Old Light on New Worship

I have mentioned this book in a previous post, and I wanted to talk a little more about it. (I need to clarify that Pastor Price does not hold to exclusive psalmody and in fact I don't remember whether he even speaks of singing the Psalms. However, this book is very helpful on wrestling through the issues with musical instruments in worship.)

It's written by a pastor named John Price, who pastors a Baptist congregation in New York. He's not famous, not a celebrity pastor, and hasn't spoken (as far as I know) in any big-name conferences. That in itself doesn't qualify him or disqualify him. I only mention that because in this age of popularity-driven books, DVD's, live simulcast conferences and such, a quiet "no-name's" book about an important and controversial topic isn't likely to cause much of a stir, not enough to filter down to the attention of the average Christian in the average church. But that doesn't mean the book is not sound, helpful and important.

Any book must be judged on its own merit, not by the fame or charisma of the author. The standard by which to judge is, of course, the teaching of Scripture. I believe this book is very Scripturally solid.

Pastor Price makes the case for the fact that God has always regulated the activities of his gathered people. He has always prescribed what is to be done and how. He (God) has never left it to chance, or left it up to us to come up with innovations, bright ideas, or anything else of our own invention. He has made all clear in his word, both in the Old Testament and in the New; but as is often the case, clarity does not equal simple (not in the sense of the doctrine falling effortlessly into our hands).

Just realizing that much—that God has always prescribed for his people the activities that they are to engage in when they meet together as the church—is hugely helpful in causing us to stop short and determine to take a serious look at what we are doing, and why. That realization caused Pastor Price to take a step back, and in the fear of the Lord to check it out! He came up not with new, previously unheard of information, but with old information that has by and large been forgotten.

I won't go on about it in this post, but will just leave it at that. There are very important things to know about the doctrine of the singing of the church, and it takes an understanding of God's prescriptions in both the Old Testament and the New to get them. John Price has laid some very important foundational work in his book, I believe. Is he right in every aspect? It's not for me to say for sure, though I do believe from my own studies that he gets his main emphasis right. I'm convinced that we need to be talking about this in our own churches. Because we care about what God wants and has prescribed, we should be open to reconsidering what we do when we gather as the church.

The Church Only and Ever Sang the Word of God

I've been floored to realize that for both Israel and for the apostolic church, the songs they sang—all the songs they sang—were inspired songs. These songs were each and every one written by God's appointed spokesmen, his prophets. These were the songs given to God's people to sing.

No one was free in Old Testament Israel to innovate in penning new songs for the people to sing. The songs of the Old Testament were all written inerrantly because they were written prophetically. Moses (Deuteronomy 31:19-32:44), Deborah and Barak (Judges 5:1-31), and of course King David, the anointed "psalmist of Israel" (2 Samuel 23:1) come immediately to mind. Korah and others who wrote some of the Psalms were also prophets. We know they were because in the Old Testament, "prophet" is the very definition of the one who inerrantly spoke God's words, words which became written Scripture ("in former times God spoke to us through his prophets, but in these last days he has spoken by his Son"—Hebrews 1:1).

Again, these were the songs, the only songs, that Israel was to sing. The Psalms were the songbook of the nation of Israel., and no command of God ever abrogated that. Where is the New Testament command that changes the command to sing only the words of God given through his prophets?

To our modern ears, Paul's command in Ephesians 5:18-19 and Colossians 3:16 to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs sounds like a mandate to songwriters. We might get the idea from it that fresh new songs for the church to sing were being written. But it wasn't so. "Hymns" and "spiritual songs" were descriptions used in the headings of the Septuagint Psalms—the Greek Scripture that Christ and the apostles used, and from which they quoted. Paul's readers would have understood Paul, in speaking of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, to be talking about singing what God's people would have always sung: the word of God.

Where does that leave us today with our song lists for Sunday morning filled with songs written by 20-year-old recording artists? I think it leaves us a good ways away from God's command, to say the least.

More later. I was simply struck, a while ago, by the stark fact that God commanded one thing—that his people sing his word—and that he never rescinded that command.

Singing Together and Musical Instruments

Over the past years and months, I have become an adherent to the regulative principle of worship (i.e., what we do when we gather as the church). I hear a lot of people talking about the regulative principle, but many no longer adhere to the historical understanding of it. The regulative principle is that what we do in worship must be regulated by the word of God; therefore, only what is prescribed in the word of God may be practiced in worship.

Alternatively, the normative principle, which most churches now hold to, says that as long as any practice or activity is not forbidden in Scripture, it may be done in worship as long as it measures up to a denomination's, or local congregation's, criteria. This opens the churches up to whatever practices and activities are approved by its leaders and demanded by the congregation.

My conviction gained from Scripture is that God has always prescribed the lawful practices and activities of the gathered church. In the New Testament no less than in the Old, God's word is very specific about what the church should do. When the Old Testament worship forms passed away, so did its many activities, except for the ones prescriptively described in the New Testament: prayer, praise, singing as prayer and praise, giving, preaching and teaching, breaking bread together/the Lord's supper, water baptism.

I highly recommend this book: Old Light on New Worship: Musical Instruments and the Worship of God, a Theological, Historical and Psychological Study by John Price as a place to begin. Fascinating!!

Here's a website with a lot of good information on the regulative principle, the need for it, and consequence of not adhering to it: Musical Instruments in the Public Worship of God.

Happy researching—I hope you will!