Scott Aniol
Ministry, Worship, Culture, Aesthetics
Video
In this talk on vocation and calling, Scott Aniol challenges the idea that one can truly serve Christ only through full-time church ministry. Working from Colossians 3 and 1 Corinthians 7:17, he argues that Christians may serve the Lord in every calling, and he applies this to church musicians and artists, encouraging them to do their work heartily as unto the Lord, whether inside or outside the church. The video was published by Artistic Theologian in 2020.
This video presentation by Scott Aniol, posted by Artistic Theologian in 2020, addresses the Holy Spirit’s work in worship, the subject of his article in the Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal (2019). In that article Aniol challenges the expectation that the Spirit chiefly produces extraordinary experiences in worship, arguing from Scripture’s language for the Spirit’s activity that his ordinary work is disciplined formation.
This video sermon on Psalm 96 asks why God’s people sing in worship. Aniol shows how the psalm’s groups of verbs show that singing blesses the Lord, declares his glory, and expresses deep affections. He also traces the psalm’s movement toward the future reign of the Lord over all nations and creation, arguing that singing it shapes believers to live in light of that coming reality. This 2020 recording is separate from Aniol’s 2018 sermon on the same psalm.
In this conference session on planning a gospel-shaped worship service, Scott Aniol, then at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, speaks to music ministers and worship leaders about how to order corporate worship. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 14 and Old Testament patterns of drawing near to God, he argues that services should be orderly and edifying, and that a service shaped to represent the gospel forms worshipers to live out the gospel. The video was published by Artistic Theologian in 2020.
This video records Scott Aniol’s presentation on “fittingness” as a guide for biblically informed worship music, prepared for the national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society and given at the Southwestern Seminary Worship Colloquium. Aniol argues that because Scripture communicates truth through particular aesthetic forms, those forms should inform the musical expressions Christians create for worship.
A video recording of Scott Aniol’s paper “Changed from Glory into Glory: The Liturgical Formation of the Christian Faith,” presented in the Practical Theology/Spiritual Formation section of the 2019 national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society and posted by Artistic Theologian in 2020.
In this sermon on Psalm 78, Scott Aniol addresses hope for families seeking to follow the Lord in the world. He explains the psalm’s contrast between the tribes of Ephraim and Judah and urges parents to tell their children the works of the Lord, to call them to repentance and faith in Christ, to protect them from pagan influences, and to shape their hearts through faithful family and congregational worship so that they set their hope in God. The video was posted by Providence Baptist Chapel in 2019.
In this lecture, Scott Aniol compares the errors in medieval worship that the Protestant Reformers rejected, such as sacramentalism, with similar ideas he sees returning in some contemporary and charismatic worship, including the view of music as a means of experiencing God’s manifest presence. He proposes a common solution in the regulative principle of worship and the teaching of Hebrews that believers draw near to God by faith. The video was published by Artistic Theologian in 2018.
A video recording of “Citizens and Exiles,” a lecture by Scott Aniol at the Metropolitan Tabernacle Theology Conference in London (2018).
A video recording of “A Biblical Definition of Culture,” a lecture by Scott Aniol at the Metropolitan Tabernacle Theology Conference in London (2018).
This sermon on Psalm 130 considers repentance through singing in corporate worship. Aniol argues that poetry set to music forms God’s people holistically, and that this is as true of repentance as of praise and thanksgiving: congregational songs of confession shape believers to live aware of their sin and their daily need of cleansing through the blood of Christ. The message was given at the 2017 National Center for Family-Integrated Churches National Conference.
This video records a chapel sermon by Scott Aniol on drawing near to God in worship from Hebrews 10:19–22, preached at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on September 5, 2017.
This video recording presents Scott Aniol’s paper on whether Isaac Watts was a Unitarian, later published in the Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 22 (2017). Aniol examines Watts’s mature views of the Trinity and the controversies surrounding them, concluding that Watts’s unusual explanations and his refusal to make creeds a test of fellowship, rather than any denial of Christ’s deity, fueled the charges, while his Trinitarian hymns left a lasting orthodox legacy.
This video recording presents Scott Aniol’s paper “Practice Makes Perfect: How Corporate Worship Forms Disciples.” Aniol argues that corporate worship forms disciples not only by teaching doctrine but by shaping the heart’s inclinations through habitual practice, and that gospel-shaped liturgies help believers become what they are in Christ. A version was published in the Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care (2017).
This video recording presents Aniol’s address “Form and Substance,” which extends the regulative principle of worship to the aesthetic forms of Scripture. Building on his book By the Waters of Babylon and on the doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration, he argues that the poetic and literary forms God chose to communicate his truth should shape the forms churches use in corporate worship today. Recorded at the 2016 Religious Affections conference at High Country Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, followed by questions and discussion.
This video recording presents Scott Aniol’s paper on worldview bias and the origin of Hebrew worship, read during a colloquium at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Aniol responds to scholars who claim Israel’s worship evolved from neighboring polytheism, arguing that their conclusions owe much to worldview bias. The paper was published in Answers Research Journal 8 (2015).
A video recording of Scott Aniol’s lecture “Toward a Biblical Understanding of Culture.”
This video recording from Religious Affections Ministries features Scott Aniol on how to evaluate musical communication, a topic related to choosing music for worship. It was published in 2013.
A video recording of Scott Aniol’s message “Holy Culture” on 1 Peter 1, published by Religious Affections Ministries (2013).
This video, posted by Religious Affections Ministries in 2013 under the title “Holy Culture,” accompanies Scott Aniol’s article “Toward a Biblical Understanding of Culture” (Artistic Theologian, 2012). That article critiques the missional church movement’s understanding of culture and argues from New Testament categories that culture is a people’s way of life flowing from their beliefs and values, and so is never neutral.
This video recording from Religious Affections Ministries features Scott Aniol speaking on truth in corporate worship. It is listed on Vimeo under the title “Communicating Truth in Worship.”