The ink is barely dry on the “stimulus” package and President Obama is already coming back for more. This time it is “only” $75 billion to bail out the housing industry, although you can rest assured that number is only going to go up.
A total cost of the effort wasn't immediately clear, though it could eclipse more than $275 billion because of new commitments to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Obama administration's plan has three main elements: an effort to help homeowners refinance; another effort to help stabilize the housing market through a $75 billion initiative aimed at reaching up to four million at-risk homeowners; and a third element that aims to drive down mortgage rates.
Make no mistake, this is just the beginning of a litany of spending initiatives that are going to come up. Each one will be accompanied by dire warnings of impending doom if we don’t acquiesce to the insatiable appetite of the new administration for more and more spending. Just as assuredly each one will be followed, just like the “stimulus” package, with warnings to not expect instant results and prep us for the next big spending demand.
If the economy doesn’t pick up in 2009, which in my amateur opinion it will not, it is an ominous sign that the new President is a one trick pony when it comes to economic policy, and that trick is spend, spend, spend. Provided the spending doesn’t permanently cripple the economy in the short term, the U.S. economy will bounce back eventually, perhaps in 2010 and Obama will be lauded with credit by his fawning acolytes in the media but the long-term ramifications of t his runaway spending spree will weigh down the American economy for decades to come.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: What I Mean By Reformed
DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: What I Mean By Reformed:
I like much of what Kevin DeYoung says here in his definition of what it means to be Reformed, with the exception of his inclusion of his children in covenant of course! It is reflective of the humility that should come from Reformed theology instead of a superiority which many of us, me especially, sometimes exhibit toward others who may not agree. Reformed theology is Christocentric not Calvocentric and we all are well served to remember that.
His summary statement at the end was especially good...
"When I say I am Reformed I mean that God is the center of the universe and I am not. I mean that I am a worse sinner than I imagine and God is a greater Savior than I ever thought possible. I mean that Lord is my righteousness and the Lord alone is my boast. By Reformed I mean all this and most of all that my only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own but belong, in body and in soul, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen."
I can certainly say amen to that!
I like much of what Kevin DeYoung says here in his definition of what it means to be Reformed, with the exception of his inclusion of his children in covenant of course! It is reflective of the humility that should come from Reformed theology instead of a superiority which many of us, me especially, sometimes exhibit toward others who may not agree. Reformed theology is Christocentric not Calvocentric and we all are well served to remember that.
His summary statement at the end was especially good...
"When I say I am Reformed I mean that God is the center of the universe and I am not. I mean that I am a worse sinner than I imagine and God is a greater Savior than I ever thought possible. I mean that Lord is my righteousness and the Lord alone is my boast. By Reformed I mean all this and most of all that my only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own but belong, in body and in soul, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen."
I can certainly say amen to that!
The advantages of living in suburbia
We really prefer living out in the country, the further out the better. We like the rural lifestyle and not having to worry about the kids as much, having chickens and goats, the peace and quiet. But there are some pretty great advantages to living in the suburbs as well, and not just because I live 2 minutes from work and have four grocery stores, a Target, a Petsmart, a Kohls and innumerable other stores minutes away. One of the perks we are really excited about is the Lansing area homeschool support group, CHESS (Christian Home Educators' Support System). There are support groups in most places but this is one of the most organized we have seen. From the “About Us” section:
Christian Home Educators' Support System (CHESS) was founded in the fall of 1993 as a co-operative effort on the part of a few Lansing-area home educating families who realized that by working together and sharing the load, we could all benefit tremendously! We are currently serving over 200 families from St. Johns to Jackson, Portland to Perry, Charlotte to Howell, and everywhere in between. Once your family has become a part of CHESS, you have an immediate "connection" with other like-minded, uniquely-gifted homeschooling families in mid-Michigan.
I like that the group is intentionally and specifically a Christian homeschool group, with a basic statement of faith and ministry partnerships in the area.
I sent in my membership info this morning and the kids and I are excited about the opportunities for cooperation, fellowship, extracurricular activities including sports and fun that this groups facilitates. This is an area where I can take some of the leadership in our homeschooling, since my wife does the bulk of the daily schooling each day.
I really like that after a year in the group, every family is expected to serve in some capacity because there is a tendency in any organization, I would say especially Christian groups, for a small core of people to shoulder all of the burden. By requiring everyone to be involved in some capacity you avoid people being takers and not givers, plus you avoid people monopolizing control. So kudos for that organizational requirement! I will post updates of events and how they go as they come up.
Christian Home Educators' Support System (CHESS) was founded in the fall of 1993 as a co-operative effort on the part of a few Lansing-area home educating families who realized that by working together and sharing the load, we could all benefit tremendously! We are currently serving over 200 families from St. Johns to Jackson, Portland to Perry, Charlotte to Howell, and everywhere in between. Once your family has become a part of CHESS, you have an immediate "connection" with other like-minded, uniquely-gifted homeschooling families in mid-Michigan.
I like that the group is intentionally and specifically a Christian homeschool group, with a basic statement of faith and ministry partnerships in the area.
