Before yesterday, I had heard of the regulative principle of worship, but I hadn’t paid any attention to it. I knew that Timmy Brister had made it the number one question on the ask Mark Driscoll anything contest, but I had just casually read through the comments without paying attention. It was like somebody was talking about the finer points of mechanical engineering tolerance limits of various metals. I understood the individual words, but not the sense of them together.
Yesterday a friend of mine pointed me to a review of The Emerging Church by Dan Kimball. I had mentioned that I read this book back in 2003 and that it had started the process of waking me up to some of the problems of “church” as it is done today. My friends love me and want to keep me straight. I sincerely appreciate the help and the encouragement. It is an awesome thing that we have when we can have a role in goading each other to love and good works and to come alongside one another when we fall.
Anyway, I am reading the review and it is pretty good. I agree with most of it. Then I hit this paragraph:
Kimball’s perspective on church life is also problematic. Underlying all of his thinking about worship is the mistaken notion that our style of worship is completely neutral. But the Bible indicates that we are simply not free to worship God in any way we see fit in our corporate gatherings. The 2nd Commandment makes that quite clear, as do Exodus 32:1-4, Deuteronomy 4:15-19, and II Samuel 6:3-7. We are permitted to worship God only as he has prescribed in his Word. We may really want to finger-paint in our churches services, but God has not commanded us to finger-paint so we should not. In addition, many Christians have thought it unwise to use crosses and pictures of Jesus in worship, fearing that it would be impossible not to venerate the object or picture itself. In addition though pagans, deists, and pantheists enjoy them, Christians have generally though that nature scenes are inappropriate for Christian worship.
I read the verses contained in the quote. And this “…but God has not commanded us to finger-paint so we should not.”
Anybody see any issues with those verses being used to support this conclusion? anyone?
Then I started googling. Wow. I have now found a whole nother area where people get to be weird, prideful and look down their nose at the rest of christianity.
This fellow does the best job I found of putting the best foot forward on the Regulative Principle of Worship There are many others who are much less able.
Here is Mark Driscoll’s take on video, and here is the podcast version.
Go study it for yourself. Tell me what you think about the idea that because God has not commanded finger painting in worship, then we should not finger paint. Before you get too sure of an answer, God also never commanded the use of microphones, electric lights, amplified music, air conditioners, pianos or even announcements. Just sayin’. Even the hard core believers in this principle who show up singing the Psalms without accompaniment will probably do so in an air conditioned room with electric lights, and they might even make announcements of upcoming events in the life of their church.