Divine Harmony (Psalm 49:4)

I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will express my riddle on the harp - Psalm 49:4

Musical references are scattered throughout the Bible.

King David was a talented musician - he played the harp and wrote at least half of the psalms.

Jesus sang hymns with His disciples (Matt 26:30).

Paul and Silas sang hymns in prison while the rest of the prisoners and guards listened (Acts 16:25).

Paul instructed the Colossians to sing "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" to one another (Col 3:16).

The book of Revelation is filled with scenes of angels, saints, and creatures singing songs to the Lord.

Music has been a universal component of human civilization throughout all of history.

Plato expresses the Ancient Greek sentiment regarding music when he says in the Republic,

"Education in music is most sovereign, because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way to the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with them and imparting grace, if one is rightly trained."

In all Christian worship services throughout church history, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, there has always been some form of music involved.

This is because rhythm and harmony are able to bypass the analytical mind of man and to resonate directly with his soul.

The human soul was designed to sing praises to God.

In this way we can think of the human being as a stringed instrument which God strums for the purpose of creating beautiful music.

Therefore, a properly functioning human being is an incarnate divine melody, bringing spiritual resonance and harmony wherever he goes.

God seeks to produce heavenly music through His instruments. In this case, if beautiful music is not produced, the error is always with the instrument, never with the Musician. The instrument must be properly tuned in order to create pleasant sounds.

But an instrument cannot tune itself, it must be tuned by its operator.

And in our case, unlike physical instruments, we have the free will to say no to this process.

We must allow God to tune us. We must allow Him change us in any way He sees fit. We must trust that He has a better ear for rhythm than we do.

We must yield ourselves entirely to Jesus Christ, the Logos - the uncreated divine harmony who created and sustains the entire universe.

And above all these put on love,

which binds everything

together in perfect

harmony.

Col 3:14