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Episode 524: In this episode, Chris and Jeff dive into a discussion about the final Psalm, Psalm 150. They reflect on the significance of praise in worship, emphasizing the importance of celebrating God’s mighty works and unequaled greatness. The hosts discuss the historical context of worship music, noting how preferences have evolved over time and how certain instruments were once deemed inappropriate for church settings. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to engage in worship, reinforcing the idea that everything that has breath should praise the Lord.
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, if this is your very first time tuning in, we are the Bible Guys. I'm Chris and this is Jeff. Yes, I'm just welcoming new people. What a wonderful things just stumbled across the Bible Guys. What are the chances that somebody's tuning into this episode for the very first time? Yeah, well they're probably wondering who names themselves the Bible Guys? Well, people who are guys who talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways. Yes, just a couple of friends. Just a couple of friends. Yeah, that's a bit much, right there, A bit much a couple of friends. Wemptuous, by the way, we never told them to say that. I don't think. I wonder if anybody knows. I think I said a couple of guys who who like to talk about the Bible and fun and practical ways. But they said a couple of friends. Yeah, presumptuous. Hey, so this segment that Desiree is having a story, we. Better we better become friends at some point here, Yes, well, you know, ages, it's over five episode I guess. So. Hey, remember when we were celebrating the five hundred episode, which was twenty four episodes ago, and you said, I'm not sure I want to do five hundred and anything with you? And then I start laughing and you go, No, what I meant to say was and I was like, no, that's what you meant to say. You're trying to back then you're trying to make a terrible joke. Oh no, it was terrible. Yeah, funny. I really, I really do enjoy doing this with you. I enjoyed with these two. Yes, I do too, all right. So Desiree has us doing a segment called would you rather? And so it is just a question of which one would. You rather do? Okay? These are fun. I haven't looked at this yet. I haven't either, but I like these. I like this concept in this game. Okay, number one? Would you rather always be able to find a parking spot right away? Yes? Please? Or never have to wait in line at a store? Both of those are really good. So if you choose one, you never get the other one? Is that what's happening seems to be the you can only say one Yeah, you're not going to be cursed. This is the seller. The one we did one must go. This time we're choosing one. Yeah, but you think about it. If you choose the line, that means lines are magical, but your parking space, parking spot experience is still the same. Yes, it's not like you're cursed with parking spots that are bad. Yeah. Man, I don't know. That's a hard one. I think I choose the parking spots. I want the parking spot. Nah, I not me. I would choose the line any day, and let me tell you why, because I don't ever really recall that's I don't really recall going, oh my goodness, this parking spot situation is really driving me nuts, and I have to walk across the whole parking lot like I don't mind. Yeah, back when malls were a thing and you had to park three miles from the food court. Yes, yeah, that was tough. But anyway, but I do recall being in line, thinking this is ridiculous. Well, I drive a full sized pickup truck. You do too. A lot of times I find myself just parking at the end anyways and walk it in because it's too hard to cram that truck into the little parking right right, that's true, So that's true. Can I change my Can I change my? Okay, I'd like to revoke it and to instead choose never have to wait to lie? Yeah, that's you won me over. You want to take number two? Would you rather be able to speak and understand every language, but never be able to travel or travel anywhere but only speak your native language? Oh? Easy, peasy. Yeah, that's that's the travel anywhere, but speak my language. That's what it is for me. Now, yes, that's it's exactly that's the life I'm living today. Right. Yeah, we're Americans, right, isn't that you've heard that? Right? My So, my daughter's boyfriend is uh from Mexico. And he said, he told me, he said, do you know what you call a person who says who can speak two languages? I said what he said, bilingual? He said, you know what you can call a person who speaks three languages? I said tri lingual. He said, you know what you call a person speaks one language? He said no, he says American. That's hilarious. That's really fun. If it's true, it's probably true. It's true. Man, everybody else speaks so many languages. I was just in a meeting here recently. A guy speaks eight languages. Yeah, that's eight languages from Africa. