The Regulative Principle of Worship | w/@Wisdomforthechurch

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Hello, and welcome to the Apologetic Dog. It's our heart's desire to contend for the gospel of grace.

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We are just gonna dive right in. I want to introduce to you my good friend, John. How are you doing, sir?

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Hey, buddy, I'm good. You been all right? Yeah, made it through the holidays.

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Ooh, I need a holiday from my holiday, if you know what I mean, but. Oh, wow, yeah. The Lord has blessed the

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Nortier home. In fact, the wifey said to give her a shout out, and she is the babe of all babes, Allie Nortier out there.

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So she is the backbone that allows me to do the apologetics ministry.

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So yeah, we're doing good over here. Would y 'all have a good Christmas or New Year? That's a solid shout out. That was a great shout out.

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I mean, she's happy with you right now. I'll tell you that much. I had to do it while I still remembered.

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There we go, there we go. But you get the credit for it, you know? You get the credit. Yeah, man.

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Well, y 'all have good New Years and Christmas time? Had a great time.

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Yeah, I got to see family, got to see some people that are kind of extended family in a way that I haven't seen in years.

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And so it was the biggest, bigger gathering in many years for me, so I really enjoyed it. And yeah, the more

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I grow, I guess, in Christ too, the more I actually appreciate holidays, specifically

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Christ -centered holidays, but also other holidays like Thanksgiving, for example. It's like, well, what a great opportunity to actually know why we have thanks and why we give thanks, who we give thanks to.

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And you know, it's like the underrated holiday, almost, of Christian opportunity to witness and things like that.

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Now, earlier we were talking, you're currently in seminary? Yeah, yeah, I'm at a

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Reformed Baptist seminary, Covenant Baptist Theological. Sam Waldron is probably the name some might people, some people might know.

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But yeah, I'm going at a snail's pace, you know, at a snail's pace all the way through that. So by the time I'm 50, 55, 60,

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I'll have an MDiv, yeah. Yeah, yeah, cram four years of seminary into about 10.

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That's about how it goes, right? Wow, yeah. Well, John, please tell us a little bit more about your online presence and where people can find your content and anything else you wanna tell us.

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Of course, yeah, I'm really happy you have me, man. I know I've had you on before. I host a

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YouTube channel called Wisdom for the Church. If anyone ends up watching this, please head over to that channel. After you watch this, just give me a subscription.

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Give me a little bit of your time. Basically, my channel is about hopefully towing the balance of having a biblical love and a biblical spine in today's kind of hot climate.

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I think if you can grow in your ability to live the truth in love and not be swayed by winds and waves of doctrine, but also not be a jerk unnecessarily, then the

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Lord can use you mightily. And that's the heart of my channel, to grow in thinking categorically, to grow in thinking in terms of Christian ethics.

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And I have a diverse amount of people I bring on, as well as some of my own stuff, to prayerfully be a small voice in the corner of the internet to help people.

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So I'm more of a corner of the corner of the internet, within a corner of that, so. Why do you have an awesome logo,

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Wisdom for the Church, and we need some more wisdom out there. The logos, I mean, yeah,

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I love the logo. It's my favorite thing to do. Yeah, so how'd you come up with Wisdom for the Church?

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Was it just like, hey, we need a voice in this kind of, like you said, corner or arena for the church specifically?

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Well, I mean, back, you know, 2017, 2018, up to 2020, I think you saw a lot of churches, for various reasons, a lot of ministers, a lot of people that were in high positions in evangelicalism, that seemed to fold under cultural pressers, or things that were just evil, folded to wokeness, or folded to close their churches down indefinitely, even though that would violate some basic ecclesiology of gathering around the

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Lord's day. And so it seemed like, okay, we lack a, some sort of conviction or spine to do what we know is right, still do it lovingly, and know that there will be consequences.

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But then you also have the other pendulum, the pendulum swinging the other way, where now it's, you know, you could easily just be like,

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I'm just gonna be a jerk, and I'm gonna stand up, quote unquote, for the truth, and I'm not gonna listen to anybody, but your pride might come in.

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And so, you know, it's a personal project of mine to continue to grow in that, and I pray that it's, you know, that's the direction that Christians are going just in our sanctification, growing more to be like Christ.

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And so that's where the channel came out of, is seeing a lot of lack of spine, and then spine being built, but seemingly spine that would be almost swinging at everything, as if it's a nail, but some things aren't nails.

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Yeah. So, yeah. All right, thank you for that. Definitely, for anybody that watches this, go subscribe to Wisdom for the

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Church. You had me on a couple times, and I remember we got to talk about the Church of Christ, and there was, that started a lot of conversation, didn't it, in the

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YouTube comments? The internet loves you. That's the one thing I learned. Both times that I had you, or I don't know if it was two or three, but every time

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I've had you, the internet loves the apologetic dog. The internet may love me, but that doesn't mean that everyone loves the apologetic dog that tunes in.

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Yeah. Well, if you read the comments, you'll learn. I'm being a little facetious there. They're pouncing on the dog.

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They're trying to put you in the pound. Hey, man, I live in the pound. That's what they don't realize. So, today. Oh, there we go.

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We wanted to talk about the regulative principle and how that relates to the corporate worship on the

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Lord's Day, but kind of kick us off. Maybe you've talked about this some in seminary or just in your day -to -day life.

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So, maybe tell people kind of your understanding of the regulative principle and we'll continue to build on that.

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Sure, sure. Yeah, regulative principle, when we're talking about that versus, I guess, historically, the normative principle, we are talking specifically about worship on the

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Lord's Day, the corporate gathering. Maybe it's a little bit more broad than that. You might think of like church government, but a lot of times we're talking about what does worship look like on the

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Lord's Day? And the regulative principle, by the reformed way of things, has been basically we go with the elements, that is the actual parts of worship, only what has been expressly laid out or commanded by God in scripture.

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The normative principle would say, well, that, but also if it's not been forbidden in scripture, then we're okay as long as it's not been commanded against or it's not sin.

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And so with the regulative principle, you would not see, for example,

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I don't know if I would actually see this in a church, but you wouldn't see like a skit of someone crossing the

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Red Sea to try to show like a principle from the gospel, even though in and of itself in a vacuum, the picture of the

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Israelites being led by Moses out of Egypt into the promised land is a picture of Christ's saving us.

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But in the local gathering, we don't see that like a skit, some kind of interpretive motion is part of what

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God gives us. We see the preaching is part, for example, one of the elements. We see the Lord's Supper is one of the elements, reading the words, prayer, all those sorts of things and more.

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But that would be an example of the regulative principle at work saying, this is not necessarily an evil thing, but because God cares about his worship in general, but specifically about how his corporate gathering is to function, this simply should not be because God is pleased with worship in spirit and truth.

