Why are worship methodology issues such as the non use of instrumental music often so important to those in the Churches of Christ?
Although both the Church of Christ and evangelical Christianity often use the same Christian words and phrases, it usually does not take long before each begins to notice some significant differences or emphasis in areas that one would think are well understood and accepted practices throughout Christianity today.
A perfect example, I believe, would be over the observance of Christmas or Easter, the use of instrumental music, or the observance of Communion and the Lord’s Supper.
For those within evangelical Christianity, one cannot help to be curious over why some in the Churches of Christ are sometimes so dogmatic, and tend to make such methodology and procedural issues so emphatically important.
And conversely, there are those within the Church of Christ who are just as perplexed over why some worship practices seem to be of little concern among other Christian movements and fellowships today.
To be rather candid, issues of worship sometimes become all important to those in the Church of Christ simply because of their view of justification.
If righteousness is provided to the believer only through their own obedience to the moral and religious requirements of the New Testament (i.e. sacramentalism), then it becomes imperative that the correct methodology and procedure be used in worship in order to be saved.
Therefore, by understanding that the Churches of Christ often take an Old Testament approach to salvation and apply it directly to the New Testament, we can certainly begin to understand their concern.
As Deuteronomy 6:25 says, “And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”
The GOOD NEWS message of the gospel, however, is that the very righteousness that God requires, He also provides. And rather than depending upon our own ability to meet all the necessary requirements of God, Jesus Christ lived holy for us so that the basis of going to heaven is based upon His perfect life and not our own.
As Romans 10:4 says “Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”
This is why evangelical Christianity believes that good works by Christian believers are merely the result of their faith and the working of divine grace in them, not their own personal contribution to their own salvation.
Jesus Christ is the only Savior; One does not save oneself.
For those determined to try and save themselves through what they do through their own cooperation and obedience to all the necessary moral and religious requirements of God, consider for a moment the righteousness that God provides on the basis of faith that the Apostle Paul talks about in Phil. 3:1-9:
“Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh— (i.e. those in the church who want to mix works with grace) For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If others think they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that (righteousness) which is through faith in Christ- The righteousness which is from God and is by faith.”
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