Category: COVID-19

Jesus said, “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Mt. 10:16) NASB

Every generation of Christians has discovered the meaning of this verse in a slightly different manner because the wolves have been at work in slightly different ways. During Jesus’ time followers of Christ were aware that King Herod Antipas (the son of Herod the Great) was as shrewd as a fox because that’s the nickname Jesus gave him. You don’t have to read very far into the gospels to discover how the Herodian dynasty gained its reputation. ¹

Christians living in California today are beginning to quote this verse more often because the shrewdness of the administration is moving from “conspiracy theory” status to “you know, I think you’re right” status. This understanding has increased because of the most recent guidelines that were delivered to churches on July 1st. The common sense approach to this issue is to see what happened, read the documents, and decide on a reasonable conclusion. That is my goal for this article.

On Wednesday, July 1st, the governor held a press conference where he communicated that certain private sector businesses were going to have to close indoor operations. I was surprised because churches were not on the list. The next day I waited to see if anything would be published because I thought that would be the last opportunity for changes to be made before the holiday weekend. Wouldn’t you know it. Early Friday morning, I received a text message with a link to the Sacramento Bee article that mentioned that houses of worship are to “discontinue singing.” I would be lying if I told you I was surprised. I realized it was time to find the original document and read it for myself. It is a 14 page document that was released by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) on July 1st. Once again, I was not surprised to discover that it had not been mentioned in the July 1st press release.

I will let you read the document for yourself because after all we have been trained to be read Scripture carefully, so why not read government documents in the same way? One interesting difference between Scripture and documents from the CDPH is that when the CDPH gives commands they have an interesting habit of being under the heading of “Guidance” or “Considerations” or “Health Advisory” if you go back as far as 2019. One example of this is on page 13 of the singing document. There is a section titled, “Considerations for Places of Worship.” The first paragraph gives the command to “Discontinue offering self-service food and beverages.” One sentence later it says, “If food and beverages must be served, provide items in single-serve, disposable containers whenever possible.” Now, this is helpful. It shows how the document can be read. The command to discontinue food service is a guideline. It is a consideration that the CDPH is recommending to be followed.

The careful reader will recognize that the next paragraph says, “Discontinue singing,” but it refrains from adding the same allowance that was used for food service. Since this is a document intended for guidance, then the Christian reader knows he is able to continuing singing because it is believed by many Christians that singing must continue to be done wherever Christians gather (Eph. 5:19). That was true for believers who sang in the catacombs of Rome and it is true today.

It is worth nothing that the document is entitled, “Places of Worship.” If worship is being done with social distancing in place shouldn’t these places be given some allowance to be able to worship with singing? Thirteen pages of recommendations have already been given in the document, why not include a sentence about singing with a face covering, or humming, or mouthing the words, or worship leaders singing for the streaming service? Nope. The document does not give contain any allowances for singing. But the careful reader does not need the allowance. It already exists in the context of the document because it is intended for guidance and for the consideration of the reader.

I told you people were quoting Matthew 10:16 more often. This announcement was made in a shrewd manner and it contains shrewd wording to try to convince the reader that California has banned singing in places built for singing to our glorious God.

Now before I continue any further, it is important to make sure that there is no confusion about the necessity of Christians gathering to worship. Christians who hold to the sixty-six books of the Bible believe that it is the inspired word of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17) and like Peter and John we know we must “proclaim what we have seen and heard” from God’s Holy word. Hebrews 10:25 makes it clear that we are to not stop meeting together because God commands it. Ephesians 5:19 makes it clear that we are to sing together as the body of Christ because God commands it. These are two principles that we are to stand firm upon (Eph. 6:10-20).

Some will make the argument that we must obey the government from Romans 13. This is a valid point when the government enforces good behavior. The minute it begins to prohibit behavior that the Bible clearly commands then Romans 13 is not the right Scripture for the issue. Acts 4:19-20 needs to be considered, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge,  for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” The CDPH is free to make a decision about how their guidelines are enforced, but if anyone comes to our church gathering and hears us singing we will let them decide if what we are doing is right or wrong. From our perspective it has been rightly divided.

If I did not believe that Christians need to gather for singing worship I would not have been motivated to study the CDPH documents. Nor would I have been motivated to call the governor’s office (916) 445-2841, the California Department of Public Health’s office (916) 440-7259, or the King’s County Department of Public Health Office (559) 584-1401. Each of these phone calls were helpful because I was able to hear directly from a public employee concerning the singing guidelines. The governor’s office made it clear that they were not able to interpret the document for me. The CDPH was more helpful. They told me that social distancing needed to be followed while agreeing that the document was open to interpretation. The KCDPH agreed that social distancing needed to be followed. This led me to to conclude that social distancing needs to be followed while singing indoors. And this is the position that I now hold and will continue to hold as long as the shelter-in-place order still stands.

I believe that this issue of singing worship is an illustration of what Jesus was referring to in Matthew 10:16. We are to be as wise as serpents. This means we need to be like the men of Isaachar, who had understanding of their times (1 Chr. 12:32). We are also to be as innocent as doves. This means we need to be innocent of wrong-doing and in this case singing with social distancing is good for the community, the church, and the government. We have to remember that human health is not only affected by a one strain of one virus. Singing with social distancing is a common sense approach that honors Christ and those in authority and I highly recommend it to the maximum extent possible.