Transcript of a published teaching by David K. Bernard, transcribed from YouTube. An attributed primary source — not Acts 2:38 Life doctrine text.
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Summary
Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.
The question, and the short answer
- The question gets asked a lot: is it okay to listen to music that is not explicitly Christian? His short answer is yes — but as with everything, we are to follow basic Christian guidelines, and he offers principles.
God wants us to enjoy his creation
- The starting premise: Jesus said he came to give us life, and that more abundantly. God created human life, our senses, and our universe — the various colors, sounds, and smells — so evidently he wants us to participate in these experiences and enjoy his creation. We live sacrificially and counterculturally in many ways, and we are not to be extravagant or wasteful or follow the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — but neither do we need to go to the opposite extreme of denying or punishing ourselves physically.
Scriptures: John 10
Regulating amusements: lyrics, and the music itself
- We do not want to get involved in something worldly or carnal that appeals to ungodly lusts, so we must maturely regulate our amusements. For music, the lyrics could be very unwholesome or ungodly — promoting violence, drugs, sexual immorality, the demeaning of women — and then we should not participate.
- There is also a subjective argument that the music itself could appeal to sensuality; that judgment depends on a person's culture and background, and it changes over time. Jazz was created in America and at first seen as very worldly, yet traditional Pentecostal songs of the 40s and 50s are heavily influenced by jazz: Pentecostals have always taken the secular or cultural forms around them and transformed them in worship, using whatever is available in the culture to glorify God rather than converting people to older English forms of expression — one reason Pentecostals across the world are known for worship and are growing rapidly.
Stewardship of time, and Christian liberty
- One of the principles of scripture is our use of time: we should be good stewards of it, so anything we get so caught up in that we neglect prayer and our spiritual life fails the test. It is okay to listen to or produce secular music within the guidelines — not immoral or ungodly in its lyrics or its extreme character.
- Taste itself is generational: we typically like the music we were raised on, especially as teenagers, and even in church one generation may not like another's style — but before disparaging a song, look at whether the teenagers, young adults, and visitors are responding and worshiping. Under the principle of Christian liberty, if something is not evil or sinful, the default is that God gives us a choice by our own preferences. Much secular music is fine to enjoy without being worship, just as many activities are reserved for personal recreation rather than brought into church.
His own listening: classical and black gospel
- Asked his personal favorites, he names two types: classical — the well-known composers, especially Beethoven and Mozart and chaikovsky, and many others — and black gospel music, from the era of Andre Crouch and Walter Hawkins. He studied that history and found that Oneness Pentecostals, much more than trinitarian Pentecostals, interacted over the years with blacks and whites together, so the whole Pentecostal movement's preaching and music are heavily influenced by African-American spirituality — a sharp contrast with the meetings of other groups, which seemed vanilla and generic by comparison.
- His wife is musically inclined and his kids are all musically inclined, so they keep him up to date with the more recent music in the black gospel genre.
Scripture index: John 10.