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And the truth is that he's laid out clearly how we should worship in scripture, particularly on the

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Lord's day. I love it because like you're saying, succinctly the regulative principle says,

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God gets to determine worship the way that he wants to. And so we get that from his word.

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And if we're looking at a spectrum, we got the regulative principle over here, and maybe we can touch on what some of those extremes look like.

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And the normative principle says, hey, if scripture doesn't forbid it, it's fair game. And I personally don't like the foundation of the normative principle, trying to figure out what you can fit in there.

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Because as we're gonna continue to see about the regulative principle, that's what it is.

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It's principles that we can apply across cultures and time and that may look a little bit different from culture to culture, but the substance is still the same.

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And so that's why I think the regulative principle is primary because God gets to define worship. And I wanted to maybe touch on this too, is maybe just touch on worship a little bit in the

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Christian life because immediately the regulative principle assumes the Lord's day gathering together with the saints, corporately, collectively with one another.

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So what do you think about that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we see all throughout the

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New Testament that there's definitely a precedent set of they gathered on the Lord's day and did not forsake the gathering.

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All of the letters in the New Testament also are written to local congregations. But when we're talking about the regulative principle, we're specifically talking about that because that particular reality of the

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Christian life, what I would argue is the pinnacle of a Christian's week is,

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I would argue, more tightly defined by God than even other areas.

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I think you have a lot more freedom in your vocation, apart from the moral law, of course.

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You have more freedom in your vocation to do it in a few different ways, I believe, than you do specifically the gathering on the

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Lord's day. And that is not because God is a killjoy. It is just God cares about the purity of his church.

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He cares about unity in his church. And what better way to have unity than to tell us what to do?

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I love it. We don't know what to do. That word church, we kind of understand twofold.

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You have the church universal, those that have been called out by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

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And what we're gonna kind of continue to lean into is the local visible church.

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And so, John, I wanted to maybe look at a passage of scripture. If I can find it. It disappeared on me. There we go.

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In Romans 12, this talks about the individual life of the saints.

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And I love this because it talks about what is our spiritual worship. And so this is Romans chapter 12, verse one, that therefore, after 11 chapters of theology, now the practicality, live in light of the rich theology about the sovereignty of God and his majesty and how all things work together for his glory.

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Paul says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, your lives, as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

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So this is kind of what I want us to lean into. And just firstly say, this is talking about every day it belongs to the

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Lord, meaning that every day we, whether we, whatever we eat, whatever we drink, whatever we do is ultimately to glorify

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God through worship. He is the only one worth honoring and glorifying with our lives.

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And so very practically, verse two says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

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And so a lot of times want to emphasize this point in saying that worship isn't just one day a week, right, on Sunday, even though we're gonna get into that being very distinct, and God has given us many prescribed principles of what that gathering should look like.

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But for the Christian, every day, we are living to the glory of God and giving him worship. So what do you think there?

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Absolutely, I mean, I would say you're saying that two things can be true at once, two things are true at once. And my friends kind of laugh at me because that's apparently my phrase just in my life.

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Hey, two things can be true at once, it's okay. But you know, in this case, it's true that all of life should be worshiped to God, basically, that's the first truth.

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We're not making a distinction of any area of our life that is off limits to being to the glory of God.

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And so if I am someone that turns off my love of God and growing closer to him, the second

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I leave the church door or whatever, there's something profoundly wrong with that, given what we see just in those verses that you just read.

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I present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. And that's extends past, you know, two hours or whatever it is, or longer on Sunday.

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And so that's truth one. Truth two, which is still true is, and the Lord has set apart a particular way of worshiping him in a special way on the

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Lord's day. And so the Lord has wed those things together and both of them are true and we can't lose one of the other.

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So we're not gonna flatline worship to say that there's no distinction of Sunday, but we're not gonna sacrifice the rest of the week out of some sort of false piety,

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I guess you could say. Yeah, that's good. I like how you said also how two things can be true at once.

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And so, cause sometimes when we get into the extreme, some people say, well, it doesn't matter that we gather together on the

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Sunday because every day is the Lord's day. Everything's work. Yeah, and we wanna say, let's pause because two things can be true at once.

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So it is true that Monday school is always gonna come around and that is to the glory of God.

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And we worship him through our day -to -day activities and tasks, but that doesn't negate what all of scripture has had to say about a particular day of rest, which maybe we can touch on those principles concerning the

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Sabbath. And what the pattern of the early church established. And so I want us to talk a little bit about hermeneutics when we look at descriptions in the book of Acts and what we see

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Paul giving commands, prescriptions to the church in light of the foundation of the early church.

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And so when we cycle back to the regulative principle, I think a very important principle is God gets to define his worship.

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And so if people saw the thumbnail, it was a reformed

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Baptist basically understanding of the regulative principle. And that's because we are confessional.

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And so when you look at the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith chapter 22 really does a good job outlining what principles scripture gives us that looks like distinct on the first day of the week when we are to gather together with the saints.

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And so have you cracked open that 1689 confession in a while? Got it here.

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Bam, oh nice. Don't crack it out open as much as I need to. But yeah,

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I always have it handy. Well, I wanted to post this here because this chapter 22 outlines kind of religious worship and the

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Sabbath day. So we'll touch on this a little bit. But just a highlight of what these eight sections talk about is yes, we are called to have a day of a particular kind of worship where we're going to read the word corporately, brothers and sisters gathered together with the saints with a kind of ecclesiology, a leadership.

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And then we have deacons, servants that are distinguished in that role. And it's very distinct. It's different than the day to day which is still our spiritual worship.

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But this is distinct. And so what every church service worship should look like has principles of reading the word, praying the word, preaching the word, singing the word, and seeing the word through the sacraments or ordinances with baptism in the

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Lord's Supper. So any thoughts there so far? Yeah, well, that's helpful in terms of, we are making a distinction.

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I think that the confession would make this distinction between the elements or the parts of worship and circumstances.

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And so really when we're talking about the regulative principle or God regulating how he should be worshiped on the

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Lord's day, what he has set apart one in seven, we're talking about the elements of like baptism, the

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Lord's Supper, preaching the word, reading the word. And it's actually, I flipped to chapter 22 of the confession.

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You might've already gonna read this, but paragraph five mentions these, the elements of worship, religious worship include reading the scriptures, preaching and hearing the word of God, teaching and admonishing one other with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hearts to the

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Lord, as well as the administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

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It goes on, but that's basically what they list there. And the circumstances come in where, okay, that's what we're focusing on and saying the elements are what are regulated, but what is basically natural prudence, the

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Lord has given us some flexibility there. And that's not messing with the regulated elements that he has set forth.

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And so I don't have the freedom if I'm a pastor or one of the pastors in the church to administer a skit, because that's towing on an element of the actual worship and leading people in worship.

