I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds. Ps 77:12 NIV

By Dr. Steve Phifer

I will praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praise to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you — I, whom you have redeemed. My tongue will tell of your righteous acts all day long, for those who wanted to harm me have been put to shame and confusion. Ps 71:22-24 NIV

Praise the LORD. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints. Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King. Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp. For the LORD takes delight in his people; He crowns the humble with salvation. Ps 149:1-4 NIV

Just as we find three absolutes in the ways of the Holy Spirit (He always moves to exalt the Lord Jesus, edify the church and He moves in a fitting and orderly way.) we also find three types of biblical directives telling us what to do in worship: 

1. inner directives tell us how to think,
2. vocal directives tell us how to speak, and
3. physical directives tell us what to do. 

These are the variables, the relative truths employed by the Spirit and by us in the service of the unchanging absolutes, the principles.  While the principles are always present as the Spirit leads us in worship, the directives will come and go depending on the leadership of the Spirit for a given service.  If we treat a relative truth like an absolute truth, we are in error.  That is how churches split over modes of worship, always a senseless and needless tragedy. The following is a section from my book, Worship That Pleases God: The Passion and Reason of True Worship.¹

Biblical Directives for Worship

Directives are found in several forms in the Bible, direct commands, testimonies of true worshipers, and historical records of worshipers who pleased God.² There are three types:

• inward expression,
• vocal expression, and
• physical expression.

Since worship must be an outward expression flowing from the heart let us begin with the directives toward inward expression.

Inward Expression Table

Authentic inward expression is essential to true worship.  Jesus said that the passions of the heart will come pouring out of the mouth. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. (Matthew 12:34) These immeasurable directives will become obvious in our worship.

Worship, and especially worship leading, reveals the contents of the heart.  When people get upset about worship, or when a worship leader gets frustrated, it is important to listen carefully to what they say.  What are the real issues, musical things or spiritual things?  What attitude is presented, a humble, Christ-like spirit or prideful, critical spirit?  Proper inward expressions and attitudes of worship will lead to the proper vocal expressions of worship. Lack of these internals will weaken and destroy the worship experience.

Vocal Expression Table

Some of these modes of expression run afoul of western sensibilities.  That should not be surprising since the Bible is not a western book.  People in or from different cultures express themselves in decidedly different ways.  Culture defines how people express emotion publicly.  Northern European cultures are generally reserved and do not esteem the public display of emotion.  Mediterranean, Latin, or African cultures express emotion very freely in public.  Sincere worshipers whose sensitivities have been forged in the fires of a reserved culture are going to have difficulty with public praying, crying out to God, shouting, rejoicing and so forth.  At the same time sincere worshipers from warmer climates will take to these public expressions readily.  While all this is interesting and important to note, none of it changes what the Bible has to say.  All of these methods of expression are biblical whether we are comfortable with them or not.  That does not mean that there are no controls or mechanisms to regulate when such expressions are proper.  We will reason them out in relation to the principles.   Keeping these sensibility problems in mind helps us approach the next category of directives.

The Scriptures do not overlook our physical activity while these inward expressions abide within us and while we vocalize our praise.

Physical Expression Table

This list is not exhaustive but it is amazing.  Each of us, and certainly each domination or tradition, is tempted to add footnotes and explanations.

• “We do not stand very long.”
• “We don’t dance in our church.”
• “We don’t lift our hands.”
• “We don’t like banners.”
• “We don’t believe people should fall down.”
• “We don’t do processions.”
• “We will never clap our hands in this church.”

There is great potential for confusion in these contradictory commands.   Let us look carefully at this clash of traditions remembering the woman at the well.  She presented the Lord with a clash of traditions.  Surely the answer is still the same—get things on a spiritual level, find out what the Father wants and put His desires first.

How do we know when to be silent and when to shout?  Or how can we know when to be still and when to process, or when to stand and when to bow?  How do we know when to consider the Lord’s goodness or when to inquire in His temple?  How do we avoid worshiping in the ways that feel natural to us at the expense of things we would rather not do?  Is this a biblical menu where we choose the things we like to do and leave the rest alone?  Have we elevated our feelings and traditions to the level of biblical authority?  It is evident we need more than biblical directives to guide us in our worship.

The three ever-present principles become our guide and our criteria:  Does this directive, exalt the Lord Jesus, edify the Body of Christ and is done in a fitting and orderly way?

Some may wonder is such a preponderance of Old Testament verses can really be taken as a set of directives for New Testament worship.  This is a legitimate concern.  Here is my reasoning from Worship that Pleases God:

“Is this an imposition of Old Testament worship on New Testament believers?  On the contrary, the New Testament commands us to use the Psalms–three times.” (Colossians 3:16, Ephesians 5:19, James 5:13).

New Testament worshipers used the book of Psalms. It remains our textbook for worship that pleases God today.  Is it not remarkable that there are so few references to animal sacrifices in the Psalms and so many, many references to spiritual sacrifices?  This has been God’s  desire from the beginning.

So, like the Apostles and as leaders from every reformation movement in history have done, we learn about how to worship God under the New Covenant by use of the Book of Psalms as our guide.

The biblical principles of worship guide us in knowing what to do and when.  There is no way I can overemphasize the importance of the difference between the directives and the principles.   If we take only the directives, our worship will be divisive and exclusive, engendering strife, but when we understand the principles behind the directives we know how to let the Holy Spirit lead in worship that pleases God.  Our worship will be unifying and inclusive, passionate and reasonable, bringing in His peace.

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Dr. Steve Phifer has been in full-time worship ministry serving in several churches across the U.S. since 1975. The driving force behind Steven Phifer Ministries (www.stevephifer.com) is to share the heart of worship, the very essence of being in God’s presence. © by Stephen R. Phifer All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

1. Phifer, Stpehen R., Worship that Pleases God: the Passion and Reason of True Worship, Trafford Publishing Company, 2005. Available from amazon.com or www.stevephifer.com . ↩︎
2. References from the book of Psalms are most frequent and are cited only as chapter and verse. ↩︎