Just to keep track of what’s going on here, I’ve got several series still ongoing. I wanted to remind you and perhaps assure you, that Lord-willing I will, definitely want to, finish these. Monday, I published the fourth in a series entitled, The Spectrum on Israel Accepted in the MAGA Movement (parts one, two, three, four). I didn’t cover the majority position yet and hope to do that soon. I’ve not finished another one, Drawing the Line on Masculinity: Getting a Male Role Back (parts one, two, three, four), so I plan on more there too. The now eight part series, Steps in the Right Process for Belief Change (parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight) isn’t done either. Stay tuned and read these if you haven’t already.
**********************************
DIRECTION
I would change some and add twice as much if I rewrote my 1996 book on music, Sound Music or Sounding Brass. However, it does well on some of the basic thinking necessary for evaluation of music as a biblical and cultural issue. As attacked as another of my books, Thou Shalt Keep Them, my music book took just as much or more criticism, although often unfairly. Believe me, most to all of these reviews are hatchet jobs or to use another metaphor, coming from people with an ax to grind. People know they can diminish sales by minimizing the average number of stars.
My music book I headed the second chapter, “The Direction of Godly Music,” and in every one of the ninety some references of the direction of music, scripture directs it “to God or “to the Lord.” I would add that the English word “worship” itself very often translates the Greek word, proskuneo, which means “to bow down” or “prostrate.” Worshipers bow down to someone or somewhere. The root verb, kuneo, means “to kiss,” which portrays kissing the hand of the superior. The Greeks used it for a dog’s gesture of affection, like licking the master’s hand.
The Bible gives a heavenward orientation of worship. When Jesus’ eyes are mentioned during prayer, God’s Word shows them as looking heavenward (e.g., Mark 6:41, John 11:41). The New Testament encourages believers to “draw near to God” (James 4:8) and approach the “throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). Jesus said the Father “seeketh such to worship Him” (John 4:24). Some have represented worship with “an audience of one.”
REGULATED WORSHIP
Believers through the history of doctrine represented worship with a principle titled, “the regulative principle of worship.” The regulative principle is most clearly articulated in 17th-century confessions of faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter 21, Paragraph 1) states that God limits the acceptable way of worshipping Him to His revealed will, not according to human imagination or anything not prescribed in scripture. The Second London Baptist Confession (1689) uses nearly identical language to the Westminster Confession, affirming that worship is limited by God’s revealed will and prohibiting ways not prescribed in scripture.
Historical advocates for the regulative principle cite several biblical passages:
- Deuteronomy 12:32, instructing people not to add to or take away from God’s commands.
- Leviticus 10:1–2, where Nadab and Abihu were punished for offering unauthorized fire, is seen as an example of God requiring only commanded worship.
- Matthew 15:9, where Jesus criticizes the teaching of human commandments as doctrines in worship.
From verses or passages such as these and many others arose the central tenet of the regulative principle, which is that whatever is not commanded by God in scripture is forbidden in corporate worship. I like to say, regulate your life by what scripture says. That would contrast with something it does not say, or put another way, “what’s in between the lines.” Don’t allow what’s in between the lines to rule your life (which very often some will say is the Holy Spirit), but what the lines of scripture actually say.
PREDOMINANT ALTERNATIVE CRITERIA
I’ve presented to you the source for the criteria for worship. For sure, churches, the saints within true churches, must apply the verses, passages, teachings, or principles, which is how scripture regulates worship. In the most rudimentary sense, God must approve of worship or like it. Formed into a question, does God approve of or like the worship? It isn’t worship if it isn’t directed to God, so that the overall single criterion for worship is the approval or acceptance of God.
Churches and people in general have their own criteria for worship, predominant of them are (1) do I like it? and very closely related, (2) does it feel good or how does it make me (or us) feel?, and finally (3) will it draw more people or bring in more numbers of people? One could call the last of these three an attraction or allurement. Many of you know what I’m talking about, because the entertainment business provides future and feature attractions, characteristic of a performance. Churches build their auditoriums like a theater with a stage and use that to attract a crowd.
Scripture gives a single word that represents all three of the predominant criteria: lust. Lust relates to us, what we want and like, and not what God wants and likes. Peter commands in 1 Peter 2:11, “Abstain from fleshly lust.” John writes in his first epistle (2:16): “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes. . . . is not of the Father, but is of the world.”
EVEN MORE SINISTER
What makes the predominant criteria even more sinister is that most often their adherents characterize the lust of them as “spiritual” or “loving.” Their advocates call what they do, “worship music.” Many parallels exist, one being an art museum, the objects therein considered “art.” The people, who perform or performed the tasks, called “artists.” Have you stood and looked at paint splattered by an “artist” on canvass in an “art” museum? The criteria for art changed. It became subjective.
Art criteria shifted dramatically from seemingly objective standards, like accuracy, realism, proportion, in earlier eras to highly subjective, contextual, and conceptual criteria in modern times. The previous criteria centered on mimesis, imitation of nature, mathematical harmony, ideal beauty, religious narrative, and skillful representation of the human form and perspective. As the criteria changed, artists explored subjective experience — impressionism, expressionism, fragmented reality, non-representational forms — abstraction, and the subconscious — surrealism, proposing art as an idea, not just an object, shifting focus to the artist’s choice and context.
WORSHIPING THE CREATURE
Today worship leaders call worshipers, Christian artists. What was love is also not love, but sentimentalism. Anyone should understand changing definitions, even as in the Supreme Court this week, another lawyer could not define what a woman was. That’s bad, but calling something worship, when it centers on likes and feelings, is worse. It corresponds exactly to worshiping and serving the creature, rather than Creator (Romans 1:25). If the proponents of this idolatry care, which they do, they care for not having their taste questioned, especially with biblical principles.
One problem with something so tied into feelings is that depending on the temperature, feelings change, sort of like the weather. You show disapproval to what someone likes or feels is like taking the food bowl away from the dog. They feel angry now. The weather changed and so did they. You can only show approval. When you don’t, now they call that division or betraying Christian unity of some sort, or that this is just a matter of a disagreement about personal taste. What ensues can look something like junior, junior-high, or high school girls fighting through the school day. Feelings are hurt and trampled.
The obvious next step for not having the proper criteria for worship is not even having the true God. The so-called “worshipers” shape God by their own imagination, especially formed by what they like and feel, their lust. This not only distorts and corrupts a true view of God, but it destroys those claiming to worship Him, fashioning themselves according to their lust, which wars against their very souls.