Last week, I pointed out some concepts regarding worship that I have come to reject. One of those is the idea of authorized worship. Thinking of worship as being “authorized” or “unauthorized” goes hand in hand with the Regulative Principle of Worship. One website expresses it this way: “If God has not authorized worship then there is no basis for it. However, if God has authorized worship, then it is to be regulated by His word.”
It was interesting for me to Google “authorized worship.” The first page of results were mostly from churches of Christ or other groups discussing churches of Christ. The last item on the page was a Google Books hit from the Christian Baptist, an article from Alexander Campbell laying out the idea of “authorized” and “unauthorized” worship (This particular article can be read on Dr. Hans Rollman’s site.. (There was also a page from a Seventh Day Adventist magazine, but it wasn’t actually about authorized worship, rather “who authorized Sunday worship?”)
It was also interesting to see that few of these articles actually seek to prove that there is such a thing as “authorized” worship. The Campbell article lays out a negative proof, that is it disproves the idea that “there is not a divinely authorized order of Christian worship in Christian assemblies.” Campbell says that if there is no authorized “order,” then nothing done in worship can be considered sinful. Therefore, there must be an authorized order.
Much has been made of Nadab and Abihu’s “strange fire”; for many, that’s one of the strongest examples of why we need to look for authorization in worship. (The example of Uzzah also gets used; interesting that both of these examples are frequently used by those who want to claim the entire Old Testament was nailed to the cross!) I spent a good deal of time with “the boys” a few years ago; feel free to read those articles. (And I’d better mention Eleazar and Ithamar, since I promised not to talk about two of Aaron’s sons without mentioning the other two!)
Other texts are thrown around here and there, but frankly, we use the term “authorized worship” because Campbell did. We inherited it from Restoration Movement leaders; we sure didn’t get the term from the Bible. And I don’t think we got the concept from there, either. It always worries me when we freely and regularly use phrases that the Bible itself doesn’t use. That’s not necessarily wrong (notice that I use the word Bible, a thoroughly unbiblical word), but it should raise caution flags.
Maybe I’m not being fair. Anyone want to stand up in defense of the concept of “authorized worship”? I’m all ears.
If the Regulative Principle had been kept in its limited place, where the Campbells sought to use it, to simplify assembly practices as much as possible in order to allow for as many different ways of thinking to worship together in good conscience, things would have gone much better.
But the beast escaped the chain and attacked everything the church does – or even everything a Christian does. I would be thrilled with an extremely simple set of assembly practices, attached to a vibrant and free missional life together. Not because the Bible lays down the law of the Regulative Principle, but because in order to maintain 1 Cor 9 flexibility – in order to be *able to* become all things to all people, so that by any means we might save some – I don’t believe it is healthy to get too encumbered with traditions or expensive equipment.
I’m not sure how much that either addressed the OP or answered the final question, so let me take a direct stab at it.
1) Humans are created for worship – that is, we work best with a steady diet of intentional submission to, communication with, and adoration of the One who loves us, created us, and is rescuing us. To say it a different way, worship is the right relationship between created and Creator.
2) The mission of the church is to spread this worship to all people-groups (Matt 28:16-20). The smoke- the fire- the altar that once marked the intersection of heaven and earth which once was locked down to Mt. Zion in Jerusalem is now portable, within and among us.
3) Fire looks different when it burns different fuels. The worship of God looks different when it comes from different cultures. But it still consists of those three things: submission, communication, and adoration. The chaos we see in Corinth, that necessitated such instructions as we have, comes from separating those three things from what was revealed to guide all of our practices – social, religious, whatever.
If you love your brother, you won’t cut him off in order to express something of your own. If you love your brother, you will make room for their expression of worship.
My struggle with believing that the apostles taught, in every church, a particular set of authorized and required practices, is precisely the Corinthian example. How did they get from perfectly organized and orderly worship to the maelstrom that exists by the time Paul writes what we call 1 Corinthians, if an authorized set of best practices was put into place at the outset?
I believe that Jesus, In John 4:23-24, Is saying that we are going to worship in a different way. Worship will not be a structured ritual, which was always a problem in the Old Testament. The Jews never got the idea that the form was to have something to do with what they did in their lives, the way they lived. We have the same problem today.
This is just my thinking, but because of Rom 12:1-2 and Hebrews 10; I believe that our worship is what we do all week including what we call worship. Also what we call worship should be called the assembly or assembling with the saints, and this, according to Hebrews 10, is to encourage one another, It becomes worship in the same way everything we do in our lives becomes worship. If this is what Jesus was saying, then there is no authority for the assembly except to do everything in an orderly manner.
Thanks Eleanor. I agree that there is great freedom in Christian worship. We have reasons to reject certain practices, not because they are unauthorized, but because they are sinful for one reason or another.
Grace and peace,
Tim
It seems to me that in scripture, worship is what happens when people encounter God. If the encounter is unexpected — but sometimes when it’s sought — it often manifests itself when the worshiper falls down in abject humility and often says things like “My lips are dirty!” and “Let’s build three booths!” and “Be merciful to me!” The Lord doesn’t seem to mind these sometimes irrelevant observations, and proceeds to reveal His will and glory.
Somehow, the idea that worship must always be specifically authorized and regulated seems to conflict with His forbearance of our occasionally silly self-consciousness when He seeks our consciousness of Him.
We have assumed that because Hebrews 9:1 says, “Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary” there must be corresponding regulations for worship in the new covenant. There are, but they are described in the rest of chapter 9 as being the sacrifice Jesus offered and the atonement He made in the heavens as He carried His own blood to the mercy seat of God.
When the Hebrew writer returns to “acceptable worship” in 12:28-29, with a plea that we worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, he explains himself in Hebrews 13:1ff where he lists things such as: loving one another, entertaining strangers, remembering those (saints?) in prison, having honorable marriages, avoiding the love of money, and learning to depend on God’s help.
I posted an article about acceptable worship a couple of years ago in which I explored the idea that we assume too much when we assume that because the first covenant had earthly regulations for their worship, that the new covenant also has regulations that must govern our assemblies. At that time, I did not make the connection between Hebrews 12:28 and Hebrews 13:1ff. Thanks to Tim earlier in this series for bringing that to my attention.
Jerry, have you considered the relationship between Hebrews 8:9-13 (esp. the part about the new covenant being “not like the” old one) and Hebrews 9:1?
I find it striking that right after saying that, the first two traits of the old covenant mentioned by the writer are the regulations and the earthly place of worship. What if the new covenant has *neither*?
Nick,
That’s my point – and my question. What if the new covenant has no special regulations for worship? Then are our “worship wars” about regulations that do not exist?
Thanks Jozeca for these wise remarks and rreindmes of scripture! I will come back to this over this summer as good rreindmes. May God bless you as you pursue the next step that He has for you!Love,Janell : )