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I do have the freedom to talk about, should we put another row of seats in the back for some of the saints that have a little bit more trouble getting in and out due to age or ailments or whatever might be easier for them to be in the back just in case they have to get up, use the restroom or whatever it is, because that's not an element of worship, that's just a basic human wisdom principle that's not messing with those parts.

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Wanted to see what you thought about that. I think it's a helpful distinction. Those sorts of, because there's tons of normal wisdom plays that are just circumstantial.

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How bright should we have the lights? Should we dim them slightly because we have, for some reason, a subset of believers that have really bad eyes or so, whatever it is.

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A lot of circumstances might come into play based on the location you live, the physical health of the people you have and all those sorts of things.

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But any thoughts there? I do, and I wanna take this moment to say, if you have any questions in the side chat that pertains to the topic, send them our way, and we'd love to field those in along the way and see where it leads us.

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So yeah, when we're talking about the regulative principle, which it's kinda outlined there in section one, and I wanted to quickly just read what the confession says here.

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It's a few sentences down. It says, but the acceptable way to worship the true God is instituted by him, and it is delimited by his own revealed will.

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So that is a really good point of saying, we don't start with saying, okay, well, scripture doesn't say

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I can't ride a motocross dirt bike onto the stage and do it.

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And it's like, okay. I mean, Jesus rode a donkey, right? I mean, it's basically the modern donkey. I mean, come on.

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Yeah, well, this goes back to what you're saying too. When we start with what God has revealed, scripture organically gives us principles, and if those principles are true, then it's going to deter you away from doing nonsense, right?

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And so I wanted to talk with you a little bit about the extremes that we see, because there are groups out there that would claim to hold to the regulative principle, but they would be exclusive psalmody, okay?

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So this is where I wanna be gracious, but I also wanna give pushback to some of these groups that have said, well, regulative principle, since we are in the same covenant as Abraham and the people of Moses, then we're only gonna sing the psalms.

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And I always say, okay, I'm very gracious towards those that have that kind of covenant theology view, but I'm saying, wait, wait, we are in a new covenant that is better in every way, and then you have simple passages like Colossians three and Ephesians chapter five within the bounds of a corporate body worship, a local gathering, church context, says that we are to sing to one another in psalms, hymns, in spiritual songs.

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And so some of these exclusive psalmody groups, they don't use instruments and automatically say, well, then how do you reconcile the fact that Ephesians was written to be circulated to the church and maybe beginning with Ephesus, but it's a local setting, especially as we look at the other letters in the

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New Testament, it's a local setting. And number two, it invokes the psalms which include instruments.

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And so that's always struck me as an extreme that's not being consistent with the regulative principle.

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What do you think? Yeah, that's weirdly just kinda, it's like, oh yeah, duh. They're always instructing them to stringed instruments, for example, in the

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Old Testament with the psalms. That's, but yeah, with this exclusive psalmody, one,

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I mean, you mentioned a couple passages, Ephesians and Colossians, sing to one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs.

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It doesn't say psalms, psalms, and psalms. So there has to be, there seemingly has to be some difference in those three.

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And I wanna say, even if it was just psalms, that's enough to warrant instruments, you know what

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I mean? Because that's where a lot of the percussion instruments were used in the psalms, sing well to the glory of God.

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So I think the exclusive psalmody that's trying to say regulative principle, it's just an extreme.

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It's just something that's unwarranted. And I will say this, this may make some people mad. It seems like those kinds of abuses of the regulative principle are so rigid that there's no emotion to be able to sing to the glory of God.

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Because as we get into the Christian Sabbath, this is a day of celebration, not a day to superimpose mosaic law.

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Yeah, and that's, I think that's a good point on the psalm thing, is if I were to go to a church that was psalms only, and that was just a practical thing,

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I wouldn't exactly hate it, because I'm like, okay. I mean, it's the word of God, and it's, you know,

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I'm singing to him words that he inspired. I'm, you know, I'm on a pretty good foot here.

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But in terms, so, you know, on a practical level, it'd be like, okay, you know, like, I'm not mad.

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This is way better than what it could be way over here. You know what I mean? But I think you're right in terms of the regulative principle for those that might push back and say, well, this is what the regulative principle leads to.

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I think that's not, that's more of a specific application of some people, how they have interpreted the principle, rather than what the principle actually teaches, like how it's typically been defined.

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And so, the logic of the principle does not actually lead to, in my opinion, exclusive psalm singing, basically.

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And to your point, for whatever circumstance, people maybe don't have instruments, high five, the acapella,

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I think the point is, we want to sing well to the glory of God. He is not a

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God of confusion or chaos, and this is where a principle of continuity, we can look into that old covenant and see that God is a

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God of order. That didn't change in the new covenant, but we have been given principles. And so,

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I'm just saying that the exclusive psalm singing, maybe this isn't for every single one, but those that would then say to invoke instruments in worship would be sinful.

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And so, we did talk about, on your channel, The Church of Christ, they think it is going against what

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God prescribes to have instruments. And what's wild is I tell people, look, you can glorify acapella singing and contradict what's being talked about in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5, is because it's a heart issue, and you can use instruments wrongly that would be idolized.

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So, that's my thing is, with the regular principle, there are extremes that we want to caution against.

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And like we kind of touched on earlier, an extreme for the normative principle are kind of those wild concert churches that basically say, hey, scripture doesn't prohibit it, so let's just do whatever we want.

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And we're like, no, no, no, that's an extreme. It's interesting, what goes on in the church is supernatural.

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So, when I make this analogy, it's only gonna go so far. But if I were a coach of a sports team and we've had a rough go at things, and we've just been doing poorly, or like basketball, we're not shooting well, our passing is terrible, we're not playing hard defense, whatever.

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How am I at least going to try to fix the issue? I'm probably going to try to simplify what we're doing, focus on the basics, and wonder what is it we're supposed to be doing to be a good basketball team.

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Focus on the basics, let's go simple, and then we'll start filling things in once we're kind of mastered these basics.

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And again, that's where it stops, applying that to the church. It's just an example.

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But you talk about certain churches that have movie clips that they'll play, or sermon series based on movies, for example, or wild demonstrations on the stage, or even demonstrations that are meant in good heart.

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A lot of these things are in good heart, but are really, when you come down to it, juvenile and a distraction,

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I would argue, from the glory of God, which is what ultimately we're here for. The simplicity of the regulative principle is just saying we're just taking all of that, putting it to the side, and doing the basic things that God has given us, and the amazing things will happen by his design.

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And so we're just that basketball team that was all over the place, and realized we don't know what we're doing.

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We're terrible. How do you play basketball? God has showed us what the corporate gathering should be.

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And we're focused on those basic things. And even within those basic things, it's not like we're arguing, therefore there should be this horrendous rigidity.

