Replacing the Bible?

Something I have been noticing this past year and I have even noticed this a lot in the past couple months is how Christians will substitute something good for God or God’s Word and they don’t even know they are doing it or even worse. . .they know they are doing it and they don’t even care.

Browse through your Facebook and Twitter news feed.

What do you see from a lot of your friends? Well, to be honest, you are probably seeing a lot of random things, but something among all of these possibilities is probably song lyrics. And because of the Christian circles most of us live in, most of those songs are probably sacred in nature. That can be a good thing because singing sacred songs is a marvelous way of singing praise to God. There are dozens of passages in the Bible that tells us to sing to praise God. To be completely honest, singing is one of my favorite things to do. Even this past week, I posted the first stanza of an old hymn that is dear to my heart.

But there is something that is concerning to me about this area of life. While there is nothing wrong with posting lyrics to sacred songs, there is a problem when songs take over what God’s Word is intended for. For example, when Christians are content to listen and to sing sacred songs and think that is all they need for spiritual growth--that is extremely dangerous thinking. Songs can never replace God’s Word.

I’ve seen posts on Facebook and Twitter that (paraphrased) say

This song gives me the biggest blessing and it makes me feel so close to God and it just makes me feel so good and it helps me worship God in ways I never thought He could be worshiped.

False.

While sacred songs can be a blessing and can prepare your heart for worship, they should never take the place of God’s Word. There are tons of reasons why Christians are supposed to be reading and memorizing their Bibles every day. Why? Because that is a basic for believers--It is foundational to the Christian faith and it is extremely important! But then some Christians will replace the importance of a God-written Bible to a man-written song. How do those two even compare? If you think about it, you are comparing a Divine author to a human author. Nothing can replace God’s Word and it’s sad to see “Spiritual songs” having the place of God’s Word.

I have seen a Facebook status with the main idea of

There is nothing like jamming out with God.

That post scared me. I’m not even going to talk about why Christians shouldn’t be marrying rock music to sacred words, but what I’m scared about was that someone put their “godly music” above their Bible and prayer life. When that is done, idolatry has taken place. You have put something above God and His Word. That’s serious. Maybe you see now why stuff like this scares me like it does. It’s not really something to joke about.

Again, there is nothing wrong with using sacred music to glorify God. But when that music takes the place of what God’s Word and God Himself should be doing, there is a problem. I still see a lot of song lyrics . . . wouldn't it be cool if we saw people posting about what how they were blessed in God’s Word and the verse that God used to give them that blessing?