One of the things I enjoy most about the question time at the London Music Ministry Conference is that I get some ideas for the next Music Exchange.
One question asked whether it was ever legitimate to use music in evangelism. The answer was (and is) an emphatic ‘yes’, but the one who answered was very careful to say that music can only be used evangelistically if it is accompanying a proclamation of the gospel. If there’s no gospel, there’s no evangelism.
If music is just used on its own, it cannot tell us anything of the good news about Jesus, even if we give a flawless performance. We may wonder at the beauty of God’s creation, which may tell us something of the nature of God, but all this does is give us no excuse for suppressing the truth (Romans 1). Music in itself can’t tell us of the solution to the problem of the wrath of God against those who suppress that truth. There’s a composer called J.A.C. Redford, who I’ve quoted before on this. He said: ‘While music is a wonderful gift, it makes a very poor god. It can sing of redemption, but it can’t provide it’.
