James 5:13

Is any among you suffering? let him pray. Is any cheerful? let him sing praise.

Here begins a series of separate admonitions making up the final section of the epistle.

Any suffering? ... let him pray ... This was, and is, the general rule for suffering of all kinds; and it included even the special cases alluded to in James 5:14 a moment later. In a sense, all healing is divine. Over the main portal of the great Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan, N.Y., there are engraved the words: "All healing is of God; physicians only bind up the wounds."

Any cheerful? ... let him sing praise ... Singing, from the earliest New Testament times, was used by the church for the purpose of sanctifying times of emotion, whether joyful or sorrowful. As Harper pointed out, "Christian singing is supposed to be the medium of the light and joyful as well as more serious sentiments."[39]

It is regrettable that commentators, for example, Tasker, and others drag into the interpretation of this verse an attempted justification of instrumental music in Christian worship, thus:

[@Psallo] originally meant to play by touching a stringed instrument ... it describes the stirring of the soul ... it refers to every sounding of God's praises, whether in the company of others or alone, whether vocally with or without musical accompaniment, or silently.[40]

It is a fact eloquently stated by F. F. Bruce that (concerning the Greek words [@psallo] and [@psalmos] as used in this place) "Both are irrelevant to the question of instrumental accompaniment, one way or the other."[41] For those interested in pursuing the subject further, the scholarly work of J. W. Roberts settles the question completely. "Nothing in the context indicates a meaning other than that of vocal music."[42] No matter what the "original meaning" of [@psallo] might have been, the instrument to be "plucked" is given in the sacred text; and it is not a mechanical instrument, but the human voice.

God's church is a singing church. As early as 111 A.D., when Pliny wrote the Emperor Trajan that the Christians assembled very "early on a fixed day and sang by turns a hymn to Christ as God,"[43] until the present day, the churches of Christ ring with the songs of praise and adoration. What a contrast this is with every other religion ever known!

In the orthodox Jewish synagogue, since the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, there has been no music, for, when they worship, they remember a tragedy; but, in the Christian church, from the beginning until now, there has been the music of praise.[44]

The Moslem shouts from his minaret at morning, noon and night, "To prayer! To prayer!" The pagan temples for centuries resounded to the brassy cacophony of trumpets and horns. The primitives of the African interior beat their tom-toms. Only the Christian sings!

[39] A. F. Harper, op. cit., p. 245.

[40] R. V. G. Tasker, op. cit., p. 128.

[41] F. F. Bruce, Answers to Questions (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972), p. 107.

[42] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 163.

[43] Henry Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 6.

[44] William Barclay, op. cit., p. 129.