The regulative principle of worship suggests and bolsters a regulative principle of everything for the church. Doctrine, order, and doxology are a three-legged stool. When present and sturdy, these legs will bear great weight; when any are missing or compromised, collapse is imminent.

Thesis: No confessional Presbyterian church will long remain confessional or presbyterian if it loses Reformed worship.
First, some definitions:

Confessional: orthodox soteriology and doctrine (especially of God) according to the Reformed confessions
-Presbyterian: government by ordained male (per scripture) elders organized in accountable, graded courts
-Reformed worship: scripturally regulated (RPW), simple, ordinary means of grace worship—a Reformed bucket to carry Reformed water.

Why will unscriptural, man-centered, culturally conditioned, over-contextualized worship undermine confessional orthodoxy? Because worship by its very form (which ought to be according to spirit—uppercase and lowercase— and truth) communicates certain things about the nature of God and man, thus theology proper and anthropology can’t help but be warped by unbiblical worship. Theology proper and biblical anthropology are the foundations of soteriology, which will also be warped by unbiblical (e.g., revivalist or sacerdotal) worship.
Why will unscriptural, man-centered, culturally conditioned, over-contextualized worship undermine biblical, Presbyterian church government? Because free-form, optional, variable worship forms suggest free-form, optional, variable ecclesial forms…or little form at all. And when worship is no longer led by ordained elders, government by ordained elders seems less plausible. Presbyterian order is not hierarchical, but neither is it excessively horizontal. Rolling it out too thin leads to its disintegration.
The regulative principle of worship suggests and bolsters a regulative principle of everything for the church. Doctrine, order, and doxology are a three-legged stool. When present and sturdy, these legs will bear great weight; when any are missing or compromised, collapse is imminent.
Calvin would seem to agree with this thesis according to his famous statement about worship and soteriology in “The Necessity of Reforming the Church” (admittedly written before Presbyterian government was fully developed):
“If it be inquired, then, by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts, and consequently the whole substance of Christianity: that is, a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained. When these are kept out of view, though we may glory in the name of Christians, our profession is empty and vain. After these come the sacraments* and the government of the church, which, as they were instituted for the preservation of these branches of doctrine, ought not to be employed for any other purpose; and, indeed, the only means of ascertaining whether they are administered purely and in due form, or otherwise, is to bring them to this test. If anyone is desirous of a clearer and more familiar illustration, I would say, that rule in the church, the pastoral office, and all other matters of order, resemble the body, whereas the doctrine which regulates the due worship of God, and points out the ground on which the consciences of men must rest their hope of salvation, is the soul which animates the body, renders it lively and active, and, in short, makes it not to be a dead and useless carcass.”
Ultimately, worship is simply more important than we often assume it to be, and we undervalue or modify it into something else to our own peril. Calvin was right to place it first (at least once) and before doctrine/soteriology. He understood its essential, stabilizing role. He also was a true conservative who opposed most change (including change of worship) on principle, unlike evangelicals and even some among the Presbyterian and Reformed of our own day. On his deathbed, Calvin exhorted his fellow pastors in Geneva in 1564:
“I beg you also to change nothing and to avoid innovation, not because I am ambitious to preserve my own (reforming) work…but because all changes are dangerous, and sometimes even harmful.”**
Calvin’s conservative program for worship and the church might be a poor strategy to move books and CDs or sell out a conference, but it may be (since biblical reforms of the 16th and 17th centuries) the best way to preserve biblical order and doctrine.
Brad Isbell is a ruling elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oak Ridge, TN, co-host of the Presbycast podcast, board member of MORE in the PCA and the Heidelberg Reformation Association, and a co-editor of the Nicotine Theological Journal.
* The sacraments properly figure in both the ecclesiology/order and doxology categories.** Quoted in Scott Manetsch, Calvins’s Company of Pastors, Oxford University Press, p. 1
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Paul argues that if there is no resurrection, then he and the other apostles suffered for nothing. It was joy in the truth about the risen Christ—and the hope of the resurrection of believers—that drove the apostles forward to endure all of the persecution that they bore for the sake of the Gospel and the building up of the people of God. Paul reasons that, if there is no resurrection, we should give ourselves entire to hedonistic living because that would be all there is in which to find joy in this empty, futile and passing world. 

