On the twenty-first day of January in the year of our Lord, two-thousand and seventeen, an event was held in Washington D.C. called the "Women's March." I could have formatted that as 1.21.17, but instead I used a common literary device called a periphrasis. It's the intentional use of excessive wording in order to focus the reader's attention. The date will be very important as we move forward. Hold on to it.
0 Comments
The word "liberal" has become a sort of catch-all word these days. It can be used to describe everything from political partisanship to untethered theological practices. One thing I've noticed is that those that self-identify as liberals are very proud to be in this eschaton. It's as if they had to earn it by way of initiation or merit the label based on the results of standardized testing. It's a bit oxymoronic to be a brash liberal, yet I see it often.
From the outside, Christianity is a generic worldview. The mainstream simply isn’t privy to our movements, our debates, our inner circles. To them, Joel Osteen and R.C. Sproul are just pastors. As far as they’re concerned, both think and believe the same things. They see low-budget movies, Bible verse bumper stickers, people who don’t like gays and Republicans arguing over assault rifles. It’s only once you’re on the inside that you learn the vast differences in our denominations, history, and beliefs. Some Christians are content with ambiguity once they join the club. Some chose to mine the riches of doctrine and church history to determine if they’re in the right building.
The war on Biblical inerrancy is over. The Marines have packed up and gone home, leaving behind strategically placed pockets of defense to keep the peace. The most liberal of Christian denominations now confirm that our scriptures are infallible, even if they don’t adhere to what’s written. With that in our rear-view, we can now focus on what the Bible is.
I missed the sermon again this Sunday. I was there, I just couldn’t listen. My 3 year-old was fussy because we forgot the Cheerios and my 7 year-old continues to push the boundaries of intolerable social behavior. So today I’m thankful for two things; that our sermons are uploaded for podcasting, and family worship.
One of my favorite books of all time is J.I. Packer’s Knowing God. There are many reasons that I put it near the top of my list, not the least of which is timing.
Last year there was a shooting at a college in Oregon. The news reports revealed that Christians were the targets. The situation bothered me so much that I actually wrote this article in the hours that followed while sitting in a Dallas hotel room. I kept it to myself in an effort to be sensitive to the situation, but the more I thought about it, the more dangerous I realized it might be to leave this in the pile of would-be articles currently titled “New Microsoft Word Document” on my laptop.
This is less about the shooting itself, and more about the dangerously popular practice of twisting scripture to fit a desired meaning. And while I have no reason to think that this practice has anything to do with the 2015 shooting, I have every reason to think they’re inseparable.
The most popular Google searches about God are focused on his will. Searching for phrases like “What is God’s will for my life?” or “How do I know God’s will?” can yield millions of results. There have been more books written on this subject in the last 75 years than in the rest of human history combined. If there were Christian bookstores 200 years ago, you would have walked in to find volume after volume written on the attributes of God, atonement, sovereignty, etc. Today people seem to be more interested in ME-ology than theology and what can start as an honest question will often lead into a divine 12 step program.
The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism does more to answer the question about God’s will than any book on the market. Advent is easily my favorite time of the year. It’s one of those rare occasions where the build up to an event almost matches the excitement of the event itself.
