They are also part of the Word of God and
should be heard.
In the year that King Isaiah died, I saw the Lord
seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the
train of his robe filled the temple.
Above him were seraphs, each with six wings.
With two wings they covered their faces,
and with two they were flying, and they were
calling to one another,
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty. The
whole earth is full of his glory.
At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and
fresh holes shook, and the temple was filled
with smoke.
Woe to me, I cried. I am ruined, for I am a man
of unclean lips, and I live among a
people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen
the King, the Lord Almighty.
Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live
coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs
from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and
said, See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt
is taken away, and your sin is atoned for.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom
shall I send, and who will go for us?
And I said, Here am I, send me. And he said, Go
and tell this
to your people. Be ever hearing, but never
understanding. Be ever seeing, but never
perceiving. Make the heart of this people
calloused, make their ears dull, and close
their eyes.
Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear
with their ears, understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed. Then I said, For how
long, O Lord? And he answered, Until the cities lie
ruined and without inhabitants, until the
houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and
ravaged, until the Lord has sent everyone far
away, and the land is utterly forsaken. And
though a
tenth remains in the land, it will again be
laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leaves
stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed
will be the stump in the land.
The Word of the Lord, be seated.
Well, that is a hard reading, and we'll make
reference to that again in a moment.
We have begun our discussion, but really have
not yet moved very far into our thesis.
That the place of the word in worship, I
believe, is between baptistry and table.
Maybe more in its theological sense than
necessarily in its literal placement in the
assembly, though I think that there is
something about the place where the word is
read and
proclaimed in the assembly. I ended the last
time by looking at what has happened at some measure
because of our historical antecedents that
would come out of the context. We've made certain
decisions because of who we are. That's not
shocking. That's not surprising. All people do
this. Everyone has a history, but our history
growing out of Protestantism has led us to
relegate the Lord's Supper to a position of
secondary importance. That's true of literally
every Protestant group. Our tradition, there
are more handouts, and so if one of you would help
Pam, we'll just raise your hands and we'll pass
that along. Because we are part of a free
church tradition, which I defend and believe we
should be, I certainly am not an advocate of
being a part of the so-called liturgical
tradition. Nevertheless, our history as a free church,
each congregation making its own decision, has
led us to a vulnerability to doing the same things
in the same way every week, whatever
congregation that we may be in. That's part of
the irony that
has been a part of the free church tradition
from its beginning. As a part of the American
environment, intellectual and cultural
environment, we are driven to individualism and pluralism.
I do what I do, you do what you do. You do your
thing in your way, I'll do my thing in my way.
And we just need to learn to be tolerant of one
another. That's just what it means to be
an American. And it has certainly affected and
infected our churches. And the sense of revival,
which is also a part of our heritage on the
frontier, which obviously has its pluses,
but part of the consequences of that revivalist
past has been the personality of the preacher.
It is the preacher who, after all, is able to
bring to bear the persuasive words and context
that will cause lives to be changed. And that
preaching has largely been seen disconnected from
disconnected from the worship event itself. So
the top of page two, consequences of the
disconnection of preaching from this liturgical
context. I mean by liturgical, there's no reason
to read anything into this, except that this
comes from the Greek word laeturgia, which is
one of the
many words used for service or worship. But I'm
just using it to mean worship, how we do worship.
We have largely disconnected preaching from the
impulse and design and plan of worship. And I
would say maybe more specifically in many,
maybe most of our churches, there has not been much
focused on the reading of scripture, the Word
of God, except as the reading occurs in preaching.
There are several consequences of this. One,
that preaching is the locus, that is to say the primary
event, the primary activity of worship, and in
most of our churches is the culmination of worship.
I would dare say, I mean, I've not visited
every church of Christ in America, and I
certainly can't
speak definitively about what's going on in the
churches of Christ over the last century.
My sense is that in general, preaching in most
of our churches has come after the Lord's Supper,
and that the Lord's Supper has served in most
of our churches as a prelude to preaching.
And when this member said to me, as I described
in the last hour, we can't do the Lord's Supper
after the sermon because the church has never
done it that way. Really, I don't think it's
true. Really misses what has happened largely
in the history of Christian worship, and probably
misses something profound about the place of
proclamation in the ministry of the word
in our assembly. But he is speaking the truth
in general in our churches. The Lord's Supper
comes as a part of the singing and prayers that
precedes the preaching. And when you add the
singing and the prayers and the Lord's Supper
together, they will consist in most of our
churches for about half of the service. The
other half is what happens in preaching.
