If we were to take a trip to our favorite drive-through, fast-food restaurant and order a #1 with cheese, fries and a coke, and then when we pulled up to the pay window to discover the total was $43.59, would we have a problem with that? The obvious answer is, “Yes, of course!” Hearing that staggering price for just one meal, we would ask the cashier why the meal was so expensive. She simply states, “You didn’t tell me not to give you one of everything else on the menu.” We would probably just drive to another fast-food place instead of trying to explain to this young cashier the principle of exclusion by silence.
It is a very simple principle to understand in the secular world; from the example above, we derive that if I say I want a #1, that’s all I want—nothing less, nothing more. Yet, something that we understand and apply in the secular world is often misunderstood and disregarded in the religious world. Denominationalism normally rejects the law of exclusion based on what it wants (not what God wants). This manifests itself variously as entertainment in their services, instrumental music in worship, not taking the Lord’s Supper on the first day of the week, not preaching the whole counsel of God and failing to teach God’s plan of salvation correctly. If we will just read the Bible as it is written, we will understand clearly that when God says to do something, He doesn’t have to say, “Now don’t do this or that, just do what I said!”
There are several passages throughout the Bible that give an example of this very principle. In Leviticus 10:1-2, there is the account of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of the high priest of Israel, offering something that God “commanded them not.” The result of their transgressing God’s instructions by offering something that God didn’t authorize was death.
Paul writing to the Colossians and Ephesians about singing (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16) gave the command to sing—not to sing and play! We have no authority to use any instrument except the human heart, for that is the instrument we use in singing to God!
The writer of Hebrews spoke of the silence of the Scriptures in Hebrews 7:14, when he wrote, “For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood.” The Levites were through whom the priests came in the Old Testament. Moses never had to say that Judah, Manasseh, etc. won’t be priests; he just said the Levites are the priestly tribe.
There are many more examples all throughout the Bible of the significance of the silence of the Scriptures, and it is imperative for us to realize this. If God said to not do something, we need to be careful not to do it, and when He commands to do something specifically, we must be sure that we do that and nothing more or less. Jesus gave a warning at the end of the Bible about those who would add to or take away from that which is written (Revelation 22:18-19)! Let’s just stay with the Bible!
