This first block section is a repeat of the introduction for this
study.
The following material was originally written as part
of a classroom study on : Dancing
We should have an understanding about certain points before we begin this
study:
We should also resolve another area before we continue this study.
That a
Yes a Christian can be holy. The word holy has two basic meanings each within our reach as children of God. (l) It means to be separate from evil; (2) secondly it means to transcend the materialism of the world and become morally pure. Holy then means to be set apart from sin and pure in our morals.(Also see Romans 12:1,2.)
Being lukewarm is trying to have the best of both. You cling to the principles of Christianity and yet try to gratify the material things in the world at the same time. Brethren, we cannot belong both to the world and to Christ. There is no middle ground! (Read I Corinthians 10:21, Matthew 6:24, Romans 6:16, and Galatians 5:16,17.) If dancing is proven to be a tool of the devil used to keep his servants faithful to him, then we must avoid all appearance of evil.
With these things firmly in our minds from the beginning of this study, the full lesson that follows will let us examine the Bible teachings on dancing and decide for ourselves if we as Christians can engage in it, promote it, or allow it to be condoned in our families. |
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( I ) WHAT DO THE SCRIPTURES TEACH ABOUT DANCING?
| Exodus 15:20 | Miriam and all the women of Israel danced after they crossed the Red Sea. |
| Exodus 32:19 | When Moses came down from the mountain "he saw the calf, and the dancing: |
| Judges 11:34 | Jephthah's daughter came out with timbrels and with dances." |
| Judges 21:21 | The daughters of Shiloh came out to dance in dances. |
| Judges 21:23 | The children of Benjamin ''took them wives, according to their number of them that danced..." |
| I Sam 18:6 | When David returned from the slaughter of the Philistines "the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing." |
| ISam21:11;29:5 | When David fled from Saul to Achish, the king of Gath, the servants of Achish said unto Achish, "Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in dances..." |
| I Sam 30:16,17 | When David came upon the Amalekites, who had burned Ziklag and taken the women captive, they were "eating and drinking and dancing ...... And he smote them." |
| 2 Sam 6:14,16 | David danced before the Lord upon the return of his victorious army." |
| I Chron 15:29 | Michal saw "king David dancing and playing.......... |
| Job 21:7,11 | Describing the wicked as those that "send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance." (VS-11) |
| Psa 30:11 | David asked the Lord to have mercy and be my helper and said "Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing; thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness." |
| Eccle 3:4 I | Solomon said there is a time to dance." "Let them praise his name in the dance." "Praise him with the timbrel and dance." |
| Psalms 149:3 | "Let them praise his name in the dance." |
| Psalms 150:4 | "Praise him with the timbrel and dance." |
| Isa 13:21 | The desolation of Babylon is described by Isaiah as a place where the "satyrs shall dance." |
| Jeremiah 31 :4 | In-the restoration of Israel, God said that in their rejoicing thou "shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry." |
| Jer 31:13 | When Israel was restored God said "Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together." |
| Lam 5:15 | In Jeremiah's lament over Jerusalem he said, "...our dance is turned into mourning." |
| Matt 11:17 ;Lk7:32 |
Jesus described his generation as children sitting in the marketplace and saying "ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented." |
| Matt 14:6; Mk 6:22 | The daughter of Herodias ",danced before them, and pleased Herod." |
| Luke 15 -25 | When older son came from the field he heard dancing." |
This is not an exhaustive list of times the word dance, or dancing is used in the Bibley but there are no other instances when it is used in a different contexts --------------------------
( II ) WITH FEW EXCEPTIONS (SEE III BELOW) PLEASE NOTE THESE POINTS:
| 1. | The dancing done was not a regularly established practice but something participated in on extraordinary occasions. |
| 2. | It occurred at times of single farvors, great deliverance great triumphs specially wrought by God's hand, such as the Red Sea. |
| 3. | The dancing was in open daylight. |
| 4. | The men and women danced alone, no mixed dancing. |
| 5. | The dancing was not for amusement, pleasure, or hilarity; not for heathful exercise, relaxation, or diversion; not for entertainment, art, or gracefulness nor to show how accurately they could step to the music. |
| 6. | This dancing was a religious exercise, a part of their devotions, in expressions of great joy, gratitude and thanksgiving, and practiced on occasions of extraordinary interference of the Lord in their behalf, and in honor and praise of God, accompanied by sundry instruments of music; was practiced before the giving of the law, and also under the law; but no such religious exercise is found in the religion of our Lord |
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( III ) THESE EXCEPTIONS TO THE ABOVE ARE NOTED:
| 1. | Exodus 32:19-21, 31 | - -PLEASE READ THE TEXT-- |
| A. This was a religious dance in the presence of idols - the golden calf. | ||
| B. This was not devotion to God, but senseless idolatry. | ||
| C. The wrath of God fell on their "dancing and playing." | ||
| D. There is no support here for the dance. | ||
| 2. | 1 Samuel 30:16,17 | PLEASE READ THE TEXT |
| A. This was a regular revelling of a group of soldiers who had just burned a city and had the captive women in their camp. | ||
| B. God's destruction on their dancing. | ||
| 3 | Job 21:11-14 | --PlEASE READ THE TEXT-- |
| A. Job 21:7 reveals that the whole context is a description of the wicked | ||
| B.. It was the dancing of the rich and wicked for pleasure and amusement. | ||
| C. The modern dancers can find a description of themselves here. | ||
| 4 | MARK 6:18-26 and MATTHEW,14:3-6 | PLEASE READ THE TEXT |
| A. The dancing here was for pleasure and entertainment. | ||
| B. It was in bad company and a man lost his head following the dance |
(IV) OTHER-BIBLICAL-TERMS-USED-Ill-THE-
NEW-TESTAMENT-TO-INLUDE-DANCING!
