Boisterous praise!

Yesterday I posted about a verse from my morning devotions. Today I'd like to address something else I see in that verse.

Nehemiah 12:43
And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and children also rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away.

Our OFRBC worship team discussed the concept of how loud we should play. We tend to play more and more loudly as we go on when we are really enjoying ourselves. Although we need to make sure we are not allowing our music to get out of control, I argued that we should not be too concerned with the idea that we might be playing too loudly. (I'm not arguing that we should be cranking out 120 decibels as if we were presenting some sort of rock concert.) We should not play so loudly that the congregation cannot hear themselves contributing to the corporate worship experience of music. But I think we conservative Christians tend to lean more toward the quieter side than we should.

The end of the above verse is of interest to this discussion. "The joy of Jerusalem was heard far away." Even at our loudest, our worship team cannot be heard far away. In fact, I doubt that we could be heard across the street at any time. It must have been an awesome thing to hear the Israelites praising God with such gusto that their praise could "be heard far away."