And so the Lord's Supper may take place in a
very short period of time. I was at a workshop
in one
of our churches several years ago in which an
attempt to describe how to make the assemblies
exciting and meaningful, both to church members
and especially the outsiders.
The statement was made, you need to take care
of the Lord's Supper as quickly as possible.
We try, he said, to have our Lord's Supper,
including the collection, done in eight minutes.
Because it's really just bedtime, he said.
That's a quote. It's just bedtime.
There's a lot of silence there. There's people
passing trays and things. And our visitors are
not going to be very engaged with all that
bedtime. And that goes 12, 15 minutes. And people
are not going to come back for that. It's just
too boring. And so our advice, he said, to you
is to
take care of that Lord's Supper as quickly as
possible. Well, what are the exciting times in
the assembly? The exciting times in the
assembly are the singing and the preaching.
Everything else
is boring time. Don't want the prayers too long.
Certainly don't want to have a lot of reading of
scripture. We don't know how bad that can be.
Lord's Supper, why do we got to do it every week?
I mean, we just got to do it every week, but
it's really dead time. Let's get that out of
the way
in eight minutes so that we have plenty of time.
A lot of our churches are moving to a half hour
of praise time. I'm an advocate of praise. But
if we
if we if we place renewal on the back of 30
minutes of praise time and we shortcut the
the Ministry of table and we move quickly to an
exciting but brief sermon filled with stories,
we should not be surprised that our renewal is
not taking those deep roots.
So one of the consequences of the disconnection
of preaching from its liturgical context is that
that preaching is seen as the defining event.
Even for churches that have weekly communion,
as churches of Christ do, even for our
churches, preaching is the main event.
There is a book by James White on the history
of Protestant worship. White's one of these people
who was urging other Christian groups to have
weekly communion. There is a movement afoot
within the larger, mostly liturgical Christian
communions to have weekly Lord Supper.
It's not taking root yet, but nevertheless,
there are people that are urging it.
James White describes in his book the
restoration movement. And he said,
this is the one Protestant group that that
insists on having the Lord Supper every week.
He said, they do it for the wrong reasons. It's
not all that effective,
but at least they're attempting to do it. Well,
he's an outsider and we can dismiss in some way
his criticism. I think in large measure, we
often do it for the wrong reasons. We do it
every week
only because of apostolic example. And as we've
already said, there is more to it than that.
There's more to it than that. I mean, there is
at least that, but there's more to it than that.
There's more to it than that. We do it every
week because we need it. We do it every week
because something happens. We do it every week
because it is an opportunity to encounter the
cross of Christ. And we do it on Resurrection
Day as a part of our experience as a body.
This is not just a mundane event that we just
kind of rush through in a haphazard and thoughtless
kind of way with the preaching as the main
event. Second consequence, I'm fearful. I'm
going to take
off about 20 minutes on this one. This is a set
box I've been on for years and I find myself more
and more frustrated at this. We have turned the
congregation into an audience. We talk about our
auditoriums. It is the worst word used in
churches in the English language, in my opinion.
I hate the
word auditorium. It is the wrong word. It's not
a New Testament word. It's not a word that finds
any meaning or any resonance at all in the
biblical witness. It is a word that's not even
possible until after the conversion of
Constantine in the early 4th century.
Let me describe this in a brief sort of way.
Before the beginning of the 4th century,
Christians huddled together in homes. For the
most part, they were in homes. There was no public
meeting place. They often had to hide in their
worship and so they met discreetly and they met
in homes. But I'm telling you what an
extraordinary fellowship that was. The
commitment that has cost
Christians their lives so that the word in
Greek for witness became a synonym for dying
for the
cause. Martyr. A martyr. It simply means to be
a witness. But they knew people who had died for
the cause. When they came together for worship,
it was meaningful. It was significant.
It was significant. Then Constantine, in the
days before a great battle that would decide
the future
emperor of the Roman Empire, had a dream, had a
vision in which the sign of the cross
stood above the heads of his army. That vision
said, by this conquer. He had the shields of his
army painted with the cross and those words, by
this conquer, and they won the battle.
