Good evening brother Jeffrey,<\/p>\n
I pray this email finds you in good health. May God favor you for blessing us and teaching us. You and many have given me so much knowledge in God’s word and increased my faith. I am a member of the Church of Christ. I wanted clarification about how some songs are sung. For example, “His Grace Reaches Me” – Deeper than the Ocean, and Higher than the sea … etc. When singing the verses of the song, the music shows the Bass and Tenor parts humming or maintaining a sustained tone while other parts are being sung.<\/p>\n
Question: Does this indicate “humming” or is it OK to sustain some notes as long as not all of the song is being hummed with no edification? I have heard singing where three verses are sung, then a fourth verse is quietly hummed while meditating on the words before finally singing a fifth. I would like to know if these are scriptural and acceptable in true worship.<\/p>\n
God bless you.<\/p>\n\t
There are various arrangements of songs. Most are not suitable for congregational singing; instead, they are designed to show off the abilities of the group singing the song or to provide more listening interest. The original music for “His Grace Reaches Me” has four-part harmony with words for all four parts.<\/p>\n
Personally, I avoid music that has humming in it. It doesn’t meet the standard of “speaking” and “admonishing” that is commanded in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:17.<\/p>\n\t
Dear Jeffrey,<\/p>\n
Thank you for your response. This information was very helpful. I will also try to avoid songs with humming in them for Sunday worship.<\/p>\n
God bless you.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: Good evening brother Jeffrey, I pray this email finds you in good health. May God favor you for blessing us and teaching us. You and many have given me so much knowledge in God’s word and increased my faith. I am a member of the Church of Christ. I wanted clarification about how some…<\/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":[520,521],"class_list":["post-49979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-music","tag-songs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":94303,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/fallacies-about-singing\/","url_meta":{"origin":49979,"position":0},"title":"Fallacies About Singing","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 3, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Roger D. Campbell When it comes to singing songs of praise to the Lord God, our concepts of such need to be based on the teaching of the New Testament. Sometimes, though, when it comes to singing spiritual songs, Christians accept ideas that simply are not true. Since such\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":50032,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/evaluating-new-songs\/","url_meta":{"origin":49979,"position":1},"title":"Evaluating New Songs","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Mark Roberts in\u00a0Abundant Life\u00a0via\u00a0Meditate on These Things For the longest time, it seemed brethren were fairly certain Sacred Selections contained just about every hymn that needed to be sung. Like it or not, that has certainly changed. Many congregations are now using some other hymnal other than Sacred Selections.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/07\/song.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":20698,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-the-use-of-parts-justify-the-use-of-choirs-and-solos\/","url_meta":{"origin":49979,"position":2},"title":"Does the use of parts justify the use of choirs and solos?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 31, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Choirs and solo supporters say that the entire congregation must sing every word simultaneously. They say \"If we can not have choirs and solos, you can not sing in four-part harmony.\" How can I respond to them? Answer: Given the simple fact that men and women do not sing\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":42460,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/singing-to-the-lord-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":49979,"position":3},"title":"Singing to the Lord (Hickox)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 29, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Michael Hickox via The Sincere Milk of God's Word \"Speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord\" (Ephesians 5:19). \"Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with\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":31154,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-grandson-wants-to-learn-to-lead-singing-what-do-you-suggest\/","url_meta":{"origin":49979,"position":4},"title":"My grandson wants to learn to lead singing. What do you suggest?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I'm searching for a CD of a capella hymns for my grandson who is attempting to lead the singing at our Wednesday night Bible studies.\u00a0 He has no music training or special talent except that he is very willing.\u00a0 I think the music he could sing along with\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":59766,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-songs-that-we-sing\/","url_meta":{"origin":49979,"position":5},"title":"The Songs That We Sing","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 7, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Wayne S. Walker As I was growing up, I loved to join in the singing of hymns and gospel songs during church services and other occasions where people gathered together to praise God in song, and through the years with my general love of music I have maintained an\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\/49979","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=49979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}