Is mandatory acapella singing part of EP and the regulative principle or is that an entirely separate issue?

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Mary Vanderkooi
Kale Heywott Church (KHC)
Soddo, Ethiopia

They tend to hang together, but I guess anyone could come to conclusions and hold to only one and not the other. For instance, Southern Presbyterians like Thornwell, Girardeau, Dabney, Adger, etc. were non EP but opposed to musical instrumentation in worship. There were some exceptions the other way I suspect though rarer I think; I don't recall any names.

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Chris Coldwell, Lakewood Presbyterian Church (PCA), Member
• Naphtali Press: Presbyterian & Reformed Books
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The Regulative Principle: Samuel Miller gives a succinct statement of this principle when he writes that since the Scriptures are the “only infallible rule of faith and practice, no rite or ceremony ought to have a place in the public worship of God, which is not warranted in Scripture, either by direct precept or example, or by good and sufficient inference.”

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DAVIDIVS DOCTVS VTRIVSQVE LINGVAE
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Currently in the process of transferring membership to an as-yet-undecided church in Chapel Hill
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

I would recommend John L. Girardeau's Instrumental Music in Public Worship for you Leslie.

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Benjamin P. Glaser
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairmount ARP Church, Sewickley, PA
Student of Theology Pittsburgh Theological Seminary & Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

“If the Church could be aroused to a deeper sense of the glory that awaits her, she would enter with a warmer spirit into the struggles that are before her.”-- J.H. Thornwell

EP and a capella singing are separate issues which are both covered by the regulative principle of worship.

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Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole

Do people actually sing psalm 150, deliberately acapella and immobile? Seems as if that is like boasting of humility or hanging foamrubber windchimes.

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Mary Vanderkooi
Kale Heywott Church (KHC)
Soddo, Ethiopia

If one understands the context of Psalm 150 then it is not a problem. Much like one reads the Levitical law concerning sacrifice and the dismemberment of the bull.

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Benjamin P. Glaser
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairmount ARP Church, Sewickley, PA
Student of Theology Pittsburgh Theological Seminary & Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

“If the Church could be aroused to a deeper sense of the glory that awaits her, she would enter with a warmer spirit into the struggles that are before her.”-- J.H. Thornwell

Huh?

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Mary Vanderkooi
Kale Heywott Church (KHC)
Soddo, Ethiopia

God has told us to sing psalms. That includes Psalm 66 which states

I will go into thy house with burnt offerings: I will pay thee my vows,
Which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was in trouble.
I will offer unto thee burnt sacrifices of fatlings, with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with goats. Selah.

Are you going to start doing that or are you going to sing with understanding?

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Richard
CofE
UK

God in His sovereignty has made sacrifices impossible since the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. If the temple were still standing, I would have no problem whatsoever with offering thank offerings and the like, but not offerings of atonement. In our current culture, the equivalent of the burnt offerings--making and keeping vows--is certainly appropriate in relationship to God. It seems rather arbitrary to just throw out any meaning that doesn't agree with one's theological bias rather than asking how the original meaning works out in the current age and culture.

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Mary Vanderkooi
Kale Heywott Church (KHC)
Soddo, Ethiopia

? Foamrubber windchimes ? I am not even EP and you lost me on that.

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~etexas~

The answer is not the destruction of the temple in AD70 but rather the destruction of the true temple in AD30(ish) as we learn in the Book of Hebrews. Christ's death fulfilled the typical worship of the Temple, hence the end of bloody sacrifice, the Levitical priesthood etc. Now because temple worship was put to an end by Christ's death and musical instruments were tied to the Levitical priesthood, it is absurd to say that the musical instruments are to be continued. They are to be used just as much as bloody sacrifice, i.e. not at all.

We then sing the psalms recognising that they speak of spiritual truths, that they contain a command to use a harp does not mean that we are to start using harps, no more than the command to sacrifice bulls means we will start burning bulls in church on Sunday.

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Richard
CofE
UK

Hanging foam rubber windchimes is superficially affirming one thing while simultaneously negating the same. In the case of windchimes, one affirms his love of the sound of the wind but making them out of foam rubber negates the same. Ditto with singing Psalm 150, deliberately (not out of necessity) acapella and immobile: one verbally affirms the appropriate use of instrumentation and dance in the worship of God while factually disaffirming the same. When one does this kind of thing in relationship to other people, it's called double-binding, like the guy who bought his mother an expensive mother's day card and wrote inside "You have always been like a mother to me".

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Mary Vanderkooi
Kale Heywott Church (KHC)
Soddo, Ethiopia

Leslie you are missing the point. Those in the EP-side believe that the use of instruments in worship have ceased following the end of Temple Worship. So no matter how many times you sing Psalm 150 and following the mere fact you sing about instruments is a Non-sequitur.

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Benjamin P. Glaser
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairmount ARP Church, Sewickley, PA
Student of Theology Pittsburgh Theological Seminary & Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary

“If the Church could be aroused to a deeper sense of the glory that awaits her, she would enter with a warmer spirit into the struggles that are before her.”-- J.H. Thornwell