2/18/2023 0 Comments Word of god speek![]() ![]() “Reading of the word in the congregation, being part of the publick worship of God, (wherein we acknowledge our dependence upon him, and subjection to him,) and one mean sanctified by him for the edifying of his people, is to be performed by the pastors and teachers. So how does one do it? How ought we to approach this in our corporate worship? The prescription of the Westminster Directory for Public Worship is just what the doctor ordered: The minister of the word can convey the supreme importance of the reading of the word just in the way he does it. Thus it needs to be prepared for just like public prayer, just like the sermon, just like the totality of the worship service. It ought to be elevated to the same status and gravity as the other biblical elements of worship, and seen, in combination with pastoral preaching and prayer as part of the essential triplex munus of the Gospel minister in public worship. It ought sometimes to make them tremble and other times rejoice. John Reed Miller used to say to me, “Ligon, the reading of the word of God ought to be an event.” It ought to be arresting to the congregation. It is irritating enough to have to endure preachers who say “I don’t have time to read my text today” (as if to say, “we need to hurry on past God’s word to get to mine!”), but to have whole worship services in which the formal reading of God’s word is absent is a self-imposed famine of the word.ĭr. And so, this act of worship, in which the verbal self-revelation of God is addressed unedited to the hearts of his gathered people ought not to be ignored, skipped or squeezed out. In the reading of God’s word, God speaks most directly to His people. What we need today is ministers who take this directive seriously, for rare is the evangelical church whose service can be characterized as full of Scripture. As we have already seen, the public reading of the Bible has been at the heart of the worship of God since Old Testament times. And the church’s practice was squarely based on Scripture. Hughes Old has established beyond the shadow of a doubt the central importance of the reading of the word of God as an essential component of Christian worship in the total history of the church. And no wonder, since “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). So, for thousands of years, from Moses’ time to Jesus’ day, the public reading of Scripture was central to the gathering of the people of God. ![]() After the people of Israel returned from exile in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, Ezra read the book of the law of Moses to the assembled people from early morning until midday (Nehemiah 8:1-8), with all the people standing out of reverence for God’s word!Īt the outset of his public ministry, Jesus went to his home synagogue in Nazareth and read the Scriptures, from the prophet Isaiah (Luke 4:14-21). When the long lost book of the law was discovered by Hilkiah in the Temple in the days of good King Josiah (2 Chronicles 34:14), we learn that the King himself “read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord” (2 Chronicles 34:30). Joshua 8:35 tells us “There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel.” Exodus 24:7 says “he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people.” When Israel finally arrived in the Promised Land, Joshua read Scriptures aloud to them again. Sinai for worship after the Exodus from Egypt, Moses read God’s word aloud to them. When the children of Israel gathered at Mt. It is rooted in the whole history of the people of God, beginning in the days of Moses. And this idea does not originate with Paul. So, for Paul, reading the Word aloud when the congregation gathers is just as important as the sermon. In 1 Timothy 4:13, Paul says to Timothy: “Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and teaching. There is nothing more important in Christian public worship than the reading of the Scriptures, God’s holy, inspired, inerrant, authoritative Word.
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