These are the men David put in charge of the service of song in the house of the Lord after the ark came to rest there (a paraphrase of 1 Chronicles 6:31).

There is no command that I know of in the Law of Moses requiring David to establish this company of musicians to praise God in the house of the Lord. Yet David does so, so as not to leave this aspect of the nation's worship to chance.

Certainly there are several occasions of spontaneous singing and celebration. For example, Moses and Miriam led the congregation of Israel in song for God's deliverance through the Red Sea (Exodus 15:1–21). Recall also that David danced before the Lord when the ark was brought to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:14–15).

Yet by commissioning singers and musicians whose express job was to lead the people in praising the Lord, David, this "man after God's own heart," was expressing his devotion to the Lord and his desire to leave a legacy of worship.

In the New Testament there are not many examples of singing. For example, the disciples sang a hymn after celebrating the Lord's Supper (Matthew 26:30). Yet it is commanded. Paul tells believers not to get drunk on wine but to be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music from the heart to the Lord, and always giving thanks (a paraphrase of Ephesians 5:18–20). Again, he urges them to let the message of Christ dwell among them richly as they teach and admonish one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in their hearts (a paraphrase of Colossians 3:15–17).

Friends, I am surprised to see that only a few children in the church actively participate in worship. It appears only a few know the songs, and even fewer sing. This is not good. I also know the parents of the few children who do actively participate. These parents both encourage and teach praise songs to their children at home. They play these songs at home and in the car, and sing them together as a family.

The Bible commands us as parents to instruct our children: fathers are not to exasperate their children, but to bring them up "in the training and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4).

Our children's failure to actively worship God in song may simply reflect our failure, as parents, to model and teach them. I am more impressed to see a child worshiping the Lord sincerely from the heart than to hear them play Beethoven, win soccer games, or achieve high academic marks. Shouldn't we give at least as much time to teaching our children how to worship as we do to these other things?

If you are wondering, as a parent, what you can do, here is what we as a family recently began doing. I determined to begin a daily quiet time with my daughter when she turned four, which was recently. First, I set a time and place. We chose a time right after lunch, and our living room as the place — with the TV off and the radio off, so no distractions.

We begin with a couple of praise songs. I use YouTube to find praise songs for children (with lyrics), which I select and put into a playlist. We continue to learn new songs and repeat old ones, with the goal of not only singing praise to God but also learning these songs by heart.

We read one or two chapters from the Bible. I use a Bible app for this because it has a very pleasant narrator reading the chapters, but of course you can also read the Bible aloud yourself.

I give a brief and simple explanation of the content and significance of what we read. I have a small dry-erase board I like to use to make our discussion more fun and interesting. I always try to review and reinforce what was read in previous chapters, so that we remember what we learned before and get a sense of the continuity of biblical history.

Then we pray in turn. One day I pray; one day my wife prays; then my child prays.

This all takes about thirty minutes. My hope is to lengthen the time as our child gets older. What is more, when I am not at home — like today (I am writing this in Arizona) — my wife leads our child in the quiet time. I believe consistency is very important. My hope and prayer is that doing this day after day and year after year will instill in my young daughter's heart this most significant discipline of daily studying God's Word and worshiping Him. Then, when she is older, by God's grace she will continue this habit on her own and lead her own children in the same.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The New Testament evidence for singing is somewhat fuller than the comment suggests, which strengthens its point. Paul and Silas sang hymns at midnight in the Philippian jail while the prisoners listened (Acts 16:25). Paul expects each participant in the gathered church to bring a hymn among other contributions (1 Corinthians 14:26). James tells the cheerful to sing praise (James 5:13). And the book of Revelation is punctuated throughout by songs around the throne (Revelation 5:9–13; 15:3–4). Several passages in the letters, such as Philippians 2:6–11 and Colossians 1:15–20, are widely thought to preserve early Christian hymns.

The Chronicler's attention to David's musicians continues in 1 Chronicles 25, which names Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun and describes their ministry as prophesying with lyres, harps, and cymbals. Many of the Psalms carry the names of these families in their superscriptions — the Temple's song book bears the marks of the institution David set up.

The comment's home practice has a clear biblical model. Deuteronomy 6:6–7 locates the teaching of God's words in the ordinary rhythms of household life — sitting at home, walking along the road, lying down and getting up. Paul credits Timothy's sincere faith first to his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice, and reminds him that he had known the Scriptures from childhood (2 Timothy 1:5; 3:15). A regular, unhurried time at a set hour, with songs learned by heart, is very close to what those passages describe.

The Temple musicians are specifically named along with their genealogy — Heman, Asaph, and Ethan, the chief musicians appointed by King David. Along with David himself, these three men wrote many of the Psalms.

Asaph's Psalm 73 particularly stands out to me. He confesses his feet had almost slipped, nearly losing his foothold, since he envied the arrogant, seeing the wicked prosper (a paraphrase of Psalm 73:2–3). He describes how the wicked seem free of ordinary struggle, callous-hearted, carefree, endlessly accumulating wealth — even wondering whether he'd kept his own heart pure in vain (Psalm 73:13). How often have we all felt this way? Everyone in the marketplace seems to succeed through deception and wickedness, while trying to maintain godly ethics seems to earn us nothing. But midway through the psalm, Asaph says this changed once he entered God's sanctuary — only then did he finally understand the wicked's actual final destiny (Psalm 73:17). Looking at earthly gain, he'd felt envious; drawing near to the LORD instead, he realized how senseless and ignorant that thinking had actually been. He concludes that earth holds nothing he desires besides God — his flesh and heart may fail, but God remains the strength of his heart and his portion forever (a paraphrase of Psalm 73:25–26).

Let's fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

Of the three musical families, only Asaph's descendants are listed among those who returned from Babylonian exile — 128 musicians descended from Asaph specifically (Ezra 2:41).

AI-Expanded Reflection

Asaph's own resolution — his envy dissolving only once he entered the sanctuary, not through further reasoning on his own — is worth noting as a genuinely honest account of how this kind of struggle actually gets resolved for most people. He doesn't argue himself out of envy through better logic applied at his own kitchen table; the shift happens specifically in the context of worship, in God's own presence. That detail matters for anyone facing the identical struggle today — the psalm suggests worship isn't merely an expression of already-settled contentment, but can be the actual place where genuinely unsettled envy and resentment get worked through and resolved.