In this so-called or apparent conversion of
Constantine, as he became emperor, in a few
short years in the early 300s, the empire
became overtly, externally, Christian.
And for those groups huddled together in homes,
this was a shocking change.
Because what happened was that Constantine and
the other government officials who were now
in large measure being forced to, in many
regards, become Christian, as it became in
fetish or order the official religion of the
empire, where it had been a religion that had been
banned and illegal, and therefore the
Christians persecuted just a few short years before,
Constantine and the other government officials
turned some of the government buildings into
churches. And churches began to build buildings
that looked like Roman government buildings.
And not surprising, what happened in their
assemblies began to look remarkably like
what happened in Roman government. And it began
with a procession and the dignitaries went up
to the front and they sat in chairs up at the
front and went to a pulpit and made their
announcements. A pulpit is a kind of position
of authority. This didn't happen around a table.
This didn't happen in the living room of homes.
Who was the one in authority? Well, now only
beginning in the 4th century you've got this
position of authority up at the front. And the
Lord's Supper, instead of being a simple meal
passed around believers in the midst of their
persecution, became a very formal event. They
began, I know you'll find this unimaginable,
they put that bread on silver trays. That was
shocking. That was amazing. This bread
is put on special trays and the fruit of vine
was served in silver cups. And the event was
being led by people very distant from them. I'm
telling you we are deeply affected by that
1700 year legacy. So that we have almost no
corporate memory of what church would have
been like before. We can't think of church
apart from buildings and pubes and pulpits
and the formality and positions of authority
and things happening at the front
witnessed by a passive audience. It is where
our churches mostly are. And especially as
as preaching has been disconnected from the
overall, the unfolding of the worship event.
Our auditoriums resemble theaters, places where
public events occur. And we, without any hesitation
or any qualms whatsoever, without any
instincts, without any gnawing at our gut, we
talk just very
boldly about our auditorium. That modern word,
that modern western word auditorium, the place
where you listen, a place where you watch, a
place where you observe, a place where you sit passively
while people up front do things in front of
them. And the preacher is one of those, maybe the
culminating event as we come and sit
comfortably in our auditorium as members of the audience.
The role of the preacher, the preacher is the
worship manager.
Maybe with a staff member or maybe someone else
who may be helping, but often it's the preacher,
he's the worship manager. He takes care of
things, makes sure that things are in place,
that things go smoothly, and becomes in that
role the object of congregational focus.
He is the master of ceremonies. He is the main man.
The Bible has become for many a mystery whose
meaning is dispensed by the preacher.
So that the Bible is no longer the church's
book, it's the preacher's book.
It's the book that the preacher uses. He's the
one who quotes from it. He's the one who reads
from it. He's the one who delivers sermons from
it. Since for many of our churches, there is little
place and opportunity for extensive readings of
the word. It's a book that belongs to the preacher.
He takes care of things and we are then shocked
when our churches begin to assume that our
preacher has a special role, that he is kind of
like a clergyman. And we will say, oh, we believe
in the priesthood of all believers, like all
Protestant groups do, but we know that the
preacher is special. He's the one who holds the
keys to the mystery. He's the one who dispenses
bits and pieces of information from the book
that he has special access to, to the church.
And he would never say this. We would never
claim this, but in essence, this is what's happened
in many of our churches, that the book becomes
the primary book of the preacher and he just passes
on information that he deserves. We've already
mentioned that the table becomes the prelude
to the pulpit. It becomes a part of the
unfolding event that culminates in the main
event, which is
the preaching. There's been a loss of
continuity with past worship practices. In our
drive for
contemporaneity, our drive to be contemporary,
our drive to do things modern. As one of my good
friends says, I just hate singing songs written
by people who are already dead.
There's no reason to sing a lot of these old
songs. They don't mean a lot to us. You know,
those old harmonies and those old words, they
just don't mean a lot. And so let's sing
something new.
Well, that may be easy to pick on. I'm not
opposed, by the way, to contemporary singing. I love
contemporary singing. I'm just opposed to it
being used exclusively. But we are, in our heritage,
largely unaware of the great history of worship
and devotion literature that has had such power
to change and influence and shape and form
human hearts in God's community. We're just largely
unaware of it. We're never exposed to them. We
have been cut off from them. We have been
exposed to them. We're never exposed to them.
