Under the newly established Government in Israel, the government subsidized the Priests, Levites, temple servants, and even the singers. The King recognized the value of worshipping God in the land. He was conscious of its stabilizing influence in the citizens’ homes, families, and lives. To guarantee the continual exercise of worship in the new society, the King made provision for all religious workers. In Nehemiah 11:23, we read, “For there was a command from the king concerning them, and a fixed provision for the singers, as every day required.”
In that culture, the government accepted its responsibility to support and promote singing with religious themes. Our government doesn’t help it or even promote it. At best, we’re sometimes allowed to sing songs of a spiritual nature, but that is not often well received. Even the old Christmas classics that celebrate our Christian heritage are usually excluded by government decree from the classrooms and other establishments in our land.
In his “Notes on Western Civilization” in the Chicago Tribune, Dave Barry wrote, “To avoid offending anybody, the school dropped religion altogether and started singing about the weather. At my son’s school, they now hold the winter program in February and sing increasingly non-memorable songs such as “‘Winter Wonderland,’ ‘Frosty the Snowman’ and—this is a real song-‘Suzy Snowflake,’ all of which is pretty funny because we live in Miami. A visitor from another planet would assume that the children belonged to the Church of Meteorology.” Every Christian should have a song to God in his heart. In Ephesians 5:19, the apostle Paul speaks of “singing and making melody?” in our hearts to the Lord.