Instruments in Old Testament Worship, and in the New

I had a friend write to me fairly recently,

I am not so sure about "instruments" (I guess you refer to musical instruments) and hand-clapping being present in the temple. According to my information these were more present in the idol temples of the gentiles.

This came to mind as I recently read from the Books of Chronicles such passages as the following (around chapters 29-31):

The king ordered the Levites to take their places in The Temple of Yhwh with their musical instruments -- cymbals, harps, zithers -- following the original instructions of David, Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet; this was Yhwh's command conveyed by his prophets. The Levites formed the orchestra of David, while the priests took up the trumpets.

Then Hezekiah gave the signal to begin: The Whole-Burnt-Offering was offered on the Altar; at the same time the sacred choir began singing, backed up by the trumpets and the David orchestra while the entire congregation worshiped. The singers sang and the trumpeters played all during the sacrifice of the Whole-Burnt-Offering. When the offering of the sacrifice was completed, the king and everyone there knelt to the ground and worshiped. Then Hezekiah the king and the leaders told the Levites to finish things off with anthems of praise to Yhwh using lyrics by David and Asaph the seer. They sang their praises with joy and reverence, kneeling in worship.

and

All the Israelites present in Jerusalem celebrated the Passover (Feast of Unraised Bread) for seven days, celebrated exuberantly. The Levites and priests praised Yhwh day after day, filling the air with praise sounds of percussion and brass. Hezekiah commended the Levites for the superb way in which they had led the people in the worship of Yhwh.

It seems pretty clear to me from these passages, at least in Hezekiah's day, that instruments (and choirs) were part of Temple worship. (Other passages lend themselves to this conclusion also, but I'm not really on a proof-texting expedition; I just found that Chronicles addressed the issue somewhat.)

Concerning clapping, when a Psalm (47:1) encourages it, it seems likely that clapping was not unknown in Temple worship:

Clap your hands, all you nations;
shout to God with cries of joy.

But that smacks of proof-texting, so I'll say no more about that.

Note that I'm not arguing that Christian worship should (or should not, for that matter) contain instrumental worship or choirs or clapping or burnt offerings; I'm only saying these things were part of the Jewish worship in the Temple in the olden days.

Even though the more solemn worship assembly of the synagogue arose during the Babylonian Captivity, after the return there are indications that choirs and instruments were still used in non-synagogal, Temple worship (e.g. Ezra 3:10-11, Neh. 12:27ff, 46).

If instrumental music was still a part of Temple worship in the first century (I won't try to make the case, but I believe it to be true), and if the earliest disciples, still being Jew through-and-through, were worshipping in the Temple (and I again believe that to be the case), then the indication is that instrumental music as part of worship is not un-Christian per se; it's just that in the non-Temple worship of Christians (as opposed to Temple worship, which would have ceased entirely after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.), instrumental music was not acceptable.

Accordingly, it seems to me that instrumental music has no place in the "formal" Christian assemblies (as that appears to violate the pattern established in early non-Temple Christian assemblies), but outside of those assemblies, instrumental music, as part of worship, seems perfectly acceptable to me. It took me many years to come to this conclusion, as it goes against what I was raised to believe, and it is likely to offend greatly many in the church I now attend, but I'm just trying to go where the evidence leads rather than just accepting my parents' beliefs as my own.

(By the way, my Dad seems to have a sense of guilt when he catches himself whistling church tunes when out working on his ranch, as non-singing "church music" is not acceptable in his belief system. Were he to adopt my belief system, as outlined above, he'd find his guilt issues to dissipate (which, by the way, is not an acceptable reason for adopting a belief system; a belief system should be adopted because it's True, not because it provides some emotional value such as dismissal of feelings of guilt).)