Transcript
the short answer is yes but as with everything we're to follow basic Christian guidelines so let me give you some principles first of all uh Jesus said that he came John chapter 10 that to give us life and to give us that more abundantly and while that primarily has a spiritual connotation I think there's a principle that God has created human life he's created our senses he's created our universe uh he's obviously interested in uh the appeal to the senses because he created the various colors the various sounds the very smells you know so evidently he wants us to participate in all of these experiences and to enjoy his creation and so I start with a premise that God wants us to enjoy life yes we uh we live sacrificially in many ways and yes we live countercultural in many ways so there's a there's a maybe a balance to this that we are uh not to be extravagant or wasteful we're not to be whirly and and U follow the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes the pride of life but neither do we need to go to the opposite extreme of being aesthetic like denying oursel punishing ourselves in a physical sense so I start from the point of view that God has given us our senses he's given us all these amazing abilities and so he wants us to enjoy them uh and then I this the next principle is we don't want to get involved in something that's worldly or carnal or appeals to these ungodly lusts so I would say yes we can listen listen to secular music but we as with all things in this world we need to maturely regulate our amusements and what are we talking about well when it comes to Music the lyrics could be very UNH wholesome very ungodly so if there are lyrics to promote violence drugs sexual immorality uh demeaning of women etc etc then we shouldn't participate uh you can also make an argument it's a very subjective one that maybe the music itself could appeal to sensuality and of course um that is very subjective depending on a person's culture and background what they think but I do believe you could say certain types of music and we in the west we're familiar with maybe what I would call Hard Rock where it seems designed to appeal and and arouse uh sensual lust or seems to be composed in an atmosphere of drug use in um you know psychedelic fantasies and so we would want to avoid something that really is that extreme or at least has that connotation in our culture where you're saying oh you must be a drug user oh you must be an immoral person because this is the kind of music that is associated with that as I said that's subjective and can change over time for example um America created what's known as Jazz and at first that was seen as very worldly however if you look at our traditional Pentecostal songs of the 40s and 50s are heavily influenced by Jazz we we're at the Forefront because one thing about Pentecostals is that we use um secular forms or we use cultural forms and we transform them form them in worship so for example a lot of traditional denominations would say and even going to various countries they would teach English hymns and they would translate English hymns and the style of music anything else is worldly and secular where Pentecostals say well let's take what's in the culture and let's use it to glorify God and so as a very practical matter all across the world Pentecostals are known for worship and and for using cultural uh Expressions particularly music and growing rapidly because they don't try to convert people to U maybe 19th or 18th century English um forms of himn expression but they use whatever is available in the culture and we've done that here in America so um so and then I think of course when we talk about amusements uh one thing could be uh one of the principles of scripture is our use of time that we should be good stewards of our time so I suppose anything we get so caught up in it uh that we're neglectful of things like prayer in our spiritual life so my answer is it's okay um to um listen to or produce secular music as long as there are guidelines where it's not considered immoral or ungodly because of the lyrics or even because of the extreme beat or something like that having said that um you know we humans we typically like the music that we were raised on particularly as teenagers and in the church we like the music that we grew up under again usually as teenagers or that we came into the church under so even Christian music uh one generation may not like another generation's style of music and a lot of that is just based on culture and it's based on age each generation kind of likes to do its own thing and create its own style and so even though I've seen some Elders despise even music in church but I look at the teenagers and the young adults and the visitors are they responding are they worship do we see them weeping and crying well that song may not do that for me but it's obviously doing that for that 15-year-old so I should be very careful before I just disparage it or mock it or ignore it I think there is room for a variety of styles in church now that's you're not asking that I do think that we have I go back to the whole principle of Christian Liberty if something is not evil or sinful then the default is God gives us a choice based on our personal um preferences based on our cultural preferences I would simply say there's a lot of secular music that I think it's okay to enjoy that's not necessarily worship and we would not necessarily bring it into church because it's not a worshipful song but that doesn't mean if it's not a worshipful song then there's no room in our life for enjoyment because that's true of all kind of activities in general there's some things that we would reserve for church but there are many things that we would have personal Recreation personal enjoyment and I think music is one of those
well this may surprise you but um my I have two types of music that I personally enjoy and one is classical so I really love classical music thing um the the the the well-known composers especially Beethoven and Mozart and chaikovsky um and then there are many others chopan and we could go on and on but I really like classical music the other style I like is black gospel music now probably most of what I listen to is out of dat today but I was raised in the era of people like Andre Crouch Walter Hawkins um and those would be um the ones that that I enjoyed the most and appreciated the most and when I studied that I found that you know we I didn't realize this but we Oneness Pentecostals much more than trinitarian Pentecostals we over the years we interacted more with blacks and whites together so the entire W is Pentecostal movement and the way we preach the our music is heavily influenced by African-American uh religiosity or our spirituality much more than even trinitarian Pentecostalism and definitely much different than the Evangelical movement when I've gone to uh meetings of those groups I would amazed how vanilla and generic and middle class white it seemed compared to my own experience as an Apostolic Pentecostal in church and so of course uh my wife is musically inclined my kids are all musically inclined so they keep me up to date with the more recent music as far as the black gospel genre but uh that's U that's what I enjoy
Scripture references as spoken: John 10.