Lately one of the things I’ve been studying has been silence in Scripture and how we’re to react to it. My whole life I’ve heard the phrase “Speak where the Bible speaks, and be silent where the Bible is silent.” This principle always made perfect sense in my life. of course we practiced like the 1st century church! Sunday school? Not in Scripture. Bible classes? Not in scripture. Kitchens, musical instruments, paid preacher, the list of things we didn’t have goes on and on and on. Not only were we Church of Christ… but we were REAL Church of Christ because we didn’t let in the additions that some of our weaker brethren did. People would ask me what do these additions matter? Of course they do what about Nadab and Abihu using a fire not commanded? What about poor Uzzah who got struck dead for trying to steady the Ark? Of course we don’t want anyone to go to Hell because they have Sunday School, but… better safe than sorry.
Something’s always bothered me about the silences though. They aren’t consistent. After all… I’ve never heard a lesson against Gospel meetings, song books, a rotation instead of one man minister, buildings, microphones, projectors, white boards, chalkboards, etc. I’ve never read any commands or examples of those things. What bothered me is that it’s not consistent. I like consistency… I like things to be the same every time. I’m analytical like that. So why are some silences permissive and some prohibitive? The answer I got back was that some things were expedient and others were additions. Additions were not allowed. For years now this has been stuck in my craw. How can we tell what’s expedient and what’s an addition? There’s no command on how to tell the difference, so how do I know that the difference in and of itself is not an addition?
Lately I’ve been diving into this a lot. I’ve been emailing friends, reading blogs, and studying scriptures. I’ve been searching and searching for examples on what to do with silences. I started with Nadab and Abihu
Lev 10:1-2 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. (2) And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.
Simple… the fire wasn’t commanded. Silence is prohibitive. Good deal. It was simple until I was reading in Exodus.
Exo 30:9 Ye shall offer no strange incense thereon, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meat offering; neither shall ye pour drink offering thereon.
This is talking about the incense altar. It piqued my interest because Nadab and Abihu were burning incense. It appears to me that they were violating a direct command of God, not taking liberty with a silence. The same goes for Uzzah. They were commanded not to touch the Ark.
Now I had to start searching fro silences. And I was having a hard time with it. One of my buddies remarked to me very wisely, “If they were written about in the Bible, they wouldn’t be silences.” I didn’t really have a response to that one. He’s right. By definition if something is written about it is discussed. I was still bothered though until I was reading some comments about instrumental music on Jay Guin’s blog. I came across this comment.
He was right, the Law said that God could only be worshiped at the Tabernacle. Later it became the Temple. If we recall that’s what led to trouble between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. In the North the king was scared his people would leave him if they worshiped in Jerusalem. Neither Jesus nor the apostles condemn the addition to God’s Law of adding a synagogue. However, Jesus does disapprove of corban. Why?
Mar 7:9-13 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. (10) For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: (11) But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. (12) And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; (13) Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.
We can see here that the tradition of Corban was used to subvert direct commandments of God (not inferences). They used Corban so they didn’t have to treat their father and mother and they were commanded. Let’s contrast this with the synagogue that came about because the people were striving to serve God even though they were in a position that they couldn’t keep to the Tabernacle. This reminded me of the word of Christ.
Mar 2:27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
If we look at the context of this that Jesus and his disciples are traveling through a corn field on the Sabbath day. The disciples became hungry and started to pluck ears of corn, which is harvesting, which is work, which is forbidden. Bad disciples! Jesus responds by telling the story of David found in 1 Samuel 21 (good story to read). Jesus goes on to tell us that the Sabbath was made for man. It was made to give us a time to stop and reflect on God. The disciples had violated the law, but not its intent.
That is what we should look for in every silence we try to interpret. Not what rule do I have to follow… but are we serving God or rebelling against Him? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 8 that some men can eat meat sacrificed to idols and not sin, but some men that eat meat sacrificed to idols sin. Everything goes back to our heart, and what we intend.
A Blog of a Recovering Pharisee 
Good thoughtful post! many are where you were and are sorting it out. It helps to get away from the old line folks and actually sit and THINK of God and His wants!
