What exactly do we do when we meet as a church to worship?Should we do what God’s people did in the Old Testament?To answer these questions, Bobby Jamieson, in the biblical article Theology and the Worship Service, says we need a biblical theology of worship. Biblical theology is the discipline that helps us observe both unity and diversity, both continuity and discontinuity, amid the vast intrigue of the scriptures, so understanding the continuities and discontinuities of covenants will help us respond if we are to dance. or touch the shofar in worship today. Jamieson continues:
So how should we look at the scriptures to be taught what to do in collective worship?
- First.
- I think it’s important to say that the Scriptures teach us what to do in regular church assemblies.
- Remember that if your entire life is devoted to worship.
- The weekly church meeting occupies a special place in the Christian life.
- All Christians are commanded to meet with the church (Hebrews 10: 24-25); Going to church is not optional for the Christian.
- This means that.
- In fact.
- Everything a church does in worship becomes an obligatory practice of its members.
- And Paul urges Christians not to allow man-made rules or practices of worship to be imposed on their members.
- Your conscience (Colossians 2: 16-23).
I suggest that these biblical principles converge in the direction of what has historically been called the ‘regulatory principle’. Worship. In other words, in their corporate meetings, churches should only implement practices that are positively prescribed in scripture, either by explicit command or by normative example. To do otherwise would jeopardize Christian freedom. Therefore, churches must turn to the Scriptures to teach us to worship together, and they must do only what the Scriptures tell us to do.
But this raises the question: what exactly do the scriptures command us to do?To be more precise, how do we know what biblical material about worship is normative and obligatory?Answering this question in a complete way would require a book; here, I’ll give only a very brief description.
Discerning which biblical teachings about worship are obligatory requires some dexterity, since the scriptures do not present us anywhere, for example, an “order of worship,” completely and certainly normative. But there are certain commandments in the New Testament that clearly unscreote all the churches: the fact that the churches of Ephesus and Colossus are ordained to sing (Ephesians 5. 18-19; Colossians 3. 16), as well as the reference to singing in the Church of Corinth. (1 Corinthians 14. 26), suggests that all churches should sing. Paul’s command to Timothy to read and preach the scriptures in a letter intended to instruct Timothy on how the Church should behave (1 Timothy 3. 15; 4. 14) suggests that reading and preaching the scriptures is God’s will not only for that particular church, but for all churches.
On the other hand, some commandments, such as “greeting yourself with a holy kiss?”(Romans 16:16), seem to express a universal principle (?Receive with Christian love?) In a way that may not be culturally universal.
In addition, some contextual commandments may have a broader applicability, such as paul telling Corinthians to set aside money on the first day of the week; It was for a specific offering to the Saints in Jerusalem, but all the churches were ordered to financially support their teachers (Galatians 6. 6), so the offering may well take place in collective worship.
So far, however, we have only dealt with the New Testament. What about the old man? After all, the Old Testament is filled with commandments on worship:
Praise him with trumpet sound; rip it with psalter and harp; scratch it with tambourines and dances; congratulate him with string instruments and flutes. Congratulate it with noisy dishes; congratulate it with resonant cymbals (Psalm 150: 3-5).
Does this mean that, to be biblical, our religious services must include trumpets, psalteries, harps, tambourines, dance, stringed instruments, flutes, and cymbals?
Remember that psalms are expressions of worship under the mosaic covenant, designated by some of the authors of the New Testament as the ‘?Old wedding ring? (Hebrews 8. 6). Now that the new covenant promised in Jeremiah 31 has been established, the old pact is obsolete. We are no longer under the law of Moses (Romans 7. 1-6; Galatians 3. 23-26). Therefore, the forms of worship associated with the mosaic The Age are no longer obligatory for us, the temple was served by priests, some of whom specialized in liturgical music (1 Chronicles 9:33); in fact, they are the ones we see playing the same instruments mentioned in Psalm 150 (2 Chronicles 5. 12, 13; 9. 11). Therefore, Psalm 150 does not provide a model for Christian worship; Instead, it invokes a specific form of worship of the old covenant, associated with the temple and the priesthood of Leviticus.
This in itself does not define the question of which instruments can serve as an appropriate accompaniment to the congregational singing of the church, but this means that the mere call to an Old Testament precedent does not take place, as does the call to an Old Testament precedent. Animal sacrifice cannot be legitimized It is here that many Christian traditions do not achieve a biblical theology of worship, selectively appealing to old Testament precedents, as if certain aspects of the Leviticus priesthood and temple worship had entered the era of the new covenant.
Certainly, much of the Old Testament tells us how we worship; Psalms teach us to worship with reverence and respect, joy, and admiration, gratitude, and joy; but the Old Testament does not prescribe the elements or forms of worship in the church of the new covenant.
In this sense, the New Testament provides a new constitution for God’s people of the new covenant, just as the Old Testament served as a constitution for God’s people under the old covenant God has only one plan of salvation and one people to save, but the way God’s people relate to him has changed radically after the coming of Christ and the establishment of the new covenant.
Is that why we should use all the tools of biblical theology, adding alliances, tracing the links between type and antitype, observing promises and compliments, emphasizing continuity and discontinuities?To reach a theology of worship in congregation. Christ of the new covenant, inhabited by the Holy Spirit of promise, we worship Him in Spirit and in truth, according to the terms that God Himself specified in the scriptures.
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Read Bobby Jamieson’s full article for a brief description of what the entire Bible says about worship:
Translation: Vin-cius Silva Pimentel. Revision: Vin-cius Musselman Pimentel. © 2015 Ministério Fiel. All rights reserved. Website: MinisterioFiel. com. br. Original: Biblical Theology and Worship Service.
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