Times recently ranked 3rd the “new Calvinism” as the “idea that is changing the world right now”. [1] I myself have been noticing this. This is quiet true in Korea; and I thank the Lord for his abundant blessings to the Christians in Korea, and raising up reformed churches there.

It is worth while to note that one of the main object or reason for the Reformation was to bring back biblical worship.[2] The Hebrew word “shachah” (translated “worship” in English) has a simple and clear meaning of “bowing down”; but since it is so easy for humans to understand it as a physical activity, our Lord taught us that we must bow down “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23.) — not only this means one has to bow in Holy Spirit to the true God, it also means that we have to bow with our soul, genuinely, acknowledging that we are before the presence of Him. Calvin strongly claimed that such spiritual bowing down is the only method of worship from the beginning. [3a]

Thus, worship is not a collection of prayer, sining, etc. We can sing or pray or read the scripture in a worshipping manner; but it is not correct to say that such activities are what constitute a worship. [4a] To prevent any unwarranted merit in the physical ceremonies—no matter how sincerely one participates in it—let me quote the words of Pink:

People imagine that if they attend a religious service, are reverent in their demeanor, join in the singing of the hymns, listen respectfully to the preacher, and contribute to the collection, they have really worshipped God. Poor deluded souls, a delusion which is helped forward by the priest-craft and preacher-graft of the day. Over against this delusion are the words of Christ in John 4:24, which are startling in their plainness and pungency: “God is Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” (Arthur Pink, Worship)

It is, however, a human inclination to put any merit or even a slightest weight on the external show. Roman Catholic Church was affected by it; hence came the necessity of the Reformation.

True Regulative Principle starts by reforming and regaining the biblical definition of worship, not by regulating ceremonies. That is how Jesus answered the question of the Samaritan woman, “Shall we worship on this mountain or in Jerusalem?” It was also one of the main point of Calvin’s letter The Necessity of Reforming The Church.

Nonetheless, it is sad to see such “regulate the ceremony” approach taken by some (very few) of the contemporary proponents of the Regulative Principle of Worship while using a convoluted definition of worship, trying to define it using the external ceremonies. They ask questions like “Can we praise God with lyrics not taken from the scripture?”, “Should offering be part of worship?” [6]. I understand the good intention, the willingness to glorify God in these questions (I myself am a member of a church where we sing Psalms exclusively without any instruments) yet, often times these questions are raised in an effort to characterize worship by external ceremonies; not only such approach is contrary to the biblical meaning of the word ‘shachah’ (worship) [4b], but even opposed to the views of Calvin [5]. The root cause of such error is that they do not use the clear and biblical definition of worship [4b].
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