We have been cut off. We think we have no history,
that we just kind of emerged, that we're just
the exact replica of what early Christian assemblies
were like. And it's damaging to us. It cripples
us. It blinds us. It weakens us. It prevents
our witness in a variety of ways people know
better than this. To cut ourselves off from
the extraordinary resources of the long past of
people who were attempting to articulate
the faith, I think has hurt us in a variety of
ways. And I think it is one of the consequences
of the disconnection of preaching from this
liturgical context. The loss of
cohesiveness within worship. We do worship as
just kind of a series of ad hoc events.
I've seen some changes in this recently, but
not sufficient enough. And this is one of the
things that I want to push in some substantial
ways today and give you some examples of some
worship assemblies that have a kind of plot.
They have an overall theological strategy to them.
But historically, after all, we are a free
church. We don't follow a liturgical pattern.
What it means is that song leader, what we used
to call song leader,
we now call worship leaders, but we used to
call song leaders. Some churches still have
song leaders, some have worship leaders. We are
a bit silly, I think, at times with our words.
The song leader will put you some songs. Here's
a good song. There's another good song. We hadn't
sung this one in a while. Often, still in many
of our churches, that song leader is coming through
the book about five minutes before the service,
kind of looking. Sister Smith comes up and says,
Brother Jones, we haven't sung. Did you repent,
fully repent? We hadn't sung that in four or five
years. Why don't we sing that tomorrow? That's
a good idea, Sister Smith. We hadn't sung that
forever. When we get really fancy, Saturday
night, the song leader calls the preacher and says,
what's your topic for tomorrow? I'm preaching
on faith. Oh, that's good. We've got a lot of faith
songs, so we'll sing four or five faith songs.
Is that it? Is that all that worship planning
takes? This critical event in which there is an
encounter between God and his people. An opportunity
for an unholy people to be changed as a holy
people of God. An opportunity for the people of God
to encounter the power of the cross again and
to celebrate resurrection day. And we throw it together
a few songs that we like, maybe connect three
or four of them with a sermon. And that's it.
So that there is little continuity, there's
little message, there's little unfolding idea
that the church can grow and be nurtured in its
understanding. So that the sermon has its place
and the songs have theirs. And really what the
preacher must need. And I've not only heard this,
I can't tell you how many times I've said this.
Well, I will confess this to you in embarrassment.
You know, the song leader says, anything
special I can do? Well, no. I just want to make
sure that
the song right before the sermon is peppy. Give
me a peppy song right before the Sermon. I don't
want a funeral dirge before the Sermon. I need
them to kind of be awake. And so let's have them
stand and sing something peppy. Well, mine,
there is a wonderful category for defining how
we put
worship together. Give me a peppy song before
the Sermon. When preaching becomes the culminating
event and we have very little awareness of how
it might fit within the larger unfolding assembly,
then there is a loss of cohesiveness within
worship. I would say there's a loss of community
among worshipers because we're not leading them
together. Our sermons are disconnected. I mean,
our services are disconnected. Our songs are
unrelated to our prayers and our prayers are
unrelated to our scripture and the scripture is
unrelated to the Lord's Supper and the Lord's
Supper is unrelated to the preaching. And so
why would we expect that our people would be cohesive,
that our people would be a community? How can
you form a vibrant
community when we throw our worship services
together as we do, as we so often have done?
I know that's not true in every church. What is
the end of preaching? Where does preaching lead?
What is the outgrowth of preaching? The
outgrowth of preaching is the invitation.
I'm not opposed to invitations. I believe in
invitations. I don't believe that scripture
teaches that you can't have a sermon unless it
leads to an invitation. And sometimes we make our
sermons do funny things in order to get there.
But I think there ought to be an opportunity
somewhere in the service. I think there ought
to be an opportunity somewhere in the service
for people to be able to respond to the gospel,
don't you? I think somewhere. Sometimes maybe an
elder ought to do it. Sometimes maybe it ought
to be in relation to the Lord's Table. Isn't
that an
interesting place? At the cross, to call people
to the gospel. I think that there ought to be a place
to call for response. But if the culminating
goal of preaching is the invitation,
we may have missed the point of what preaching
is about. We'll pursue that in a moment.
And finally, the word is detached from its
embodiment in water and table.
Baptism is an incarnational event that human
beings are changed,
that flesh takes on the vibrant spirit of God.