I sent in my membership info this morning and the kids and I are excited about the opportunities for cooperation, fellowship, extracurricular activities including sports and fun that this groups facilitates. This is an area where I can take some of the leadership in our homeschooling, since my wife does the bulk of the daily schooling each day.
I really like that after a year in the group, every family is expected to serve in some capacity because there is a tendency in any organization, I would say especially Christian groups, for a small core of people to shoulder all of the burden. By requiring everyone to be involved in some capacity you avoid people being takers and not givers, plus you avoid people monopolizing control. So kudos for that organizational requirement! I will post updates of events and how they go as they come up.
The poor choice of words award goes to....
Alex Rodriguez, on facing the media after his admission of steroid use:
Rodriguez said Tuesday, "I'm here to take my medicine."
Hmm, you might want to have picked a different way to describe your press conference after revelations of steroid use...
Rodriguez said Tuesday, "I'm here to take my medicine."
Hmm, you might want to have picked a different way to describe your press conference after revelations of steroid use...
I found this to be helpful
I was struggling a bit with the difference between propitiation and expiation, so I looked it up in theopedia and this is what it says...
The Greek word hilasterion is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew kapporeth which refers to the Mercy Seat of the Ark. Hilasterion can be translated as either propitiation or expiation which then imply different functions of the Mercy Seat. Propitiation literally means to make favorable and specifically includes the idea of dealing with God’s wrath against sinners. Expiation literally means to make pious and implies either the removal or cleansing of sin.
The idea of propitiation includes that of expiation as its means; but the word "expiation" has no reference to quenching God’s righteous anger. The difference is that the object of expiation is sin, not God. One propitiates a person, and one expiates a problem. Christ's death was therefore both an expiation and a propitiation. By expiating (removing the problem of) sin God was made propitious (favorable) to us.
That makes sense to me, unless some Greek scholar types say otherwise...
The Greek word hilasterion is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew kapporeth which refers to the Mercy Seat of the Ark. Hilasterion can be translated as either propitiation or expiation which then imply different functions of the Mercy Seat. Propitiation literally means to make favorable and specifically includes the idea of dealing with God’s wrath against sinners. Expiation literally means to make pious and implies either the removal or cleansing of sin.
The idea of propitiation includes that of expiation as its means; but the word "expiation" has no reference to quenching God’s righteous anger. The difference is that the object of expiation is sin, not God. One propitiates a person, and one expiates a problem. Christ's death was therefore both an expiation and a propitiation. By expiating (removing the problem of) sin God was made propitious (favorable) to us.
That makes sense to me, unless some Greek scholar types say otherwise...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
More on worship
I think I ended up being more narrowly focused in my post on worship than I intended. My point when I started thinking about this was not to throw mud at the RPW, but instead to question the more broad sense of worship in the church. I have long sought a more pure worship form in Sunday gatherings (which I defined as being more “Reformed”), and I am still sympathetic to that desire, but that is not the end all of the Christian worship experience. I am concerned by an attitude in myself that if we “go to church” on Sunday, we have fulfilled our worship quota for the week when nothing could be further from the truth. This is kind of my synopsis of what I am thinking:
I would say that we expect too much from corporate worship and not enough from worship outside of Sunday morning.
What does that mean?
One, but only one, expression of a life of worship is corporate worship. That statement is not to denigrate or diminish the value of corporate worship, but to recognize that culturally and traditionally we expect to see the pinnacle of our worship to take place in a church on Sunday morning but that may not be the reality and probably shouldn’t be. We may affirm the idea of constant worship being a part of our general lives, but we still use the term “worship” in reference to corporate church gathering and focus our worship attention on the corporate expressions which I believe has led to an unhealthy delineation between worship and “the rest of the week”.
The disconnect between Sunday morning piety and the other six days where we live differently are crippling to the church. We have far more opportunity for witness and service in the time we are not in “church” than we do when we are “at church”. Again, not to discount the value of the Word preached, corporate expressions of the Lord’s Supper, Sunday school, corporate prayer etc. but even if you are a really churchy type of person, you are still only spending 4-5 hours a week “in church”. I see far more opportunity to worship in family life than I do in organized church life, and in a more meaningful way.
I definitely still see a vital place in the Body of Christ for particular and purposeful gathering, even meeting in a “church” with a planned our service and order of worship.
But that is only part of the worship life of the Body of Christ. My hope in this conversation is to get us away from the dichotomy between “worship” and “the rest of life”. Not so that we diminish the value of corporate worship but that we magnify the worship exhibited in a life dedicated to glorifying God in all that we say and do.
I would say that we expect too much from corporate worship and not enough from worship outside of Sunday morning.
What does that mean?
One, but only one, expression of a life of worship is corporate worship. That statement is not to denigrate or diminish the value of corporate worship, but to recognize that culturally and traditionally we expect to see the pinnacle of our worship to take place in a church on Sunday morning but that may not be the reality and probably shouldn’t be. We may affirm the idea of constant worship being a part of our general lives, but we still use the term “worship” in reference to corporate church gathering and focus our worship attention on the corporate expressions which I believe has led to an unhealthy delineation between worship and “the rest of the week”.
