I had a conversation this morning with some other believers who felt that a person who does not know Christ can come to Christ through putting on a rap concert. This was the last time that I wanted to sit back and not say anything about the mass deception that has been taking place in the church regarding the purpose of music in the church.

My background and feelings towards Gospel Rap

Over the past five years since I’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit, I have been asked to listen to over 300 gospel rap mix tapes, invited to over 100 gospel rap concerts, and have become friends with dozens of gospel rappers. I have come across people who have nicknamed themselves everything from “anti-swag”, “Pro-Verbz”, “Holy-Jamz”, “Holy Mafia Warrior”, “Richie Righteous”, “Sakryfice-So Sakryficial”, “King David”, “Ill-P”, “A-flo”, “Nevahurd” and a slew of other grammatically butchered pronouns.

And the truth is, I have been encouraged, strengthened, rebuked, taught, exhorted, and inspired by a lot of people who choose to edify the body of Christ through music. At one point during my walk, I was a huge fan of artists like Lecrae, Trip Lee and 116 Clique. Additionally, one of my closest brothers in Christ is a very talented rapper, whom I know personally has an intimate knowledge of the Word of God, and has been baptized in the Holy Spirit. I’ve shared his mixtapes with many people, and have first-hand memory of times where his songs have encouraged me as a believer to deny my flesh and seek out God’s will for my life.

I believe that music can and should be used to edify the Body in this way. There is much biblical evidence of music being used to praise the Lord, to glorify the Lord, in both the old and new testament. One of my favorite scriptures that supports this is Ephesians 5:19:

…speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord in your heart.

While I am not a fan of gospel rap at this point in my walk, I acknowledge that this is my preference, and I will never try to push that onto another Christian as doctrine or law. My personal reasons for not listening to Christian rap is that it reminds me too much of who I was before I became a new creation: the same beats, flows, hooks, sounds as the music I listened to before I got saved. The closer I get to Christ, and the more I deny myself, the less I prefer to listen to rap, even if it talks about Jesus. But I must reiterate that this is just me.

Since this is just my personal taste, I have never spoken against gospel or Christian rap. I have spoken against Holy Hip Hop because there is an important difference that I will discuss in a separate article, but I have not spoken against gospel rap.

Until now.

Using Music to Win the Lost is Unbiblical

There’s been a recent shift in the gospel rap movement taking it in an dangerously unbiblical direction. And this is the use of music to do what’s called “reaching the lost” (even though the concept of reaching the lost is not biblical).

Many people are now looking to use music outside of it’s God-ordained context. And this is extremely dangerous for many reasons. But before we get into why, here an example of rap artists starting to do this besides the screenshot above of a brother in Christ Antario Pittman.

After reading a letter on Lecrae’s blog, it seems that him and his team are falling victim to this deception to use music to win the lost. As mentioned, I used to listen to a lot of his music, and I was growing spiritually during that time. His album “After the Music Stops” was an important part to my walk in 2007. But again, I was a Christian, not the lost.

In the letter, he discusses Trip Lee’s new album release, and how it was released on the same day as worldly rap superstars Eminem and Drake. Specifically, he addresses the point that some people were saying that releasing Trip’s album on that day was not smart because it may get overshadowed by the other guys on iTunes, but how he thinks it’s really smart because it puts Jesus in front of the world. Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

People are going to run to explore these new albums in hopes of having a desire or need met. Many people are looking for idols, answers, songs for tough times, and inspiration in those artist’s music.

They may find some glimmers of hope and even temporary gratification, but if those albums don’t point to Christ people will remain empty and hopeless.

Trip Lee, however is going to strategically offer hope, truth, and ultimately satisfaction through his music. Anyone who stumbles across it who is hungry for these may be fed.

Jesus strategically met felt needs of people like food and physical healing. Ultimately this led to many placing faith in him for spiritual healing. Crowds are opportunities to feed hungry people. The crowd that gathers on Itunes will be hungry for hope.

He’s clearly stating that the value of Trip Lee’s album being released on the same day as Eminem and Drake is “smart” because there will be people looking to Eminem and Drake’s album for hope, and they will come across Trip Lee, who will be rapping about the gospel.

The reason I’m disappointed with this is that after reading the Bible 4 times front to back, I can’t find one example of music being used to preach the gospel to win a lost person.

All of the examples of music being used to glorify God in the Bible were for and amongst God’s people.

More importantly, when we see Jesus spreading the good news in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, he had no music to accompany his message. Why?

When Paul, Peter, Stephen, Phillip, John, or any other disciple/apostle spreads the good news to a non-believer, was there any music present while they were talking to them about Jesus’ resurrection? Nope.

So how are we justified by using music to spread the gospel to the lost? What biblical example is there for us to glean on that supports this practice?

Final Thoughts

It just seems like we are making stuff up now. I don’t doubt that people like Lecrae want to advance Christ’s kingdom. I think most rappers have pure intentions and just want to serve Jesus the best they know how. But Jesus gave us a very specific formula to reach the lost that does not involve music. And our talents have a proper context within the body: for edification, not evangelism.

I am so encouraged that there are people like Antario, with boldness to reach the darkest places with the gospel. The truth is that we need more like him! But it won’t be done with our music or our talents. In John 6:44, Jesus says that people CANT come to him unless the Father DRAWS them to him. In other words, our music or our talents have NO role in reaching a lost soul. That is something ONLY God can do. It’s our job to listen to the Holy Spirit and be sensitive enough to that soul being drawn to Christ through us. It’s just our job to have a conversation with them and show them Christ in our walk and in our words. For 2000 years, people have been getting saved with out music. We cannot afford to start making things up now.

To read my reply to some of the arguments people use to defend the use of gospel rap for evangelism, read here.

After receiving several questions about my notes, I decided to create an anonymous question and answer form for anyone to ask questions without having to identify themselves as Facebook requires you to. You can visit it here.