If you’re a parent, then the next 20 days or so represent one of the best times to enter into organic, gospel-centered conversations with your children. Unlike scheduled Bible study or those awkward efforts to turn a bad report card into a full blown altar call, the discussion can flow seamlessly from Christmas presents to God’s providence as He guided Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem. Advent is like the “Black Friday” of Christian parenting, and it lasts all month. This opportunity doesn’t come often, so it’s important to be prepared. Some of the styles I described above would never fly in your church, and you likely singled out one or two that seemed perfectly fine. I’m not here to tell anyone what is and isn’t appropriate for worship. This isn’t meant to fuel the fire of the “worship wars” that seem to be splitting churches down the middle. This is just one post in an ongoing series that frames the Westminster Shorter Catechism. If you’re more studied on the catechism, then I assume you’ll be confused at the angle I’ve taken, but don’t rush to judgement too quickly. I do realize that this question was not intended to weed out bad music. The original context requires that we read this with the Roman Catholic Church as the backdrop, and it was more than a little controversial to dispute the long-held position that the worship of the church be drawn from both scripture and tradition. Sola Scriptura is the bedrock upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded, and I’d be doing a great disservice to those that were persecuted for the truth if I didn’t take the time to at least explain as much. With that said, there is a great deal of commonality seen in the Roman Catholic view that scripture alone isn’t sufficient for proper worship, and the low view of worship held by most of today’s modern churches. When you think of the Reformation what often comes to mind is a revolt against the Papacy, Luther hammering away in Wittenberg, and endless volumes of Christocentric doctrinal work, but that wasn’t really the heart of The Reformation. As important as those things are, they were merely peripheral. Reformation in the 1500s was the same reformation needed in the church today, a redemption of the worship of God. Question number two asks: Q.2. What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him? A.2. The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him. The Westminster Confession of Faith expounds on this in detail. Below is a section from chapter 21, section 1, titled; Of Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day. This section was also applied to the London Baptist Confession of 1689, word for word. “But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.” So the question that should be asked in light of this statement is not, “Is this method of worship forbidden in scripture?” This would allow anything that’s not expressly forbidden to pass for proper worship. Things like break dancing, dirt bike jumping and shooting paintballs during church aren’t prohibited in scripture. Rather the question should be, “Is this method of worship authorized in scripture?” Simply put, there are incorrect ways to worship God, even with good intentions. We see a clear example of this in Leviticus 10:1-2; “Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And the fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.” Let that marinate. Aaron’s sons went to prepare a fire to please the Lord. Armed with incense and good intentions, they set out to worship God. The fatal error was not made due to their sinful private lives, nor did they prepare to worship a pagan god. No, they died at the hands of their creator because they took it upon themselves to get creative with worship. God takes our worship of him seriously, and like this or not, he doesn’t want your innovation. Calvin’s commentary on the events recorded in Leviticus shows us the high view of worship and God held by the Reformers. I pray for a time when the church holds the glorification of God in such high regard again. “If we reflect how holy a thing God’s worship is, the enormity of the punishment will by no means offend us……although they may have erred from ignorance, still they were convicted by God’s commandment of having negligently set about what was worthy of greater attention……Let us learn, therefore, so to attend to God’s command as not to corrupt His worship by any strange inventions.” Ok, but we don’t use fire on Sunday. So now what? Yes, I know, the account seen in Leviticus is old. Really old. We’re no longer required to bring livestock to church anymore, so things have changed. – I really hate this approach to theology, but if you’ve engaged with people holding opposing views enough times then it seems to be the common life raft they deploy. The conversation itself makes God out to be an angry teenager in the Old Testament that’s contrasted against a sage grandfather in the New. Our inability to grasp the eternality of God is not a limitation on His part. You do have inspired instructions for worship that continue into the New Testament church through Paul’s letters to Colossae and Corinth. In Colossians 2:23 Paul writes, “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgences of the flesh.” To be clear, Paul was not talking about worship music here. Instead he was writing to address a group that claimed to receive visions and revelations that they used to promote their own brand of worship. Asceticism was a heresy that promoted holiness through self-denial by abstaining from certain foods or drink (see Col. 2:16). On the surface it’s hard to find a problem with thinking that abstaining from drinking or eating certain things is wrong, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that this was an unauthorized way to worship. One that took the focus off of Christ and His obedience and put the focus