The disconnect between Sunday morning piety and the other six days where we live differently are crippling to the church. We have far more opportunity for witness and service in the time we are not in “church” than we do when we are “at church”. Again, not to discount the value of the Word preached, corporate expressions of the Lord’s Supper, Sunday school, corporate prayer etc. but even if you are a really churchy type of person, you are still only spending 4-5 hours a week “in church”. I see far more opportunity to worship in family life than I do in organized church life, and in a more meaningful way.
I definitely still see a vital place in the Body of Christ for particular and purposeful gathering, even meeting in a “church” with a planned our service and order of worship.
But that is only part of the worship life of the Body of Christ. My hope in this conversation is to get us away from the dichotomy between “worship” and “the rest of life”. Not so that we diminish the value of corporate worship but that we magnify the worship exhibited in a life dedicated to glorifying God in all that we say and do.
Good thoughts from John Frame on the Regulative Principle
Wise words from Dr. Frame that strike the proper balance, in my humble opinion…
What lies behind the element/circumstance distinction, I think, is the thought that some such distinction is needed to put teeth into the regulative principle in its broad meaning. What good is it, some may ask, for worship to be divinely mandated, unless God has given us specific lists of what to do in every type of service (“elements”) and has drawn a precise line between what we may determine (“circumstances,” or some of them) and what we may not? But one may ask equally well what good it is for human marriage to be divinely regulated, unless God gives us a complete list of what husbands and wives are to do in the marriage and to what extent they may make their own decisions. But God never rules His people by giving them exhaustive lists of things they must do, and forbidding them to do anything else. Rather, He teaches them in general terms what pleases Him, and then He allows them to work out the specifics through their own godly wisdom, in line with the broader principles of His Word. That is what it means to live according to divine prescription.
The regulative principle itself warns us not to add to the Word of God. We need to remind ourselves that one way we are tempted to add to the Word is to try to make it more precise and specific than it is. That was one error of which Jesus accused the Pharisees. We might wish that God had given us more specific guidance as to what pleases Him in public worship and in the rest of life. But we must be content with what He has actually revealed to us, turning neither to the right nor to the left. (emphasis added)
Based on that definition, I am definitely on board with the RPW!
What lies behind the element/circumstance distinction, I think, is the thought that some such distinction is needed to put teeth into the regulative principle in its broad meaning. What good is it, some may ask, for worship to be divinely mandated, unless God has given us specific lists of what to do in every type of service (“elements”) and has drawn a precise line between what we may determine (“circumstances,” or some of them) and what we may not? But one may ask equally well what good it is for human marriage to be divinely regulated, unless God gives us a complete list of what husbands and wives are to do in the marriage and to what extent they may make their own decisions. But God never rules His people by giving them exhaustive lists of things they must do, and forbidding them to do anything else. Rather, He teaches them in general terms what pleases Him, and then He allows them to work out the specifics through their own godly wisdom, in line with the broader principles of His Word. That is what it means to live according to divine prescription.
The regulative principle itself warns us not to add to the Word of God. We need to remind ourselves that one way we are tempted to add to the Word is to try to make it more precise and specific than it is. That was one error of which Jesus accused the Pharisees. We might wish that God had given us more specific guidance as to what pleases Him in public worship and in the rest of life. But we must be content with what He has actually revealed to us, turning neither to the right nor to the left. (emphasis added)
Based on that definition, I am definitely on board with the RPW!
Reformed theology conferences in a new light
My boy James asked me last night how my thinking on Reformed theology conferences had changed as my views on ecclesiology have shifted, given that we are going to a conference this weekend. I love me some Reformed theology conferences, I try to go to a couple a year at least, more if there are local ones like the one this weekend. If Together for the Gospel were held every year, I would go every year even though I am not a pastor.
My view used to be that these conferences were great because I could go, learn more about Reformed theology and bring it back to the church. It was very practical, almost like a boot camp or a training seminar. It was more about being better equipped to take Reformed theology to the people.
I guess now these conferences for me serve more as a time of refreshing and fellowship, spending time with other brothers in Christ, having lunch together, sitting under solid teaching together, buying books at the ubiquitous book tables that I won’t read for a year together, personal growth in my study of the Word. It is far less practical in application for me and more refreshing for me personally. It is less about bringing this information back to the church and more about spending time in fellowship with the church.
I see this shift as a part of the evolution in thinking I am going through, as I try to shift my thinking away from the local, organization church body being the focus and more on living a life of worship and glorifying God in everything I do, not just when I am gathered with other believers. That is a difficult shift for me, I like the structure and clearly delineated roles in traditional church organizations, but I think that much of the frustration I feel stems from a misunderstanding of the church and worship.
More on that later today.
My view used to be that these conferences were great because I could go, learn more about Reformed theology and bring it back to the church. It was very practical, almost like a boot camp or a training seminar. It was more about being better equipped to take Reformed theology to the people.
