The Bible says more than you've been told.

Week 7 | Issue #7 | Worship Series (3 of 8)

"Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart." 

lalountes heautois — "speaking to one another." Active participle. The congregation speaks to each other — this is not a performance directed at an audience. It is mutual. 

psalmois kai hymnois kai odais pneumatikais — "in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." Three kinds of content. All are word-based. All carry theological substance. This is the what. 

adontes — "singing." From ado, to sing with the voice. Unambiguous. This is the first action. 

kai psallontes — "and making melody." From psallo. This is the word that matters. We will deal with it in depth. This is the second action. 

te kardia humon — "with your heart." This is the instrument. Paul does not say "with a harp." He does not say "with a lyre." He does not say "with instruments." He says: with your heart. The dative te kardia specifies the means by which the psallontes happens. You make melody with your heart. 

to kurio — "to the Lord." The audience is God. Not the congregation. Not a crowd. God. 

This verse alone settles the question. Paul gives two commands about music: sing (ado) and make melody (psallo). He then defines the instrument for the melody-making: the heart. If psallo still required a physical instrument in Paul's usage, then "make melody with a stringed instrument with your heart" is incoherent. Paul specified the heart because psallo, in first-century Greek, means to make melody — and he is telling you where the melody originates. 

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God." The parallel passage. Two additions: the singing has a purpose — "teaching and admonishing" (didaskontes kai nouthetountes). Music in the assembly is instructional. It teaches doctrine. It corrects error. If the song does not teach or admonish, it is not fulfilling the purpose Paul defines. And again: "in your hearts to God." The heart. Not the guitar. Not the organ. The heart. 

"I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also." The verb is psallo — "I will psallo." Paul says he will sing. With his spirit and with his mind. Two internal faculties. No external instrument is mentioned. The singing must engage both the spirit (the inner self) and the mind (the understanding). You must mean what you sing, and you must understand what you sing. 

"I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise." A quotation of Psalm 22:22 applied to Christ. The singing happens "in the midst of the congregation" (en meso ekklesias). Corporate. Communal. Together. And the verb for "sing praise" is humneo — to sing a hymn. Vocal. In the assembly. Among the gathered people. 

"Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise." The verb is psalleto — let him psallo. The response to joy is singing. Not playing. Not listening to a performance. Singing. Active, personal, vocal expression directed at God. 

Some will argue that psallo means "to pluck an instrument" because that was its meaning in classical Greek. This argument fails for three reasons: 

First, words change meaning. Psallo in 500 BC meant to pluck a bowstring. By 300 BC it meant to pluck a harp string. By the first century it meant to sing or make melody. The English word "broadcast" originally meant scattering seeds by hand. Nobody argues that broadcasting today requires a field. You define a word by how it was used when the author wrote it, not by what it meant five centuries earlier. 

Second, Paul defined his own term. Ephesians 5:19 does not leave psallo open to interpretation. Paul says: psallontes te kardia humon — "making melody with your heart." He named the instrument. It is the heart. If you want to argue that psallo still means "pluck a stringed instrument," then you must explain what it means to pluck a stringed instrument with your heart. Paul's own words eliminate the ambiguity. 

Third, the early church understood it as singing. For over 600 years after the New Testament was written, the church worshipped with voices only. Every church father who addressed the subject understood psallo as vocal music. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150—215) wrote: "We use one instrument alone: the word of peace. We no longer use the old psaltery, trumpet, timbrel, and flute." Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260—340) wrote: "We sing God's praises with living psaltery, for more acceptable to God than any instrument is the harmony of the whole people." These men read Greek as their native language. They understood what psallo meant. They sang. 

Yes, the Old Testament commanded instruments in temple worship. Psalm 150 lists them. 2 Chronicles 29:25 says David appointed instruments "by the commandment of the LORD through his prophets." No one disputes this. 

But the Old Testament also commanded animal sacrifice, burning incense, a Levitical priesthood, and worship at a physical temple in Jerusalem. If you bring forward instruments from the Old Covenant, you must explain why you leave behind everything else that accompanied them. The instruments were part of the temple system. The temple system was fulfilled in Christ. The New Testament gives new instructions for the new covenant assembly and those instructions say sing. 

Revelation 5:8 mentions harps in a heavenly vision. Revelation also mentions a seven-headed beast, a lake of fire, streets of gold, and gates made of single pearls. Revelation is apocalyptic literature filled with symbolic imagery. Using Revelation's harps to authorize instruments in worship is like using Revelation's golden streets to authorize gold flooring in church buildings. The harps in Revelation 5:8 are held by "the twenty-four elders" who also hold "golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." Are the bowls literal? Is the incense literal? If not, the harps are not either. 

John Gill on Ephesians 5:19: "Making melody in your hearts to the Lord — singing with the heart, as well as with the voice; the heart being the seat of melody and music in the worship of God under the Gospel dispensation, and not mechanical instruments of music." 

Albert Barnes on Ephesians 5:19: "Making melody in your heart — the psalmody of the heart is the true music which God requires. He looks at the feelings of the soul, not at the mere external voice or instrument." 

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on Colossians 3:16: "The singing is to be not merely outward, but in your hearts; the heart is the true instrument of praise. The early church confined itself to vocal music, consistently with the simplicity of Christian worship." 

The New Testament gives five instructions about music in the assembly. All five say sing. The critical word psallo is defined by Paul himself: make melody with your heart. The instrument is not a guitar, an organ, a piano, or a drum kit. The instrument God authorized for New Testament worship is the human heart expressing itself through the human voice. 

This is not a matter of preference. It is not a style choice. It is what the text says. The early church understood it. The Greek church fathers who read these words in their native language understood it. For six centuries, the church sang without instruments — not because they could not afford them, but because the apostles told them to make melody with their hearts. 

