July 30, 2010

Under the terms of the new covenant, worship goes on all the time, including when the people of God gather together. But mutual edification does not go on all the time; it is what takes place when Christians gather together. Edification is the best summary of what occurs in corporate singing, confession, public prayer, the ministry of the Word, and so forth. (D.A. Carson, Worship by the Book)

June 4, 2010

I wrote the post “Worship and the Gathering of the Church” almost 3 1/2 years ago. I had just begun to study the church assembly from Scripture and was beginning to understand that the purpose that we gather together is to edify one another. I would probably say a few things differently in this post if I wrote it today, but for the most part it still represents my view. In fact, my dissertation is an expansion of this idea.

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Worship and the Gathering of the Church

Many Bible-believing Christians never investigate the purpose for the assembly of believers. “The reason for this is the almost universal assumption that the worship of God is the primary aim of the assembly. In fact the word ‘worship’ is thought to be synonymous with ‘assembly’ and is constantly used in this sense.”[1] Even in many academic studies of the church, the author includes the gathering of the church as part of “the ministry of worship.”[2] Some take this understanding even further, stating, “Corporate worship is the energizing center for all the church is and does.”[3] However, it is incumbent upon all believers to search Scripture—not tradition—for a proper understanding of all things, including the relationship of worship to the gathering of the church.

“Worship” translates various Greek terms in the New Testament (proskuneo, latreuo/latreia, leitourgia, eusebeia). In the Old Testament, the authors connect worship terminology with the tabernacle/temple and priestly service. In the New Testament, Jesus changes this understanding. In John 4, he teaches that worship is no longer connected with a specific location or time. Instead, as Paul instructs the Romans, believers are “to worship God… with [their] lives (Rom. 12:1-2).”[4]

For the most part, worship terms are not found in the passages of Scripture that describe the gathering of the church.[5] It is possible that Acts 13:2 indicates that believers “worshiped” (leitourgounton) the Lord while meeting together. However, the passage does not state that this worship (or service) was occurring during the meeting. Instead, 13:1 indicates that those listed were part of the church in Antioch, and that they were worshiping (“serving”) and fasting as part of that group of believers. Even if this passage is in the context of the meeting, the verb leitourgounton itself does not necessarily indicate “worship” (devotion to God). Instead, the LXX uses this verb to specify priestly service in the temple, and New Testament authors use it in a sense similar to diakoneo (“serve”) to specify “practical expressions of faith.”[6]

Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 14:23-25, Paul uses the verb proskuneo (“worship”) in the context of the meeting of the church. The most important aspect of this passage is that the believers are prophesying during the meeting. In 14:4, Paul taught the Corinthians that prophecy edifies the church. Therefore, in the hypothetical meeting where all are prophesying, the believers are edifying the church. As a result of their words, the unbeliever is converted and begins to worship. The purpose of the gathering is not worship in this passage; instead, worship is the result of the Spirit’s transforming work in a person’s life.

So, the New Testament authors do not designate worship as the purpose of the gathering of the church. Even though believers certainly worshiped together, they did not call their meetings “worship services.”[7] For the most part, the New Testament writers applied Old Testament terminology for worship and temple service metaphorically to the work of Jesus Christ in his life, ministry, death, burial, resurrection and ascension. Believers began to associate worship terminology with the gathering of the church during the centuries following the writing of the New Testament. Peterson quotes Everett Ferguson’s discussion of the changes in the use of worship terminology:

What began in Christianity as a metaphorical and spiritual conception was by the age of Constantine ready to be taken literally again. The extension of sacrificial language had come to encompass the ministry as a special priesthood (Cyprian), the table as an altar and buildings as temples (Eusebius). Sacrifice was increasingly materialised and traditional content was put into the words. Sacrifice became again not only praise and thanksgiving but also propitiatory (Origen and Cyprian). A blending and transformation of conception – pagan, philosophical, Jewish and Christian – created a new complex of ideas.[8]

He continues by warning contemporary believers against using worship terminology in this way by stating, “We not only use words, but words use us.”[9]

Frame recognizes that the traditional use of the term “worship” in respect to the meeting of the church derives from the Old Testament tabernacle/temple systems.[10] While he admits that this is “dangerous,” he is not willing to give up the term “worship service.” In caution, he states, “To say this, however, is not to say that there is a sharp distinction between what we do in the meeting and what we do outside of it.”[11] This is the distinction that many believers have lost, as the meeting of the church has become synonymous with “worship.” For example, one author states, “The primary purpose of worship is to honor God, but as worship is portrayed in the New Testament, it also serves the purpose of edifying believers and evangelizing nonbelievers.”[12] The author has confused the definition of worship as “honoring God” with the use of the term “worship” as the meeting of the church. “Worship” does not serve the purpose of edifying believers; instead the gathering of the church should serve the purpose of edifying believers. This confusion comes about because the phase “the gathering of the church” has become synonymous with “worship.”

