Regulative Principle
From Neoredemptive
The regulative principle, simply stated, is that the church, gathered for corporate worship, may do only those things specifically mandated or directly implied by scripture. The Bible thereby "regulates" (restricts by only allowing that which should be admitted) the content of the worship service.
The contrasting position, the Normative Principle, says simply that while the Scripture does mandate particular things for the gathered church, other things are also permissible provided they are not explicitly forbidden by Scripture. The Bible thereby "normalizes" (states things which are definitively Christian worship and which are definitively not while not speaking definitively on others) the content of the worship service.
We reject the regulative principle both in principle and as it is most popularly implemented. We do not disagree with RP-ers when it comes to most first principles upon which they base their argument: most importantly, that God deserves and demands to be worshiped in the ways which He has provided, not simply according to the vain imaginations of the corrupt human heart. We simply believe the RP tradition has wrongly overextended the intent of the Scriptures with respect to describing and prescribing the activities of gathered Christian worship.
The RP in Practice
We do not reject those elements which "regulative" churches have chosen to include - preaching of the Gospel and of the scriptures, communion, worship, fellowship, etc.
We have not, however, ever found a RP church in which the list is actually exhaustive of Biblical mandates for the gathered community of God's people. Dancing, clapping, speaking and singing "to one another" (and not merely being spoken/sung to), and the laying on of hands come immediately to mind.
In fact, most RP churches we have seen exclude charismatic expression specifically mandated in Scripture from their regulative patterns. In a poignant example, one source justifies the regulative principle by citing 1 Corinthians chapter 14 (pointing out that God calls for order and patterns in gathered worship); its next chapter then enumerates the content of a regulative worship service, and notably absent from that chapter are precisely the elements of the service which 1 Corinthians 14 specifically addresses - multiple prophets, tongues, and interpretations.
The RP in Principle
We cannot find anywhere in the Bible a self-identified, canonical, sufficient, and exhaustive checklist for those things which must be done, to the exclusion of all other things, whenever Christians "gather as the Church". What's more, we are not convinced that the New Testament ever spells out commands for us particular to a "worship service" which do not also apply when we gather "as" friends, business associates, or family members.
The Bible describes as normative many things (including corporate prayer, the reading of scripture, preaching the gospel, song, the lord's table, tongues, spontaneous prophecy, spontaneous singing, healing of the sick and other miracles), all of which we embrace as important expressions of our life together in Christ by the Spirit. As such, we believe that they should all be common occurrences whenever Christians are together - whether gathered formally as the Church for a "service", having coffee together at a local hangout, or watching the Super Bowl together. No legitimate dimension of our Christian-ness should be excluded, dismissed or omitted from any aspect of our life as Christians, whether in a formal gathering or in our scattered everyday lives.
Most arguments for the regulative principle are not directly scriptural (the Bible lacks any prescriptive formulas in this area), but instead follow roughly the following outline:
- God commands corporate worship from His followers.
- The form that worship takes is clearly important to Him, and not everything we would call "worship" is acceptable to Him. (Worship of images of Him, for example, is not acceptable, and neither is a chaotic series of ecstatic experiences.)
- Scripture is sufficient.
- Therefore, scripture must spell out everything we can and must do in the context of corporate worship.
Such reasoning is a close cousin of fencing, a method of ethics which forbids things which the Scriptures do not forbid for fear that they may be dangerous or may lead us into, toward, or near to those things Scripture does forbid. "It is important to be right. Therefore, we must not only adhere strictly to these mandates, but we must also avoid doing anything of which the mandates do not speak, lest we be wrong." Such a position reflects a distorted view of God's character: as an autocratic permission-granter rather than the freedom-loving law-giver He is.
The structure of the New Testament epistles should give us a hint here: much of their content aims to correct abuses and errors. What's more, the issue being corrected on the surface is rarely the real issue. The Table is not a matter of procedure but of rightly regarding the Lord's Body; prophecy and tongues are not an issue of fulfilling obligations (both to spontaneity and to order) but of love for neighbor. Scripture is profoundly concerned with the condition of our hearts toward God and each other; all questions of church methodology are consistently treated as consequences, not as root issues.
This is, of course, not to say that preaching of the Gospel (or any other common element of a RP liturgy, for that matter) is unimportant, or that we can avoid them with any regularity and still produce a healthy Christian congregation. Again, we think the RP staples must indeed be staples of our Christian life. What we cannot say while still standing within the mandates of Scripture is that a gathering in which the church celebrates through song, drama, and participatory thanksgiving to God without the delivery of a prepared homily was not an excellent, effectual, faithful, scripturally-warranted gathering of God's people.
All things are to be measured against Scripture, and Scripture itself says that "all things are permissible; not all things are beneficial" and that we should "test all things; hold on to what is good". This principle applies, whether we are discussing politics around the dinner table, world history with our children, or the ordering of Christian worship. So how are we to discern the good? First, we are to know the expectations and boundaries actually set down by Scripture. Second, we are to learn Godly wisdom from Scripture. And third, we are to temper all things with love for God and love for neighbor (1 Corinthians 12-13).
