The Public Reading of Scripture

June 16, 2009 in Liturgy, Meditations, Tradition, Word of God

1 Timothy 4:13 (NASB95)
13 Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching.

As we mentioned a couple weeks ago in a call to worship, traditions are unavoidable. Every church has traditions. The important element in traditions is recalling the distinction between our traditions and the Word of God and constantly subjecting our traditions to the Word of God.

Among the traditions which we have as a congregation, one of them is reading various passages from the Word of God each Lord’s Day. Apart from the sermon text, we read Old and New Testament passages. Why do this?

The passage today answers this question. For while many of our traditions are simply applications of biblical principles, the public reading of the Word of God is the implementation of a biblical tradition. Paul exhorts Timothy to “give attention to the public reading of Scripture.” Likewise, John in the book of Revelation pronounces his blessing on the one who was to read in worship the book he was composing. Reading portions of the Word of God each Lord’s Day is not simply a church tradition – it is one that has apostolic precedent.

Given that Paul places such a premium on reading the Word of God in our public assembly, how ought we to approach this activity? First, how ought the Word of God to be read? The Scriptures give us a number of principles. It ought to be read with reverence and awe for it is the Word of the Living God, the God who is a consuming fire. It ought to be read in a language that God’s people can understand – for when Ezra read the Word to the people of God in the Old Testament he translated to give the sense so that the people could understand the reading (Neh 8:8). It ought to be read with joy – for the Word is life itself, giving us wisdom and direction for our lives. Finally, it ought to be read with discretion – giving due attention to the tone of the passage – whether it is pronouncing doom upon the unrepentant or comfort to the afflicted; tone matters.

Second, what ought we to do who are listening to the Word of God? What should characterize the listeners? We are told in Nehemiah 8:3 that “all the people were attentive to the book of the law.” And this is our first and primary obligation. We should be straining our ears to hear the Words of the living God. Our ears should be attentive to His message; all our being should be focused on God’s revelation of Himself. Taking every thought captive, let us hear what the reading is announcing to us today.

And, having heard, let us not be like the man who looks at his face in a mirror and immediately forgets what sort of person he is. No, rather let us not only give ear to the Word but as God uses it to poke and prod us, let us give heed to in in the alteration of our attitudes and actions.

This reminds us that we often fail to give heed God’s Word as we ought. Our attention is often distracted when it is read. Our own opinions often intrude. Our heart often refuses to obey when we have heard. Let us then draw near to God and ask Him to cleanse us of our faults.

The Tradition of Anti-Traditionalism

June 1, 2009 in Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians, Holy Spirit, Meditations, Tradition, Word of God

1 Corinthians 11:2
Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.

Our culture has institutionalized the tradition of anti-traditionalism. Yesterday’s clothes are outmoded; yesterday’s ideas are prehistoric. Each new generation is expected to originate something totally new. Beanie babies have come and gone; Tickle me Elmos have lost their flare; and Cabbage Patch dolls are a long forgotten craze.

Unfortunately the Church has imbibed much of this cultural food. A couple weeks ago Steve was kind enough to pass along a Religion piece from the Wall Street Journal on the experience of one Trinity Church in Connecticut. Trinity was founded by folks who were dissatisfied with the traditions in the churches and who wanted something new, something hip, something relevant. But now, ten years later, they’ve found that they have their own traditions. The Journal remarks that “these churches were founded by people in rebellion against established institutions. Ten years down the road, they have become the establishment.” Consequently, the pastor of Trinity has decided to step down. “You don’t want to become ossified,” he says. “You have to keep thinking freshly on how to do church.”

Contrast this way of thinking with Paul’s counsel to the Corinthians in our text today: “Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.” Paul praises the Corinthians not for their novelty but for their faithfulness to that which they had been taught. Paul, and the rest of the Word of God, teaches us to value a godly inheritance – to take what is given in one generation and prize it and pass it down to the next generation. To tell our children and grandchildren the wonderful works of God so that they in turn can tell their children and grandchildren.