I guess now these conferences for me serve more as a time of refreshing and fellowship, spending time with other brothers in Christ, having lunch together, sitting under solid teaching together, buying books at the ubiquitous book tables that I won’t read for a year together, personal growth in my study of the Word. It is far less practical in application for me and more refreshing for me personally. It is less about bringing this information back to the church and more about spending time in fellowship with the church.
I see this shift as a part of the evolution in thinking I am going through, as I try to shift my thinking away from the local, organization church body being the focus and more on living a life of worship and glorifying God in everything I do, not just when I am gathered with other believers. That is a difficult shift for me, I like the structure and clearly delineated roles in traditional church organizations, but I think that much of the frustration I feel stems from a misunderstanding of the church and worship.
More on that later today.
Book Review: Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists
Young, Restless, Reformed is only the second book I have finished from my Together for the Gospel book haul (the first being David Wells’ very important work The Courage to be Protestant). I really grabbed it off the shelf because of the conference I am going to this weekend. I figured I should read Collin Hansen’s book before I went to the conference. Despite being a pretty small book, it was surprisingly good. If you are looking for deep theological themes, exposition of Scripture, defending major doctrines of the faith try Pierced For Our Transgressions instead. This book is a great one for reading on the beach or on a Saturday afternoon while the kids are being quiet. If you have somewhere quiet to read uninterrupted, you should be able to knock it out in just a couple of hours.The basis for the book is the increasing number of younger Christians who find themselves drawn in various ways to Reformed theology, whether by exposure to it at conferences featuring John Piper or at seminaries like Southern Seminary where Calvinism flourishes. There is definitely a new, younger flavor to the Reformed ranks and that is a healthy trend in a stream of theology that has often seemed stodgy and stale. Collin Hansen, editor-at-large for Christianity Today, set off on a whirlwind adventure to find out what was causing this sudden “youthification” of Reformed theology.
The style of the book is mainly interview driven. Collin interviews someone and then draws conclusions based on that interview. But he does weave it together well so it is not just a string of unrelated interviews. By the end of the book, I think you have a greater appreciation of how it all ties together and you also start to see the mutual respect and admiration many of these men have for one another. Again, his focus is on the people who make up modern Calvinism, not on the doctrinal foundations of it. He gives a very brief overview of Calvinism, but I am assuming that the vast majority of his readers are probably already more or less Reformed and like me just skimmed that section.
Some key themes in the book…
The face of Calvinism is changing. It is no longer the old school, stern faced Presbyterianism but is younger and more vibrant. The challenge of course is to rein that youthful exuberance and enthusiasm in. The Reformed camp is growing younger and changing dramatically in some important areas. Look at who Collin interviews: Ligon Duncan, C.J. Mahaney, Mark Dever, Albert Mohler, John Piper, Mark Driscoll. Of the big names he interviews, only one (Ligon Duncan) comes from a traditional, Reformed denominational background. The same holds true at the Together for the Gospel conference. Collin rightly highlights the difference between the old school, Michael Horton, White Horse Inn flavor of Calvinism and the Together for the Gospel flavor. The eight speakers at T4G were: Mohler, Mahaney, Dever, Duncan, Sproul, Piper, MacArthur and Anyabwile. Of those, six of the eight are credobaptists. That is troubling to the older school Reformed, and is probably why few of them appear at or endorse the Together for the Gospel conference. That is something I am going to hopefully ask him about at the conference this week, the clear change from Calvinism being relegated to enclaves in Presbyterianism to being more mainstream and having a far more distinctive Baptist flavor.
Collin does a very good job trying to balance the “big guns” and the more rank-and-file. Reformed theology is dominated by the big names, by the famous theologians past and present. After speaking to a Piper or Mahaney, he also speaks to seminary students, church planters, less well known pastors like Steve Lawson. It would be easy to just interview the obvious leaders of the Reformed movement and use that as the basis for a book.
But where Reformed theology is really taking hold is not in merely the books of Sproul and Piper, but in local assemblies, in seminaries, in homes in front of laptops on blogs. Reformed theology is flourishing and will continue to flourish precisely because of the symbiotic relationship. While we are able to appreciate and even revere the great men of the faith like Sproul and Spurgeon and Edwards, where the rubber meets the road is in local assemblies in far away place, small churches in Des Moines, IA and Indian River, MI where Reformed theology is not a given and is looked at with some suspicion. As Collin pointed out, the Reformed movement is a building block movement with each successive generation building on the ones that came before, as exhibited at Together for the Gospel with thousands of younger men sitting at the feet of two generations of Reformed leaders. Today we read not just Calvin and Edwards, we read more recently deceased men like Spurgeon, Machen and Lloyd-Jones. Someday I fully expect my kids generation to look back fondly at Piper and Sproul, long after they are gone.
I would have liked for Collin to look more at some of the danger signs of Reformed theology. I worry that Calvinism is becoming a “fad” among some younger Christians. All the cool kids are Calvinists! I worry about them grabbing hold of Reformed theology for lots of reasons other than being convinced by Scripture. Piper’s books are great, but I am sure he would be the first to say that if you want to learn about Reformed theology, don’t read his stuff or listen to his sermons, read the Word and then, and only then, read his books. I am concerned about anyone who comes at Reformed theology without first having struggled mightily with it, because if you haven’t struggled with it, you don’t really understand it. The first time someone tried to explain election and predestination to me, I though they were nuts (Doug Alexander, I am talking about you!). It was only when the sheer weight of it in the Scriptures finally broke me down that I yielded to it.