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it's crazy. But anyway, you can surround yourself with translators. Right, yeah, that's what I have to do. And think about the other option. You understand every language but never be able to travel. That's a curse. That means you have a bunch of knowledge that you cannot use. That's correct, unless you just happen to run people. Yeah, in the grocery store, you're. You work at the una, you speak all the languages. You're like, man, I interject in this conversation just because I understand you. Yes, that's terrible, right, would you say ola? Yeah? Yeah, jeez yeah live bit uhte death than that? Number three? Would you rather be at the world's best Nope, let me start again. Would you rather be at the world's best at? Would you rather be the world's That's. The reason why I'm screwing this up. Would you rather be the world's best at a completely useless, useless hobby like competitive paper clip bending or mediocre at a hobby that everyone is obsessed with. Okay, first of all, competitive paper clip bending what? Yeah, we can't overlook. That underwater basket weaving. Cool. Okay, So you could be the world's best at something that's completely useless or mediocre at something everybody's obsessed with. I'd rather be mediocre at something every he's obsessed with, because that's the truth now and I enjoy it. What is it? Everything? What are your mediocre at that everybody else is? For instance, like fantasy football, that's a hobby. I'm in your mediocre mediocre adit? Well, you got pretty you were pretty good last year. Yeah? I was good last year, pretty good? So, but pretty good? Everyone? You almost won? I did almost and you won. Yes, that's everybody. You brought it up. I just felt like people should know the truth. I led the entire season, the. Whole season, and you dominated. You dominated the whole two games. Uh, I all of my players get injured. That's how it happens in football. Yeah, okay, So you'd rather be mediocre at a hobby that everybody is obsessed with? Yes? Why be great at quite? I really would be the other way, really, Yeah. You'd rather do a party trick that nobody cares about. Yeah, look at me. I don't know as a party trick, but yeah, yeah, yeah, be great at something yeah wow. But I think that's the dif between you meet. So you got that whole WU thing. You want to be out in the middle of the crowd and doing what everybody else is doing, right, I don't care what everybody else is doing. I'd rather just really be great at something I like, because see, my hobby be sick so I love it, doesn't matter the world hates it. So I'd rather be great at the thing I loved than be always frustrated and be in the middle of the pack with everybody else. And see, I would hate being fantastic as something that nobody cares about. Yeah, well I care about it. It's my hobby no matter what other people think. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I think that's a differ between us. Yeah. Maybe you're probably right. Yeah yeah, Okay. Would you rather have a magical clause that that instantly provides any outfit but only in neon colors, or wardrobe that only ever contains pajamas but in all styles and fabrics? Okay, what a silly question? What a silly question? A magical closet that provides any outfit, but only in neon colors. What kind of stipulation is that? Wow? Yeah, well obviously the pajamas. Really, I was exactly the opposite, Like I would not want to live in pajamas. What doesn't he have to live in them? It just says, which would you rather have? What else are you going to wear? Do you wear pajamas if you have a wardrobe? So let me back up from this question. Do you have not a pajama guy? Okay, that's the difference. I wear pajamas every day, every day in the middle of the day sometimes yeah, sometimes yeah. You know, there are times where I'll come home and if I'm wearing like like uncomfortable like a dress shirt or something, I'll come home and immediately I'll run upstairs come back down. If I know I'm going to be in for the rest of the day, pajama bottoms and a T shirt. Yeah, with slippers, that's fantastic. And sometimes if it's cold, a robe. Yeah, I'm taking it to mean that these are the only things you can wear, because that's not what it says, that's your wardrobe. Why are you imposing things don't Okay? So you're saying that just because it's a magical closet, you could have like a chester drawer somewhere the heead of the rest of your clo Okay, it's all right. Then I would also choose the pajamas. Then, yeah, would you have this thing or this thing? Yeah? I see, yeah, okay. Yeah, because you know it'll help you. Well, that was riveting, but only if you like. Yes. Well, today we're launching into the book of Psalm Psalms and it's actually isn't Isn't it the last Psalm? This is the end of the Book of Psalms. Yeah, there are one hundred and fifty songs. Yeah, and we're going to read Psalm one fifty. Yeah, it's not very long, but I love how it ends. It says, Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary, Praise Him in his mighty heaven. Praise him for his mighty works. Praise his unequal to greatness. Praise him with the blast of the rams horn, Praise him with the leer and the harp. Praise him with the tambourine and dancing. Praise him with strings and flutes, Praise him with a clash of symbols, praise him with loud, clanging symbols. Let everything that has breath sing praises to the Lord. Praise the Lord. It's let everything that breathes. Yeah, so what do you think of when you hear that last verse? Let everything that breathes sing praises to. The Lord, that every everybody should be praised everything. Oh yeah, I hate that. Praiser Lord, yeah, praiser. Yeah, you don't like that song, but I like the song. I just don't like that part, oh, the beginning. Yeah, it's just weird. Yeah yeah, yeah, well you know it's different, but weird different, weird. Anyways. Anyway, but yeah, that song, if you're familiar with it. About it though, somebody's praising the Lord? What's that when they're shouting at I am my wife? Is? My wife is? You should see her during the beginning. She loves it. But anyway, and she's going to say, well, thanks, Jeff, I'm never going to sing that first part around. You ya, No, no, go ahead. She's probably not a jack. I tell the worship leaders that I want