Reforming Worship

Over the next number of blogs I want to offer quotations from various books which I hope will challenge and encourage you. The topics are of quite a wide range, so I hope the shotgun approach works.

Today we read from Calvin’s wonderful little work, The Necessity of Reforming the Church. In it, Calvin defends the need for the Reformation to Charles V, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He has many reasons for his defense and one of them is the need to reform worship; to bring it back to biblical norms rather than the sacramentalism it had devolved into.

We may not suffer from the same specific pitfalls as the church of Calvin’s day. I’m sure few Catholics will read this blog. But subjective worship is all around us; and it is not true worship. Thus we too need to remain focused on the nature of proper worship so we never waver from the worship which God accepts. In short, we need to follow the biblical standards that Calvin and many others in the Reformed tradition emphasize.

Calvin wrote,

“I know how difficult it is to persuade the world that God disapproves of all modes of worship not expressly sanctioned by His Word. The opposite persuasion which cleaves to them, being seated, as it were, in their very bones and marrow, is, that whatever they do has in itself a sufficient sanction, provided it exhibits some kind of zeal for the honor of God. But since God not only regards as fruitless, but also plainly abominates, whatever we undertake from zeal to His worship, if at variance with His command, what do we gain by a contrary course? The words of God are clear and distinct,

“Obedience is better than sacrifice.” “In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men,” (1 Samuel 15:22; Matthew 15:9.)

Every addition to His word, especially in this matter, is a lie. Mere “will worship” is vanity. This is the decision, and when once the judge has decided, it is no longer time to debate.”

Soli Deo Gloria