| 1 | LASCIVIOUSNESS |
| A. (Webster) Wanton, lewd, lustful - tending to produce lewd emotions: the synonym of licentious, lecherous, salacious- the antonym of caste." | |
| B. (Thayer's Greek Lexicont P.70,80) "Indecent bodily movements unchaste handling of males and females.'' | |
| C. Lasciviousness destroys the dance at its tap root because it will not allow anything that tends to stir the lewd, lustful emotions of people, and there is not a healthy, normal man on earth who can contintinually take a woman into his arms and not have his emotions stirred. The man who says he can is either dead physically to such emotions or a liar. | |
| 2 | REVELLINGS |
| A. (Twentieth Century Dictionary) "Reveling a feast with noisy merrymaking, with dances or other forms of entertainment." | |
| B. The word primarily means "the all-night festivals in which men and women were drinking, dancing, and carrying on as they do today at our nightclubs, dance halls, and road houses." | |
| C. (Webster) "Entertainment provided as dances, usually a party or ball, the dance, a social assembly of persons of both sexes with purpose to dance." | |
| 3 | AND SUCH LIKE |
| "Whatever lasciviousness and revellings leave out'land such like" includes. |
V. THESE-PEOPLE-WERE-IN-A-POSITION-TO-KNOW-AND
-SPOKE-OUT-ON-THE-SUBJECT:
| 1 | 1. Matron for home for fallen women: "Seven-tenths of the girls received here have fallen through dancing and its influence." |
| 2. Prof. Harry Stribes, ex-dancing teacher- "I will say that I do not believe that a woman can waltz virtuously and waltz well, for she must yield her person completely to her partner." | |
| 3. Dr. Frank Richardson, New Jersey: "Dance halls are the modern nurseries of the divorce courts, training shops of prostitution and graduating school of infamy and vice." | |
| 4. Dr. E.S. Somers: "I attack the modern dance as a reversion toward savagry. As a medical man, I flatly charge that modern dancing is fundamentally sinful and evil. I charge that dancing's charm is based entirely upon sex appeal. I charge that it is the most insidious of the maneuvers preliminary to sex betrayal. It is nothing more or less than damnable, diabolical animal dissipation. I tell you the basic spell of the dance is the spell of illicit physical contact. Under what other shield can a man fondle a person of the opposite sex . We doctors know - a train of broken homes prove it. !Ye are headed toward the pit. The dance craze Is a sign ..." | |
| 5. J. Edgar Hoover: "Most juvenile crime had its inception in the dance hall, either public or private." | |
| 6. Exhibitionism defined: "Morbid disposition to display that which is concealed by modesty, whether physical or mental." | |
VI. A-FRANK-EXAMINATION-OF-TIIE-AGRUMENTS
-OFFERED-IN-FAVOR-OF-DANCING:
| 1 | " I Dance Because of my Love for Music." |
| A. Such individuals dance until the wee hours of the morning. | |
| B. Have you ever known the same Individual to sit up until two or three o'clock at home listening to the same dance band? | |
| 2 | I Dance Because of Much-Needed Exercise. |
| A. That the body needs exercise is a truth not to be denied. | |
| B. But isn't it stranger that such individuals go to a "smoked-filled, whiskey-scented, poorly-ventilated, overcrowded hall" for this much needed exercise? | |
| C. Did you ever know a man that rushed home from a hard (Day to dance with his wife until the early morning to gain that much-needed exercise? | |
| 3 | "I Dance for Company and to Meet New People." |
| A. It would be better not to have company than some you meet at a dance. | |
| B. The church is a much better place to find company. | |
| 4 | "I Find an Eriucation in Dancing." |
| A. It would be better not to learn some things. | |
| B. This has proven to be a very expensive education in many cases | |
| 5 | "I dance Because It Makes one, More Graceful" |
| A. Won't calistenics make one graceful? | |
| B. One mother said to another that had given the above excuse for her daughters. "I had rather my daughters stumble into heaven as awkward as cows than for them to dance gracefully into hell." | |
| 6 | We will supervise or sponsor the dancinq- |
| A. To offer to supervise the dance is an open admission that there is some evil or danger attached | |
| B. Does the supervising of something that is wrong make it right? If so, ,,let's supervise murder, drinking, gambling, lying etc. | |
| C. Sin supervised is still sin. | |
| 2 | 1 have danced and have not fallen into evils |
| A, Some have, but thousands of others have fallen. | |
| B. Some men escaped death in war, but most do not want their sons to take the same chance | |
| C. Some people "Jaywalk" across busy streets without getting killed but it's not safe and a sensible thing to do. | |
