Biblical
Ambiguities regarding Worship and the Regulative Principle
Our New Testament offers different portraits of the
Jerusalem temple. The Gospel of John portrays Jesus as the complete replacement
of the temple. The Jerusalem temple in John is therefore portrayed as a place
where Jesus is met with fiercest opposition. In contrast, the Gospel of Luke
has a more positive view of the temple. It is where Zechariah receives the
annunciation regarding John the Baptist, and after Jesus’s ascension it is the
place to which the rejoicing disciples return. In Acts, the apostles and
believers meet there, and even the apostle to the nations goes there to fulfill
a vow. This ambiguity can contribute, along with differences in our
understanding of Jesus’s real presence in the Eucharist, to differences in
regard for the place of our worship. Do we regard our church in its physical
dimension as a sacred space, following Luke-Acts, or do we regard it—along the
lines of a popular summary of Calvinistic ecclesiology—simply as “four bare
walls and a sermon”?
The phrases “as often as you drink” and “as often as you
eat” in Paul’s directions for the Eucharist are also ambiguous (1 Cor
11:25–26). Jesus and his apostles were eating an annual meal, the Passover
seder. But Paul arguably applies Passover imagery to the Lord’s Supper or
Eucharist in 1 Corinthians 5:7–8. So should we partake of the Eucharist once a
year, along the lines of the Passover seder, or should we partake of it daily
as might be indicated by the early believers’ practice in Acts 2:46, or perhaps
weekly as indicated by “first day of every week” or “the Lord’s day” (1 Cor
16:2; Rev 1:10)? I hope you see that someone could claim to have scriptural
support for receiving Jesus in the Eucharist on an annual, weekly, or daily
basis.
What about head coverings for women? On the basis of 1
Corinthians 11:2–16, Calvin taught that all women should have their heads
covered when meeting in public worship. This practice is continued by some
within Reformed, Anabaptist, and Catholic communities today. Yet when one reads
this paragraph in Paul’s letter, it is clear that Paul is operating within a
cultural milieu that considers it natural for men to have short hair and women
to have long hair, and in which married women should have their heads covered.
But not all cultures operate with these assumptions about hair. Paul says that
nature teaches that it is shameful for men to have long hair, but this is
clearly culturally conditioned. Medieval Europe, indigenous tribal areas, and
sumo wrestling through the millennia are all examples of cultural milieus in
which men’s long hair is honorable and natural. Some traditions continue to
follow Calvin’s lead in a straightforward reading of Paul’s culturally specific
command for women to have their heads covered. But other traditions justifiably
observe that the foundational principle of 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 is to maintain
a distinction between men and women when the community gathers for worship.
Such a distinction can be upheld in other culturally specific ways than the
Jewish-influenced guidelines Paul gave to his church in first-century Corinth.
A
False Dilemma behind the Regulative Principle of Worship
Let’s return to the two trains of thought we considered
at the beginning of this section regarding how a basketball league might
observe the rulebook and how Christian worship might conform to the Bible. In
both cases, the logic seems to predicate comprehensive and only positive
stipulation (identifying what should be done) on an authority that never claims
to be comprehensive in its description of allowable behaviors and is
significantly negative in directives (identifying what is not allowed). Both
arguments, first for playing basketball only according to the rulebook and then
the regulative principle in worship, partake of the fallacy of the false
dilemma, also called the false alternative, in the progression from step three
to step four. It is a false dilemma to say that either something is directed by
God (whether by positive command or prohibition) or it is not allowed. (Mark
Reasoner, Five Models of Scripture [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,
2021], 249-50)
To Support this Blog:
Email for Amazon Gift
card: ScripturalMormonism@gmail.com
Email for Logos.com Gift
Card: IrishLDS87@gmail.com
