Question #10: Why do you put so much emphasis on exclusive Psalmody and create such a storm over a small issue? What’s all the fuss about?
Question #10: Why do you put so much emphasis on exclusive Psalmody and create such a storm over a small issue? What’s all the fuss about?
Exclusive Psalmody 
I’ve heard this question several times in the last month. “What’s all the fuss about?” and a similar statement, “You need to choose your battles.” The fuss is over the way in which God is to be worshiped. The battle concerns a matter that is more important than you can imagine. The Holy God of heaven has commanded us to worship Him and has given us (very few) simple directives to that end. We must see the issue of Psalmody as one of tremendous importance because it concerns the glory and praise that we give to God. To pervert worship is to make false statements about a perfectly holy God. He is not concerned for our opinion in our praise. He is not concerned that we receive glory in our praise. He is not concerned that we be entertained in our praise. He is concerned for obedience in our praise. Our obedience means our worship will contain simply what He has commanded, and nothing else.
We could easily make the case that the reason we were created was for the right worship of God. There is no matter of greater importance. The singing of Psalms only is not a “tempest in a teapot”, it concerns our highest order and the way we go about obeying it.
In his preface to the Genevan Psalter, John Calvin emphazied worship before salvation. “If it be inquired then by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts, and consequently the whole substance of Christianity, viz., a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained. When these are kept out of view, though we may glory in the name of Christians, our profession is empty and vain.”
I agree, and to state it another way, it is more important for God be worshiped as He has commanded than for me to be saved from my sin. What we do in the presence of God is actually more important that what enables us to enter in the presence of God. Even if all mankind were left in their sins (a perfectly acceptable option if God had desired it) God is still worthy of the worship He has commanded.
If we are to choose our battles, I choose to fight for worship the way God desires it to be.