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Actually, if we believe what the Bible says about following him, and him working according to his spirit and truth, it should be a vibrant, joyful reality of worshiping him.

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Somber moments too, if there's moments in songs and things like that that are somber, or portions of the sermon, or scripture reading that are somber, of course.

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But basically, the regulative principle, because you're simply trying to say, let's just be basic about what is clearly biblical, and not go beyond that, so as to please

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God and know that we're on solid ground, it's gonna lead to amazing things. And often, those quote -unquote authentic emotions that are often associated with the kind of big box non -denominational churches that can go off the rails,

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I would argue those authentic affections actually would come more from sticking to these realities.

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It does not have to lead, nor is it arguing for a dead orthodoxy. It can be applied that way falsely, for sure, but that's certainly not what we're about.

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And so, to really put those two things together, or against each other, either be entertained or be dead, is a false, really, dichotomy.

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That's good. So, I see a little liveliness in the side chat, and basically, what's being said is, well, if you can invoke instrumental, then you can just basically do whatever you want.

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And I wanna dial it back. The regulative principle says God gets to determine, but what God has determined is heart issue, okay?

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And so, I wanted to kind of touch on how we go about kind of holistically looking for the

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New Testament saints under the new covenant, what this worship continues to look like, because you did, brightly read,

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I think it was section five, about how we get a lot of principles, and so we have a number of scripture references there.

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But I wanna mention just a couple. And it touches, like I said, some of our hermeneutics.

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So, I wanna look at the book of Acts a little bit. Let's see here. So, Acts 2, 42.

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In the birth of the early church, we see many people confessing Jesus as Lord, putting their faith alone,

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Christ alone, having justified all their sin.

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And then we see what the pattern is established. What we're gonna look at here in verse 42 is something that we see ongoing in the life of the body.

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But the book of Acts is narratival. It is descriptive. And so, not everything you read in Acts, therefore, must be implemented here now, especially the

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Pentecostal experience, where the Holy Spirit came down like clove tongues and fire and so forth.

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Well, that was a unique event in history. It was descriptive of Joel 2 being fulfilled.

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But we glean principles, and then we interpret what is descriptive in light of the rest of God's word, primarily the didactic teaching in the letters written to the churches.

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So, this is a good verse to say, hey, we see this always in true churches.

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And so, the other church, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

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And so, I believe these are at least four principles that we can at least acknowledge, even in saying, look, devotion.

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This is a heart of worship. This is a heart of praise. And what is it to? Firstly, the apostles' teaching.

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And so, as we're gonna continue to see that this is vital in every Lord's Day gathering, as we're opening up the scriptures and declaring, thus saith the

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Lord. And that is a principle of continuity of how God spoke in the time during the

31:41

Old Covenant. They, too, would open up the Torah and then read from the law, the prophets, and the writings.

31:47

And so, we see that practiced in the Book of Acts to the fellowship, the koinonia. And you know something,

31:54

John, I really try to bring up every time I talk about that word fellowship. Fellowship isn't you just show up and you're a consumer, entertain me, right?

32:03

Fellowship, koinonia, is joint participation. And so,

32:09

I'm gonna stick a little bit about this at 12 .5 Church, love your thoughts. It's not just you're showing up and I'm gonna put my hands in my pocket and I'm just gonna observe everything.

32:19

I know we got our introverts out there, but you are singing, not just for yourself, but your brothers and sisters in Christ.

32:28

This is a collective, corporate gathering. It's not you in your prayer closet. And so,

32:33

I can't judge hearts. I just tell people this is a time of celebration. And sure, that can look differently for different folks, but this is a time of joint participation.

32:44

So again, any thoughts so far? Yeah, yeah, with that, I mean, even if, you know, there might be some who watch this that are not convinced that the regular principle is what

32:54

God has for us. But even if you're not someone who is in agreement with what we're presenting in this video, that's a convicting thought though, what you presented that would apply to a lot of us, basically the consumer mentality.

33:13

I'm still growing out of that, seeing that there's a covenantal reality that I'm a part of a covenant people and I get to receive their giftings for my benefit and I get to, you know, share my spiritual gift with them.

33:28

But also, if we're talking specifically about, you know, the Lord's Day, which we have been, yeah, it's also convicting to realize, oh yeah, this is a corporate thing.

33:38

It's to God, but it also is the benefit of loving and serving and singing too, like we see in Ephesians, Colossians, to one another.

33:48

And, you know, I know for me how I was, you know, coddled or raised or whatever in my early

33:54

Christian life in terms of specifically musical worship, it was usually a one -to -one only reality.

34:02

It's a lot of me and God and God and me. And look at this.

34:09

And of course it should impact you personally, but I think we do forget the fact that it is corporate.

34:17

And yeah, you see examples of that. Not that it's sin, but I think you see an example of that even in churches that often will turn off the lights during song because you do,

34:27

I believe, lose some of that corporate element because it's encouraging to see my friend over in the other row singing.

34:34

It's encouraging to see his son start to actually sing out with him. I'm emboldened by that.

34:41

And so, yeah, maybe that's the train you were going on, but that's what comes first. Oh, 100%. And like I said, we're not gonna make law where there is no law, but we are talking about principles.

34:51

And I loved what you said about, now you gotta be strategic with all that, but what's the heart motivation? Is turning the lights down to induce some personal experience?

35:00

Or with the regular principle, is this fulfilling the one another's? And I'll speak on behalf of 12

35:07

Five Church. We don't do solo specials because that's not what the Lord's Day gathering is about.

35:14

And so we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs that are catered to everyone being able to sing together.

35:24

And like you said, it encourages my heart when my brother or sister over here is singing to the glory of God.

35:30

Or I get to see someone's child sing how mom and dad are singing praise to King Jesus.

35:36

That is the aim of the Lord's Day gathering, all to the glory of God. And so fellowship, there's a lot baked into that word that we're presupposing when we're talking about the regular principle.

35:48

And then it says to the breaking of bread. I love this because when you kind of do a deep dive into Acts and 1

35:54

Corinthians 11, where we talk about the Lord's Supper, what's really neat about this is the early church, they would gather basically daily with the body, living that Christian life principle.

36:07

But they would gather together on the first day of the week and they would share a meal.

36:13

And it wasn't a meal where we're all really hungry and this is a time to just dive right in and try to cut in line and the guy that doesn't have as much as me.

36:23

1 Corinthians 11 assumes that this is a time of having an actual meal and somewhere before, middle, at the end of that meal, there would be a uniqueness with the

36:35

Lord's Supper. And so this is distinct on the

36:40

Lord's Day. How do I know that? Well, I just kind of gave the hat away, but 1 Corinthians 11 in a didactic epistle,

36:48

Paul reaffirms what Jesus first instituted in the Gospels. And so here in Acts 2 42, we just once again see that principle.