Overall, the book is a pretty easy read. It reads like a series of magazine articles, so it is not deep and heavy stuff. I think it would be very useful for the people that are probably least likely to read it, those in the old guard of the Reformed tradition who look down imperiously at those young whippersnappers that are intruding on their traditions. But it is also useful for younger Christians as well, because one thing that rings out clearly in this book is that where we are today came at a price for many men who faced termination, being ostracized and ridiculed but held firmly to the Word and what it teaches about God’s sovereign grace.
A great quote from the book: "Christians must seek not a return to the Reformation or the First Great Awakening but a return to Jesus Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith." p. 62
Monday, February 16, 2009
A call for a new Reformation in the church: Worship, regulative or normative?
Now we come to the “how” of worship. We have identified at a very surface level the “who” we worship and the “why” we worship Him. So what does that look like, what are the practical ramifications of this identification? There are two primary schools of thought here, the regulative and the normative principle. The basic definitions are as follows (I know these are rough definitions)
The Regulative Principle of Worship: Only what is expressly commanded in worship is to be permitted and practiced.
The Normative Principle of Worship: Only what is specifically prohibited should be rejected from worship.
Many people in the Reformed school tend toward the regulative principle. So that is naturally where I would come down. Fie on those electric guitars and power point! But in the sage words of ESPN college football analyst Lee Corso: Not so fast my friend!
First is the regulative principle of worship Biblical? I mean it certainly sounds Biblical and lots of Reformed types get really agitated about it. What Christian wouldn’t agree in principle that we should worship as dictated by the Bible? But there are a lot of steps to take before you can say: this is the way we are to worship in the New Covenant church based exclusively on the Scriptural dictates.
Second, is it really regulated by Scripture or by tradition? The reason I ask that is not to be difficult or smarmy (well, maybe a little smarmy) But when you dig deeper into it, a lot of what people think of as being regulative in the Scriptures really isn’t. Case in point:
Terry Johnson wrote a piece about idolatry in worship for Tabletalk titled Pluralistic Worship and I think he inadvertently demonstrates the exact sort of behavior that he is decrying.
Has the time come when the sanctuaries of evangelical Protestantism must be cleansed of everything that reflects the world of entertainment? Our Reformed forefathers took axes to the altars, and they whitewashed the walls of medieval churches. If our analysis of worship that entertains is correct, similar iconoclastic fury must be shown, and soon, in our houses of worship lest they become houses of mirth: theater seats pulled out; stages broken up; dancers and actors banished; musicians' and choirs' roles redefined as that of simply supporting and enhancing congregational singing; pulpit, table, and font restored to their proper places; pastors moved back behind pulpits; and simple services of the Word read, preached, sung, prayed, and seen (in the sacraments) reestablished. What was once indifferent can be considered indifferent no more, not if Reformed Protestantism is to continue to practice purity in its worship and avoid idolatry. "Little children," says the apostle John, "keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21).
Irony alert! Perhaps the idols are not just contemporary music and stools in place of pulpits. In decrying these ruffians with their modern music, he is affirming a return to a system and structure that is all tradition and no Scripture. Where is the pulpit in the Bible? You would think that Paul wore robes, led a liturgical service and preached a 45 minute sermon from behind a wooden pulpit. In other words, he is casting aside one sort of manmade worship service in favor of another manmade worship service and don’t you dare stray out from behind that pulpit!
There is a great deal to be said about this question of how we worship God. In fairness I get what Mr. Johnson is saying, worship should not be about entertaining the people sitting in the pews. Our object of worship, our focus of worship is Christ alone. But we need to approach this very, very carefully before pronouncing anathemas on those who worship in a way that doesn’t jive with our church traditions.
First we should be very cautious in how we apply the Scriptures here. Nadab and Abihu were not engaged in New Testament worship, but were engaged in Old Covenant, pre-cross worship that was very specifically laid out. We are reading through Exodus as a family, and the care and attention to detail given for the construction of the tabernacle is similar to the very specific, very clear directions in the rest of the Pentateuch regarding the temple worship system. The Old Testament is very specific in the how, where, when of worshipping God.
But we no longer worship in a temple, we no longer have a sacrificial system. Therein lies the problem. We no longer worship in the same manner as the Israelites did, so we can only apply limited guidelines of Old Covenant worship to the New Covenant church. There are not clear lines of equivalency between forms and styles in the Old and New. The biggest problem is that the New Testament itself is very vague on worship, talking quite a bit about the meaning of worship and some of the basics (fellowship, singing, praying, breaking bread) but very little in terms of specifics (what music to use, how the service should be ordered, where the worship should be held).
