Last night we had a healthy discussion of worship at our Summer Series. I appreciate our facilitator's interest in keeping a balanced approach to the topic while insuring that God's will was at the heart of our discussion.
After sorting through the discussion in my own mind, I have a few observations that I hope are worth further discussion.
- Trying to address all the intricacies of worship is not unique to the 21st Century church. Read 1 Cor. 12-14 and you will see the early church struggled with many of the challenges we face today: individual needs in worship, disruptive actions, losing sight of the object of our worship, ect.
- We still struggle with extremes. There are those who believe that God's silence on a subject is authorization to run headlong towards any spiritual expression that makes them feel good and there are others who would legislate every action of every member while ignoring the spiritual side of our devotion (i.e. John 4:24 - Spirit and Truth).
- We struggle with proper application of scripture. There are individual devotions we offer to God as well our collective assemblies. We need to understand the context and how we apply certain passages. I can't tell you how often I have heard "decently and in order" or "weaker brother" misapplied in order to stop something right and good.
One thing is for certain. We will continue to discuss, debate and teach on the topic of worship. My encouragement to each and every person is to be more like the Bereans - "recieve the message with great eagerness and examine the scriptures everyday . . . (Acts 16:11).
1 comment:
In general, if the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and the first 2 centuries of church history (AnteNicean fathers) are given more attention by "Protestants" as tends to be the case among "Catholics" then the illusion that we're all going thru something new would be less pervasive. More attention to the Eastern Orthodox church history is usually helpful as is a history of global missions.
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