36:58

And then lastly here, the principle is the prayers. And so we're talking about we read the word, we pray the word, we sing the word, and we pray the word on the

37:06

Lord's Day. And this, it can be both and, right? We're always being filled with the spirit and praying without ceasing in our day -to -day, in our prayer closet, the way that Jesus essentially showed us how we ought to pray, but we pray corporately.

37:23

And so maybe you can speak to this a little bit too. At 12 .5 in our liturgy, we pray corporate prayers where we are praying a prayer of adoration to God collectively, and we also pray prayers led by one of the elders, which

37:39

I get to part. I'm actually doing liturgy this Sunday. But I get to lead the congregation in a prayer of adoration, confessing of sin, and resting assured that we are pardoned.

37:52

But the whole point is it's collective. Yeah, absolutely. And is it fair to say, backing up just a little bit, you and I spoke a little bit about putting the lights down or keeping them somewhat bright.

38:08

Is it fair to say that that's not one of the, well, it is fair to say, it's not one of the elements at all.

38:16

We're merely saying when we're not making a law, I think we're in line with this, we're not making a law where the

38:21

Bible doesn't. We're saying that this is potentially, and we would be persuaded that it's a good and wise rule of applying the regulative principle, much like another good way of applying the regulative principle in terms of what is the church, it's corporate, we sing to one another.

38:38

A good application of that, which is not a law, but an application is let's think of our song selection and think about the vocal ranges even of people that are in the congregation.

38:49

And maybe we shouldn't have songs where only Bruno Mars can hit the notes or Elton John or someone.

38:57

You see what I'm saying? There's not a law there. There's not a law that says you can't be in the key of whatever, whatever, whatever, but it would be good and wise to think about applying this principle of it's corporate and it's for the body.

39:10

And therefore, let's think about our song selection, think, can we have songs that both the men and the women and even the children can sing, even if they're not at the greatest level?

39:22

And thoughts there? Yeah, because we're talking about principles and there might be valid times where the light kind of shifts when the speaker comes on stage.

39:31

And so yeah, we're not making a law, we're saying the heart of the matter. So this is Colossians three. I want you to hear,

39:37

I want the audience to hear how it's the principle heart of the matter. And so when someone demands acapella singing, hey, it's always an issue of the heart.

39:47

And so legalism is always going to destroy the heart and the gospel of grace.

39:53

And so Colossians three, listen for the one another language and then also from the heart. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another.

40:02

So the one another's in scripture assumes that you are seeing each other holistically face to face.

40:09

You can't do me church online, just saying. Admonishing one another in all wisdom, wisdom to the church, right?

40:17

Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

40:24

So whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of Jesus, our Lord giving thanks from a heart of thanks to God the

40:32

Father through him. So I just wanted to kind of once again emphasize that it's a heart matter.

40:38

And so we looked at, you notice what we did there. A teaching tool I want people to kind of see is what we study in Acts, we also are looking holistically to the rest of the

40:52

New Testament. And when we're touching on essentially five principles, and I'll repeat that for people that maybe have joined in.

40:58

What we see as principles, and so this may look a little bit different from culture to culture, but read the word, pray the word, preach the word, sing the word, see the word.

41:08

That's what we see as being vital, regulatively from the word of God, God prescribing, hey, this is what is set apart for the

41:16

Lord's day. And so in 1 Timothy, Paul's telling Timothy to continue to pursue in these things.

41:24

So when we looked at those principles in Acts 2 .42, we see this confirmed, that this wasn't just describing the early church, but Paul is telling

41:32

Timothy to be faithful in pursuing these things. So a few of those principles are found here in 1

41:38

Timothy chapter four. Let no one despise you, Timothy, for your youth, but set believers an example in speech.

41:45

What kind of speech? This is in the context of heralding the gospel, preaching. In also conduct, in love and faith and purity.

41:52

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching.

41:59

And so I always tell people, this is the divine three bullet points of what preaching looks like.

42:06

It must be teaching, right? If you did only teaching, it's a dry lecture. The world can emulate them.

42:12

If you have only exhortation, it's a TED Talk. You need both, exhortation and teaching.

42:18

And this presupposes, it's not a given in our culture anymore, but this presupposes that you are reading the word of God.

42:25

So yeah, any thoughts there of just saying it's important as we're studying the book of Acts, we're taking the entirety of the

42:32

New Testament, especially the epistles, the clear teachings with us to know what applies for us today? Yeah, absolutely.

42:40

Well, that's a good rule, I think, of biblical interpretation in general is going what is clearly laid out and using what is most clear and explicit to interpret what is less clear.

42:54

And so I think you get that as well, where Paul is very, like you said, he's very didactic. He's saying, thus saith the

43:00

Lord, here's who God is. He's indicating who's here God is, and then here's who you are because of God and your union with Christ.

43:08

And therefore, do X, Y, and Z. Therefore, devote yourself to public reading. Or therefore, do not conform to the pattern of this world,

43:15

Romans 12. And so you get very explicit. They're not too simple, but simple commands for us to follow.

43:26

And so I know very clearly based on the epistles what the Christian life looks like.

43:32

And I can also from the epistles because they are a bit more didactic and straightforward, it can help me sift through the book of Acts, I believe.

43:41

And there's miles for me to go there. But to see, okay, based on what I'm seeing here, this might be more of a one -time occurrence rather than something to be normative.

43:52

As you think about the Jerusalem council, I think it is in 15, when you have a large number of elders and the apostles, they're making a determination for I think surrounding churches.

44:05

Well, if we made that a prescriptive event, I think, all right, sorry.

44:12

Yeah, prescriptive event, that'd be hard because well, based on what we know in the rest of the

44:18

New Testament, there are certain gifts that go with the apostles and they had a certain authority that the rest of the people do not have.

44:25

And so how would we make an apostolic sort of council that would determine church matters into a continuing thing?

44:35

Very hard to do because apostleship in the terms of the specific narrow definition of what an apostle is according to the

44:44

New Testament with certain realities that would make an apostle, it would be hard to draw that line.

44:51

So I agree with you overall with that, like what's more clear interprets what's less clear.

44:56

Hmm, so good scripture interprets scripture. So as we're going back to the confession, we've kind of hit section one, section five,

45:06

I believe it's section six that says, hey, prayer's in there. And so we have those five principles in the new covenant that the regular principle says, yes, there is something distinct on the

45:18

Lord's day. In fact, a couple of the places that I'd like to, at least one is the

45:24

Hebrews 10. This makes it unambiguous. Hebrews chapter 10 says, let us as regenerate

45:31

New Testament saints under a better covenant, let us consider how to stir, oh,

45:38

John, this is one of those one another texts. And the reason why I highlight that to people is because it's not about you on the

45:47

Lord's day, it's about fulfilling the one another's of scripture vertically to the glory of God.

