The Regulative Principle, Part I

Most people today are not concerned with the “how” of worshipping God. Many churches seem to merely put together their service order according to whim or preference with little or no Scriptural guidance, and what results is a jumble of a church service. This should not be. Worshipping God on Sunday, the Lord’s day, is critically important. So what sorts of things should be included in a church service? Is it proper to sing hymns and praise songs, or should we only sing the psalms? When should we have communion? Should the members give “offerings” to the church?

The more one thinks about worship, the more questions arise. One method of determining what should and should not be in worship is the Puritan Regulative Principle, which holds that anything not explicitly commanded or reasonably inferred from Scripture is not allowed in worship. The Regulative Principle, formed out of a deep and pious desire to stay true to Scripture, is both appealing and refreshing to the Reformed Christian’s ears.

Yet is the Regulative Principle a real solution to our questions about worship? Could it, though it came from a good motive and intention, be not inherently incorrect or at least insufficient? Is the Principle itself Scriptural, or based in a misinterpretation of Scripture? Is it something that has been widely accepted by the Reformed church, or rejected by Christians of the Reformed faith? These and others are the questions that I hope to answer in this series of posts on the Regulative Principle.

Before we go over these questions, however, I would like to look in brief at the history and general thought behind the Regulative Principle. According to the Regulative Principle, worship is made up of parts commonly called “elements”. For example, “prayer” might be a single element, “communion” another, and “preaching” another. Elements were parts of worship deemed to be Scriptural and commanded by God. Anything outside of elements were either termed adiaphora or strictly disallowed.

What is adiaphora? The adiaphora were essentially matters left up to the discretion of the church and/or pastor. They were sometimes called the “indifferent matters”, that is, things that Scripture acts indifferently towards. The Anglicans and other denominations in the Puritan day had a large, wide selection of adiaphora, whereas the Puritans had little or none at all. It seems that the Puritans avoided the issue of adiaphora whenever possible, mostly because they formed the Regulative Principle as a reaction against what they saw as “will-worship” or worship based in man’s fancies and whims.

The Puritans saw their ideas of worship as being grounded in John Calvin’s own thought, however, whether this was actually the case is debatable. It seems more accurate to say, as R.J. Gore does,

“The Puritan represented the strain in Calvin’s thought that demanded a Biblical warrant and conformity for all of worship, as well as a desire for relative simplicity… the Anglican represented that aspect of Calvin’s thought that maintained the necessity of covenantal consciousness, a genuine exercise of dominion and creation with the parameters of what God had revealed. Thus, both Anglicanism and Puritanism represented elements of continuity and discontinuity with Calvin.” (Covenantal Worship, Reconsidering the Puritan Regulative Principle, by R. J. Gore Jr., P&R Publishing, 2002. Pages 86-87.)

The Westminster Confession and other Puritan-composed documents apparently support the Regulative Principle, but do not, as far as I am aware, specifically address some of its more ambiguous questions and facets. The Regulative Principle was prevalent in the Puritan’s day amongst Reformed Christians, but was not as prevalent amongst the Scottish Presbyterians of that day. The Regulative Principle has also lost favor it seems with modern churches, who seem (for whatever reason) to ignore it. Whether it was widely accepted by the Reformers themselves seems open to debate, but I am convinced that it was not as widespread as many of its proponents would claim. Again, Calvin’s “Regulative Principle” had some major differences with that of the Puritans, especially concerning adiaphora.

In two or more subsequent posts I will be addressing the issues of the Regulative principle. I want to outline some of the major arguments (given by the Puritans themselves) in favor of the principle, and then some of the major arguments against the principle. I want to first clarify that, at this time, I find myself more readily agreeing with R.J. Gore’s “Covenantal Principle” of worship. Those of you interested will find his book most helpful on this subject. I’m going to try to present both sides of the issue, but I want you just to know where my bias lies at this time.




By the way, this is Monday's Blog Post a day late. My apologies.

In Christ,
Albert Shepherd
The Aspiring Theologian


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