Did God create music or is music a part of God's essence? Are there styles of music that are inappropriate for us to use in worship or in general, and is there anything essentially sinful about some kinds of music?

The question is, "I just listened to a presentation by Creation Today which left me with the following questions regarding music. Did God create music or is music a part of God's essence?" They reference Zephaniah 3.17, specifically him singing. They mentioned that since Lucifer, Satan, was the chief musician, there could be issues with some styles of music. Are there styles of music that are inappropriate for us to use in worship or in general? And then is there anything essentially sinful about some kinds of music?

So there's a lot of questions in that, and I'm going to try to condense this if I can, and actually would like to work backwards. Is there anything essentially sinful about some kinds of music? Technically speaking, music is a neutral category. There's nothing inherently good, nothing inherently evil about it. I would say the only thing good about it that we could say is certainly that it is God's creation. But if you looked carefully in the early chapters in Genesis, the creators of music, the ones that were really interested in making music, were the descendants of Cain. And there was a sense in which music was a way to deal with difficulties of life on earth, and so the initial start to music maybe wasn't that great.

Regarding the question, is there, and I'm working backwards here, is there a type of music that's sinful, particularly in worship? I don't know if I would use the word sinful. I would use the word God-honoring, or I would use the word useful. Music worship, at its essence, is meant to convey content. It's meant to convey theology. It's meant to convey truth. And if music gets in the way of that, if music is music for its own sake, or it becomes a performance-based idea where people can't hear the words that we're singing, they certainly can't hear themselves, then that becomes an issue. Both Colossians and Ephesians tell us to sing hymns and Psalms to one another. So there's not just a a sense of, "I'm performing to the Lord," there's a sense of us encouraging one another. And so I would say there are types of music that really hinder that. If it's way too loud, if it's raucous to the point to where you're not focused on the words. And so that really is a judgment call. I would say the number one issue in music worship, though, is that it is not a performance. Music worship is not something that a bunch of people get on stage and do, and a bunch of other people watch it. That's not worship. Worship is something we do all together, and there are instrumentalists that help us do that. But honestly, we're all worshiping together. It's not a performance in which one person or two or three people are performing for a bunch of others.

Now back to the theological question, is music part of God's essence? I don't think Scripture tells us that, but we do know that He invented music, and we do know that the ultimate use of music is to return praise and thanks to Him. Now I have to say this because it's my favorite verse in the Old Testament, but Zephaniah 3.17 referenced God singing. If you look carefully at the context, this is the returned Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, singing in celebration over His people. So whatever style that is, it'll be exactly right.