Hermeneutics for Musical Worship

The following is the first part of the essay, Hermeneutical Methods for Developing a Biblical Theology of Musical Worship, which I wrote in May of 2012 for my Hermeneutics class at Multnomah Reno-Tahoe.

The essence of hermeneutics is interpreting and finding meaning, usually referring to the meaning of a piece of literary work. William Klein explains how hermeneutics describes the principles used to understand what a message is trying to communicate. That message, according to Klein, can be written, oral, or visual.[1] One worship service will contain all three of these: scripture is read, scripture is expounded upon by a pastor through oral speech, songs are sung orally, and images are used in slides for overhead projectors or in decorations throughout the building. There are principles behind every aspect of a Sunday service and different hermeneutical perspectives of the Bible will create different formats of a worship service. Specifically, biblical theologies of musical worship vary because of diverse hermeneutical methods. There are varying interpretations of Scripture and interpretations of culture which significantly affect the diversity of worship.

First, definitions can become confusing within this topic. Alan Kay wrote that “worship is man’s response to the nature and action of God.”[2] Worship is something that is to be happening at all times, not just when the people of God gather on Sunday. In Worship by the Book, D. A. Carson writes "to say that we come together 'to worship' implies that we are not worshiping God the rest of the time. And that is so out of touch with New Testament emphases that we ought to abandon such a notion absolutely. We do not come together for worship . . . rather, we come together for instruction, or we come together for mutual edification."[3] Mutual edification seems to be the best conclusion of what happens within “corporate singing, confession, public prayer, the ministry of the Word, and so forth.”[4]

This edification happens when the church as a body comes together. Carson challenges this by saying that mutual edification can even occur when Christians meet for a sewing class, but should a sewing class really be called corporate worship? Carson quotes Robert Doyle explaining that the Christian faith takes the form of confession in various activities but the focus is God’s Word. We keep that the focus by reading the Word, preaching it, making it the basis of exhortation, and setting it to music in hymns and praise songs. [5] The emphasis here is corporate worship gatherings and the various ways churches use music and song to worship God.

Before delving into the hermeneutics of musical worship in the corporate context, it is essential to know the importance of musical worship. Worship is inherently theological and according to Paul Zahl, theology needs to precede the act of worship. “You pray what you believe, not vice versa.”[6] The same can be said about singing. Musical worship is the act of speaking truth in a way that is easy to remember and reflect on. It allows the people of God to respond to the sermon they have heard but songs also provide an easy way to remember what theological truth has been taught. It is a powerful thing to see and hear the community of believers singing what they believe. Furthermore, D. A. Carson shows that worship shapes the worshiper when it is properly understood. The worshiper “become[s] like whatever is [their] god.”[7] This shows how important it is to sing theologically vibrant songs. If the meanings of the words are confusing or vague, worship will not be shaping the worshiper. There will be confusion about God and His characteristics. So as the congregation begins to sing what they believe, reflecting on clear theological truths in songs, they will be shaped to be more like God.

Various church congregations format their musical worship in many diverse ways. There is diversity within the order of a worship gathering, the use of instruments, the type of songs, scripture reading, the use of visual art, and many other variables. It is clear that Scripture did not lay out an order of corporate worship gatherings. There are no ten commandments of musical worship. There are many texts which show us how the early church organized their worship but no specific commandments on the topic. Paul Engle in Exploring the Worship Spectrum writes that looking “to the New Testament for liturgical uniformity meets just the opposite.”[8] This is not because the New Testament is contradictory but because the text gives descriptions of what the early church looked like and does not give commands on the structure of corporate worship.

At the surface, it may just seem to be personal preferences. Different congregations may prefer one thing over the other. This thought may be true but, for the most part, there are biblical interpretations that inform the various orders of worship. Michael Farley gives three principles that many churches adhere to in his journal, “What is ‘Biblical’ Worship?” The first he calls the praxis-oriented regulative principle. Those who hold fast to this principle will only practice what are explicit New Testament commands or normative examples of the early church mentioned in Scripture. A great example of this would be the theology of the Swiss reformer, Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli’s theology required him to refuse the use of organs, violins, and other instruments in church because these were not found in the Bible. Zwingli insisted that anything that had no explicit scriptural support must then be rejected. He saw material as an obstacle and maintained a simple form of worship.[9]

Farley’s final two principles come from a theologically oriented regulative principle. This principle focuses on the theological liturgical principles found in Scripture as well as the explicit descriptions of liturgical practices. Within the theologically oriented regulative principle, there is the patristic-ecumenical model and the biblical-typological method. The main difference between these two methods is the use of the Old Testament. While the patristic-ecumenical model relies mostly on the New Testament, the biblical-typological method focuses on the Old Testament and seeks to find patterns and principles from the Old Testament that can be translated into the new covenant corporate worship. While both of these models embrace post-biblical liturgies that had emerged in the twentieth-century liturgical movements, the biblical-typological method is much more willing to critique and change the liturgies, according to their biblical theology of worship.

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[1] William Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2004), 4.

[2] Ralph P. Martin, Worship in the Early Church (Westwood: Fleming H Revell Co., 1964), 12.

[3] D. A. Carson, Worship by the Book (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002),46.

[4] Ibid., 24.

[5] Ibid., 50.

[6] Paul E. Engle, Paul A. Basden, Exploring the Worship Spectrum: Six Views (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 26.

[7] D. A. Carson, Worship by the Book (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 31.

[8] Paul E. Engle, Paul A. Basden, Exploring the Worship Spectrum: Six Views (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 15.

[9] Justo L. Gonzalez, History of Christianity, Volume II (Peabody: Prince Press, 1985), 50.