Do you have any scripture references for those who are persuaded of the opposite, or are those your only scriptures?
I think those Scripture references are sufficiently clear if the text and context does not restrict the meaning of hymns and spiritual songs as referring exclusively to songs in the Psalter. While I understand the counter arguments, I find them unpersuasive. The burden of proof rests on demonstrating not that hymns and spiritual songs can or do refer to the Psalms (they do) but that they refer to the Psalms and the Psalms exclusively.
I don't think so. That something is commanded for worship doesn't mean it is necessarily a sine qua non of worship. For example, we are commanded to baptize and observe the Lord's Supper in worship, and yet just because these sacraments are absent in a given public worship service doesn't mean it was therefore not true worship.
I'm not sure the implication that it by default commands a person to sing man made songs follows. Hymns and spiritual songs are clearly used to refer to Psalms. They are clearly inclusive of the Psalms. The question is whether or not they are also inclusive of material beyond the canonical Psalter or must be restricted exclusively to the canonical Psalter. Like I said earlier and have elsewhere, we can debate that question. But I think the burden of proof is on showing that it is an exclusive, technical term and I don't find the arguments that it is sufficiently persuasive.
Yes, I get that. Yet, we are to sing every time we gather for public worship. So it seems to me that the meaning of “Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” should be nailed down. If “hymns” refers to man-made songs then it seems we ought to sing them in at least some public services. Not to do so seems akin to never baptizing or partaking of the Lord’s supper?
You mean there could be true, commanded worship without ever partaking of the sacraments?
In my thinking on it we only have the example in the OT of the singing of inspired praise (prophecy) by the church or individuals under the Spirit’s inspiration. So when we come to the NT we have to consider if now the church’s praise can be uninspired. (This to me echoes our views on the continuation of placing the sign on our children.) And if we don’t find clear warrant for that and believe that the answer must be “no,” then we have the work to do of what Spirit- inspired songs the church is to sing.
This upcoming Lord's Day, our church will not baptize anyone, and we will not partake of the Lord's Supper (which we do every other week). Will it be true worship?
What about dancing in church? Clapping hands? Do we need to insist on using the instruments mentioned in the psalms, while removing the piano?
I found this post by @iainduguid to be powerful. It is unthinkable to me that I am forbidden to sing to and about Jesus by name in his worship. I know this is not strictly a biblical argument, but it still has weight, I believe.
I believe it actually is a command for God's people to sing man-made songs, and precisely for the reason you adduce. The analogy of faith tells us that such man-made songs must be biblical in meaning. This means I believe that the EP position forbids something that God commands.
You have shifted the argument here (I have noted this many times in the past about many EP'ers) from EP to inspired words only. This is not the same position. When EP'ers are challenged about non-Psalmic-but-still-biblical material (such as the Song of Moses) being sung in worship, their response shifts the argument from EP to IWO (Inspired Words Only) by saying, "But it's still inspired." The EP position in most of its iterations says it would be a sin to sing the Song of Moses in worship, since only the Psalms are appropriate for worship. But when faced with the Song of Moses, they will hint that such would be okay to sing in worship because it is still inspired. It gets squishy pretty fast.
There are quite literally hundreds of threads on this board hashing out every single conceivable argument for and against EP, including highly detailed exegesis of Colossians 3:16 and its parallel in Ephesians. Some of us who have gone through all those threads may not be terribly interested in rehashing all of it all over again.
I would take the view of liberality in these things, being that in the context of public worship if it is under the acceptance of the eldership, in decency in accord with the unity of the body, the people of God are free to express themselves in these ways, as David did (2 Samuel 6:14). So in that context, a yes to dancing and clapping, and I see no issue with instruments in a similar regard. I'm not sure what you mean about removing the piano since this would come under instruments (the piano is a stringed instrument). I do not take these passages to be rigid literalistic rules (i.e. "you must sing a new song with instrument x" but more like the joyful descriptions of worship that is in spirit and in truth.
Is dancing commanded? If it is, not dancing is sinful, no? Same for clapping hands
Is everything commanded like that in Scripture automatically to be taken as literally as possible, without room for understanding it as representing something broader? For example, are we bound to greet all of our fellow believers at church with an actual kiss?
You miss the point, which is that, presumably, while you correctly believe that the sacraments are not required at every diet of public worship, you would consider it sinful if they were never observed at all, right? So do you view man-made, uninspired songs in the same way?
Taylor can say if he agrees, but maybe a more fitting analogy would be the command to preach Scripture. This command includes the whole Bible, but we would not say that a pastor who does not make it through every single verse in his ministry was necessarily in sin because of that. In the same way, the command to sing (from a non-EP perspective) includes both inspired and non-inspired songs, but the command does not bind one to an exact portion of those songs, it simply means to sing with a selection chosen from among those songs.
What I am asking is the explicit or good and necessary consequence command to sing uninspired hymns. This particular rhetorical question was part of me trying to understand the "sing a new song" argument.
Colossians 3:16 and its parallel uses three terms, two of which would have a long established meaning at Colossae that did not imply sectors of the Psalter ("hymnos" is only used six times in the Septuagint Psalter anyway, and only once by itself, the other five times have another term attached to it, making it highly unlikely that it refers only to Psalms; all three terms Paul uses are used in the LXX to refer to material outside the Psalter, and even "psalmos" itself is the title to the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151 in the LXX, a non-inspired composition called "psalmos" in the LXX). Seeing as how Paul did not say, "hymnos, but not what you think it is," it is clear that Paul, writing under direct inspiration from God, commands the Colossians to sing man-made hymns alongside the Psalter.