Spirit and Song

In Ephesians Paul makes the even more remarkable claim that the church of Jew and Gentile is being “built together” into the dwelling of God’s Holy Spirit. The people of God are now the temple—like the tabernacle, like Jesus—the place on earth where God’s presence and glory are made manifest. The command in chapter 5 to “be filled with the Spirit,” then, is not simply an exhortation to individual piety. It is a charge to be “joined together” (Eph. 2:21) as the people of God, and so, to be the temple. They are to be the dwelling place of God’s glorious presence; filled—indwelt—by God’s own Spirit. At just this point Paul urges the church to sing, and he does so in a way that excludes any characterization of this injunction as a “stray remark.” Singing and the filling of the Holy Spirit are bound together. —Steven R. Guthrie, “The Wisdom of Song” in Resonant Witness: Conversations Between Music and Theology (ed. Begbie), 386-87