As human lives, human hearts are changed,
so that a person is snatched from the kingdom
of this world and delivered to the kingdom
of our Lord. Do you believe that? Baptism is a
real event. Something really happened.
It's an incarnational event. The table is an
incarnational event. It's plain bread, just plain
food of the vine, just ordinary table food,
just plain bread of the vine, just plain
bread. Not because it's extraordinary, not
because it's different, just plain ordinary
bread becomes
an avenue by which the living God touches us
and changes us by the power of his cross, made visible
and real in our presence every week. The
ministry of the word fits in as well with these
incarnational events, that the Word of God
spoken changes real human lives, not by the
power of the
preacher, but by the power of God. How can we
allow that word to fit within its proper place?
Well, I want to look at a 2nd century window
into 1st century worship. Turn a couple of
pages back in your handouts
to this description, the earliest description
of a Christian assembly that we have
at the pen of Justin Martyr. I understand that
Martyr is not Justin's last name. He was not given
that name until after he died. He was just
Justin. But after his death, we often refer to
him as
Justin Martyr, 150 years, just about a
generation or so after the last apostle died,
after the New
Testament was written. It is a description of
an assembly that bears witness to everything
that we
know in the New Testament, the bits and pieces.
We don't have a full description of an assembly
in the New Testament. The assembly is referred
to in a couple of occasions as another point is being
made. There wasn't a need to describe the
assembly then because they were already doing it.
And so other points are being made in 1 Corinthians.
Just providing a defense of what Christians do
to a pagan audience. We're just trying to explain
because the Pagans thought that Christians were
odd, that they did things in odd ways.
And so Justin is saying, well, here's what they
do. By the way you've heard,
here's what they do. And here's why they do it.
This is an extraordinary description. This is a
fairly recent translation by Everett Ferguson
in a wonderful article that's in the journal
Christian History. I think volume 37. Let me
read it all the way through and then we'll make some
comments. On the day called Sunday, there is a
gathering together in the same place of all who
live in a given city or rural district. The
memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets
are read as long as time permits. Let me pause
just a bit at those words.
The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of
the prophets are read
as long as time permits. Then when the reader
ceases, the president, that's say the one presiding,
the worship leader perhaps, or the preacher, in
a discourse admonishes and urges the imitation
of these good things. Next, we all rise
together and send up prayers.
When we cease from our prayer, bread is
presented and wine and water, that is to say
watered wine,
it is to say just regular table wine. Bread is
presented and wine and water. The president in
the same manner sends up prayers and
thanksgivings according to his ability and the
people sing out
their assent, saying the amen. A distribution
and participation of the elements for which thanks
have been given to each person, and to those
who are not present, they are sent by the deacons.
Those who have means and are willing, each
according to his own choice, gives what he wills,
and what is collected is deposited with the
president. He provides for the orphans and widows,
those who are in need on account of sickness or
some other cause, those who are in bonds, strangers
who are so journeying, and in a word, he
becomes the protector of all who are in need.
We all make
our assembly in common on Sunday, since it is
the first day on which God changed the darkness and
matter and made the world, and Jesus Christ our
Savior arose from the dead on the same day,
for they crucified him on the day before
Saturn's day, and the day after, which is the
day of the
sun, he appeared to his apostles and disciples
and taught these things which we have offered
for your consideration. Now, let's talk through
that event. The first thing that happens in this
assembly is, they spend time with the word. The
phrase is, the memoirs of the apostles
and the writings of the prophets. More than
likely, the memoirs of the apostles of the gospels.
The writings of the prophets either as a
reference to the Old Testament or it may be a
reference to
the Epistles, because often the phrase, the
writings or the writings of the prophets can make
reference to the New Testament epistles as well.
I understand this was written a couple of hundred
years before the books of the New Testament, as
we know them, were finally collected and agreed
upon, but they did have obviously part of what
we have in the New Testament, and these things are
read. They are read for as long as time permits.
My sense is, based upon the time in which Justin
wrote and what's going on, that this was not a
long assembly particularly. These people didn't
have Sunday as a holiday. They didn't have the
day off. They had to work or they were slaves and
weren't able to get away. Some of them were in
the midst of persecution, and so it wasn't that this
was a long assembly, but they began with a
reading of the word, and they read the word apparently
extensively. They read it well and they read it
for as long as time permitted, and then
the preacher shared what the word means and how
it might be lived out in that community,
and then they prayed. The first part of the
assembly was the ministry of the word within
about 65 years that was called the
anti-communion, that is A-N-T-E, meaning the pre-communion
service, that which took place before the
communion or the ministry of the word.
