Notes on Worship<\/a>,” especially the section at the end regarding whether all of life is worship.<\/p>\nFinally, you seem to have the mistaken notion that the church did not exist prior to the restoration movement. The restoration movement back in the 1800s was about people going back to the Bible to restore<\/em>\u00a0Christianity back to what it has always been.<\/p>\nWhat you are doing is subtracting from the words of God. You have decided that salvation is the only issue that is important to God. Therefore, you justify altering what God commanded in any area that you have decided does not fall in the category of salvation. I’m sorry, but being honest, partaking of the Lord’s Supper, prayers, and singing are all commands of God. You have no authority to alter God’s word.<\/p>\n
“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ<\/em>” (Galatians 1:6-10).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Question: In doing some research for a book, I came across your web site. I was really surprised by the bluntness of your home page. I grew up in several different churches of Christ, Christian, and restoration movement churches. The instrumental churches and non-instrumental churches have always puzzled me. I’ve spent the last 1 1\/2…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[292,84],"class_list":["post-25417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-instrumental-music","tag-worship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":32040,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-ok-to-play-hymns-at-home-without-singing\/","url_meta":{"origin":25417,"position":0},"title":"Is it OK to play hymns at home without singing?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My question is regarding instrumental music.\u00a0Is it okay to\u00a0play hymns on the piano at home, without singing, for fun? Also, how do I answer someone who says that instrumental music predates the Mosaic\u00a0law and, therefore, is okay in worship today? Thank you so much for your time! Answer: God\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94676,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-must-you-use-instrumental-music\/","url_meta":{"origin":25417,"position":1},"title":"Why Must You Use Instrumental Music?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 19, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Author Unknown Recently, a congregation in the city where I preach decided to start using instruments in their worship assembly. Apparently, even the community realizes that among churches of Christ, this is a big deal because the local news and newspaper have done stories on it. Obviously, I love\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59816,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-spiritual-simplicity-of-our-singing\/","url_meta":{"origin":25417,"position":2},"title":"The Spiritual Simplicity of Our Singing","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Paul Earnhart In the 1940s Elmer T. Clark observed that is \"a peculiar type of mind which is convinced that God is interested in whether his worshipers sing with or without instrumental music\" (Small Sects in America, p. 16). Clark's words carry a twentieth-century bias. The truth is that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8723,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-it-is-wrong-to-use-instrumental-music-because-the-new-testament-doesnt-mention-it-then-it-would-be-wrong-to-use-electricity\/","url_meta":{"origin":25417,"position":3},"title":"If it is wrong to use instrumental music because the New Testament doesn’t mention it, then it would be wrong to use electricity.","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My brother was a member of the Church of Christ which is why I know something about their beliefs. They didn\u2019t use musical instruments when singing songs because, as he told me, musical instruments were not mentioned in the first-century church. Neither was electricity, but that sure didn\u2019t keep\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34456,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/learning-from-the-history-of-the-instrumental-music-controversy-among-brethren\/","url_meta":{"origin":25417,"position":4},"title":"Learning from the History of the Instrumental Music Controversy Among Brethren","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Mark Roberts Could one issue really divide brethren who claimed allegiance to the idea of just going by the Bible, doing Bible things in Bible ways, and following the Bible alone? As the Civil War finally came to its end and life began to return to normal in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61489,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-were-musical-instruments-first-used-in-christian-worship\/","url_meta":{"origin":25417,"position":5},"title":"When Were Musical Instruments First Used in Christian Worship?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 20, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton When Christianity arrived in the world, it drew followers from all nations. \"And many peoples will come and say, \"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}