Who here likes to listen to music? I love listening to music. It has a great beat. It helps me get through things faster. It fills the quietness of being home when nothing else is going on. However, music is not just about the beat or rhythm. Music also includes songs with words. Do we just listen to the music because it has a cool beat or rhythm, or do we actually listen to the words and message it portrays? I love the beat and rhythm of music, but I also try to listen to the words. If I can’t understand the words, then I go to a Website that has the lyrics of the song. If the song doesn’t have acceptable words or an acceptable message, then I don’t listen to the song anymore. However, if all the words are appropriate and the message is appropriate, then I will listen to it.
Now, how do we judge what is and what is not appropriate or acceptable? To answer our question, we need to look to the Bible. The Bible, God’s word, has all the answers for all our questions. So, where do we look to find if a song is acceptable or not? Well, let’s start off with an easy subject. A lot of songs nowadays have curse words in them. Those of you who know me know that I don’t curse. I feel that using curse words and other words that sound like curse words are bad. I Timothy 6:10 says, “…avoiding profane and vain babblings.” A couple of verses we can look at are James 3:8-10. If songs have curse words in them, we should not listen to them. If we listen to those songs, then there’s a good chance that we’ll say the curse words, because a lot of people love to sing to songs. I also feel we shouldn’t listen to songs with curse words because people want to change the curse word to another word more appropriate, but that doesn’t change the fact that the curse words are still in the song. Also, if we do listen to songs with curse words, then we’ll get immune to them and, when we hear someone say it, we won’t stop them because we feel it’s okay to hear the curse words when it’s really not. Society has brainwashed us into thinking curse words are alright, but they aren’t. So please don’t listen to those songs.
We shouldn’t just listen to songs that don’t have curse words either. There are a lot of other songs that talk about stuff that is against God’s will and don’t have curse words in them. I tend to refrain from songs that talk about dancing, sex, drinking, and other things that go against my conscience and God’s will. Here are some great verses that we can look to for things that go against God’s will, Galatians 5:19-21, Ephesians 5:1-8, and Romans 2:29-32. I also tend to refrain from songs that talk falsely about God, heaven, angels, and so forth. For example, there are songs out there that refer to a person being like an angel or angels having halos and wings. Human beings are not like angels, and we don’t know if angels do have halos and wings. Also, there’s a song out there that says, “we’re in heaven.” We are not in heaven. The list goes on. If a song goes against your conscience and knowledge of God’s will, I really think that you shouldn’t listen to it. Now, how do you know if it goes against your conscience? If you are listening to a song that you have never heard before, try and listen to the lyrics. If the lyrics in the song make you question whether you should listen to the song or not, it’s probably better to not listen to it – just change the radio station or skip to another song on your CD. Let me finish up this article by quoting another scripture, I Thessalonians 5:21-22, which says, ”Prove [test] all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil”.
