Worship

Dare To Be On The Daniel Plan?

by on August 29, 2025 | 2 Comments
the daniel plan

The song “Dare to Be a Daniel” is yet another reason to adopt Mr. Murray’s view that, in public worship, we should sing only God’s Word (I reached the same conclusion in Recovering the Reformed Confession).1 Not only is the song itself . . . Continue reading →

The Reformation, The Regulative Principle, And The Modern Church: Examining John Calvin’s Dedication To Purity In Worship (Part 5)

by on August 27, 2025 | 4 Comments
reformed worship church pulpit

The Reformed church today embraces John Calvin as one of our great spiritual predecessors and acknowledges his dedication to purity in the church, and so-called Calvinists champion his ideas on predestination and the sovereignty of God. Continue reading →

The Reformation, The Regulative Principle, And The Modern Church: Examining John Calvin’s Dedication To Purity In Worship (Part 4)

by on August 20, 2025 | 4 Comments
reformed worship church pulpit

I tried to imagine what John Calvin’s reaction would be if he walked into your run-of-the-mill worship service today, complete with a full band and contemporary worship songs. The image was ruined by the fact that the only facial expression I can imagine on the great theologian is what I have seen in paintings of him. Continue reading →

The Reformation, The Regulative Principle, And The Modern Church: Examining John Calvin’s Dedication To Purity In Worship (Part 3)

by on August 13, 2025 | 1 Comment
reformed worship church pulpit

During the summer before my freshman year of high school, I volunteered at my church’s Vacation Bible School program to lead games for the preschoolers. Something I noticed was that the students were more likely to listen to directions to do something than directions not to do something. I remember telling a girl to please refrain from putting her hands into the water bucket. And what do you think she did? She put her hands in the water bucket. Continue reading →

The Reformation, The Regulative Principle, And The Modern Church: Examining John Calvin’s Dedication To Purity In Worship (Part 2)

by on August 6, 2025
reformed worship church pulpit

When I first read Calvin’s Institutes, the clarity with which he described the absolute transcendence and holiness of God struck me, especially as I considered how often my younger, more charismatic self was willing and eager to dismiss concerns about my preferences in worship, even if the concerns came from Scripture itself. Continue reading →

The Reformation, The Regulative Principle, And The Modern Church: Examining Calvin’s Dedication To Purity In Worship (Part 1)

by on July 30, 2025 | 4 Comments
reformed worship church pulpit

Walk into any corporate worship service today and you will almost certainly observe that the congregational singing is accompanied by instruments. There is no doubt that the common worship style of today, filled with various instruments and too often supplemented by stage lights and smoke machines, differs significantly from the worship one would have observed in a seventeenth-century Reformed church. Continue reading →

Owen On Worship

by on July 5, 2025

In general, it is certain that God intended to declare hereby that the work which Moses had to do, —the tabernacle he was to erect, and the worship thereof, —was not, either in the whole, or in any part of it, or . . . Continue reading →