There is always a danger that the motivation behind church practices is not to be more faithful but instead is to separate ourselves from “those people”. This happens in all denominations and church traditions. You see it in Baptist churches where they gripe about churches that don’t do “altar calls” as being opposed to evangelism. Charismatics who question the authenticity of your salvation if you don’t exhibit “sign gifts”. Presbyterian churches where rigid adherence to the proper confessions, liturgies and worship traditions sets you apart. All designed to show that by the way we worship, we are the ones truly following Christ and therefore you aren’t. Denomination after denomination after denomination has made their claim to be the one that is truly exhibiting Biblical worship. The problem is that Biblical worship is not so easily defined.
The New Testament is awfully vague about the specific of worship, of how it should look. We read descriptions that tells us a few things about what occurred in the church: prayer, teaching, singing of psalms, spiritual songs and hymns, fellowship, the breaking of bread, service and discipline. But that gives us a lot of latitude in how and where we worship.
There is a potential danger, a very serious one, in the regulative principle of worship because it makes laws and commands where none exist. The New Testament does not proscribe an order of worship, or even that we worship in a particular kind of place. We tread on thin ice when we try to apply Old Testament temple worship commands to a New Testament church fellowship. There is a place for and a need for the holding of truths, but we should not let that be an excuse to enact barriers to worship for the sake of enacting barriers. I am not advocating a free for all in worshiping the One whom the angels surround and cry “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty” Some expressions of worship are inappropriate not because they fail to follow the proper liturgy but because they fail to express worship of the Sovereign Lord of the universe, and instead become man-pleasing, self-exalting idolatrous mockeries.
I don’t much care for contemporary Christian music. I don’t much like the use of PowerPoint during sermons. I really don’t like “special music” and I really, really don’t like it when people applaud during worship. But are any of these things specifically proscribed for worship? Not that I see. Should we just sing Psalms? I ask the question that I always ask, is there command or example in the New Testament. Lets look at two examples where Paul uses basically the same language to describe the same event.
addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, (Eph 5:19)
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col 3: 16)
Some would say that this is just referring to the different types of psalms, but I think that is a stretch. Wouldn’t it be simpler to just say singing psalms, I would think that would be comprehensive enough. I fear that exclusive psalmody, while not something I have studied as closely as I should, is an example of applying a manmade rule to the Word. It is my understanding that Calvin, in his commentary on Col 3:16 also rejects the exclusive psalmody argument that these are three ways of saying "Psalms".
The Regulative Principle of Worship: Only what is expressly commanded in worship is to be permitted and practiced.
The Normative Principle of Worship: Only what is specifically prohibited should be rejected from worship.
Many people in the Reformed school tend toward the regulative principle. So that is naturally where I would come down. Fie on those electric guitars and power point! But in the sage words of ESPN college football analyst Lee Corso: Not so fast my friend!
First is the regulative principle of worship Biblical? I mean it certainly sounds Biblical and lots of Reformed types get really agitated about it. What Christian wouldn’t agree in principle that we should worship as dictated by the Bible? But there are a lot of steps to take before you can say: this is the way we are to worship in the New Covenant church based exclusively on the Scriptural dictates.
Second, is it really regulated by Scripture or by tradition? The reason I ask that is not to be difficult or smarmy (well, maybe a little smarmy) But when you dig deeper into it, a lot of what people think of as being regulative in the Scriptures really isn’t. Case in point:
Terry Johnson wrote a piece about idolatry in worship for Tabletalk titled Pluralistic Worship and I think he inadvertently demonstrates the exact sort of behavior that he is decrying.
Has the time come when the sanctuaries of evangelical Protestantism must be cleansed of everything that reflects the world of entertainment? Our Reformed forefathers took axes to the altars, and they whitewashed the walls of medieval churches. If our analysis of worship that entertains is correct, similar iconoclastic fury must be shown, and soon, in our houses of worship lest they become houses of mirth: theater seats pulled out; stages broken up; dancers and actors banished; musicians' and choirs' roles redefined as that of simply supporting and enhancing congregational singing; pulpit, table, and font restored to their proper places; pastors moved back behind pulpits; and simple services of the Word read, preached, sung, prayed, and seen (in the sacraments) reestablished. What was once indifferent can be considered indifferent no more, not if Reformed Protestantism is to continue to practice purity in its worship and avoid idolatry. "Little children," says the apostle John, "keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21).
Irony alert! Perhaps the idols are not just contemporary music and stools in place of pulpits. In decrying these ruffians with their modern music, he is affirming a return to a system and structure that is all tradition and no Scripture. Where is the pulpit in the Bible? You would think that Paul wore robes, led a liturgical service and preached a 45 minute sermon from behind a wooden pulpit. In other words, he is casting aside one sort of manmade worship service in favor of another manmade worship service and don’t you dare stray out from behind that pulpit!
There is a great deal to be said about this question of how we worship God. In fairness I get what Mr. Johnson is saying, worship should not be about entertaining the people sitting in the pews. Our object of worship, our focus of worship is Christ alone. But we need to approach this very, very carefully before pronouncing anathemas on those who worship in a way that doesn’t jive with our church traditions.