to. Jeff thinks you're weird. I didn't say, Liz is weird that the writers were weird kind of what it sounds. No, No, it's okay, it's good, it's fine. Everybody, everybody should praise the Lord. So there's a pattern here. The first pattern is he says, praise God in his sanctuary, Praise God in his mighty heaven. Right. So, uh, it's it's a great encouragement to know that what David is saying is he's saying, when you're in the House of God, there should be praise. And he's talking about instruments, and not only not only in all kinds of instruments of that day, but he's also saying instruments, which which justifies our decibel usage on Sunday mornings. Yeah, yeah, right, Well, so there's so many times throughout the Book of Psalms that says, shout unto the Lord. Yes, yeah, yeah, he said shout on the God with a voice of triumph. Right, it says says play skillfully with a loud noise. Yep. There's so many, so many places in the Book of Psalms that talk about volume that what he's not looking for is some kind of liturgical dirge, some kind of funeral song, right. Like singing sentences. Yes, so he's he's saying, Man, I want this to be a party. When you come into my house, I want you to be celebrating. Now, there are, as you read through the book of Psalms, there are confession songs. Yep, there are struggles. Hey, God, I'm struggling in my worship. I'm struggling in this moment. There are so there are, There's all kinds of emotion. But he's saying, when you come into the God Sanctuary, you should come in and have an understanding that a big part of this is just celebrating how good God is. Yeah, And I think verse number two particularly, it says, praise him for his mighty works and praise him for his unequaled greatness. So that two different things. And it's actually what we just preached on last week, which is recognizing God for who he is and what he has done in the past. And so we were actually in the Book of Jonah and we were talking about how Jonah was never given an explanation from God about Nineveh. He tried to run from God, he gets swallowed by fish, and he repents in the fish's mouth, and all he comes to all these great conclusions, and yet the entire time God never explains himself. God never goes well, Jonah, let me explain to you why, you know, let me, let me try to teach you about my compassion or my perspective. God doesn't offer any explanation. And so what does Jonah do? Jonah repents based on two things, the character of God who he is, and the greatness of God unequal greatness of what He has done in the past. Right, So, and that's a great lesson for our lives here. So this verse number two, you know, that could possibly be a verse that we can memorize. It would it be great for us to when when whenever we try to find out the why and we're like, you know, I can't understand the why. We're angry with God because God doesn't explain the why. If God would just let me know why this happened, then I could be okay with it. But chances are you're never going to know the why outside of eternity for a big conundrum like that. But if you were to be like David and just say, okay, you know, maybe quote this verse. I don't understand the why, but I'm gonna praise him for his mighty works. I'm gonna praise him for his unequal greatness, for who he is and what he has done. Yeah, when you praise him for his mighty works. When when when you're celebrating what God has done, that's praise. When you're celebrating who he is, that's worship. Yeah right, So you got both p's and worship in this thing. Now he's saying praise him because this whole passage is praise. So you can praise God when you're worshiping him, certainly, but you have to also choose to praise him just for what he's done. And so when you talk about his mighty works every once in a while, I just recently read an article by a pretty famous faith leader, oh, complaining about it. I didn't know I wrote an article. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it wasn't you thank God, No, because I disagreed fundamentally with it. So he's he's a distinguished preacher that clearly has very limited understanding of music and worship. So it was kind of taking shots at modern worship, uh, and elevating what he felt like was more respectful him and begins to hint towards. By the way that my yuch, so sorry, I Get explained that yuck. I wasn't meaning yuck on the preferences because because because all preferences are good, I mean, taking shots at one preference over the other is yuck. But there was kind of a hint that the pipe organ choir thing or the hymns of Luther Martin Luther were superior to the current worship of you know, songs. And I'm not saying that every single song sung by every single worship leader is valid, but he was already making a stylistic argument as if white European music from five hundred years ago was superior to something that sounded a little bit more Latin or African. And it felt like cultural elitism more than it had anything to do with a with a faith based thing. Because here's what I know, and I've had these arguments so many times. You know, the world we grew up in had very strict rules about music, very strict rules about what it was and wasn't acceptable. In the world I grew up in, we weren't allowed to have drums, we were allowed to have basic we were allowed to have symbols, we were allowed to have guitars at all. We're very, very very precise, and they made all these rules, and they began to kind of imply that there's you know, appropriate worship music and inappropriate worship music styles. And I just began to study the Book of Psalms. I asked for Professor wal Time. I said, did you realize there's the