Popular culture, by design, rejects this idea–it plans for obsolescence. Who could imagine making special note in one’s will of your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Collection? Or your Garth Brooks CD collection? The idea seems absurd because these things are not meant to be handed down. Products and performers in pop culture are expected to have their day in the sun and then disappear, to be replaced by another. For this reason, it is critical that our worship not reflect the pop culture mentality, not reflect an opposition to a godly inheritance.

One way that Classical Protestants have endeavored to cultivate a love for godly inheritance is to focus on those traditions in the history of the Church which highlight and exalt Christ, that celebrate the course of His life. Among these is Pentecost Sunday, the day on which we celebrate that Christ poured out His Spirit upon the Church to equip her for her worldwide mission of discipling the nations and bringing all men to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

It is because of Pentecost that the disciples were emboldened to preach the Word of God despite opposition. It is because of Pentecost that we have the New Testament. It is because of Pentecost that our fathers and mothers throughout history have endured torture and death for the glory of Christ. It is because of Pentecost that teachers continue to instruct God’s people. It is because of Pentecost that the Gospel has spread throughout the earth. And it is because of Pentecost that in years to come all the rulers and citizens of the nations shall come and bow before Messiah and acknowledge His greatness. So what better thing to do than to celebrate such an event?

Traditions are not bad; traditions are inevitable. It is when our traditions undermine or distract from what is biblically important that our traditions are destructive. The Pharisees were wrong not because they had traditions but because their traditions obscured and undermined the Word of God. Likewise, many traditions within Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy obscure and undermine the Word of God rather than clarify and exalt it. But the traditions of modern evangelicalism are also destructive – the tradition of anti-traditionalism, the constant tumult, the overthrowing of older generations because younger ones always know better – what do these things have to do with the Word of God?

As we gather to worship, therefore, let us do so with joy, celebrating the great work of the Spirit of God who was poured out upon the Church at Pentecost. And the first thing the Spirit does in bringing us into the presence of our thrice holy God is awaken in us a sense of our own sin – in particular, our sin of obscuring and undermining the Word of God through our traditions. Let us kneel and confess our sins to Him.

Changing the Liturgy

December 8, 2008 in Liturgy, Meditations, Tradition

Matthew 15:1-6 (NKJV)1 Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 2 “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” 3 He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ 5 But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”— 6 then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.

The passage before us in Matthew should be very familiar. We have recently explored Mark’s telling of this same event. But Matthew’s emphasis falls differently thank Mark’s – Matthew wants to make sure that his readers always keep before them an essential distinction – there are those things that are human traditions and there are those that are commandments of God. When we fail to make the distinction between these two things we inevitably run the danger, which the Pharisees failed to avoid, of substituting human traditions for the Word of God or of imagining that our own traditions have equal weight with the Word of God.

Traditions are not inherently bad. In fact, traditions are inevitable. They are one of those things that we cannot avoid. And when we try to avoid having traditions we simply end up with a new tradition – namely, not having traditions. Traditions then are not the problem.

The problem arises when we don’t make a distinction between our traditions and God’s commands and we soon become incapable of differentiating them. This then leads us to the point where our traditions take precedence over the Word of God and we find ourselves incapable of seeing the way in which our traditions actually undermine the Word of God. This was the situation of the Pharisees. So much did they laud their traditions, that they could no longer see the way in which their traditions were making the Word of God of no effect.

This morning we have instituted a change in our call to worship and it is always good on such occasions to understand why we have done so. Among the various reasons – which would include the beginning of the Advent season this Lord’s Day – one of the central ones is reinforcing the distinction between the Word of God and our traditions. We are firmly convinced that our basic order of worship is reflective of biblical principles. We are just as firmly convinced that the details of our worship, while also reflective of biblical principles, are nowhere absolutely commanded in the Word of God. They are our own local traditions. And so, as a means of ruffling feathers and making sure that we don’t get so set in our ways that we imagine all the little details of our liturgy are found in Deuteronomy somewhere, we periodically change the liturgy.

And so, as we come into the presence of our Lord this day, let us remember to draw the distinction between the commandments of God and the traditions of men – and let us confess to our Lord that we have too often failed to make this distinction.