Prophetic Worship
I was involved in some worship this past week that God was all over. Some of the ministering worship that we did evidentally helped heal some people, and some of the warfare worship that we did was pretty powerful. For my part, the congas and percussive instruments that I was using lent themselves to stepping forward in a prophetic ministry at various times over the weekend.
God has placed an annointing on musical ministry. Even without singing and without words, instruments can be used all by themselves to allow God and the Holy Spirit to move. That may be a new concept for some people but my experience shows that a humble guitar quietly strumming or an rythmic attack on the drums can be very effective in the spiritual realm. More important than my own experience, the Bible has plenty of stories that show how this works.
One of my favourite examples involves David and Saul in the Old Testament. Did you know that Saul met David before the Goliath stuff happened in 1 Samuel 17? Indeed. In 1 Samuel 16:14-23, David was called into Saul's service because Saul was being tormented by evil spirits. Back in the day, everyone clearly understood the power of musical worship and Saul's attendants recommended David. And so regularly from that time on, David would play his harp and "the evil spirit would leave" Saul. Not to say that musical worship was a magic potion because later on in chapters 18 and 19, after the Goliath heroics, Saul tried to kill David with a spear out of jealousy while David plays his harp.
There are other stories that we could reference as well. In 1 Samuel 10, after Saul is annointed but before he becomes king, Samuel instructs him to take a trip. Saul comes across a musical band of prophets and he is changed as a result.
In 2 Kings 3:14-16, Elisha needs to ask God for advice for the king and he asks for a harpist. It says that "when the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha."
There are a couple of other stories like that, showing the power of music and praise to God. For me, I think part of it is that music has a way of hitting our hearts and our souls directly. Music doesn't need to pass through our heads and be interpreted (though it can be). It can hit us in our deepest parts, allowing God to touch us in ways that we might not understand. It can be more of a Spirit-to-spirit message. There are other explanations for the power of music, I suppose, but that one works for me.
Related Post: Prophetic Misnomer?
7 comments:
I don't want to contest the points you make about music and spirituality. But I do want to ask if the word prophetic is appropriate. I think Christian language and words have been so devalued and over-applied that we need to be very careful about how we talk.
I can see how music has lead to prophetic announcements (and I agree that there is a sprititual power in music), but I'd still need a little more convincing to see how the word prophetic applies to the situation that you desribe. Note that I'm not excluding the possibility altogether, after all, the prophets were masters of embodying their messages in various ways (scultures, laying on one's side for a year, running around naked...), I just need some more convincing that the situation that you are describing is prophetic.
It's good that charismatics are willing to talk about things like prophecy, it's too bad that they generally misunderstand what prophecy is. I am curious to hear more about what you understand prophecy to be.
xoxo
The Christian Word Police
Well, thanks for not tearing apart my use of the word "worship" to refer to musical worship instead of the more all-encompassing meaning.
And I do have another blog post coming up to answer your question. I just don't want to give a quickie answer that could be shot down too easily.
I don't agree with you about "the power of God healing people"...
I think it's self suggestion than can heal some kind of disorders, or create some spiritual states of consciousness since mind is more much powerful than we know or we're able to imagine. How's then possible that some kind of diseases may vary between patients having different states of mind...And by that I also understand a religous person that generally has much more confidence in healing because he/she is left to some kind of supernatural and protecting power...
A depressive guy for example, has less expectation of healing (even following the same treatment than an other..)..
I'd like to be more fluent in english to better express my opinions, but that's a bit of them.
I think it's all about our unknown mind.
Been nice to read your blog ;)
ignasi
barcelona
Yes, that argument has been offered to me by my friends before. However, self-suggestion does not account for broken bones healing, missing eyeballs growing back or people being brought back to life.
I don't discount the power of our minds for healing certain maladies, but some healings certainly confound us more than others.
sometimes i wonder how people can be so resistant to the gifts of the Spirit, including tongues, for years and years and years... needing more and more and more explanations, giving the excuse that they need to understand more and more with their head before they would accept or seek to have for their own. You're just stalling.
I think you're afraid.
It's not that scary.
Really.
Ummm, who is it that's afraid? JAG, me, mandril? Who's talking about resisting gifts of the Spirit, and how do tongues fit into this conversation (apart from that fact that mandril wishes his english was better... I, on the other hand, wish my Spanish was better. Yo estudio por tres anos, y ahora, me olvidado todos!)?
Know what's scary? Semi-coherent anonymous posts. *shivers*
Oh, and JAG, looking forward to that upcoming post. I'm not out to "shoot you down" or any such nonsense. I respect where you're coming from and enjoy the dialogue.
Pax vobiscum.
Good post! We, are seeing a similar move of God. God is sovereignly taking us to a deeper place in HIM through worship. We are seeing people healed and set free. Songs of the Lord and prophetic songs are coming forth like they never have before. I know some people get caught up in semantics...I however, just want to get caught up in HIM...No matter what...we need to be discerning of HIS presence and not be deceived...God Bless
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