First we should be very cautious in how we apply the Scriptures here. Nadab and Abihu were not engaged in New Testament worship, but were engaged in Old Covenant, pre-cross worship that was very specifically laid out. We are reading through Exodus as a family, and the care and attention to detail given for the construction of the tabernacle is similar to the very specific, very clear directions in the rest of the Pentateuch regarding the temple worship system. The Old Testament is very specific in the how, where, when of worshipping God.
But we no longer worship in a temple, we no longer have a sacrificial system. Therein lies the problem. We no longer worship in the same manner as the Israelites did, so we can only apply limited guidelines of Old Covenant worship to the New Covenant church. There are not clear lines of equivalency between forms and styles in the Old and New. The biggest problem is that the New Testament itself is very vague on worship, talking quite a bit about the meaning of worship and some of the basics (fellowship, singing, praying, breaking bread) but very little in terms of specifics (what music to use, how the service should be ordered, where the worship should be held).
There is always a danger that the motivation behind church practices is not to be more faithful but instead is to separate ourselves from “those people”. This happens in all denominations and church traditions. You see it in Baptist churches where they gripe about churches that don’t do “altar calls” as being opposed to evangelism. Charismatics who question the authenticity of your salvation if you don’t exhibit “sign gifts”. Presbyterian churches where rigid adherence to the proper confessions, liturgies and worship traditions sets you apart. All designed to show that by the way we worship, we are the ones truly following Christ and therefore you aren’t. Denomination after denomination after denomination has made their claim to be the one that is truly exhibiting Biblical worship. The problem is that Biblical worship is not so easily defined.
The New Testament is awfully vague about the specific of worship, of how it should look. We read descriptions that tells us a few things about what occurred in the church: prayer, teaching, singing of psalms, spiritual songs and hymns, fellowship, the breaking of bread, service and discipline. But that gives us a lot of latitude in how and where we worship.
There is a potential danger, a very serious one, in the regulative principle of worship because it makes laws and commands where none exist. The New Testament does not proscribe an order of worship, or even that we worship in a particular kind of place. We tread on thin ice when we try to apply Old Testament temple worship commands to a New Testament church fellowship. There is a place for and a need for the holding of truths, but we should not let that be an excuse to enact barriers to worship for the sake of enacting barriers. I am not advocating a free for all in worshiping the One whom the angels surround and cry “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty” Some expressions of worship are inappropriate not because they fail to follow the proper liturgy but because they fail to express worship of the Sovereign Lord of the universe, and instead become man-pleasing, self-exalting idolatrous mockeries.
I don’t much care for contemporary Christian music. I don’t much like the use of PowerPoint during sermons. I really don’t like “special music” and I really, really don’t like it when people applaud during worship. But are any of these things specifically proscribed for worship? Not that I see. Should we just sing Psalms? I ask the question that I always ask, is there command or example in the New Testament. Lets look at two examples where Paul uses basically the same language to describe the same event.
addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, (Eph 5:19)
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col 3: 16)
Some would say that this is just referring to the different types of psalms, but I think that is a stretch. Wouldn’t it be simpler to just say singing psalms, I would think that would be comprehensive enough. I fear that exclusive psalmody, while not something I have studied as closely as I should, is an example of applying a manmade rule to the Word. It is my understanding that Calvin, in his commentary on Col 3:16 also rejects the exclusive psalmody argument that these are three ways of saying "Psalms".
A gathering of believers in a home is not less a valid or a more valid expression of Christian fellowship than a gathering in a church with a liturgical, Psalter hymnal only, no piano service. We can follow every rule, real and imagined and still not be in spiritual worship of Christ. The pendulum can easily swing too far in either direction, either overly exuberant, truth devoid emergent style worship of an amorphous Jesus or a rigid, spirit-less liturgy. There is nothing wrong with liturgy or with exuberance as long as our worship is tempered and balanced. A key clue appears in John 4 and the woman at the well.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4: 23-24)
That is a very important passage. The woman at the well has questioned Jesus about where worship should take place. The importance of worship, not to stretch this verse too far from it’s context, is in worshipping the Father through the Son in the Spirit not merely based on religious forms (worship here and not there).
John Frame examines this entire concept in a helpful essay,
A fresh look at the Regulative Principle, and asserts that there are two types of regulative principle, one being the more broadly based one found in Scripture and another that far more restrictive, which Dr. Frame finds both unhelpful and unsupportable in Scripture.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4: 23-24)
That is a very important passage. The woman at the well has questioned Jesus about where worship should take place. The importance of worship, not to stretch this verse too far from it’s context, is in worshipping the Father through the Son in the Spirit not merely based on religious forms (worship here and not there).
John Frame examines this entire concept in a helpful essay,
A fresh look at the Regulative Principle, and asserts that there are two types of regulative principle, one being the more broadly based one found in Scripture and another that far more restrictive, which Dr. Frame finds both unhelpful and unsupportable in Scripture.
