INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN WORSHIP IS NOT WRONG — AND YET I HONOR THOSE WHO DISAGREE
I want to say this plainly at the outset: I am not writing out of spite, bitterness, or a desire to distance myself from men who shaped me. I am writing out of conviction. There have been giants among us—faithful Christians, careful students of the word of God, men of prayer and discipline—who believed that instrumental music in Christian worship is sinful. Jimmy Allen. Winfred Clark. Cecil May Jr. Many others. These were personal friends. They were not careless men. They were not lightweights. They loved Christ, revered His authority, and labored sacrificially for the souls of others. I honor them. I learned from them. And I still disagree with them.
Disagreement does not equal disrespect. The church has too often confused the two.
The anti-instrumental position, despite being defended by sincere and brilliant men, is—at its core—logically indefensible. Not because it lacks passion, but because it lacks a coherent biblical principle that can be applied consistently without collapsing under its own weight.
The central argument has always been framed around silence. God specified singing; therefore, instruments are excluded. But this reasoning assumes more than it proves. Specification only excludes when the nature of the command demands exclusion. When God told Noah to build an ark of gopher wood, alternatives were excluded because the material itself was essential to the command. But when the New Testament commands believers to sing, it gives a form of expression, not a restriction on accompaniment. Singing describes the action; it does not define every circumstance surrounding that action.
We sing with pitch. We sing with rhythm. We sing in harmony. None of those elements are explicitly authorized in the text, yet no one calls them sinful. Why? Because we instinctively understand that the command to sing includes everything necessary to sing well. To single out mechanical accompaniment as uniquely forbidden—while accepting songbooks, pitch pipes, tuning forks, microphones, and four-part harmony—reveals the inconsistency. The principle being applied is not actually biblical; it is selective.
Appeals to the early church fare no better. Yes, many early Christians worshiped without instruments. But absence is not prohibition. Poverty, persecution, and cultural context explain much of early practice. More importantly, even if you believe that the “restoration” principle is valid—and I believe that it, too, is invalid and cannot be applied in any consistent way—restoration is not reenactment. We do not reject church buildings because first-century Christians met in homes. We do not reject written sermons because Jesus taught orally. If you were called to restore anything, it would be actual doctrine, not archaeology. (See my article, “There is Nothing to Restore” by searching “restore” on the Articles page)
Nor does the appeal to Old Testament worship solve the problem. If instrumental music was sinful by nature, God would not have commanded it so extensively under the Law. If it suddenly became sinful under Christ, we would expect a clear, unmistakable prohibition—not an argument built on inference and silence. The New Testament does not downgrade music; it deepens it. It moves worship from shadow to substance, from temple to heart—not from fullness to restriction.
I know why good men held this position. They feared innovation. They feared drifting from apostolic authority. They feared pleasing culture more than God. Those fears were not foolish. They were pastoral. They were protective. But good motives cannot rescue a weak argument.
We do not defend truth by building fences God never built.
The irony is that the anti-instrumental position often demands more from silence than it allows anywhere else. It turns liberty into law and conscience into commandment. And in doing so, it binds where God has not bound—something Scripture explicitly warns us against.
I remain grateful for the men who disagreed with me. I still quote them. I still read their books. I still thank God for their influence. But reverence for teachers must never outweigh reverence for truth. Even great men can be wrong—not because they were dishonest, but because tradition can harden into certainty if never reexamined.
Unity in Christ does not require uniformity of opinion on matters God has left free. The church is strongest when it distinguishes between the gospel we must defend and the traditions we must be willing to question.
I can honor my fathers in the faith without inheriting every conclusion they reached. And I can love the church enough to say, calmly and clearly, that the case against instrumental music is not just unconvincing—it is unsustainable.
Truth does not fear examination. And faith does not require us to silence honest reasoning.
There is nothing wrong with being non-instrumental. No one is required to use instruments any more than one is required to sing in a church building. But the anti-instrumental position—the claim that it is wrong for others to do so—simply will not hold up under honest scrutiny, in my opinion.
BDD