on their own temporal behaviors. I don’t see the need in putting much time into going through the list of issues at the church in Corinth. A quick read of the letter will provide many examples of Paul teaching the earliest churches principles to regulate worship. Chances are, someone is reading this that doesn’t quite see it as a path to freedom. In short, if you see scripture as the infallible word of God, complete in every way, then you can’t honestly believe that it doesn’t contain the proper way that God wants to be worshipped. The regulative principle is not intended to limit the church to contemporary worship music or traditional worship music. It’s not old people lashing out against strobe lighting or video screens for lyrics. Instead it’s a safety net against bringing your imagination to the altar. By knowing that your church’s worship is under the submission of the Word of God you can experience the most freeing worship experience possible. Knowing that scripture guides both the sermon and the music allows you to know that you’re worshipping God in a manner that He has approved, and in doing so, pleasing Him. I can’t imagine a higher level of freedom. The regulative principle doesn’t stop with the music. It extends to every aspect of corporate worship. Until this point it seems that I’ve been exhaustive on the list of what not to do. The Confession does guide us into a better understanding of what to do as well. The reading of the Scriptures with godly fear, the sound preaching and conscionable hearing of the Word, in obedience unto God, with understanding, faith and reverence, singing of psalms with grace in the heart; as also, the due administration and worthy receiving of the sacraments instituted by Christ, are all parts of the ordinary religious worship of God. Here we have the basic components, or the non-negotiable aspects, of a corporate worship service. 1 Timothy 4:13 says “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” This tells us that one of the many rules God has given to pastors is to teach the congregation the scriptures. It doesn’t restrict him to preaching exegetically or topically, or to teaching one verse each Sunday or twenty. Timothy was given the template for the pulpit, and there’s no place for standup comedy. The confession is placing a lot of emphasis on sound preaching done in reverence and also with faith that the word of God will not return void. Ephesians 5:19 tells us to address one another “in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart “(also seen in Col. 3:16). It’s here that we have the biblical mandate to sing praises to God. There is no restriction on the type of music, whether a traditional hymn or a contemporary song, as long as the focus is on God. Now I will add a few things about contemporary worship in the consumer driven church market here, but this isn’t to be confused with the principles found in scripture. I do believe that modern worship music leaves a lot to be desired in the content. Most, but not all, seems to be completely void of the solid biblical teaching provided in older songs. If you’ve never heard your 3 year-old singing loudly in the bathtub – “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” – then you might not realize just how much truth is communicated in the songs we sing each Sunday. I also believe that the “concert-like” environment shifts a lot of the focus to the stage, leaving it hard to even think your participation is necessary. However, this isn’t the purpose of the regulative principle, and it detracts from my point for me to write a post on the use of scripture as the limitation of worship practices only to insert my own preferences here, which is clearly outside the bounds of scripture. This is just something that I believe everyone should be made aware of, if for no other reason than to prevent you from falling into the trappings of something that might even border on idolatry if you’re not careful. And so I digress. The last segment from the confession shifts to sacraments in the church. The two mentioned are the Lord’s Supper and baptism. I don’t believe there is much to add here since most churches uphold and practice these sacraments, although the meaning, frequency and application are still of much debate (a debate that isn’t relevant to the topic at hand). Nevertheless, these are important to the church as a whole, and a wonderful means of grace for God’s people. To summarize, the regulative principle isn’t some way to enforce tradition. I assure you that each church practices the principle in some way, even if you’ve never heard the term before. Instead the regulative principle should prevent you from being bound to man-made worship, which is clearly forbidden in scripture. At its core, man-made worship is exactly what the Reformers were writing about, and precisely what the catechism is attempting to admonish. Clearly I’ve taken the focus from Roman Catholic practices and shifted it to the new American religion of Pragmatism, but the two are remarkably similar. Both were derived from the preferences of men, and neither come from the word of God. It’s possible that I could make a good case that the pragmatic approach is even worse since its only source is the success of the method, and its measuring rod is the size of the crowd, but I fail to see a scale upon which to measure unbiblical worship on the pages of scripture. It’s quite literally, a black and white topic. Once you’ve been unshackled from the bounds of man centered sermons, sandwiched between man-centered music, then you can be set free to worship God in a manner that’s pleasing to Him. You should seek this earnestly. You should want it more than entertainment. If you find your church seems to pursue innovative worship at the expense of Biblical worship then be careful, you might be found guilty of taking unauthorized fire before the Lord.
|