Music—God’s Mysterious Gift: Its Power to Influence Humans and Its Role in God’s Kingdom
Ebook
People hear and enjoy music but seldom consider how great a gift it is. God made human minds and bodies able to respond to musical sounds. Because each brain interprets the signals based on personal experience, reactions vary. Neuroscience is learning how a brain handles the melodies, rhythms, and chords and how they penetrate a person's memory. With easy delivery of digital files one musical selection links to a similar one. Who can know what a nearby listener fancies? Personal choice is a lonely search for truth and for music.
What role did God give to music in Israel's life and ritual when priests were to play trumpets or rams' horns and Levites, appointed by David, were to use lyres, harps, and cymbals to lead worshipers in song? How did Jesus want music to be used? Did Paul identify the best use of music when he instructed disciples to raise their voices in thanksgiving so the Spirit could use their songs to build each other up in faith and service to God?
God's gift of music benefits everyone. Listeners enjoy the sounds. Music lovers share selections with others. Believers use songs to become stronger followers of their Lord.
“This book is a concise yet profound explanation of how music affects the spiritual lives of individuals and Christian communities, covering both the natural effects of music by itself and the extraordinary potential of music coupled with the word of God.”
—Joseph Herl, professor of music, Concordia University
“A detailed, multi-disciplinary study of music from a Christian confessional perspective, this book explores music as God’s gift through music theory, physiology, history, and culture. A substantive book worth the time and effort it takes to read.”
—Paul Westermeyer, professor emeritus of church music and seminary cantor, Luther Seminary
“In Music—God’s Mysterious Gift, James Brauer, Lutheran theologian and musicologist, takes a fresh look at how the power of music and the power of God’s word combine to provide meaning in the Christian life. By exploring the science of musical perception, elements of music, and music in both Old and New Testament contexts, Brauer provides new insights into how the Christian might use God’s gift of music wisely.”
—Daniel Zager, librarian emeritus, Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music
“Debate swirls around the church’s use of music. Surmounting this necessitates theological foundations. So with Music—God’s Mysterious Gift. James Brauer provides a theology of music: ‘holy music serving a holy Lord sustaining a holy people.’ Second to God’s word, music is a profound gift in the Creator’s trinitarian story leading to Jesus. Shared with all cultures, music has the divinely given, word-laden, creaturely inventive power to bind us to God and one another. Explore God’s mysterious gift.”
—Kent J. Burreson, professor of systematic theology, Concordia Seminary
- Title: Music—God’s Mysterious Gift: Its Power to Influence Humans and Its Role in God’s Kingdom
- Author: James L. Brauer
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666781458, 9781666781441, 1666781444, 9781666781434, 1666781436, 1666781452
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666781458
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-09-12T20:45:45Z