Worship # 10

Worship: Its Priority, Principles, and Practice (continued)

11. In complete public worship there should be united public prayer. I can find no account of religious assemblies in the New Testament in which prayer and supplication do not form a principal business. I find Paul telling Timothy, "I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men" (1 Timothy 2:1). Such prayers should be plain and intelligible, that all the worshipers may know what is going on, and be able to go along with him who prays. They should as far as possible be the joint act of all the assembly and not the act of one man's mind alone. A congregation of professing Christians which only meets to hear a grand sermon, and takes no part or interest in the prayers, seems to me to fall far short of the standard of the New Testament. Public worship does not consist only of hearing.

12. In complete public worship there should be the public reading of the Holy Scriptures. This was evidently a part of the service of the Jewish synagogue, as we may learn from what happened at Nazareth, and at Antioch in Pisidia (Luke 4:16; Acts 13:15). We cannot doubt that the Christian church was intended to honor the Bible as much as the Jewish. To my eye Paul points to this when he says to Timothy, "Till I come give attention to reading" (1 Timothy 4:13). I do not believe that reading in that text means private study. Reason and common sense alike teach the usefulness of the practice of publicly reading the Scriptures. A visible church will always contain many professing members who either cannot read, or have no will or time to read at home. What safer plan can be devised for the instruction of such people than the regular reading of God's Word? A congregation which hears but little of the Bible is always in danger of becoming entirely dependent on its minister. God should always speak in the assembly of his people as well as man.

~J. C. Ryle~

(continued with # 11)