I like to say, qwe will all stand before the bar of God for judgment ALONE, we cann’t ask those that took such a hard line to step forward and explain in their very able way to God how this really is.
We’ll stand alone, so whay not be alone in your obedience if necessary.
Wouldn’t it be awful to be found wanting on some point that you actually didn’t believe, but did it anyhow to please someone in authority at your Church.
God bless! Keep up your work!
John
Thank you, John. I do appreciate the encouragement. You’re absolutely correct on your point that we have to answer for ourselves at judgment. A like minded brother and I were talking about that very thing just the other night. Thanks for stopping by. Please come back.
Nadab and Abhihu did lots of wrong things: some deny that incense was commanded and they went to the altar. The command was that even a Levite who went into or close to a holy thing would be executed. If you want to make noise you have to do it in the slaughter pen to “make the lambs dumb before the slaughter” while the priests–called heretics–lifted them up to cut their throats.
As a result of Nadab and Abihu, the Israelites were burdened with the scapegoat or Azazel or making an offering to the Devil. After all they had been ‘turned over to worship the starry host’ because of musical idolatry at Mount Sinai. And Jacob in Genesis 49 commanded us NOT to attending the assemblies of the Levi tribe.
The major “instrument” proof text is where the Levites (warriors) played David’s instruments when they were burning the goats for Israel which was long lost. Christ in the prophets denies that God commanded sacrifices or burnt offerings: just because they were imposed because of their musical idolatry does not mean that God gets hungry.
Jesus identified the Scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites: in Isaiah but specificially in Ezekiel 33 Jesus identified them as ‘speakers, singers and instrument players.’
Christ ordained the Qahal, synagogue or church in the wilderness. It was:
Inclusive of “Rest, reading and rehearsing the Word.”
Exclusive of “vocal or instrumental rejoicing.”
That is what Jesus commanded with the “ekklesia” word as did Paul defining the assembly or gathering as “synagogue” which was a Word of God only assembly. After all, disciples go to Bible class and not to a worship ritual.
The Law of Silence was distorted to say “God hath not said ‘thou shalt NOT use instruments’ so we will impose them.” No non-instrumentalists needs a law.
Furthermore, the Bible, the church fathers and all founders of denominations honored God’s silence and the CENI which meant that ‘you cannot impose (Add) something to the assembly not necessary if it sows discord.”
The Jerusalem Conference defined the synagogue from the wilderness onward and still affirmed it as did Paul in his letters:
Acts 15:21 For Moses of old time
hath in every city
them that preach him,
being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
John Calvin called his a “restoration movement” by simply removing anything that does not have clear Apostolic authority. The Campbells defined
Church as “A School of Christ”
Worship as”Reading and Musing the Word of God.”
Christ in the wilderness didn’t say it any better.
All of the war can cease if someone will be brave enough to start an ekklesia.
Thank you for your comment, Kenneth. I was reading through your site the other day (I found it linked off of one of the discussions on OneInJesus.info. I must confess some ignorance, You speak of many things I have not heard before and that I’ve been trying to locate (the entire tribe of Levi worshiping the starry host, sacrifices being commanded by God because of idolatry, etc.). Also sometimes you just make reference to the book, or sometimes the book at chapter and leave off the verse. Sometimes I can find what you’re referring to (Gen. 49) and other times I can’t (Eze. 33, or Isaiah 55–on the article that you linked). As I said, I’m trying to work through your articles, but you take a lot of information that is new to me and take it for granted, and then link to other articles to fill knowledge gaps, that are linked to other articles, etc. This has made it hard for me to follow some of your thoughts. But I am trying.
I do have a couple of questions for you though. These are not traps… I’m just trying to make sure I’m understanding you correctly.
Is all music idolatry (you seem to hint at this, but I can’t tell if that’s for sure what you’re saying)?
Should we take singing out of our assemblies as it’s not spoken word?
I do agree that in the 1st century the assembly probably looked much more like a Bible class does today than how we conduct things now.