45:53

It's not a consumer entertainment mindset. And so we are to stir one another up in love and good works, not neglecting to meet face to face.

46:03

I mean, I know crazy times, we were talking a little bit about this earlier, I guess, but I get that 2020 just took the world by storm, but there comes a point where God knows better than us.

46:15

And he says, meet together. And I'm sorry, you had Andy Stanley that differ with me on that point.

46:23

Ekklesia literally means the called out ones. And this is one of those clear texts that's saying there's a local gathering that's necessary for a holistic discipleship.

46:33

We are to meet together at a particular location. It's not the building that makes the church, it's the people, but we are to see one another.

46:40

And that presupposes that in order to fulfill the one another, you have to be in relationship.

46:46

And so neglecting to meet together would be sinful. And so this is actually going to be helpful,

46:51

I believe, when we talk about section, let's see, it's section seven on here.

46:58

So I don't wanna take too much of your time, but we're about 47 minutes in, so we'll maybe get an hour, hour 15 minutes.

47:06

But maybe we talk about the Sabbath principle, the Christian Sabbath, the Sabbatarian position.

47:14

Is that okay? Yeah, yeah, we can talk about that. You can lead that, you're probably more, a little bit more schooled in that area than I am, for sure, but.

47:23

We'll see. We got some questions in the side chat that I've been holding off on.

47:29

Maybe this is a good time to bring up one of these questions, I believe. The famous Jerry Duckworth out there was asking me about this.

47:39

Let's see if I can pull it up for everyone to see. Okay, so Jerry Duckworth, one of my bros out there, he says,

47:48

I have a question. I've been talking to Seventh -day Adventist folks lately. What is your best argument for Sunday worship?

47:56

I have a few arguments, but I want to know you are the better, more experienced debater. Hey, honestly,

48:02

I wanna recommend Myles Christian's YouTube channel, Answering Adventism. That is his wheelhouse.

48:09

And Jerry, he's Presbyterian, so y 'all speak the same language. But a little bit of what we've already been talking about is we see an established pattern of the early church meeting on the first day of the week.

48:25

And so, maybe I could pull up one of those passages real quick, but I believe we see that in Acts chapter 20.

48:33

So let me pull that up. So Acts chapter 20 is where we see, once again, in Acts.

48:39

So this is just giving us descriptions of the early church. But verse seven, on the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread,

48:51

Paul talked with them. As you continue to read, he prolonged his speech until midnight.

48:56

And so, yeah, you remember this story where Eutychus, he was so tired, it was midnight, bless his soul, and he fell down.

49:03

He's pretty sure he died. He's gone. And Paul's like, time out on the sermon. Let me go perform a miracle. All right, you're alive.

49:09

Now we're gonna keep on preaching. What an awesome principle for preaching. I don't think anyone's ever preached a sermon where there's snorers think, okay,

49:17

I'm in good company, right? Yeah, yeah. This is one of those passages where I'd say, look at the established norm of the early church.

49:30

And what I just read in short right there off the top of the dome was, look what the early church was doing.

49:35

It's the Seventh -day Adventists that say, we're the ones remembering to keep the

49:41

Sabbath holy. Y 'all are the ones that are forgetting about that. And so, Jerry, I wanna encourage you, covenant theology is definitely the angle to talk with them because I'm pretty sure many

49:51

Seventh -day Adventists, they see a radical disconnect with how Israel was saved by works and how the church today is falling in line with that works -based mentality as well because you gotta keep the

50:04

Sabbath holy. They're saying there is a law that you must keep in order to be saved. And so there is a departure there on just the gospel.

50:11

So I would say, look at the Book of Acts. They gathered on the first day of the week. They broke bread. We know that this would incorporate the

50:20

Lord's Supper. And so that is distinct for the local gathering. So I hope that can help.

50:25

Did you have any thoughts with that, John? Well, one, that was a great question.

50:31

I can't remember the guy's name, but that was a great question. I think one thing, it doesn't always answer, it's never gonna answer everything, but I think there's something to be said for in certain things with the

50:43

New Testament actual positive precedents where we have actual positive examples of things, like meaning we have examples listed in the

50:53

New Testament of them gathering on the Lord's Day, on the first day. We see that actually mentioned.

51:00

We see, so Lord's Day, for example, or how about elders or overseers?

51:07

We see not only explicit commands, here are what they should be like, but we also see explicit commands, no women.

51:15

I do not allow a woman to teach. So there's actual positive evidence of, yeah, this shouldn't happen, and we don't have any evidence that there are women pastoring.

51:25

So I think that's another way to think about it too. Also, I'm a Baptist, but again, it doesn't answer everything, but I don't see any positive actual examples of infants being baptized.

51:38

I can't say, again, it's not the only argument, but I think there are some.

51:46

There's some merit to, well, we see actual legitimate examples that occurred in space and time here, and we don't see that for the other one.

51:54

Yeah, that's what we're doing. We're jumping into Acts. We're also jumping into didactic scriptures as well, because this is hard.

52:02

I've heard SDA's responses to this, and most people are like, yeah, that's just not what Paul's talking about here, but verse 16 and 17.

52:10

I love this, because this does presuppose the nature of the covenants in the discussion. But Paul says, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, legalism, right, or with regard to festival or new moon or a

52:25

Sabbath. So the Sabbath of the Old Testament, well, that was fulfilled in Christ.

52:31

So Paul goes on to say, these are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

52:39

And this is the burden proof on the Seventh -day Adventist to say, well, no, you have to keep this

52:46

Mosaic law. And so we would just say, well, Paul says that was fulfilled in Christ.

52:52

And so to me, this is just an immediate defeater of saying, well, you might wanna go back to the drawing board.

52:59

If you're thinking that the last day of the week is mandatory for the saint today.

53:05

So with that being said, do you have any thoughts before we continue to transition on? Well, I think, too, you mentioned covenant theology or just thinking about biblical theology, the whole story of Scripture, and you've been in Hebrews, and Christ does fulfill the old covenant.

53:23

He fulfills the law, and there is a precedent in the New Testament that he has fulfilled the

53:29

Sabbath. He is our Sabbath rest. So that's got to play in somewhere as well for the sixth day of the week,

53:37

Saturday. So that's one thing I would go to as well is I think we're ignoring overall biblical, like the thread of the

53:46

Bible theology if we're discounting that. That's good because that actually transitions to how we would further build our case,

53:55

Jerry, when we're talking to Seventh -day Adventists. There's more in the New Testament. So this is section seven of the 1689

54:02

Baptist Confession of Faith. Well, look at this. It is the law of nature that, in general, a portion of time specified by God should be set apart for the worship of God.