| 3 | We will educate our children- |
| A. No amount of education can take the lust out of dancing. (It's like giving them the itch then telling them not to scratch.) | |
| B. Education won't change some, things. | |
| 4 | We let our children dance because nearly all the other children dance- |
| A. Would you want your child to drink, smoke, curse if nearly all the other children did it? | |
| B. The majority of the people are traveling the broad way, but do you want your child to travel it? | |
| 5 | . If our children don't dance they will not be popular. |
| A. Had you rather your child be popular or right? | |
| B God's people have never been very popular with the world and on only two occasions have they been in the majority - in the beginning and after the flood. |
VII. SOME-VALID-REASONS WHY CHRISTIANS
SHOULD NOT DANCE
| 1 | Dancing church members are called "hypocrites." |
| 2 | Dancing Christians make the_poorest church workers |
| 3 | Dancing Destroys a Christian's influence and usefulness |
| 4 | Dancing is at least doubtful and anything doubtful is wrong |
| 5 | Christians cannot dance and keep themselves unspotted from the world.(Jas 1-.27) |
| 6 | Christians cannot dance and abstain from the appearance of evil. (I Thess 5222) |
| 7 | Christians cannot dance and not love the world. (I John 2:15-l6) |
| 8 | Christians cannot dance and still deny themselves ungodliness and worldly lusts. (Titus 2:11912.) |
| 9 | Dancing dulls and deadens the spiritual life of a Christian. |
| 10 | Dancing Christians are not soul winners. |
| 11 | Dancing brings shamelon the church and Christ. |
| 12 | Dancing is contrary to the spirit of the whole Bible. |
| 13 | Three-fourths of the fallen girls in America were ruined by the dances according to the testimony of dance experts |
| 14 | The Roman Catholic confessional reveals the fact that nineteen our of twenty of their girls who go wrong attribute it to the dance |
| 15. | Thousands of men have used the dance as the surest and best way to trap and ruin a girl. |
| 16. | Dancing has created a condition in the public schools that is almost as had as the white-slave traffic. |
| 17 | The dance is the only place where the vilest of men can embrace the purest, of girls in the closest familiarity with the approval of society. |
| 18. | Dancing is the only amusement that depends solely upon the mingling of sexes for its existence. Separate the sexes and the dance would die in in a few minutes. |
| 19. | The girl with the most modesty makes the poorest dancer, and vice versa. |
| 20. | No young man will go through the motions of the modern,dance very long without impure thoughts. |
| 21. | The greatest attraction of the dance is the embraces and would be permitted nowhere else in decent society, in fact one would probably, get shot. |
| 22. | Dancing arouses the worst passions in man |
| 23. | Dancing has a secret language by which man can learn if the girl in his arms is pure or not without a word being spoken. |
| 24. | 1could not pray at a dance, could you? |
| 25. | 1would not enjoy reading my Bible at a dance, would,you? |
| 26. | I could not speak, to anyone at a dance about Christ,' could you? |
| 27. | Iwould not dance, because Christ would not, would-he? |
| 28. | 1would not want to die dancing, would you? |
| 29. | 1would be miserable if I knew God was watching me at a dance |
| 30. | Dancinq is the favorite pastime of the underworld. |
| 31. | The girl who dances cheapens herself in the eyes of the best people. |
| 32. | The dance has been more harmful to the church than the saloon. |
| 33. | If dancing did not hurt me, it might cause some weaker one to be lost. |
| 34. | Dancing would not be tolerated in a preacher of the gospel, and what is wrong for a preacher is wrong for any other Christian |
| 35 | Thousands of young people have chosen dance in preference to Christ |
VIII. DO YOU AGREE,YES OR NO:
| I | ----- | Those who oppose dancing just don't believe in having a good ttme. |
| 2 | ----- | The person who has a doubt about dancing has the answer for himself. |
| 3 | ----- | The word "Play" in Exodus 32 included the idea of (Dancing & lovemaking. |
| 4 | ----- | Men and women danced together in most of the dances in the Bible* |
| 5 | ----- | The dancing condemned in the 9ible was where men and women danced. |
| 6 | ----- | Close bodily contact in the dance tend to arouse the emotions. |
| 7 | ----- | There are somethings In dancing that cannot be supervised. |
| 8 | ----- | Everyone who has ever danced is immoral. |
| 9 | ----- | Dancing is alright if one is properly educated to its dangers because such a one with not be bothered. |
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