Expert: Scott Talbot - 8/15/2004

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My question is - When did churches (Protestant) began moving from having preaching services to having worship services? My question also involves why it is that outside of the 4 gospels, maybe Hebrews and Rev. there is very little mentioned about praise and worship in the N.T. I see the current direction as a problem.  This will get the dialogue going. Thanks, Sam
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Hi, Sam!

Forgive me for taking so long to get back to you. I left to take a vacation with my family the day before you wrote, and we returned just today (Saturday).

From my own personal perspective, I have seen a shift in evangelical church services from emphasizing the preaching to a more balanced approach of preaching and teaching, along with "praise and worship," i.e., singing, sharing, testimonies, etc., over the last decade or two.

I grew up appreciating good, solid, meaty Bible preaching, and I think it's still very, very important. I tend to favor that emphasis because I'm more of a thinking person than a feeling person.

However, I have come to realize that we all possess an intellect and emotions, and our relationship with our Christian family and with God is enhanced by an appeal to both. In other words, I believe that there is a place for the emotional element in church services, and this is a good thing. Even for "cerebral-oriented" folk like me! :^)

What does the Bible say? Acts 2:42-47 describes the early church in Jerusalem. There were elements of teaching (42) and of praise and worship (47). Further, there is no mention of a prescribed order of worship, but rather a spontaneous desire to associate with, visit with, and grow with fellow believers. It was a very open and contagious form of Christianity, and God blessed it richly with new converts on a regular basis. I don't think today's worship is quite like it was back then.

What are your thoughts?

Scott

I think about things as opposed to feeling them as you said.  My problem with the emphasis on Praise and Worship is that it appears we are trying to gin up something that is not there. No experience with  the Lord seems to be duplicatable except salvation. A good service on Sunday does not guarantee another next Sunday. But we think it should. We seem to be worshipping to get to God instead of getting to God and then worshipping. I see the current P/W as circumventing the process of letting the Scripture/Preaching show us an amazing God that would bring us to spontaneous P/W. I agree that church can be too ho-hum. We tend to shy away from emotion due to the charismatic stuff. This revolves all around my original question - When did it become worship and not preaching? My thoughts on the NT Pauline writings not mentioning P/W much is that the church moved into  a new phase. Since satan lost at the cross his next move will be deception of the church. As we move away from sound doctrine (i.e. an emphasis on the Word) and into P/W  that deception will be more easily accomplished.
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I think that there is a place for both.

Teaching and preaching (i.e., digesting God's truth) is essential. It reveals God to us, shows us who we are in relationship to Him, and teaches us how we should act and live. According to II Timothy 3:16-17, the Scriptures are profitable, and so should be central in our church services and in our lives.

The praise and worship is our response to what we learn. The Bible speaks much on music. It is the language of the soul. Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 encourage us to edify one another through "songs and hymns and spiritual songs" as we "make music in our hearts to the Lord."

Music, therefore, is seen not only as an expression of praise, but as a way to encourage praise in others. So, yes, I think it's accurate to say that we are trying to "gin up" something that's not there--a greater level of appreciation for God as we draw near to Him through objective truth and through our emotional response to that truth. The worship, however, should not be a manufactured thing derived solely from being caught up in the emotionalism of the moment. It should be grounded in truth.

So back to your original question--When did it become worship and not preaching? In the early church, I believe there was always a balance between both elements. To the extent that we today stray from either element, I think we are making a mistake and are making a grave omission.

Scott
Just a word of personal thanks for taking time to converse. I appreciate what you have said. I'm going to look at the early church and think more on what and how they "did" church. Thanks again Sam


Answer
You're welcome, Sam. I enjoyed the discussion.

I understand where you're coming from. I've worked through these issues myself, and continue to think about them. The best thing we can do is to go to the Bible for a clearer understanding of God's intentions and wishes. Your doing so is a wise thing.

Feel free to write again if there is anything else you would like to discuss.

Scott