The Great Falling Away
What is Worship? Are we Majoring on the Minors
What did the early Christians do when they gathered together in their assemblies?
Well, first off, I think that when we think of the “assembly” of believers, we need to think of it in terms of a house as opposed to some sacred building we call a church. We need to think in terms of a living room as opposed to a sanctuary and we also need to think in terms of a small group of people sitting around in a circle rather than a large meeting group with rows and rows of pews all facing forward with stained glass on the windows.
In order to understand first century meetings we need to understand first century culture because it's fairly clear in the New Testament that house meetings were the primary way that Christians gathered in the first century. They did not have sacred buildings or Christian buildings that they that they gathered in in the first century. So, what did they do when they got together? They encouraged each other and built one another up.
In 1st Corinthians 14, there is a gold mine of information on what Christians should be doing in their assemblies. And sadly, what we’re supposed to be doing has largely been ignored or forgotten. So, to summarize it, Paul says in 1st Corinthians 14:26 (paraphrased): “What then Brethren, whatever you do in your assemblies, let all things be done for edification!” That word edification means to build up one another, to strengthen one another, to help one another get better. That's the purpose of anything and everything that took place within the assembly in the 1st century and that includes music.
Now it’s important to my topic today for me to mention that the word “worship,” even though it does appear in our Bibles, was never used in the context of a Christian Assembly. Nor did it refer to what Christians did when they met together in their assemblies. So for example, today when people ask if there is a biblical connection between worship and music, I think the better question is, what was the role of music in first century assembly?
It's certainly the case that in the first century Church, they sang. Singing was very definitely a part of first century assemblies, but it probably was not that big of a deal. At a minimum, it was no where near as big a deal as we make it out to be today. Now when I did my own investigation into the matter, I identified a total of 15 major passages in the New Testament that talk about what the early believers did in Christian assemblies. Then, when I did a deep dive into each one of those 15 passages to figure out what's going on and what’s really important, I recall only one of them that even mentions singing.
Now singing and praising God is most certainly a thing that we do in our assemblies today. But, it was probably a relatively rare occurrence in the first century church. To understand this, I think that you’re going to have to think about the first century culture. It was considerably different than ours. They didn't have radios or radio stations or the internet where they had constantly streaming music or people walking around with iPods and earbuds in their ears and listening to music 24/7. The first century was definitely different and no doubt they loved music just like anybody but, the degree to which we have become experts as well as connoisseurs of music and musicality, it’s much greater today than it was in the first century church.
Now, if you can imagine living in the first century Church where you're in the living quarters of a home with 15 or 20 other people, I think it’s probably safe to assume that you're probably not going to have too many people who are musically gifted. Anybody can sing but realistically, the quality is probably not going to be all that great. Even so, they are going to be singing and speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs for the purpose of trying to encourage one another. Certainly there would be praising God going on, but it would have been brief because the whole point of it all would have been to to build up one another and to encourage one another.
However, today we have inherited a system where we think praise and worship is the whole reason we gather together. In the New Testament assembly, that certainly wasn't the case and that's a fact. They gathered together for the purpose of edifying and building up one another. This one-anothering they did was for them a lifestyle of mentoring and discipleship in a small group setting. It was more like living together as an extended spiritual family. I think these two things, praise and worship vs. one-anothering are very different and consequentially, they lead in two different directions.
In the 90s when the praise and worship music phenomenon started to explode, the direction of the Christian Assembly started to move toward the idea of praise and worship being the main focus. And so after 30 plus years, it’s no wonder that people think that’s what we're supposed to be doing. But, based upon my understanding of what the assembly is supposed to be for, if our focus is on praise and worship above all else, we’re heading off in the wrong direction! What believers need to be doing is building up one another. There's a huge difference between pumping people up with a music concert style worship service and actually building up one another to where we're becoming stronger more mature Christians and better human beings.