There's not a recorded assembly that we have
until the 16th century. I'm not even sure that
there is one in the 16th century, but the free
church tradition began to develop in the 16th
century within Western Protestantism in which
this basic plan of the assembly began to be altered.
The ministry of the word took place first.
They spent time with a reading of the word and
then prayers. After the prayers, they brought bread
and watered wine, that is to say, the regular
table bread and table wine that would be a part
of their everyday life, nothing special about
the elements of the supper. It's Christ that
was special.
There were prayers and thanksgivings,
apparently extemporaneous prayer. In other
words, he didn't
have it written out for him. That was another
100-150 years later when orthodoxy had to be
protected with some illiterate priests who had
only recently been converted, that the prayers
began to be written. This day, someone said the
prayers growing out of his heart and the people
sing out their assent saying the amen. A couple
of references in the Corinthian
correspondence about the amen, both the 1
Corinthians and in 2 Corinthians,
singing of the amen and in every Christian
assembly that we know of, there is this
place in which the church says the amen. Just a
two-minute excursus. Amen does not mean primarily.
I agree with that. It's not what it means. It's
okay to use it that way if we choose to,
but that's not what it means. The word amen is
a covenant word and it has at its root the word
truth, or true, so that when Jesus would say
amen, amen, we translate that verily, verily,
truly, truly, I say to you. It has to do with
true or being true. To say the amen is a way of saying
I will commit myself to that which is being
proclaimed. I will be true. It's a covenant
word. It would never be used lightly. And while
we use it a lot, well, not all that much in our
churches to say, that's a good point, brother.
That's what we mean, isn't it? Amen. That's a good
point. That's okay. That's fine. That's not
what these early Christians meant. They all together
said in their assembly, the amen, all in one
voice, we will be true. We will be faithful.
We will be faithful. And then they took of the
communion. After the communion, then
what is left over and other things that are
collected are then given so that the orphans
and widows and those who are in need might
receive it. You might notice here that there is
no phrase
anywhere in here that says separate and apart.
I'm one of those guys back in the
60s and 70s, one of these young baby boomer
hippie types who was calling for if we're going
to have
renewal of our church services, we need to have
the Lord's Supper and we need to remove that
contribution from it because that contribution
has nothing to do, absolutely nothing to do
with the
Lord's Supper. Let's get it away from it so we
can focus on the bread and the cup together and
we'll put that collection somewhere else and so
we did everything we could. But if we couldn't,
it was important for us to say separate and
apart. This is not the same. We're doing
something else
here. We're doing something else different.
Well, I understand the nature of communion.
But doesn't the supper naturally grow into the
concern for the world, for the poor, for those
who are in need? You know what the cross does?
Doesn't the cross lead to generosity? Doesn't
the cross lead to sacrifice? Doesn't the cross
lead to what we do in the world? This desire to
have things separate and apart was something
that these early Christians didn't seem to
need to talk about a lot. It just one grew
naturally the other. They took the food that
was left over and they served to those that
didn't have food. Those who were in need, there
was money
given to them and they just took care of their
people and took care of those who were in need.
That's what a church does because that's what
the cross does. The cross changes who we are
and how
we live and so it was perfectly fine with them.
It made a lot of sense to them to have that
collection right there on top of the Lord's
Supper. So the ministry of the Word led to
the Ministry of the table. It anticipated the
ministry of the table so that the end
in many ways of the Ministry of the Word was
the ministry of the table. The church listened to
the voice of God in the Word and responded with
her prayers. That was the first half of the assembly.
God spoke through the Eucharist. That's just
simply the word for thanksgiving.
Jesus gave thanks and broke bread that God
speaks through the communion and the church
responds in her giving. That's the flow of
worship. God speaks. We respond in prayer.
God speaks through the bread and the wine. We
respond in our giving. The ministry of the Word
and the Ministry of the table. Those are the
primary elements of the assembly. The Word is
not subjugated under the table. The table is
not subjugated under the Word. The Word and table
fit together. They work in consort together.
Now a couple of points.
Where's the singing? Where are the songs?
