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Travis Fentiman
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Outline
Intro
Nature’s Light & Biblicism
Scottish Covenanters
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Intro
It is sometimes taught certain Scriptural commands and principles make it divinely obliging for infants and young children to attend the Church’s adult, public worship, as a rule. This article does not seek to discourage parents from having young children in congregational worship where it is profitable, but it will show that the Scriptures do not make this a rule. Where such children’s attendence is not profitable, or not the most profitable, churches and parents ought to have no qualms about utilizing other, more profitable options.
A “divine obligation” here refers to an obligation deriving from God which overrules most other considerations. So far from such binding young children to being in regular congregational worship, it will be shown all the Old Testament evidence respects extraordinary occasions, and the New Testament evidence, even with the apostolic letters being read publicly aloud to the churches, does not directly equate to all young children sitting through an hour and a half (or longer) service every Lord’s Day without a break.
Paul says that children think differently than adults (1 Cor. 13:11, which is known by nature’s light), what is not understood, does not edify (1 Cor. 14:14-18, 26) and his rule is that all things are to be done for edification (1 Cor. 14:26). In fact:
“unless you utter by the tongue words easy to understand, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air.” (1 Cor. 14:9)
As Scripture does not prescribe children to be in regular congregational worship, so this does not properly fall under the Regulative Principle of Worship, whereby we ought to only worship God in the way He wills. Rather it is maintained children in worship falls into the category of Westminster Confession of Faith 1.6, that:
“some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed. (1 Cor 11:13-14; 14:26, 40)”
*** defend this
Hence, however young children and church are handled, neither Scripture nor anything else mandates one particular way of doing things. Rather there may be a flexibility of practices, in accord with nature’s light, Christian prudence and the Word’s general rules, unto edification, as we see in Scripture.
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Nature’s Light & Biblicism
It will be complained by some I am not closely defining “young children”. Yet to set an age limit would be foolish and is part of the problem. The standard is not an artificial, specific age, but rather nature’s light, Christian prudence and the general rules of the Word (which includes moderation, Gal. 5:23; Phil. 4:5; Titus 1:8; 2:2; 2 Pet. 1:6).
None should qualm about parents not bringing an autistic child to worship if it causes suffering for both. Yet we do not need the Bible to tell us this. God is good and nature’s light and law is herein sufficient (Lk. 11:11; 1 Pet. 3:11). Scripture assumes we are capable of discerning this aspect of God’s will (Prov. 13:16; Heb. 5:14). Yet the specifics of children attending worship is in the same realm when it comes to individual families, with individual parenting characteristics, with individual histories, with individual children, with individual psychological characteristics and needs, in individual services and churches, all these factors in the unique situations combining to form in part the nature of things, out of which arises nature’s light and laws.
While moderate parenting of children in worship is not being discouraged, but rather encouraged, yet in regards to expectations that are not so moderate: Children’s persons are more important (Mk. 8:36-37) than the damage wrought by the imprudent and unyielding application of simplistic child-training methods and expectations. Children are more important (according to the Word and Reformed theology) than positive ordinances of worship itself. Human growth and development is part of natural law, though it be not taken into account with quasi-military style family discipline.
This gets to the main underlying problem at hand for many, which is Biblicism: most forms of which involve a simplistic and absolutizing use of isolated Scriptures, which don’t take other necessary factors into account (such as nature’s light and laws). Biblicism, in common forms, appeals to those who find easy answers attractive, albeit in complex issues, are geared towards black and white thinking (and the same in practical decisions), it majors on the authority of God, at the expense of other legitimate concens, and it takes advantage of ignorance and confirmation bias. That is bad enough in regular Christians, but when used by church leaders concerned with implementing compliance to an unnatural standard they think is the divine will, problems will only multiply, and be suppressed, all in God’s name.
Hence a major part of the below is to let the Scriptures speak for themselves, apart from the unwarranted over-arching inferences and assumptions, seeing what does and does not derive from them by good and necessary consequence (WCF 1.6). To that end, giving some perspective, some history from the Westminster era (circa 1640’s) will be briefly highlighted first before surveying the Old Testament, and then the New Testament, evidence.