Banks describes the proper connection between worship and the gathering of the church. He states:

Since all places and times have now become the venue for worship, Paul cannot speak of Christians assembling in church distinctively for this purpose. They are already worshipping God, acceptably or unacceptably, in whatever they are doing. While this means that when they are in church they are worshipping as well, it is not worship per se but something else that marks off their coming together from everything else they are doing.[13]

He describes this “something else that marks off their coming together” as “the growth and edification of its members into Christ and into a common life through their God-given ministry to one another.”[14] When the church accomplishes this purpose during the meeting, it is worshiping, because it is obeying the command of God.[15] However, in the same way that believers must not equate the Lord’s Supper simply with eating (1 Cor. 11:20-21), they also must not equate worship with the meeting itself. Instead, they are worshiping because they are being obedient during the meeting, not because they are meeting.

Notes:

[1] Ervin Bishop, “The Assembly,” Restoration Quarterly, 18.4 (Winter 1975), 219.

[2] For example, see John S. Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches: A Contemporary Ecclesiology (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2005), 239.

[3] G. Temp Sparkman, “Corporate Worship: The Experience and the Event,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 18 (Fall 1991), 241.

[4] Henry Schellenberg, “Toward a Basic Understanding of Worship,” Didaskalia, 15, 2 (Winter 2004), 17.

[5] See Bishop, “The Assembly,” 219-21, and Peterson, Engaging with God, 206.

[6] David Peterson, “Further Reflections on Worship in the New Testament,” The Reformed Theological Review, 44 (May-August 1985), 36-37.

[7] Robert C. Girard, Brethren, Hang Together (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979), 247-48.

[8] Peterson, “Further Reflections on Worship in the New Testament,” 35.

[9] Ibid.

[10] John M. Frame, Worship in Spirit and Truth (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1996), 32.

[11] Ibid., 34.

[12] Hammett, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches, 239.

[13] Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 89.

[14] Ibid., 90.

[15] David Peterson, Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 221.

May 12, 2010

God has placed me among some awesome people – brothers and sisters in Christ. For example, whenever someone is hurting or in need or had a baby or had been in the hospital or had been sick, someone begins to organize meals. The elders don’t tell them to do it. There is no benevolence committee or ministry director to control it. Instead, whenever someone is in need, someone else sends out an email and begins organizing meals.

Tonight, Margaret (my wife) had volunteered to prepare a meal for some friends of ours who recently had a baby. The husband and wife are both vegetarians, so she made a vegetarian pizza, something she normally doesn’t do. I got home just in time to help put the finishing touches on the pizza and salad. Then we delivered the meal to our friends.

Others have taken meals to our friends, and still others will take meals later. Why? Because we love them, and we want to help them while they adjusting to have a new baby. I can’t think of a better way to serve (worship) on a Wednesday evening!

April 5, 2010

In his book From Synagogue to Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), James Tunstead Burtchaell compares and contrasts the early synagogue (before the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D.) to the early church. His points of comparison help us to understand what the early Christians (who were also Jews) brought with them from their synagogue experiences:

As regards the program and undertakings of the two social units, there are multiple similarities. The synagôguê and the ekklêsia both typically met in plenary sessions for prayer, to read and expound and discuss the scriptures, to share in ritual meals, to deliberate community policy, to enforce discipline, to choose and inaugurate officers. Both maintained a welfare fund to support widows and orphans and other indigents among their memberships. Both accepted the obligation to provide shelter and hospitality to members of sister communities on their journeys. Both arranged for burial of their dead, and maintained cemeteries. (pg. 339)

The Jews gathered together in order to maintain their identity as God’s chosen people. While this would certainly include times of reading, teaching, and discussing Scripture, these activities alone do not account for the existence of the synagogue. The synagogue existed because the Jewish community existed and to maintain that community’s identity, existence, and propagation.

