I was once told, “Your job is not to be a theological filter!“
For years, that demanding phrase hovered over me like a cloud. I carried it, wrestled with it, and eventually decided I needed to take a closer look at what it really means.
Let’s rewind. As many of you know, I’ve been blessed to call the Christian music industry my career and ministry home for decades now. How I landed here still feels like a mystery some days, but I’m so grateful God allowed me to walk alongside so many beautiful people across this industry—an industry intertwined with the gospel and the church.
For most of those years, my work has been rooted in resources: arranging, orchestrating, producing, coordinating, and creating music that churches can take, recreate, and use in worship. I love it. There’s something deeply fulfilling about creating a resource that helps others lift their voices in praise to God.
One day, in what felt like one of hundreds of email exchanges with songwriters and creatives, I suggested a small lyric change—just a tweak that, in my view, would bring clearer scriptural understanding. After all, the end destination for this lyric wasn’t a coffee shop or pub—it was a choir standing before a congregation, leading worship. For years I had always understood that part of my calling was to help place solid, biblical words on the mouths and hearts of worshipers.
But on this day, something shifted. Leadership had changed, and I suddenly found myself in unfamiliar territory. The priority no longer seemed to be scriptural faithfulness, but rather marketability—how many sales, streams, or “cuts” a song might generate. And in that moment, I was told: “Your job is not to be a theological filter.”
I couldn’t help but ask myself: How did we get here? How did we arrive at a place where questioning the theological implications of a lyric was seen as unnecessary—or even unwelcome?
That memory pulled me back to a conversation I had years earlier with the wise Jerry Weimer. Before I moved to Nashville, Jerry encouraged me to find friendships outside the music industry. He warned me that pockets of the industry had grown cynical toward the church, and as a result, they were reluctant to question much of anything and that I could possibly find myself being pulled down with them. Years later, his words rang true.
Now, let me be clear: my heart for resourcing the church with music has never wavered. From the day I started in this industry—November 22, 1999, to be exact—I’ve been passionate about equipping the church with songs that help God’s people worship. But that day showed me a sobering reality: not everyone is equally concerned with the quality of our words. For some, it’s simply about the quantity of cuts or income those words can produce.
What Scripture Says
God’s Word actually gives us clear guidance here:
- We are called to test all things. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). Paul echoes this: “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:20–21). And the Bereans are praised because they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).
- We are warned to discern false teaching. Jesus Himself cautioned, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15). Paul describes false apostles who “disguise themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:13–15), and he also warns Timothy of a day when people will “not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions” (2 Tim. 4:3–4).
- We are given the Spirit and the Word to guide us. Paul exhorts Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved… rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). The writer of Hebrews reminds us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:12). And Paul tells the Corinthians that “the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God… but we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:14–16).
The Calling of a Gatekeeper
I believe those of us entrusted with resourcing the church—songwriters, arrangers, publishers, directors, leaders—are indeed gatekeepers. We bear the weighty responsibility of putting words in the mouths and on the hearts of God’s people. If those words are not true, not faithful, not biblical, then we are leading worshipers astray.
So, after all these years, do I consider it my job to be a theological filter?
You betcha.
Luke Gambill 