In all this, the question of the church membership of children, whether one is a convinced baptist or presbyterian, as will be seen from the historical and Biblical evidence, does not necessitate the particular whether young children ought to be in the regular, adult worship of God. Those who make children’s Church membership determinative of the issue are simply reading their biases into the Bible.
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Post-Reformation History
Geneva had a paradigmatic influence on much of the Reformation. Their Laws and Statutes of 1562, while John Calvin was still alive, omits speaking of children with respect to congregational worship. Rather, in apparent distinction therefrom, the statutes ordained that: “all citizens and inhabitants shall bring or send their children on the Sunday at twelve of the clock, to the catechism…”†
† The Laws and Statutes of Geneva as well concerning ecclesiastical discipline, as civil regiment… (London: Hall, 1562), ‘The order which ought to be kept for little children’, p. 14
After the Scottish Reformation, in the land of the covenanters, young children were “systematically excluded everywhere from Sunday sermons… lest they disturb the adult hearers…” Glasgow sessions disallowed children under eight from attending church. Further details are given by the scholar Margo Todd.¹
¹ “Aberdeen prohibited ‘young bairns [children]… not at the school and not of such age and disposition as they can take themselves to a seat when they come to the kirk, but vague [wander] through the same here and there in time of sermon and make perturbance and disorder.’ These children were to be ‘kept at home, for eschewing of clamour and disorder in the kirk’. Kingsbarns’s session ordered them not only to be kept away from the kirk, but also to be shut up indoors lest parishoners be troubled by the ‘running up and down of little ones and young children on the Lord’s day in the time of sermon’. Perth’s session in 1582 actually ordered warding (gaoling) and a 6s 8d fine [presumably for the parents] for ‘bairns that perturb the kirk in time of preaching’ instead of being kept at home…
Services of baptism obviously presented a particular dilemma, since one could hardly exclude the baby. Perth solved this problem with a 1587 order that babies ‘be holden in some secret place til the preaching is ended’ and only then be fetched for baptism, ‘for avoiding of the… crying of the infant and bairn which makes din in time of the preaching, so that others incoming thereto are stopped from hearing.'” Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland (Yale University Press, 2002), ch. 1, ‘The Word & the People’, pp. 37-38; see also pp. 35-38 & 45-46.
Todd does highlight the opposite tendency in that culture as well: “the frequency with which they had to repeat the order to keep ‘greeting [crying] bairns’ and other youngsters at home suggests that some adults, far from resenting required sermon attendance, were willing to risk a fine in order to come to the preaching with children in tow.” Ibid., p. 38
1639, about catechism, but not attending worship
The practice in England was similar. Official articles of visitation to churches from 1569 up through at least 1631 regularly inquired (with minor variations) whether children:
“above seven years of age… come to the Church on Sundays… at the times appointed… and there diligently and obediently to hear and to be ordered by the minister, until such time as they have learned the same catechism…”²
² This was from 1580; see generally the proximity search results at EEBO-TCP for “tauern*” with “sunda*”.
This, be it noted, was not precisely the same as
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Philip Doddridge, Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, p. 220
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Old Testament
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FB
To give a bit of perspective: In 1600’s Scotland, amongst the Westminster era covenanters, it was common for kids below eight years old to not be allowed to attend the public worship service.
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Order
Extraodinary, Theophany, Covenant making
Some OT Festivals
Special Occassion
Extraordinary Fasts
Psalms, children singing?
Children Not Required
Bring kids to Jesus
Jesus
At Tyre
Addressing Children in Letter
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Extraodinary, Theophany, Covenant making
Exodus
Ex. 10:9
“And Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old; with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go, for we must hold a feast to the Lord.”
Before entering Promised Land, in Moab, entering into Covenant
Deuteronomy 29:10–12
“All of you stand today before the LORD your God: your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones and your wives—also the stranger who is in your camp… that you may enter into covenant with the LORD your God…”
After the battle of Ai, a covenant renewal of sorts
Joshua 8:35
“There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them.”
