What is the Regulative Principle of Worship?

Question 09027.

The regulative principle of worship is the rule that a church may include in its public worship only what Scripture positively commands or clearly implies. Anything not warranted by the Bible is excluded, not because it is wicked but because God has not asked for it. It came out of the Reformation, it is written into the Westminster Confession, and it still shapes how a good many Reformed and Presbyterian congregations meet on a Sunday.

I am neither a full advocate nor a dismissive critic. The instinct behind it is right and the strict application of it runs into difficulties that its defenders find hard to answer. Let me lay out both sides, because how a church decides this shapes everything from the songs you sing to whether there is a screen at the front.

What the Regulative Principle Says

The formula is usually put as command, example or necessary inference. If Scripture commands an element of worship, we include it. If the New Testament churches practised it, we may follow. If it follows unavoidably from what Scripture teaches, we may include it. Everything else is out. On the classic list that leaves reading the Word, preaching the Word, prayer, singing praise, the two ordinances, and the giving of offerings.

What the regulative principle excludes is anything invented, however well meant: images, dramatic performances, dance, incense, processions, and in the strictest versions instruments and hymns of human composition as well. The reasoning is that worship belongs to God, that He has told us what pleases Him, and that adding to it is presumption rather than devotion.

The Texts Behind It

The strongest passages are hard to wave away. In Leviticus 10:1 to 3 Nadab and Abihu offer unauthorised fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them, and fire comes out and consumes them. The offence is precisely that God had not asked for it. Deuteronomy 12:32 says, everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

In the New Testament, Colossians 2:23 dismisses self made religion as having an appearance of wisdom but no value against the flesh, and Jesus quotes Isaiah 29 against those who worship in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Nobody reading these passages honestly can conclude that God is indifferent to how He is approached. The regulative principle is at least trying to take that seriously, and that deserves respect.

The Normative Principle as the Alternative

The other historic position, associated with Luther and with Anglicanism, is the normative principle: whatever Scripture does not forbid is permitted, provided it is orderly, edifying and consistent with the character of God. On this view the church has genuine freedom to shape its worship, and the boundaries are the negative ones of Scripture rather than a positive list.

The strength of the normative principle is that it accounts for the enormous amount the New Testament simply does not tell us. It gives no order of service, no timings, no instruction about buildings, seating or notices. If God intended a fixed pattern, the silence is remarkable. Its weakness is obvious too. Without discipline the normative principle drifts towards whatever people find engaging, and there are churches in this country whose Sunday services would be unrecognisable to any generation of Christians before ours.

What the Regulative Principle Gets Right

Three things, and I hold them. Worship is for God rather than for us, and the question what does He want is the first question rather than the last. Public worship is not a blank canvas for creativity. And the elements Scripture actually names, the Word read and preached, prayer, praise, the ordinances and giving, are the things that ought to fill the time, because they are the things through which God has promised to work.

The regulative principle also acts as a brake on novelty, and we need one. When the driving question becomes what will draw a crowd, the centre of gravity shifts from God to the congregation without anybody deciding it should. Churches that hold the regulative principle are rarely trendy, and there are worse things to be than untrendy.

Where the Regulative Principle Struggles

The first difficulty is that the New Testament simply does not give the detailed positive warrant the rule requires. Where is the command for a Sunday morning meeting at half past ten, a sermon of forty minutes, an offering plate, a pulpit, printed hymn books, a public reading of notices? Every church that operates the regulative principle uses dozens of things Scripture never commands.

The standard reply is the distinction between elements and circumstances. Elements are the acts of worship themselves and must be commanded; circumstances are the practical arrangements and are left to Christian prudence. That is a reasonable distinction, but it does an enormous amount of quiet work, and where the line falls turns out to be a matter of judgement. Is a projection screen a circumstance? Is a musical instrument? Is a children’s talk an element or an arrangement? Different regulative principle churches answer differently, which suggests the rule is not doing the deciding.

The Awkward Question of Consistency

This is where I find the strict position hardest to sustain. The exclusive psalmody argument is the most consistent version: if we may sing only what God has given us to sing, then the Psalter is the hymn book. I respect the logic, and I notice that Ephesians 5:19 speaks of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and that the New Testament contains what look very much like early Christian hymns embedded in the letters.

Once a church admits hymns of human composition, and almost all do, it has conceded that the regulative principle operates with more flexibility than the formula suggests. That does not make it worthless. It does mean that in practice most churches holding it are working with something closer to a strong presumption in favour of the biblical elements than an absolute rule, and I think honesty is better served by saying so.

A Biblicist Assessment

My own position sits between the two, closer to the regulative side in instinct. I want the elements of our services to be the ones Scripture names, and I want the sermon at the centre because that is where God has attached His promise. I am not persuaded that everything unmentioned is thereby forbidden, and I do not think the New Testament pattern of a fairly plain, word centred gathering needs a rule with that much machinery to defend it.

John 4:23 and 24 is where I keep landing. The Father seeks worshippers who will worship in spirit and truth, and the Greek proskuneo carries the sense of bowing before someone in reverence. Truth rules out worship shaped by invention and preference; spirit rules out worship that is correct and dead. Plenty of churches manage to fail one test while congratulating themselves on the other.

I would add one further observation. The regulative principle was framed in a context of genuine abuse, where worship had accumulated centuries of accretion and the ordinary believer could hardly find the gospel in it. Rules framed against a real danger tend to be sharp, and reading them without that background makes them seem harsher than they were meant to be.

What This Means for Sunday Morning

Practically, I would ask three questions of anything proposed for a service. Does Scripture command or model it? Does it help the congregation grasp and respond to the Word? Would it be intelligible and edifying to a visitor with no church background? Those are stricter tests than they sound, and most of what churches argue about fails at least one of them.

I would also want the argument conducted in the right register. Worship style is a tertiary matter, and the heat it generates is out of all proportion to its weight. If you want to think further about the surrounding questions, I have written on liturgy, on dancing in church, and on expository preaching, which is the element the regulative principle rightly puts at the centre. The NET Bible notes on Colossians 2 are useful on self made religion.

So, now what?

If you are in a church that holds the regulative principle firmly, receive the good in it. There is a seriousness about God in that tradition which lighter churches badly need, and a service stripped of clutter has a clarity all of its own. Do not let the rule become a stick for beating other congregations.

If you are somewhere freer, ask the regulative question anyway. Not is this allowed, but has God asked for this, and is it feeding His people. Most of what fills the average evangelical service would survive that test. Some of it would not, and quietly letting it go would cost less than you think. What is one thing in your Sunday gathering that exists because it has always been there rather than because God asked for it?

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers 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 (ESV)