Our Obesessed Traditions

Recently I have been thinking about the things that we do during Sunday morning worship. Most of us have been to different churches and have seen different types of practices performed. So I sat one day and wondered what worship looked like or sounded like in the early church and OT. Did they have altar calls? A program for Sunday (or Saturday) morning? Did they have a worship band? Stain glass? Carpet? Pews or chairs? What traditions are a part of a worship service are rooted in history or rooted in Scripture?

Let's knock out some of these easy things first:

For one thing we know that they didn't have bulletins giving you a play by play of everything that was happening in the service: (That would have wasted way too much papyrus and scroll space.) Nor were stain glass windows and depictions of Christ as these were not prevalent till around the 9th century and then flourished greatly in the French, German and English churches of the 12th century. And finally church pews were not a product of the church for the first 1,000 years of its existence, and did not become a real staple of church until the 13th-15th centuries. Now we know projectors, cameras, carpet, and all the other fancy stuff wouldn't have been there either. Another aspect closer to the heart of most churches is the altar call. This is yet another aspect of church tradition that just simply is no where to be found in Scripture. The way some churches treat them you would think Jesus himself had them, but it simply was not part of the church until the 1700 and 1800's. My point is we hold to some traditions that are not biblical, but just have been such a huge part of the Christian culture (primarily the traditional), so we continue to do it. In no way am I bashing any church that has these traditions (as my church has them), but I want you begin thinking about what we do in regards to corporate worship and even question some of the things we hold to.

Scripture:
So I could spend about 30 pages describing this (now I seem to come up with a fun topic for what I could have written about in my religion thesis--too little too late). But I want to examine 3 passages that gives us a tiny glimpse of what a worship had and looked like:

Nehemiah 8 gives us a small window into an assembling of believers in a worship ceremonial service. This part of Scripture has been described as a ceremony or revival of the people to renewal and reformation. The Israelite have now settled in the land, and are going to have a worship service dedicated to God. Let's see what it entailed:

-All the people assembled in one place (8:1)
-Ezra (the senior pastor) comes out (8:1)
-He has the Law of the Lord (what we would equivocate to God's Word) (8:1)
-He reads God's word aloud for about 6 hours! (Read this when you complain your pastor went too long!) (8:3)
-The people listened attentively. (They didn't just sit there, they were engaged in this preaching) (8:3)
-He preached from a stage or platform, as he was elevated above everyone else so they could see. (8:4-5)
-The people responded by throwing their hands in the air and saying "Amen" and bowing low to the ground in worship. (8:6)
-Then the Levites (other priests or leaders) read it to the people instructed them and gave it meaning so that they could understand it. (8:7-8)

That is a lot of stuff. Reminds me of a story told to me about a man in our church (who has passed away) who, when the preacher or service went too long, would throw his arm straight in the air and stare at his watch. (For this service he would be waiting a looong time)

Nehemiah 8 gives us immense clarity on what some of their services looked like and how they are found in what we do today. Churches today do many of these things, and they add to this as well: with prayer, silence, reflection, Lord's Supper and other sacraments performed within Scripture. BUt there are other traditions that have left churches divided, angry, and elevating certain aspects that really are no where to be found in Scripture.

Worship no matter what kind, is a state of the heart and body (Romans 12:1-2). Bob Deffenbach has a great link to an article describing different variations of worship and what should be in a worship service. My aim was to take a look at some of the church traditions we hold, and how some of them are only recent inventions of man not God. Next week we will examine some passages from the NT, that give us more perspective on what worship looked like then and how we can learn to not get obsessed or caught up in some of our "tradition".

Be Blessed.