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Some OT Festivals
Pentecost
Deuteronomy 16:11, 14
“You shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter…”
“And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter…”
Feast of Tabernacles
Deuteronomy 31:12–13
“Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the LORD your God and carefully observe all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God…”
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Special Occassion
Dedication of the Wall of Jerusalem, but women and kids may not have been at the direct assembly
Nehemiah 12:43
“Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and the children also rejoiced…”
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Extraordinary Fasts
A special fast before eminent war of being invaded, under Jehoshaphat
2 Chronicles 20:13
“Now all Judah, with their little ones, their wives, and their children, stood before the LORD.”
Special Fast done voluntarily
Ezra 10:1
“While Ezra was praying, and while he was confessing, weeping, and bowing down before the house of God, a very large assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him from Israel…”
Extraordinary call of repentance and fasting at incoming army
Joel 2:15–16
“Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Consecrate a fast,
Call a sacred assembly;
Gather the people,
Sanctify the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children and nursing babes;
Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber,
And the bride from her dressing room.”
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Address question of kids in Temple singing praise?
Psalm 34:9-11
O fear the Lord, you His saints; for to those who fear Him there is no want. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; but they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing. Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord”
Psalm 148:12–13
“Both young men and maidens;
Old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the LORD…”
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Little children not required:
Passover
Exodus 12:24–27
“And it shall be, when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ that you shall say…”
Exodus 13:8
“And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, ‘This is done because of what the LORD did for me…’”
Seventh month, first day, holy day
Nehemiah 8:2–4
“So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could hear with understanding…”
“…and the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law.”
Later
Nehemiah 10:28–29
“Now the rest of the people—the priests, the Levites… their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and understanding—these joined with their brethren… and entered into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law…”
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New Testament
Bring kids to Jesus
Matthew 19:13–15; Luke 18:15–17
“Then they brought little children to Him, that He might touch them…”
Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:14)
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Jesus
Luke 2:41–42
“His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast.”
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At Tyre, ad hoc
Acts 21:5
“…and they all accompanied us, with wives and children, till we were out of the city. And we knelt down on the shore and prayed.”
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Addressing Children in Letter
Eph. 6:1-3
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
‘Honor your father and mother,’ which is the first commandment with promise…”
Colossians 3:20
“Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord.”
1 John 2:12–14
“I write to you, little children,
Because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake.”
“I write to you, fathers…”
“I write to you, young men…”
I write to you, little children,
Because you have known the Father.
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Early Christian letters were ordinarily read aloud in gathered assemblies cf. Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. 5:27
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Children are Members of the Covenant Community – no doubt they are, OT prooftext
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OPC BCO
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Bible Verses
Ex. 23:17 “Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord God.”
1 Sam. 1:21-24 “And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and his vow. But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord… And Elkanah her husband said unto her, Do what seemeth thee good; tarry until thou have weaned him… So the woman abode, and gave her son suck until she weaned him. And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her… and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh: and the child was young.”
Neh. 8:1-3 “And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding… And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.”
Lk. 2:21-22 “And when eight days were completed [g]for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. And when the [40] days of her purification according to the law of Moses [Lev. 12:1-4] were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord;” through v. 39 where they go back to Nazareth
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Quote
1600’s
Samuel Rutherford
A Survey of the Survey of that Sum of Church Discipline… (London, 1658), bk. 3, ch. 6, p. 343
“9. That this instituted Church is to meet together all of them, even the whole Church for the administration of the holy ordinances of God, to public edification, 1 Cor. 14:27 [as the Independents would have it], is a manifest debarring of infants born within the visible Church from being members of that Church which Christ in his Gospel has instituted, etc., for they are neither capable of convening in one place every Lord’s Day, nor of public edification by prophesying, as is meant, 1 Cor. 14:23…”
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History
On the Jewish Practice
“He [Judah ben Tema, fl. mid-second century AD] used to say: At five years of age the study of Scripture; At ten the study of Mishnah; At thirteen subject to the commandments; At fifteen the study of Talmud; At eighteen the bridal canopy; At twenty for pursuit [of livelihood];”
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On the Scottish Reformation
Articles
Denlinger, Aaron – ‘Is Family-Integrated Worship the Historical Norm? [No]’ (2016) at Reformation21
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Refute Scott Brown
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