Doctrinal Music

That's what came to mind when I read how St. Paul qualifies teaching that 'conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God'. I've always had, and still have, difficulties with adjectives, such as 'sound' in 'sound doctrine'. Doctrine is neutral in its own context but as soon as you start messing with adjectives it gets complicated. Yet, we do need them to qualify, or put substance, to 'sound'. What sound? Who's making it? Why do we need it? What are the objective qualifiers that determine the 'soundness' or 'soundlessness' of ‘sound’?

I’m glad Paul helps me out. He says that stuff that conforms tot the glorious gospel of the blessed Lord’ is okay music. Stuff that doesn’t conform is still music, but it sucks and doesn’t bring glory to God.

Now, I made a decision that I want to bring glory to God. That means I need to produce the right music.
You know what? It’s not the music that I like, or feel good about but it is music that originates from ‘the gospel of the blessed God’.
To be ‘sound’ in my life means I need to dig the music up form the gospel. There is no other way.

Even then, there is still a lot we find ourselves interpreting. Getting to the core, studying the words of God doesn’t result in a straightforward solution. We find ourselves tuning, tweaking, and shaping those words into the sound that God originally intended. Can it be done? If I say yes, you’ll call me a dreamer, or an idealist. If I say no, you’ll tell me that I should never give in to defeat and encourage me to keep on producing sound.

I believe God’s sound is the sound of love. He gave us His word, His sound. His sound flows out of His love. And that’s where the answer lies: sound without love is sound that judges people, condemns them. Sound with love is always right. Take out the love and sound becomes a sledgehammer, a merciless sword. But with love, sound is the sweetest fragrance that brings healing, restoration, forgiveness, acceptance, firmness, loveliness…

Let’s make sound!