Singing and Submitting

D. Scott Meadows

“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God” (Ephesians 5.19-21).

A worthwhile life is spent as part of a local church, when one has the opportunity to do so. A church is a particular congregation constituted of credible Christians who are orthodox, moral, and loving, formally organized ideally with a plurality of elders and deacons, alongside other members, meeting regularly each Lord’s Day for worship as Scripture directs with the preaching of the Word and the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

In Ephesians 5.18, the apostle warns against dissipating one’s life by drunkenness, and urges the readers instead to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The next three verses describe the fruit of being filled with the Spirit in the context of a local church. The clear implication is that being filled with the Spirit is the godly alternative to wasting one’s life. Truly spiritual people are investing their lives in the most important ways possible to glorify God and help others as vital, participatory members of a holy congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Two aspects of the Spirit-filled life in the church are musical praise to the Lord and healthy interpersonal relationships with submission.

The last phrase of this text, “in the fear of God,” may have special reference to the submitting of verse 21, but it is certain that the whole of the church’s life and ministry is to be characterized by the same godly fear. The Holy Spirit begets and sustains the deep piety required to engage in holy singing and submitting to one another as we should.

SINGING (19, 20)

These verses have four participles—speaking, singing, making melody, and giving thanks—but they all describe one beautiful, religious activity. We will choose singing to represent them all. The elaboration upon the heels of the exhortation to be filled with the Spirit suggests it is an important part of church life and experience. This ministry of singing is no small part of God’s purpose for us in this life.

That a congregational rather than a private activity is in view appears from the exhortation to be “speaking to yourselves” or “to each other” (alt.). By definition, this is a communal and gathered activity. That the verb for “speaking” appears first highlights the verbal substance: words are necessarily involved. This is not music for entertainment’s sake but for exalted spiritual purposes that include instruction, encouragement, celebration, praise, confession of sin, lament, and thanksgiving.

Specifically, this music is called “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” The interpretive battle still rages about whether this limits the Christian churches to singing psalms only in public worship, with the triad all referring to the same thing, or whether hymns and spiritual songs may be fresh compositions of the godly, also allowable in public worship. Either way, the only fitting church music is truly religious for the praise of God and eminently spiritual. The specific language used here sets a high standard for sacred song in the church. It must be scriptural, theological, and spiritual.

The second phrase, “singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,” confirms that the singing in view is religious and sincere. “Making melody” is the verbal form of the word “psalms” in the first phrase, “psalming” or “praising.” That this must be done “in your heart” excludes all superficiality and merely going through the motions. That it must be done “to the Lord” requires that our Lord is our first aim and audience for our singing. We sing to Him and for Him above all, when we are answering this call of Spirit-filled life in the church.

The third phrase which is verse 20 reveals that gratitude and the act of giving thanks to God must be a dominant characteristic of the church’s singing. Also, note that this passage (5.18-20) is explicitly Trinitarian with its specific references to the Holy Spirit, God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ—one God in three persons. Unitarian congregations (synagogues, mosques, or heretical groups) are not true churches and they are not worshipping the triune God, but some idol. True churches sing praises unto God the Father, by the Holy Spirit, in the name our Lord Jesus Christ.

SUBMITTING (21)

Another aspect of truly spiritual life in the church involves submission: “submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” This expression has also been the subject of much controversy, probably more often in modern, Western thought that promotes egalitarianism, “the doctrine that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities” (dictionary). While there is an important element of truth in this perspective, it has been pressed to an extreme that practically eliminates the ranks of authority advocated by Holy Scripture. The larger context of Ephesians does not support radical egalitarianism with an idea that each and every church member is equal in all respects and that each is to submit to all the others alike—an impossible requirement anyway, unless a general exhortation to humility were in view (1 Pet 5.5). Rather, another interpretation is intended. Wives are to be submitting themselves to their husbands (Eph 5.22), children are to be submitting themselves to their parents (Eph 6.1), and servants are to be submitting themselves to their masters (Eph 6.5), for these are divinely- ordained relationships of rank in the family sphere. Within the church, members are to be submitting themselves to their elders (cf. Heb 13.17; 1 Cor 16.15, 16). Such submission is against our sinful nature and is necessarily the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s influence in the church and our families. Singing and submitting in the church are manifestly God’s will for us. So let us invest our lives and subsequently reap a bountiful harvest. Amen. Ω