Next week: prayer in worship — not your bedtime list of requests, but prayer as a corporate act of worship that the New Testament treats with as much specificity as singing.

The instruments question has divided churches for centuries. But the division is not between two equally supported positions. It is between what the New Testament says and what human tradition has added. Here is how the conversation has gone: 

Argument: "Psalm 150 commands instruments." 

Yes, it does. Psalm 150 also exists within a covenant that commanded animal sacrifice, burning incense, a Levitical priesthood, and worship at a stone temple in Jerusalem. Instruments in the Old Testament were part of the temple system, appointed "by the commandment of the LORD through his prophets" (2 Chronicles 29:25). The temple system was fulfilled in Christ. If you bring instruments forward from the Old Covenant, you must explain why you leave behind the sacrifices, the incense, and the Levites that accompanied them. You cannot selectively import one element of a system that was replaced in its entirety. 

Argument: "The New Testament does not forbid instruments." 

Silence does not equal permission. The New Testament does not forbid burning incense in worship either, but no one argues that silence authorizes it. When God specifies something, the specification is the authorization. God told Noah to use gopher wood. He did not need to say "not oak." The command itself excluded everything not mentioned. God told the church to sing and make melody with the heart. He did not need to say "not with a guitar." The instruction itself is the boundary. 

Argument: "Revelation has harps in heaven." 

Revelation 5:8 describes twenty-four elders holding harps and golden bowls full of incense. If the harps are literal authorization for instruments, then the golden bowls are literal authorization for incense. Revelation also contains a seven-headed dragon, a lake of fire, and streets of gold. It is apocalyptic imagery, not a worship manual. Building worship practice on Revelation's symbolism is like building a church with literal pearl gates because Revelation 21:21 mentions them. 

This is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of historical record. The early church sang without instruments. This is acknowledged by scholars across every tradition: 

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150—215): "We use one instrument alone: the word of peace, by which we honor God. We no longer employ the old psaltery, trumpet, timbrel, and flute." 

Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260—340): "Of old the people used to sing God's praises with instruments, with timbrels and harps. But we sing God's praises with living psaltery. For more acceptable to God than any instrument is the harmony of the whole Christian people." 

John Chrysostom (c. 349—407): "David formerly sang songs, also with instruments, but now we sing praise without lifeless instruments. For God set aside the use of these things on account of the weakness of the Jews." 

Everett Ferguson (modern scholar): "The historical evidence is unanimous: the early church sang without instrumental accompaniment. Instrumental music entered church practice gradually, centuries after the apostolic period, and not without controversy." (A Cappella Music in the Public Worship of the Church) 

The question is not "can instruments enhance worship?" Of course they are pleasant to hear. The question is "did God authorize them for New Testament worship?" He authorized singing. He specified the heart as the instrument. He gave five passages of instruction, and none of them mention, imply, or accommodate a physical instrument. The early church, reading these words in their native Greek, understood them to mean vocal worship. They sang for over 600 years before instruments appeared — and when instruments finally arrived, they came from human tradition, not from apostolic instruction. 

Matthew 15:9 warned us exactly about this: "In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." When we add to what God said, we are not enhancing worship. We are replacing it with something God did not ask for.

The lesson: Always check the original language. A single English word choice can build or demolish an entire theological framework. That is why tools like BibleWord.ai exist.

psallo (ψάλλω) 

Pronunciation: PSAL-loh

Part of Speech: Verb

Strong's Number: G5567

Appears: 5 times in the New Testament (Romans 15:9, 1 Corinthians 14:15, Ephesians 5:19, James 5:13, and its noun form psalmos) 

Psallo is one of the most misunderstood words in the New Testament worship conversation. People who want to justify instruments in worship point to its classical Greek meaning: "to pluck" as in plucking a bowstring or a harp string. But that meaning is 500 years older than the New Testament. 

Words change. The English word "nice" used to mean "foolish." "Awful" used to mean "full of awe." "Broadcast" meant scattering seed by hand. You do not define a word by what it meant five centuries before the author used it. You define it by what it meant when the author wrote it. 

By the first century, psallo meant "to sing, to make melody, to sing praise." This is confirmed by its usage in the Septuagint, by first-century Greek literature, and most decisively by Paul himself. In Ephesians 5:19, Paul writes psallontes te kardia humon; "making melody WITH YOUR HEART." He specified the instrument. If psallo meant "pluck a harp," then "pluck a harp with your heart" is gibberish. Paul wrote "with your heart" because psallo, in his usage, means to make melody and the heart is where the melody comes from. 

Psallo is the only word in the New Testament that anyone has ever used to argue for instrumental music in worship. And it does not work. Paul defined his own term. The instrument he authorized is inside your chest, not on a stage. 

Every time psallo appears in the New Testament, the context is vocal. Romans 15:9: "I will sing (psalo) praise to your name." 1 Corinthians 14:15: "I will sing praise (psalo) with my spirit, and I will sing praise (psalo) with my mind also." James 5:13: "Let him sing praise (psalleto)." Not one of these passages mentions, implies, or requires a physical instrument. Every one of them describes singing from the heart and the mind. 

The native Greek speakers of the early church understood this. For over 600 years, Christians sang without instruments. Not because they were poor. Not because instruments were unavailable. The Roman world was full of musical instruments. They sang without instruments because the apostles told them to make melody with their hearts, and they obeyed. 

Until next time,

BibleWord Weekly is published every Tuesday. 

The Bible says more than you have been told. Every Tuesday. 

Next week: "Prayer in Worship" — prayer as a corporate act of worship, not just a personal request list. What the New Testament says about how the church prays together.