A History of Worship: A Zondervan Digital Short

By Gregg Allison

Derived from Gregg Allison’s magisterial Historical Theology, this digital resource provides a concise overview of Christian worship as it developed throughout the church’s history. Liturgy, sacraments, the regulative principle, the theology of worship, elements of worship—all of these and more are covered in this concise history. Readers wanting a handy reference resource to the full story of Christian worship from beginning to end will appreciate Allison’s careful and fair-minded overview.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Release date: Apr 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9780310496137

Gregg Allison

Gregg Allison (PhD) is Professor of Christian Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky where he teaches systematic theology.  Previously he served on Cru staff at the University of Notre Dame and overseas in Italy and the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland. He is a pastor of Sojourn Community Church, and is the theological strategist for Sojourn Network, a church planting network of about thirty churches. He is the author of Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine; Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church; and Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment.

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Contents

Cover

A History of Worship

Copyright

A History of Worship

How has the church developed its concept and practice of worship?

STATEMENT OF BELIEF

The church has historically gathered together regularly (at least every Sunday, if not more frequently) for the purpose of worship, which may be defined as the activity of glorifying God in his presence with our voices and hearts.¹ Included in these services of worship are activities such as praising and thanking God through song and prayer, reading and preaching the Word of God, celebrating the sacraments, interceding for needs, and giving financially. While these elements seem to be standard activities in most churches, many differences also characterize the churches of Jesus Christ.

One major difference is due to the division between liturgical and nonliturgical churches. According to the former, worship services are to be well ordered and arranged with close attention to historical liturgical practices. Indeed, in some churches — the Roman Catholic Church, for example — the liturgy varies only slightly from that employed in the church well over a millennium ago. According to the latter churches, though worship services are to be ordered generally, allowance should be made for spontaneity and variety. Such churches often believe that a liturgical approach may hinder the leading of the Holy Spirit and encourage religious formalism rather than heartfelt worship.

Within Protestant churches, another major difference in worship patterns can be traced to the incorporation of different principles for ordering worship. One the one hand, the regulative principle holds that God alone, as revealed through his Word, determines what constitutes worship that is acceptable to him. Thus, unless some liturgical element — e.g., biblical hymn singing, reading of Scripture, and preaching — has either explicit or implicit warrant from Scripture, it cannot be incorporated into the church’s worship. On the other hand, the normative principle holds that unless Scripture explicitly or implicitly prohibits them, other worship elements may be incorporated and the church’s liturgy is still pleasing to God.

Historically, evangelical churches have exhibited a wide diversity in worship styles in their regular services. Generally speaking, a much more ordered, historically regulated approach to worship characterized evangelical churches prior to the middle of the twentieth century. For various reasons, at that time the growth of evangelical churches began to be accompanied by experimentation with new and creative worship elements and approaches. This chapter traces the development of both the traditional elements of worship and these recent innovations.²

WORSHIP IN THE EARLY CHURCH

From the New Testament, we learn of key practices that characterized the meetings of the early churches gathered together to worship God (we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God; 1 Cor. 11:16; cf. 14:33). These included reading, preaching, and teaching Scripture (1 Tim. 4:13) so as to admonish one another (Col. 3:16); singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thanksgiving to God (Col. 3:16); prophesying and praying (1 Cor. 11:3–16), which included making requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving … for everyone — for kings and all those in authority (1 Tim. 2:1–2); the exercise of spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12–14), including speaking in tongues and its interpretation and prophecy and its evaluation (1 Cor. 14), carried out for the common good (1 Cor. 12:7); financial giving (1 Cor. 16:2; 2 Cor. 8–9); the exercise of church discipline (1 Cor. 5; cf. 2 Cor. 2:1–11); baptism of new converts (Acts 2:38–41);