Thus, the primary activities that took place when the synagogue convened were community-building activities. For example, Josephus gives an account of a political discussion that begins on one Sabbath, and continues for two or more days as the community continued to come together in order to make some important decisions. (Josephus Life 279ff)

As Burtchaell points out (in the quote above), the early Christians gathered together for similar reasons. Their desire was to maintain their identity as God’s people – that is, those who had been set apart (made holy, called saints) by God. Obviously, this would include the reading, teaching, and discussion of Scripture, but it would include much more as well.

Thus, we see the early church eating together, taking collections for those in need, offering hospitality to those traveling through their region, making community decisions, etc. It would be a mistake to separate these activities from the community’s understanding of “worship,” but it would also be a mistake to only consider the scriptural focus as “worship.”

Instead, the church (as with the synagogue earlier) did not separate their lives into worship activities and other activities. Each activity and each part of life was to be lived as worship to God, whether reading or discussing Scripture, eating together, taking up a collection, or making a decision.

Their “worship” when they gathered together as the church consisted of any activity that would help maintain and build the community of God’s people.

March 16, 2010

Sunday evening worship service = Margaret and Miranda helping some friends paint their house. I “cooked” dinner for them: McDoubles and Fish Filet sandwiches.

Tuesday evening worship service = helping our friends hang a light fixture. Unfortunately, we were not able to complete the project. But, maybe we’ll be able to soon.

March 10, 2010

Tonight, “Wednesday night worship service” = being taken out to dinner by our good friends. They thought they were doing this to thank us, but really they were doing this because we wanted to spend time with them. Don’t tell them though.

February 8, 2010

“Should we worship when the church meets?”

I believe that’s the wrong question. For a follower of Jesus Christ… someone who is a child of God… all of life should be lived in a way that brings glory to God. Thus, every thought, attitude, and action should bring worship to God.

This happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to live through us, when we do not hinder the work that the Holy Spirit desire to do in and through us. Thus, when we obey God, we worship him.

The question is, “What does God want us to do when we meet together?” When we do what God wants us to do, then we are worshiping him.

January 31, 2010

Dave Black wrote this on his blog today concerning Hebrews 10:24-25:

Wow! Does this not suggest the character of our church meetings? Does this not teach us that we are to come together for the purpose of mutual edification? Does this not challenge our deeply entrenched views about “worship”? Should we not suspect The Message of a bit of eisegesis when it renders “let us not neglect our meeting together” as “not avoiding worshiping together”?

Paul’s point is crystal clear: We come together to encourage one another. How we can get “We come together to hear the Word of God preached” from these verses is beyond me.

Earlier in the day, he also wrote this concerning the phrase “corporate worship”:

I’d like to know where in the New Testament we are told to assemble for the purpose of “corporate worship.” Just thinking out loud. Yes, I know we have our worship teams, our worship guides, our worship services, our worship pastors. But could we be wrong about the whole notion of why we gather in the first place? Man, if we get something as basic as this wrong, just think of all the areas of ecclesiology we might be missing!

January 6, 2010

While discussing the current state of research into first century synagogues, Stephen Catto makes the following observation:

There would appear to be two major difficulties in addressing the area of worship practices in the first-century ‘synagogue’. The first is the lack of detail that we have on the subject, which should make us wary of overly confident assertions on practice. The second is defining what should or should not be considered worship. It is difficult to separate the spiritual from the secular in the first century, with any public act often having a religious element to it. (Catto, Stephen K. Reconstructing the First-Century Synagogue: A Critical Analysis of Current Research. New York: T&T Clark, 2007, pg. 106)

Certainly, we can do little about the detail of the evidence that we possess, however we can seriously consider that evidence. As Catto notes, in the evidence that we do have, the Jews of the first century did not make a distinction between the spiritual and the secular when it comes to worship. (Of course, the same could be said – and has been said many times – concerning other religious groups of the first century, including early Christians.)

This causes a problem for modern readers. Why? Because we DO make a distinction between the spiritual and the secular, and so we try to FIND that distinction in all historical evidence, including Scripture.

What would happen if we accepted (as those in the first century did) that there is no distinction between the spiritual and the secular, even when it comes to worship?

December 31, 2009

Today, a friend of mine asked if I could help him install a dishwasher for another family. So Jeremy and I joined our friend and his son. Actually, we mainly provided “muscle power” – carrying the dishwasher and loosening/tightening where he told us to.

But, serving someone else really was a great way to end the year. I’m trying to remember and learn from what Jesus said, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” (Matthew 9:13, 12:7; Hosea 6:6)

I think that would be a good lesson to carry over into the new year.