I am an imperfect cellist. I love the sound of the cello, and I’ve gotten fairly good at it, for simple pieces. But I am not anywhere near the skill of a concert cello soloist. Much more than piano, I really need backup when I’m on the cello. You may know that guitars have fretbars – those little bars across the neck of the instrument. Those are used to guide the player’s fingers to the correct positions on the strings so that they are playing the right note. Cellos (and violins and violas and string basses) do not have fretbars. The player is supposed to know exactly where to put their fingers to play the different notes. By memory. And just a slight, tiny shift in the position of a finger can make a big difference in the pitch of the note. Some people have perfect pitch, and can tell the precise frequency of the note they are playing at all times.
I do not have perfect pitch.
I have pretty good relative pitch, meaning I can tell when a note differs slightly from another note being played at the same time. But when I play the cello by myself, over time, I can easily start slipping. I play a note that is just slightly flat, and then the next note is a little more flat, and so on, and so on. By the time I’m done with the piece, I might be in a totally different key! Of course, there are the open string notes, where the fingers are not placed on the strings at all. Those will be in tune, and sometimes it takes playing an open string for me to realize how far off pitch I have gotten.
The other way I can keep my pitch correct is to play with others. I can hear the pitch of the piano, or oboe, or other (better) string players, and correct my tuning. There is an obvious correlation to the Christian life. ‘Playing’ with others, or worshiping and learning about God together, keeps us in the truth. In this world of partial truths, outright lies, and blatant deceptions, it is so important for us to hold to the true pitch of God’s Word in the Bible. Our fellow Christians can help with that.
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:11-16