Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 19:2 (Fall 2022)
Article: Does An Affirmation Of "Sola Scriptura" Entail The Regulative Principle Of Worship?
Author: Rhyne Putman

Does An Affirmation Of Sola Scriptura Entail The Regulative Principle Of Worship?

Rhyne Putman

Rhyne Putman serves as associate vice president of academic affairs, director of Worldview Formation, and professor of Christian Ministries at Williams Baptist University in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas.

Evangelicals universally claim the sufficiency of Scripture as the foundation of their beliefs and practices but have significant disagreements about how we should apply this concept—especially in the ministry of the local church. While all evangelical churches share common practices in worship—worship through song, the preaching of the word, and the administration of the sacraments—they vary widely in their musical preferences, preaching styles, and how they administer baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

We read the same Bible, but we “do” church in distinctive ways. We are not just dealing with different texts or interpretations of biblical passages related to Christian worship; we are dealing with different hermeneutical approaches to these texts. We work from competing methodological frameworks. Since the dawn of the Reformation, Protestants and evangelicals have chosen broadly between two similar but competing principles: the normative principle and the regulative principle.

According to the normative principle, normally associated with Lutheran and Anglican traditions, “we may do whatever God has not forbidden” in worship. For “high church” Anglicans, this may mean swinging a thurible in procession. For a “low church” charismatic, this may mean telling the gospel through a dramatic performance. The normative principle, often associated with pragmatism in worship and church organization, reigns supreme in most contemporary evangelical churches.1

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In stark contrast to the normative principle, the regulative principle states that “in worship, we may only do those things which God has commanded us to do.”2 As Ligon Duncan explains it, the regulative principle is “an extension of the Reformational axiom of sola scriptura. As the Bible is the final authority in faith and life, so it is also the final authority in how we corporately worship.”3 Presbyterian and Reformed theologians have been debating how this axiom should be applied for centuries. Some pastor-theologians within Reformed traditions also apply this principle to every aspect of the church’s government and practice, including its organization, membership, and polity.

Christians from both hermeneutical and theological frameworks raise val...