental music.” The argument that scripture is silent on the use of percussion in worship and is only referred to metaphorically is incorrect in that the Old Testament, which refers to percussion in literal propositional terms, also refers to percussive arts and sounds in metaphorical language. Webber claims the Old Testament period includes more instrumentation in worship than the New Testament because of “…the cultural position of the New Testament Church, which in most localities was regarded, by the authorities and by the populace in general, as a sectarian movement within Judaism,…[and] was violently opposed by the traditional community. The desires of the apostles and the local assemblies of Christians notwithstanding, there was little opportunity for Christians to conduct large-scale worship of the type that forms the background for the worship terminology of the Old Testament. Distinctively Christian worship usually had to be carried on in private gatherings, limited in size and scope.”
Ultimately, it is the scriptures that help reconstruct the evidence for percussive doxological activity and its logical connection for praxis. One God inspired both testaments, a God who is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). God inspired Paul to advise the Church to worship using the Psalms as a guideline, Psalms that advocate praising God with instrumentation like the hand drum and cymbals (81:2; 149:3; 150:5). The New Testament has affirmed that one can offer to God any bodily activity as a holy and pleasing form of spiritual worship to God (Rom. 12:1).
Given that the canon contains affirmative narratives and propositions about percussion, with a broad scope of themes in worship practice, the Western church needs to recover a biblical starting point for a holistic view of percussion’s potential. Matthew Todd is an English Track Associate of Port Moody Pacific Grace. He published a book recently on worship for church drummers titled, “The Interface of Percussive Art, Religious Experience, and Sacred Association”, which can be obtained through your local bookstore (i.e., Chapters, etc.) or online either through Kindred press or Word Alive Press www.wordalive.ca. The original article contains detailed footnotes and references. They are withheld due to the limitation of space.