biggest book in the Bible is a songbook? And he goes, you're absolutely right. I said, so, would you think that then, since the largest book one hundred and fifty chapters, by far, the most words, the longest chapter in the Bible is a worship song that if God decided that the largest book in the whole Bible was going to be a songbook, then that would mean that worship is like super important. He goes absolutely, And I said, great, how come he didn't include the music notes? How come he didn't include a rhythm chart? Right? He gave us the lyrics. Our attitudes should be what these are, confession of sin, worship of how great he is, praising everything that He's done, the heart of it. But he did not give us notes. Do you know why? Because God doesn't want Jeff in twenty twenty four worshiping with a style that is culturally connected to and limited to a worship style that David was doing three thousand years ago. God wanted and harps and clings. God wanted me to worship him. Well, I think all those things are legit. I mean literally. He has brass instruments, he has string instruments, he has woodwind instruments, he has percussion instruments, all the instruments we use today, he mentions in this little short book. So, but the difference is, can you imagine the music David listened to back then? Is I'm not currently tuning that in on my radio. There's not even a radio station. Even Serious XM doesn't have a station that has his style of music on there. So that's why God says over and over and over in the Book of Psalms, sing a new song to the Lord. Right. He doesn't want me to rely on the stale belief system of my fathers and my grandfathers. He wants me to have the belief system, but my worship should be fresh. So I have the worship or the belief system that's been passed down from generation to generation. That's why he gave us the words to his worship. But the style should be something that comes from my heart and it should be a new thing. And that's why he didn't give us any notes. The guy says to me. His response was, well, you know, music notation didn't happen until the nine hundreds a d. Nineteen hundred years after Jesus or after David. I said, well, that's amazing because he made sure that they could write a thing, but God couldn't make sure that they wrote notes. I said, it was a miracle that he worked out letters so that they could write this book, but God couldn't have worked out some music notes. And so now you telling me that only white European music from five hundred years ago is acceptable for worshiping God. Are you serious? And then you know the preferences like Martin Luther kind of songs, I said, the dude, growe five thousand songs, we sing like three? Do you know why? Because the rest just aren't that good. Right, So we're supposed to sing new songs. We're supposed to use every instrument and everything that has breath should should praise the Lord. That's what he's saying. He's saying, dude, it needs to be in you from you right right about me, so you praise me for my Mighty works, and you recognize my unequal greatness and everything that makes noise and everything that makes breath, you should do it right. So it's not about appealing to the flesh, but it is about me and my body giving it all to God in the moment. Right, So what captures your attention? What's relevant to you? What? What what gets you in the moment worshiping like we talked about David worshiping yesterday. What draws you in like that? So for some the beautiful orchestral thing. My wife and I just toured in Europe here pipe organs, those are incredible. There's a music. If that's what gets you going and you're ready to worship when you hear that stuff, that's not a bad thing. You just can't say that's better than or superior to what you know. This church singing alcapella with with a tambourine in Africa. Right. I've read an article that talked about there's no way that this instrument. This is an instrument that's used in the bars. It's only in the bars with card playing and drinking, and to bring this instrument inside the church is a disgrace. And just going on and on about somebody you know, just downing this instrument and saying this is the worst thing that has ever happened to the church. And then come to find out the article was written in the eighteen hundreds about the piano. Did you ever see that? Ar Yeah, it's just so crazy. They used to preach against electric organs too, Yeah, because they were only in dance halls in baseball stadiums. Dude, it is so crazy to me. People are just goofy. So here's what I do. I appreciate people but wanting to do the right thing. Yes, sometimes we tend to make rules where there are no rules. Yes, And if God wanted the rule, he gave us one hundred and fifty chapters and chose not to give us any rhythm charts, and he didn't give us any musical notes. But he does invite us to worship him with harmony. He invites us to worship him with lyrics. He invites us to worship him with melodies. He invites us to worship him individually and corporately, and he always invites us to be loud. Yeah, that's right, that's great enthusiastic. Yeah, well, hey, that's that's a great chapter. A great little lesson about worship. So hopefully you're a person who worships, and if you don't have enough worship in your life, I would just encourage you to find there's there's never, never before in history has there been more worship available to us. Right you know, you can have it on your phone, you can tune in, you can even stream in radio stations live from other cities right right where you're sitting. So anyway, no excuse not to worship. So we'll see you next time on the Bible. Guys,