I’ve always had something of an aversion to the “if Christianity is not true what do you lose” sort of apologetical approach—precisely because Scripture is God’s word and because it is perfect in all that God reveals in it. To raise the question almost seems to inadvertently jeopardize the veracity of it. Nevertheless, that is precisely the kind of reasoning that the apostle Paul utilized in 1 Corinthians 15 after he appealed to the clear teaching of Scripture about Jesus’ death and resurrection (1 Cor. 15:1-3).
What is at stake if we deny the resurrection?
Writing to a church that was in danger of allowing false teaching to creep in, the apostle tackled the issue of what was at stake if we deny the resurrection. Beginning in verse 12, Paul raises eight “ifs” (following them up with some of the weightiest of all theology) in order to explain the significance of the resurrection for the life of the believers. Consider the following eight “ifs” about the implications of denying the resurrection:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? (1 Cor. 15:12)

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised….For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. (1 Cor. 15:13, 16)

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. (1 Cor. 15:14)

We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. (1 Cor. 15:15)

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. (1 Cor. 15:17-18)

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Cor. 15:19)

If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? (1 Cor. 15:29)

If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (1 Cor. 15:32)

According to the apostle’s argument, if the resurrection never occurred one can categorize all that is lost under the following eight heads:
1. The Apostolic Message
The first thing that is lost, if we deny the resurrection, is the centrality of the death and resurrection of Jesus in the apostolic message. That is the central message of Christianity. How can some profess to be Christians and deny the central message of Christianity? The resurrection cannot be said to be a mythological or analogical story. It was an historical event that turned the world upside down. This, Paul, said—at the outset of the chapter—was an essential part of what was “of first importance.” In essence, Paul is saying, “If there is no resurrection, we have nothing left to preach because our message centers on Christ having been raised from the dead.”
2. A Living Redeemer
Next, the apostle heightens the argument by insinuating that if there is no resurrection from the dead, then “Christ is not risen.” We not only lose the central message of Christianity if there is no resurrection.
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When we are “put” somewhere we don’t like or don’t find comfortable, it can be tempting to ask for a change of location. But what if God wants us in that very place to advance the gospel?

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.Philippians 1:12
I am writing this reflection from Gifu in central Japan. I am here for the 7th Japan Congress on Evangelism, a gathering of Japanese church and ministry leaders and missionaries. In advance of this Congress, a survey was carried out to get an up-to-date picture of the state of the church in Japan. The findings were published in May, and humanly speaking there is cause for real concern. The number of believers remains at less than 1%, the church and its pastors are aging and the future is not looking bright. If there ever was a time for leaders to come together to think about evangelism in Japan, then it is now.
While it is good and helpful to get facts and figures about the state of the church, however, we must not allow those to be the only things we consider. I am currently writing devotions for my Japanese church on the book of Philippians, and last week was considering verses 12-14 of Chapter 1. Paul is in prison, in chains, because of the gospel. I wonder how the Philippian believers were praying for him. Perhaps they were praying that he would be released quickly. After all, the Philippian church knew from personal experience that God could indeed open prison doors (Acts 16:25-28). It would make sense that they would want Paul to be released so that he could continue his work of sharing the good news about Jesus in various towns and cities.
Paul’s perspective, however, is quite different. He reassures the Philippian believers that what has happened to him, namely the fact that he is in prison, has actually served to advance the gospel. The word “advance” here means to move forward, overcoming obstacles in the way. Some people no doubt saw Paul being in prison as an obstacle, something getting in the way, but Paul says that instead it has advanced the gospel.
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