Two books are very important to Christian faith: the Bible and the song book. We not only store up God's word in our hearts and carry it with us everywhere, but we also treasure the songs we have sung all of our lives. As Christians, why should we sing?

We sing because we want to please God. "Without faith it is impossible to be pleasing to God…" (Heb. 11:6). [All scripture references are from McCord's Everlasting Gospel unless otherwise noted.] "Whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we obey his commandments and do the things that please him" (1 John. 3:22). "By him let us continually offer up the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips, confessing his name" (Heb. 13:15). God is pleased when all of his people unite their voices in praise to him.

We sing so we can help one another. "Let the message of Christ dwell richly in you. In all wisdom, teach and admonish one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God" (Col. 3:16). Just as a word of encouragement will give a wavering Christian renewed strength, so also the voices of God's people blending together from sincere hearts give the weak courage to carry on.

We sing to express our heart felt emotions to God. "Speak to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and pluck the strings of your heart to the Lord" (Eph. 5:19). Singing gives everyone the opportunity to say thank you to God. Singing brings out the best in people. It increases our gratitude; it makes us feel good; it gives us hope for tomorrow; it makes us proud we belong to the Lord; it makes us look forward to going to heaven and singing with the redeemed of the ages.

We sing because it gives us courage in the hour of trial. Paul and Silas sung while in prison (Acts 16:25). Jesus sung as he faced the cross (Mt. 26:30). When our hearts are heavy and we don't know where to turn, we can always sing "What a friend we have in Jesus," and "Be with me, Lord." Those songs and many like them, have done more to calm trouble hearts than dozens of sermons.

We sing because good singing is the greatest argument against instrumental music. Over one hundred years ago, it was claimed that instrument music was introduced in some places because the singing was "so bad it would scare the rats from worship." In a time when people are tempted to go back to the beggarly elements of the world and pitch their tents with the camps of those who claim instrumental music will reach the masses, as God's people, we need to open our hymn books, open our mouths and hearts, and sing with the spirit and understanding like we have never sung before and drive the temptation to try instrumental music in our worship far, far away from us.

May God help us to believe in the power and beauty of singing. May he also help us understand and appreciate how priceless is our privilege to singing praises to God and one another.

--- Tom L. Childers