That's an interesting question. There's no
mention of
songs here. There's no mention of songs in the
next full worship service that we have described
either in Hippolytus, the apostolic tradition,
the year 215. There's no mention of music.
We know that there was some singing going on.
We know that happened in the temple. A lot of
psalms talked about singing. In Ephesians and
Colossians, it's not certain that that's
referring specifically to the assembly, but we
know that there were songs and hymns and spiritual
songs somewhere in and there. Where are they?
Part of the answer is that we have an
understanding of
what music is, of what songs are, that is very
modern. Music as we engage in it has existed
only for about 400 years. In the ancient world,
western and eastern, it would be hard to distinguish
between the reading of scripture and a song or
a prayer and a song. There were no melodies as we
had melodies. There were no harmonies. I mean,
harmonies is clearly a modern invention. There
were no harmonies as we have harmonies, but the
leader would chant a phrase of scripture and the
church would respond with a constant phrase or
would respond with the next line. A prayer would
be said or sung depending upon what you mean by
Sung. It's not to say that there is no singing
but that singing is very different than it is
now. It's hard for us to see what it's like because
we experience singing in our own way. It's what
makes sense to us and you know I'm thankful to
God for it. I'm thankful to God for the singing
of the church. I think God has blessed it. I think
that God lives in our singing, but I don't want
us to read back our experience of singing into
these early Christian assemblies. They could
never have imagined singing like we sing.
And that says several things to me. One, it
says for us to argue about whether or not we should
use overheads or powerpoints to put the words
on a screen and whether or not it has musical notations
attached to them in the long run of things is a
silly, petty argument. I say that as one who is
in favor of having the music. I'm just an
outspoken man. I just think that I like it. I'm
trying to figure out ways that we can put the
notes on PowerPoint because I think that many of
our churches are losing the ability to sing
harmonies and I regret that. But while I feel
those things very strongly, ladies and
gentlemen, that's not the gospel. And I'm not
going to
fight about it. I'm not going to stand in front
of that bus. Some things I'm going to stand in front
of the bus on. This is not one of them.
Alexander Campbell argued strongly we should
have no
musical notations, absolutely none. He says
we've become so enamored with figuring out what
to sing,
getting all the notes just right, that we lose
the message of the songs. And so he insisted,
and all of Campbell's song books had just the
words. But you know, his churches, just a few
generations later, they just said, ah,
Campbell's wrong on that. Let's print that
music because
the singing is a lot better. And you know they
were right. Our singing was a lot better with
those notes in front of us. And so for 100
years now, we've sung with those musical notes.
But to say that if we don't sing with those
notes, that we really are missing the essence
of singing, does not make an argument from
scripture or history. It makes an argument
out of preference. And I just refuse to go
there. But here's the other thing that I would say,
and the thing that I think is more important.
If we place the renewal of our churches,
on the backs of our singing, we have placed it
on the back of something that will not ultimately
carry the weight. Because the way we experience
singing as moderns, the music is more powerful
than the words. Well, ventriloquism was nothing
that I trained at in school but acquired lately.
I don't know where that came from. Do you hear
what I'm saying? As important as singing is,
and even as we sing scripture and prayer, we
have to remember that
even as we sing scripture and prayers, which I
wish we did more of, I wish our music grew out
of scripture and prayers, nevertheless, our
attempts at worship renewal are largely misplaced
when we place them on the back of something
that they know, that he knows what's going on,
that we're getting this tape. Is anyone back
there? We'll just go with this. If we break
in with words on the PA system, then we'll
ignore it. I would say based upon this second
century feeding in the pot, I think it's
clearly a 1st century phenomenon. I think it reflects
everything we know about the 1st century. That
we ought to be called to place the word again
in its primary place. What I want to push
toward in some extensive ways as this day goes on,
that we ought to give attention to the public
reading of scripture. Let me read the passage
that you all know and that just kind of lurks
behind everything that we have said and done
thus far out of 1 Timothy 4 and allow these
words to resonate in our ears to this
preacher at the church at Ephesus. Paul urges,
411, command and teach these things. Don't let
anyone look down on you because you are young,
but set an example for the believers in speech
and in life, in love, in faith, and in purity.
Until I come, devote yourself to the public
reading of scripture, the preaching and the
teaching. Do not neglect your gift,
which is given you through a prophetic message
when the body of elders lay their hands on you.
