Didn't David Use Musical Instruments in Worship?

Every so often, the question comes up about musical instruments in worship. In reality, many people do not understand why the Church of Christ does not allow instruments in their worship and when the question comes up, most often, it is an honest question.

The question is generally answered, that the New Testament does not authorize musical instruments in worship of the church that Jesus built. And, of a truth, if one was to search the New Testament for authorization, they would not find such authorization. That should settle the matter, but then one might ask, “What about David, didn’t David use musical instruments in worship”? And the answer is “Yes”. But we need to look at the whole story.

If one is going to argue that we must use musical instruments because David did, then why wouldn’t he argue that we have to make animal sacrifices like David did in Psalms 66:13-15? Or maybe have worship dances as David did in Psalms 149:3?  Or why wouldn’t he argue also that we can have many wives like David did in 2 Sam 5:13? Or that we have to worship on the Sabbath like David did? David certainly did all those things. See the real question is, “Are we allowed to so pick and choose how we want to worship from the Old Testament?”

This is one of the problems we run into when we do not “rightly divide the word of God”. We need to recognize the Law of Christ is different than the Law of Moses and we today, do not live under or worship under the Law of Moses. We live under the Law of Christ. Of a truth, people did worship differently in the Old Testament, but we cannot worship that way today simply because we would violate the Law of Christ. In Eph 2:11-15 Paul states that Jesus has abolished the law of commandments (i.e. Law of Moses). Paul also states in Gal 5:1-6, especially vs 3 that if a man wants to keep part of the Law of Moses, he is bound to keep it all. In other words, Paul was telling the Jews and is telling us, “You can’t pick and choose what you want to keep from the Law of Moses.” And Paul was a Jew that, at one time, lived under the Law of Moses!

It's like the law of our land. The speed limit, at one time, was set to 55 mph. Before that, on the interstates it was 70-75 mph. During the time the law changed to 55 mph, you could get a citation if you continued to drive 70 or 75 mph. Rightly dividing the Old Testament and the New Testament laws is that simple. There was a time when the Law of Moses was in effect, but that is not true today. Today, the Law of Christ is in effect and we dishonor Christ when we try to live by or worship by the Law of Moses.
​
Which brings us back to musical instruments in worship. Yes, they did worship with musical instruments in the Old Testament. We must recognize that we do not worship like they did in the Old Testament. We live under the law of Christ and in the law of Christ, as such, there is no authority for using musical instruments in worship.