54:12

So by his word, in a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment that obliterates everyone, or obligates everyone in every age, he has specifically appointed one day in seven for a

54:23

Sabbath to be kept holy to him. From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, the appointed day was the last day of the week.

54:32

After the resurrection of Christ, it was changed to the first day of the week, which is called the

54:38

Lord's Day. So I just wanna pause there. We'll look at that last line here in a second. But this is what we see.

54:45

In the Old Covenant, we do see, without any ambiguity, that the

54:52

Sabbath, Saturday, was unique. I believe it's Exodus 32, for the nation of Israel.

54:58

You couldn't even pick up sticks without getting stoned. And so the law for the

55:04

Jew, it was both, or it was all three, moral, civil, and ceremonial, right?

55:10

Because when we look at, this may be a good time to bring up this scripture. When we look at Exodus 20, the fourth commandment is to remember to keep the

55:18

Sabbath day holy. Now, when we start getting into the covenants, well, we gotta look for continuity, and we have to look for discontinuity.

55:29

The Seventh -day Adventists, they are going to overemphasize continuity when we look at the seventh day.

55:36

And so this is where the New Testament, like you quoted in the Gospels, we'll look at here in a moment, Jesus is Lord of the

55:41

Sabbath. We find our Sabbath rest in Him. As we continue to see, yeah, there is a moral principle where we are to rest and glorify

55:49

God, but there is something newer and better about the Sabbath in the new covenant.

55:55

And so this is just saying, yes, there is Old Testament precedent for saying that the

56:01

Sabbath for the Jew was on the seventh day of the week, and it goes back to creation, how God ceased from creation, and He rested the seventh day, okay?

56:10

So this is where that last line in our confession says, this day is to be kept to the end of the age as the

56:17

Christian Sabbath, since the observance of the last day of the week has been abolished.

56:23

Now, this is huge, because Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

56:30

And so when we're looking at Exodus chapter 20, Jesus fulfills it perfectly.

56:36

And so that Sabbath rest principle, Jesus never violated the Sabbath in the way that it was intended to be understood, but He also said things like, yeah, the

56:48

Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, because you have the Pharisees legalistically saying that you can't even walk so many steps on the

56:59

Sabbath or it's considered a work. Well, even the Old Testament said that the work is qualified by earning a wage, right?

57:06

And we do see somebody picking up sticks because they were doing their labors in open violation against God.

57:13

And so for the Jew, it was life or death with this. And so Jesus was a perfect Jew.

57:18

He obeyed the law perfectly, but the Son of Man is Lord even of the

57:24

Sabbath. And so when He performed miracles, that never negated the heart of loving one's neighbor.

57:31

And the fact that He was doing things like healing and doing miracles, things like that, this also showed that even though God rested from six days of creation,

57:43

He still works in the sense of upholding the universe by the word of His power.

57:49

Oh, sorry about that. Did that disappear on us? There we go. John, you gotta let me know.

57:56

I thought you were transitioning out of it. Yeah, my bad. Very good. Yeah, think about it.

58:02

God, in a sense, worked on the Sabbath by upholding the universe by the word of His power.

58:09

And so when Jesus was performing miracles and saying the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath, that is a claim to divinity.

58:17

And so He never contradicted the Sabbath, though. And here is where we see there is not only a ceremonial nature with the

58:26

Jews gathering together on the seventh day of the week, very particular to them. Here's where there is something that is moral that Jesus perfectly embodied and fulfilled with the

58:37

Sabbath. He said, so you gotta think, He is a Jew under the law, but what He says here is timeless. Come to me, all who labor and are of heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

58:50

And so Jesus is our Sabbath rest. And to me, this is incredible because when we look at the

58:56

Decalogue, yes, these are moral, these are transcendent, this is a law of God that reflects

59:02

His perfect character. When we as man approach God in covenant, we ought to worship

59:09

Him. And so that presupposes a time of rest. And yeah, we can't work 24 -7.

59:15

God modeled that in the creation account. And so yeah, we see principles of continuity with the Sabbath, but when we get into the new covenant, tell me your thoughts here.

59:23

Gotta go back to Hebrews again, John. A lot of good stuff in there. You've been knocking

59:29

Hebrews out. I like it. So Hebrews 4 hits on a, when

59:34

I say transcend, a principle that's true for the saints of all time. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered

59:43

God's rest has also rested from His works as God did from His. And so people, radical dispensationalists, that kind of say, no, no, no, the

59:54

Sabbath is only for the Jews. Well, our confession is highlighting, okay, but there is a kind of rest for the

01:00:01

Christian. And what we see is we find our rest in Jesus Christ. How do we end that seventh day of rest when

01:00:08

God ceased from His labors? Oh, it's by faith alone, in Christ alone. And so I think it's important to understand, yeah, we no longer gather together on Saturday, the last day of the week.

01:00:20

That was something unique for the nation of Israel. But the one who embodies the Sabbath, he not only died, but he resurrected the first day of the week.

01:00:30

And so here's where I just tell people, because there's endless debates about the Sabbath here and the nuances of section eight.

01:00:37

And I just tell people, listen, the Christian Sabbath, what that means is Christians are to meet together on the first day of the week to fill the one another's.

01:00:48

It is a celebration. It's not meant to be law, right? And so when we get in, people look at section eight here and just says, it says you can't do any works of recreation or of labors.

01:01:01

And I'm like, well, let's understand. We might be missing the heart of the New Testament there. We're missing the heart that says the pattern of your life from your every week to week labors and your recreations of sports that we might understand, if that causes you not to gather together with the saints, that's the heart of the matter.

01:01:22

And so I have a lot of respect for people that do want to make sure that they're not filling their mind and heart with all these other things on the

01:01:29

Lord's day. I think that's super commendable, but the heart, the principle of the matter is we desire to meet together with our brothers and sisters to Christ to worship corporately on the first day of the week.

01:01:42

Yeah, yeah, I think it's a similar thing with, yeah, we mentioned earlier exclusive psalmody.

01:01:49

If that would be helpful for someone and they began a small church or something and it was helpful for them and the families when they were first starting, that's wonderful if that's helping them grow in godliness.

01:02:05

I don't believe that that is an overall wise principle, nor do I believe that that really should be the way it is.

01:02:11

And I think it's the same way with having a very strict view of the

01:02:17

Lord's day in terms of never lifting a finger to do anything, you cannot play sports, you only spend it the entire day with your family or something along those lines.

01:02:29

It's a great thing and I think we should think more about that rather than what we usually do is just less.

01:02:36

But I think to make a law out of it might not be the greatest thing.

01:02:42

But if that helps someone, amen, and I praise the

01:02:47

Lord for that because we fall way on the other side of things in our culture. We don't give the

01:02:53

Lord's day one rip. You know, we're way far the other way.