Be diligent in these matters. Give yourself
holy to them so that everyone may see your progress.
Watch your life and your doctrine closely.
Persevere in them because if you do,
you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Give attention to the public reading of scripture.
The sermon functions as only part of the
church's experience of scripture.
It seems to me that the church should hear the
Word of God, which is primarily written as an
oral document, the Epistles and the gospels,
that the Psalms, that the Old Testament histories,
the prophetic message were meant to be read out
loud. The sermon is only part of the church's
experience of scripture. In its large Jewish
context, there was always a public reading of
the word. In the renewal of God's people, when
they were turned from their exile in Babylon,
Ezra and Nehemiah are filled with the public
reading of scripture, hearing the Word of God
again. It was the primary way in which people
were instructed in the synagogue, which serves as
the impetus and resource for the early
Christians in their own assembly. That
scripture is the
dominating thing and that the assemblies began
not with us telling God what we want to tell Him,
but began with the church listening. Began with
the church listening. I don't know for 1600 years
of Christian history or any time in the history
of Israel in which an assembly began any other place
other than a church and a posture of listening,
not telling God what we want to tell Him.
I understand the impulse. I understand it. To
begin our services with significant times of praise,
emotionally, that makes the most sense. I talk
to worship leaders who talk about the
importance of
beginning with some kind of soft songs and then
moving to songs that are more vibrant and then
just kind of swelling through this great period
of praise. Emotionally, that makes a great deal of
sense to me. I just don't find a lot of
examples of it early. The early church listened
before it
told God anything. It began with a posture of
listening. That's what they assumed. They would
come into the assembly and hear the Word of God.
There has been a paucity of scripture, an appalling
lack of the public reading of scripture in the
history of churches of Christ.
So it's rare that scripture will be read for
five or ten minutes in the assembly.
I know that there are strengths and weaknesses
of being a part of a so-called free church
tradition, so that in most of the free churches
there's very little reading of scripture,
much less than most liturgical churches. But
there's also a strength that we can find our
place of renewal there. If we are committed to
renewal, we may find ourselves again
putting the Word of God in its proper place.
Scripture is the root of healthy teaching,
what we often translate as sound doctrine. The
healthy teaching comes because of the place of
scripture. You think about 1st and 2 Timothy,
and the place of scripture, the place of public
reading of the word in 1 Timothy, that all
scripture is inspired of God and is profitable
for teaching, for correcting, for changing, for
admonishing, for encouraging and nurturing the
church. In 2 Timothy, that this is how healthy
teaching takes place, that scripture is or should
be the source of worship renewal in our
churches. I know that that will be difficult.
And the last
thing that we need is to have inept and
unprepared readers of scripture droning on and
on for five
or ten minutes, just simply attempting to have
lots of readings is not the answer. If we're
going to
have a reading of the word, it better be done
well. It better come out of great preparation.
Not everyone will be able to do this, but every
church needs this. They need the Word of God
to be heard. We find ourselves in a time of
extraordinary biblical illiteracy. We receive
freshmen at this university from many of your
churches. This is not an indictment of the
preaching, but of our times and our culture.
They know very little Bible.
Too many of the youth ministers, even ones who
were trained here, think that the only way to run
a youth program is to engage the kids in
exciting and engaging activities, which means
that you don't
want to do a lot of that boring Bible stuff,
lots of games and activities. But more importantly,
parents have absolved themselves of the
responsibility of teaching their children at home.
But the place that the primacy of the word
ought to be publicly proclaimed and displayed
is in our assembly. Say to parents, to say to
our children, say to business women and men,
to say to our senior citizens, if you want your
life to be a good one, say to your parents,
if you want your life changed, if there's going
to ever be renewal of this church,
if we ever are going to partake of the Spirit
of Christ, it will come as we surrender
to God who reveals himself in his living word
so that that word resonates in our ears as a church
every week. What I want to do in the afternoon
hour is to give some examples of some worship
services in which that Word of God serves in a
primary role and to talk in more detail about how
preaching grows out of baptism and how
preaching and the ministry of the word leads to
the table.
Let's pray together. We thank you, Father, for
all that you do and are, and we pray that you would
create in our hearts the desire and the will to
surrender, that we would listen more and talk less,
we would give ourselves to you and all that you
claim for us, be with our churches,
that we would find ourselves again as a people
of worship and renewal. We pray through Christ.