The discussion above, in my view, is a fairly complete statement of the regulative principle, both as it is found in the Bible and in the explicit statements of the Reformed confessional standards. But to those who have studied the traditional discussions of the regulative principle, it will seem rather sketchy. In those discussions, Reformed thinkers have labored over concepts like elements, parts, substance, essence, accident, forms, expressions, and circumstances (further subdivided into circumstances with and without religious significance, and those necessary and unnecessary to the orderly conduct of worship). In my opinion, these concepts are not helpful, and using them to add further restrictions to the broad regulative principle is not scriptural. In this part of my essay, I will describe those additional restrictions and explain why I object to them.
Dr. Frame' essay is very sober stuff, well worth the reading.
Dr. Frame' essay is very sober stuff, well worth the reading.
Ultimately the Scriptures give us pretty broad guidelines for fellowship and worship. Is it too much to say that what counts is the object of our worship, the purpose of our worship, the truths of the Gospel far more than the mode of worship, the order of service, the location we worship in? Shouldn’t the measure of our worship be how pleasing it is to God, and is that measured by adherence to forms and strictures that are often manmade at the expense of Biblical worship balanced in Spirit and Truth.
If you meet in a home, worship to the glory of God. If you meet in a school, worship to the glory of God. If you worship in a little country church, worship to the glory of God. If you meet in a shiny new church that seats 2000, worship to the glory of God. If you are worshipping for any reason other than bringing glory to God, it doesn’t matter where or how you worship because it becomes idolatry.
If you meet in a home, worship to the glory of God. If you meet in a school, worship to the glory of God. If you worship in a little country church, worship to the glory of God. If you meet in a shiny new church that seats 2000, worship to the glory of God. If you are worshipping for any reason other than bringing glory to God, it doesn’t matter where or how you worship because it becomes idolatry.
A famine in the land
(I am reprinting this post from December of 2007 because it still resonates with me. It was a time in my life when I was pretty angry, more than usual, almost exclusively angry with myself. I was in kind of an ugly place in my life, so keep that in mind. My thinking on the church has changed quite a bit since then, but much of this still captures the heart of the issue. I don’t care where or how you worship, if you are not focused on the Word of God you are wasting your time.)"Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord GOD, "when I will send a famine on the land-- not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD." Amos 8:11 ESV
I love this verse and hate it. I love it because it is so true, I hate it because it is so true. It is not the Word that is at fault though, but the church. It is the church that has been established and ordained as the dispenser of the Word, and it is the church that has sought to replace the Word of God with anything else, anything but the Word.
Dr. Steve Lawson is one of my favorite preachers. I heard him in person in the Spring of 2007 at the Toledo Reformed Theological Conference, and his sermons on John 10 and the Good Shepherd were absolutely dynamite. Though Steven Lawson sounds, and kinda looks, like the elder President Bush, he is a powerful preacher and a prophetic voice in our day. I came across a sermon he gave on Amos 8:1-11, and it struck a chord. You don't hear a ton of preaching like this today, and we are poorer as a people for it.
His message is pretty simple, as is true of all good sermons. All is not well. The modern church gives off an image of successful evangelicalism, but it is at it's heart rotten to the core. Churches not only don't transform lives, they hardly even raise eyebrows. The simple proclamation of the Word, Thus sayeth the Lord, has been replaced by slick marketing campaigns. I am all for slick marketing campaigns in the business world. In fact I often benefit quite handsomely from them. But these aren't balance sheets and stock prices we are talking about. These are the eternal souls of sinners standing condemned before a just and holy God.
Our mooring point is not in the infallible Word of God, but in our programs, in our outward success, in our influence over the political process. Our churches measure their faithfulness not in the making of disciples, but in the number of bodies in the pews, the size of the budget, the number of paid staff or the magnificence of their audio-visual system. We ought to grade churches based on their fidelity to the Word of God, and yet that is in many cases the last concern. Far more important is the music style, or the personality of the preacher, or the size of the youth program or what translation of the Bible is used (not whether or not it is a faithful translation, but whether or not it is the right faithful translation.)
The people cry out to be fed, and spend more time and money on "Christian" books and music than ever before, but those same people are being slowly starved to death, starved in the hearing of the Word of the Lord. We starve to death in a land of plenty. Worse yet, it is the church, established and ordered by God, that is withholding the feeding. People come, and what they hear is anything but the Word in so many churches. There is little wonder that so many people are so ambiguous about church, because there is no power when the Word is absent. A church that neglects the Word becomes nothing but a social club or a self-help therapy session. Once people get over their hang up du jour, they move along.
Another of my favorite passages is found in Ezekiel 3, and Dr. Lawson rightly brings it up...
And he said to me, "Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, "Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it." Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. And he said to me, "Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. Ezekiel 3: 1-4 ESV
What value is the Word of God if it is relegated to dusty tomes sitting unused and unopened in the racks on the back of pews? There is nothing magical about the cover and the paper, about the ink on the pages. The power of the Word of God comes from reading it and devouring it. Why should God send forth the Word when people reject it? This sermon from Dr. Lawson and these ancient words from the prophet Amos are required hearing and reading for the church today. May we weep, as I have and I do, for how we have failed in carrying out the mandate of God to declare His Word.
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