01:03:01

John, I don't remember if I told you this, but I'm a pastor at 12 Five Church, but we are a four -year -old church plant, right?

01:03:08

And so in those early days, just like you said, some, we sang literally from the hymn book, we sang spiritual songs that we found and sometimes there maybe was a light guitar, but what we've been stressing is it's a heart issue.

01:03:24

And since we're talking about a principle, that principle can be cashed out in so many different ways.

01:03:29

And so, yeah, we wanna avoid making law where there is no law. And that's one thing

01:03:34

I do love about, you know, what we're talking about again, regulative principle of worship is it is so transferable and it actually does have a good amounts, apart from the elements of flexibility.

01:03:48

Because you're focusing on the simple, it can look quite different in different contexts and different cultures and different areas that you live as well.

01:03:57

And so it's actually, I would argue, frees you up in many ways. If you are someone who's like a pastor or you're someone who's going to a new church.

01:04:06

Another thing I would say to thoughts in a woman leading prayer during worship. Oh, that's a good question.

01:04:12

You go ahead, I'll just leave it there to remind me. I've never seen the comments. I guess for some reason

01:04:18

I could see that one. Yeah, well, I mean, I have a thought on that. With a woman leading worship,

01:04:25

I believe that if we're thinking about worship correctly, it is singing the truth of God to him, which should be consistent with his word and based on his word.

01:04:37

And so I believe that music is a ministry of the word, even if it's maybe a bit more indirectly.

01:04:43

And so I believe the New Testament is clear that that is the role over the authority of men that only a man can have.

01:04:51

And so because I believe that it is truly a ministry of the word, that it should only be a man who leads worship.

01:05:00

I know we might've said prayer, but same thing with prayer because you're still, there is some sort of teaching element,

01:05:06

I would argue, in prayer, like we're leading people. So it's similar to prayer too.

01:05:12

I thought I saw a musical song, but similar principle. Well, it's a similar principle because singing is a form of teaching as we already saw in Colossians, admonishing one another with teaching and singing, like you can't separate those.

01:05:25

And so women can sing melodies under the oversight of the men that are called to be overseers, pastors, and elders, essentially.

01:05:35

And this is where it's funny because we keep going to Acts a whole lot. We've been going a lot to 1 Timothy and Hebrews. And so in 1

01:05:41

Timothy chapter two, we have a direct command with male leadership.

01:05:48

Paul says, I desire then that in every place, the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.

01:05:55

And this goes on to talk about how women should properly adorn themselves. They are to be quiet in the sense that they're not teachers, right?

01:06:02

They are reflecting the image of God in such a unique way as a woman that God has designed.

01:06:11

And so, yeah, so this is just one of those explicit verses that in 1

01:06:17

Timothy chapter two, men are the leadership roles. And then there's the next chapter then goes into deep qualifications about for men.

01:06:27

I hope that was helpful. That was a good question. And me and you, John, we're on the same page. Hey, wanna be on the same page.

01:06:34

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, John. Is there anything else that you wanna kind of touch on?

01:06:43

We kind of walked through the 1689 confession. I just, I wanted people to see this just to know this is an awesome resource.

01:06:52

This is not infallible. And you're gonna link that, I believe, right? Absolutely, I plan on having a hyperlink in the show notes to where this is the backside.

01:07:02

There's actually another side that I'd like people to see, just emphasizing those principles of reading the word during the

01:07:08

Lord's day gathering, praying the word, preaching the word, singing the word, and seeing the word through the sacraments.

01:07:15

Amen. Well, yeah, the last thing I'll say, because I do appreciate you asking that is, like I said earlier, someone might end up watching this or be on the live stream, and they just don't, they do not subscribe to the regulative principle of worship or regulative principle of the church, as some would say it more broadly.

01:07:33

And if that's you, if your faith is in Christ alone for your salvation, you are my brother.

01:07:39

And I think Jeremiah would say the same thing. I would say that one of the benefits of the regulative principle that you could consider is, if you don't hold to it, but you had to move to like a new town for some reason, and you couldn't select a church or whatever, but you found a church, and what they hold to is the regulative principle, you know what you would get?

01:08:00

You would get everything you need. Yep. That's the benefit of the regulative principle is if you went to a church that's truly applying what we believe are these principles in scripture, they're singing the word of God, the word of God is being read and preached, praying for one another, singing to one another, you're getting the

01:08:16

Lord's supper, you're seeing baptisms occur, all these types of things. Well, you're getting everything you need.

01:08:23

You might not have certain preferences that occur, but what you are getting is what God says will most certainly, assuming that you're submitting to him, will certainly grow you.

01:08:33

It's impossible not to grow if you're born again by the power of the spirit when

01:08:38

God uses the means that he has given. And so that's one real positive, even if you don't hold to it, of the regulative principle is know that if you go to a church that subscribes to that, it may not feature every last thing that you find helpful, but you are certainly going to be on good, solid biblical ground and be in a place where you can grow.

01:09:00

And that's why I think it's helpful. That's why I wanted to talk about this. So practical. Hi, John, you know what that is?

01:09:08

That's wisdom for the church. Oh, that's wow, impressive. I guess that's the other thing, subscribe to my channel.

01:09:15

I have to say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, John, thanks for collabing with me and I love how we can kind of go back and forth on each other's channels.

01:09:24

Thanks for hitting me up. This was such a good, timely discussion because I was recently taught on this same,

01:09:30

I called it a theology of worship. And so I talked about the regulative principle, the normative principle, and got into the confession.

01:09:38

So you reaching out to me was just perfect timing. Works out, yeah, Lord's providence.

01:09:43

Yeah, I mean, again, when I'm on with you, I quickly see, whew,

01:09:49

I see someone that's a bit further along in their walk with the Lord than me. And I appreciate you being gracious with me.

01:09:57

And for those that were in the live stream or watched later, really do appreciate everyone watching and everything like that, so.

01:10:05

Amen, John, we're in this together. Hey, thank you so much for coming on. We'll have to do this again real soon.

01:10:12

Amen, brother, appreciate your time very much. All right, I'll talk to you soon, bye -bye. Amen. Well, thank you so much for tuning in to the

01:10:21

Apologetic Dog. What an awesome discussion, talking about corporate worship, but also that presupposes that the saints worship with their entire lives every day of the week.

01:10:32

And there is something distinct on the first day of the week when the saints fulfill the one another's unto the glory of God.

01:10:40

And so I'd like to ask you to please like this video if you found this beneficial. That really just helps the

01:10:45

YouTube algorithm. And so thank you for all your support, for all your prayers, and for those that were able to give super chats or just dialogue, asking questions in the side chat.

01:10:57

Have a lot of wonderful, really interesting projects in the pipeline. And so you'll just have to stay tuned to the