I have grown up in a Methodist Church as a kid switched over to intervarsity Christian fellowship in school in the middle school time and onwards, and essentially I’ve always been exposed to the normative worship. Normative worship includes elements not explicitly forbidden by scripture, as long as they are consistent with biblical principles and promote edification. That will cover the whole spectrum of interdenominational worship, even high church like Anglican high church with liturgical worship as long as they are related and in being consistent with biblical principles and promote edification, I will have no problem in fact I will have great affinity and for it.

What is and why Regulative Worship

But what is regulative worship? I never heard of it until I entered seminary on my last year I took a two-hour credit hours class on the regulative worship by Dr Duncan and to my amazement there is such a thing called regulative worship. Essentially the argument for such is actually found in:

Exodus 20:1–5 (ESV)

And God spoke all these words, saying, ² “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ³ “You shall have no other gods before me.⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,

In Exodus 20, God established the 10 commandments for Moses to tell all the Israelites, and before that he gave them background why the Ten commandments to the nation of Israel. I love the fact that God started off saying, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the House of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me.”  He established his credibility, He established who He is before telling Israel what to do. I believe that that’s the cool thing about Christianity is you need to know who the God of Christianity is before trying to do the morals and the commandments of Christianity. If you try to do or obey the 10 commandments yourself thinking that that will please God and get yourself a ticket to go to heaven, without knowing the God who gives the Ten commandments, you are really deeply wrong and in trouble. This is what you call legalism, and it is actually pretty rampant in our world today simply because of the ignorance of the truth of the word of God. And that’s why I’m passionate of bringing all this out in my writings and my podcasts and my preaching and teaching.

Now in the next verse God said you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or the earth below or the water below and you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I’m a jealous God. I’ve been reading them for the last few decades thinking that God is warning us not to make anything in this world as an idol to bow down and to me that’s pretty clear. And that is connecting to v 3 that says, “you shall have no other gods before me .” In other words don’t make this idolatry of the images of carved images of anything on earth or in the water as God. In our modern-day application it will simply mean don’t love anything or put your hope in anything that’s above who God is like Augustine says our problem is not the love of the world, our problem is the disordered love. Just like if we love money, love worldly comfort that is OK to a great extent, but just don’t make it the same pedestal with God because any love for anything in this world that is on par with or above God will get us into the trouble of breaking this commandment of idolatry.

However in the reformed world the regulative worship principle actually argues that:

³ “You shall have no other gods before me.⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the

When God commanded Israel not to make any imagery of anything on earth or heaven or water below and they shall not bow down to them and serve them, the reformed teachings actually teach us that what God is saying is don’t worship me in the form of a carved image or the likeness of anything on earth in heaven or in the water. Now this is hard to swallow because in verse 5 God said you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God and my jealous God. God didn’t say you shall not bow down to them thinking that I am being expressed in those carved images. God clearly makes a distinction between those idols and him, because he says don’t bow to them or serve them.

There is no indication whatsoever to think that don’t worship the Lord your God in the form of those images.

But anyhow, this is how the regulative worship doctrine comes through by the fact that God commands the way how he is worshipped and not to be worshipped through those images. Case in point perhaps is the golden calf that Israel bowed down to the golden calf, is that an idolatry of the golden calf, or did Israel think that the almighty God manifests himself in the form of golden calf? In my mind the latter is clearly an abomination.

That aside if we go by that argument regarding regularity for worship which means:

• Regulative Principle of Worship: Worship must include only those elements explicitly commanded or authorized in Scripture. Anything not prescribed is forbidden.
• Normative Principle of Worship: Worship may include elements not explicitly forbidden by Scripture, as long as they are consistent with biblical principles and promote edification.

Regulative worship includes only those elements explicitly commanded or authorized in scripture. Anything not prescribed is forbidden. That’s why regulative worship is called prescriptive worship. While normative worship may include elements not explicitly forbidden by scripture as long as that consistent with biblical principles and promote edification.

John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and Herman Bavinck are all leaning towards regulative worship. However to my pleasant surprise and joy, I found Augustine more leaning towards normative worship.

Augustine & Normative Worship—Heart’s disposition & centrality of scriptures

In works like On Christian Doctrine and City of God, Augustine emphasizes that worship should glorify God and edify the church. He focuses on the heart’s disposition and the centrality of Scripture, preaching, and sacraments (baptism and the Eucharist), but he does not explicitly restrict worship to only scripturally mandated elements. [1]

Augustine emphasizes that worship should glorify God and edify the church, I think he’s got it exactly on the point. Now what he wrote the next line is fascinating because he wrote he focuses on the hearts disposition and the centrality of scripture, preaching and sacraments, and that’s precisely what I would go by. I think the most important point is the word, “hearts disposition and the centrality of scripture.” As long as the worship contains a hearts disposition of the author of the composer and with a genre of the centrality of the holy scripture, I think that will be the best form of worship which happens to be normative. If you look at Augustine, a man who wrote one of the most fascinating and engaging and intense thought-provoking affectionate books in the Christian theology world, The Confessions, it is not hard to see that why he would focus on the heart disposition and the centrality of scripture in worship. In fact I would argue that worship without heart’s disposition would actually make worship to be more rigid and even dry.

I don’t think God wants to take away that hearts disposition from us in our worship towards him and that’s precisely what the entire book of psalms all about. David wrote majority of the worship, adoration, prayer, lament of the book of psalms from deep down his heart and that is heart disposition. We would do well to learn from David and expressed that hearts disposition towards the Lord in our worship, in our writing of songs, and the liturgical worship on Sunday church service. I would argue that David wrote the psalms with his heart’s disposition inspired by the Holy Spirit. I would therefore argue that in modern day God gives us space in room for us to express our hearts disposition in our worship lyrics and liturgical worship with the centrality of scriptures. As long as we are in line with the centrality of scriptures it will make worship so much more authentic genuine and passionate.

Normative Worship in Anglican high church liturgy and contemporary Hill Songs etc.

In fact normative worship includes high church Anglican high church worship with lots of liturgical expression and words which are not directly from the holy scripture but flows in line with the centrality of scriptures and edification of the church, I would definitely support that and go with that. So normative worship is not just songs like Hill Songs, Elevation songs, Bethel songs etcetera. I’m keenly aware of some of the theological faults in some of those churches. But there are good songs from them with spontaneous heart expression or disposition to the Lord with the centrality of scripture albeit somewhat repetitive and less words format it, nevertheless, is superb worship in fact I think that’s what draws in a lot of young people to church.

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[1] Augustine, On Christian Doctrine and City of God