Deferring to God and His Word

The church is faced with a looming dilemma: instead of allowing scripture to dictate and inform corporate worship, believers have whole-heartedly subscribed to extra-biblical constructs, elevating man's dull misconceptions while overlooking God's crystal demands.

Although professing Christ and claiming to hold fast His word, many evangelical churches have allowed the means of worship to supersede the ultimate end, God's glorification. This unnatural regard for natural means, or helps, is described by Jeremiah Burroughs: "For if I account one place more holy than another, or think that God should accept worship in one place rather than another, this is to raise it above what it is in its own nature" (GW 14). Such misplaced affections have historically been described as "legalism." Christ Himself, quoting Isaiah, described it thus: "In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men" (Matt. 15:9). If the church continues to regard tie-wearing, coffee-serving, or style-blending as definitive and laudable qualifiers, she may soon become nothing more than a strip-mall for the regenerate consumer.

However, God expresses an insuppressible desire for worship. Additionally, He expects close attention to the details of worship. Burroughs writes, "Such things as seem to be very small and little to us, yet God stands much upon them in the matter of worship, for there is nothing wherein the prerogative of God more appears than in worship" (GW 17). If God's desire for worship will be met, and if His expectations in worship must be heeded, a source of adequate instruction should be provided. Scripture is this source. Duncan tells us, "If we are to live and worship together soli deo gloria, then what shall be the basis and pattern? The only answer for the evangelical Christian is sola scriptura" (GPTG 20). If a standard has been both demanded and defined, then ignorant worship, willful or otherwise, is legally subject to either punishment (Nadab and Abihu) or rejection (Cain).

In the end, the matter is not a question of how people do worship. Instead, it is a matter of how God desires worship to be done. If only the church could peel her eyes away from her own concerns just long enough to look into God's affairs! Then, perhaps, she would be able to "assure that God - not man - is the supreme authority for how worship is to be conducted" (GPTG 24).