Hermeneutics: Understanding Scriptures

How do churches of Christ understand Scripture? This is a question of hermeneutics - how we read, understand, and apply Scripture. The Restoration Movement quickly applied a hermeneutic of “command, example, and necessary inference.” This hermeneutic is not original to the Restoration Movement for it stems from the Westminster Confession of Faith, appealed to often by the Presbyterian-bred Thomas and Alexander Campbell.[1] Granted, this three-fold hermeneutic is not sanctioned by either the OT or the NT. It is an external method applied to the biblical text but has no scriptural authority in and of itself. This is humbling for we should keep in mind that all our interpretive “methods” are fallible at best. Again, we caution that it is appropriate to ask whether or not Scripture requires this three-fold hermeneutic. Is the first-century church to be “imitated” as some suggests by using this command, example, and necessary inference hermeneutic? This imitation idea comes from our overall approach to the NT but not the NT itself. Further, the language of “imitation” and “pattern” in the NT is always ethical and gospel-centered and not focused on ritual or external religious forms (1 Thess 1:6; 2:14; 2 Tim 1:13).

Be that is it may, perhaps the most practically developed articulation of the three-fold hermeneutic within the a cappella churches of Christ is from F. LaGard Smith. Smith writes, “We try to imitate whatever practices we find in scripture in the form of either direct commands, biblical examples or any other necessary inferences which might flow there from. The idea has been that, if we faithfully pattern our Christian walk on biblical commands and examples, then we can be the same kind of Christians-worshipping God in the same way-as Jesus’ disciples in the first century” (italics added).[2] Granted, Scripture never requires this imitation hermeneutic; it is simply an external assumption imposed on the text in an effort to duplicate the first century church. At any rate, this particular hermeneutic uses the Scriptures to “rule in” certain practices of worship. Any practice not mentioned is by default “ruled out.” Most other faith groups use the Scriptures to “rule out” instead of “rule in.” In other words, for most faith groups any practice not prohibited in the Scriptures is acceptable. However, we do this just as often as other religious groups. We rule in things like full-time pulpit ministers, youth ministers, paying ministers from the church treasury, song books, song leaders, pitch pies, etc. It is impossible to be consistent with this ruling in vs. ruling out hermeneutic.

The churches of Christ try to look for biblical authority in any spiritual activity. Without biblical authority to justify a position, it then becomes an issue of faith. Therefore, some who believe that instrumental music is an issue of faith use a “silence of Scriptures” argument to defend this position. Many hold the position that since the NT does not provide a command, example, or necessary inference to permit the use of instrumental music in the worship assembly, it is therefore an issue of faith. The problem encountered by this position is the use of the word “psalm” in the NT. Any college-level dictionary will define “psalm” as “accompanied singing.” More importantly, Greek lexicons define psallo, the Greek word for “psalm,” in similar ways.[3] In order to support the exclusive a capella position, some insist that the word psalm changed meanings between the Old Testament (hereafter OT) and the NT. There is little concrete biblical support for this position. This argument does not arise from the biblical text itself but rather from a pre-understanding (bias) imposed on the text. At any rate, the argument is that a psalm in the OT was accompanied singing but it was exclusively a cappella singing in the NT.[4] Historically, the leading scholar in the churches of Christ who defends this position is Everett Ferguson, from Abilene Christian University.[5] But survey results indicate that the majority of the members of the churches of Christ do not understand this line of reasoning. They believe that instruments should not be used in the worship assembly for the reasons detailed in the beginning of this paper and they do not consider it an issue of faith. An analysis of this issue will consume the remainder of this study and focus on answering the critical question, from a biblical perspective, is the use of instrumental music in the worship context an issue of faith?

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[1] WCF I.6

[2] F. LaGard Smith, The Cultural Church (Nashville: 21^st Century Christian, 1992), 15.

[3] William Mounce, The Analytical Lexicon of the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 486.

[4] Fletcher is more cautious regarding such generalizations. Perhaps the most that can be said for this view is that it is possible that the original meaning of psallo, accompanied singing, was expanded through the years to include non-accompanied singing. The term is inclusive not exclusive. The word ado remains the best exclusive option for a cappella singing in the NT. For a brief discussion see Frederick William Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 1096.

[5] His book A Capella Music, in the Public Worship of the Church, Publisher: ACU Press

· ISBN: 1-56794-217-2, is an excellent historical study of the overall issue. A more recent book by E. Claude Gardner entitled, Sounding Brass and Clanging Cymbols http://www.bible-infonet.org/merchant/merchant.ihtml?id=20&step=2 takes a similar approach.