Today’s concept of worship is quite different from the way Jews worshipped in the Old Testament period. When the Jewish people went to the temple, the first thing they did as an act of “worship” was to prostrate themselves before almighty God. This was in direct obedience to Deuteronomy 16:16 where God specifically commands every male Jew to go to the temple three times a year during the feasts and present themselves before the Lord. There's only one way to do that and that's by prostrating yourself before God. This is well substantiated throughout the Old Testament and the same was true in Middle Eastern culture of that time as it is in Muslim culture today. So, that that's what took place when they went to the temple to perform their ritual obligation of presenting themselves before God.
The second thing that Jewish people did as an act of “worship” was to bring a sacrifice or some kind of an offering. Again, Deuteronomy 16:16 says not only when you come to present yourself and prostrate yourself before the Lord but, you must not come empty-handed. You've got to bring a sacrifice or an offering of something which might have been a calf, a lamb, a pigeon or some kind of grain offering. It could have been a lot of different things depending on the occasion but, these were all specified as to exactly what and when you should bring as an offering to the temple in the Old Testament.
Now the third form of “worship” that was performed at the temple in the old testament refers to the work that priests were doing. This included the changing out the showbread, cleaning the altar from all the blood that had been splattered on it and processing the meat from the animals that were offered as sacrifice because the meat was to be consumed later by the priests themselves and/or often times given out to the people at the feasts after the ceremonies and rituals had been concluded. So, those are the three things Jews did that were considered acts of worship in the Old Testament in Judaism by Jews in the Jewish temple.
Now the early believers didn't do that in their assembly’s so don't confuse what the Jews did and Muslims still do with what Christians should be doing now. Except for maybe in a metaphorical sense, such as presenting yourself as a “living sacrifice,” none of that is what Christians did in the early church as well as what we don’t do today! And probably one of the biggest problems in the church today is not seeing “worship” for what it actually is and that included prostrating oneself being face down on the ground, the sacrifices of animals with blood being spilled and then the priests doing their work. That’s what encapsulated the Old Testament idea of worship.
In the New Testament, because God has been so merciful to us through the sacrifice of his Son, we don’t have to bring animals or grain offerings to the temple to be sacrificed to pay for our sins anymore. Instead, we respond by offering ourselves as a Living Sacrifice. This is a 24/7 commitment and not something that ever starts at 10:30 in Sunday morning and ends at 11:45 so we can all hurry out the door to get to the nearest all you can eat buffet at the Golden Corral or some other eatery before the lines start. Our sacrifice is a lifestyle of offering ourselves to God and it's a moment-by-moment process. Every hour of every day as our human flesh is challenged by temptations too numerous to fathom, we sacrifice our will to His. We prostrate before Him, not on our knees, but by surrendering our hearts and will.
That’s why I believe that going to church has completely fallen out of favor by so many good people. I think that some are looking at our assembly’s today, seeing this gross overemphasis on praise and worship music who are wondering what in the world is going on? Those in attendance who aren't musically inclined probably aren't getting much out of it. And yet all those musicians up on the stage under the lights with the fuzz boxes and the smoke machines think it's wonderful and here we are rocking out for Jesus like we're rock stars up here on stage. But, there's a lot of people who because of that shift in focus are saying enough, I'm out!
Now, let me preface what I am about to say by saying that first of all, unless it is teaching open heresy, I don't encourage anybody to leave any church at any time for just any reason. Instead, what I want to do is encourage Christians, no matter what church they're in, to find a small group of fellow believers with whom you can discuss Christian issues, the scriptures and use this as an opportunity to help everyone around you develop Christian virtues. Strangely enough, these opportunities are not always readily promoted today in any of our institutional churches or in almost any denomination whether it be Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical, Pentecostal, you name it.
In today’s institutional churches, we typically just have this one man performance up there at the front with this big emphasis on music and people just sit there and try to take it all in. Well, I think there is an enormous cry from the inside from people who want to contribute, to participate, to engage and to do something instead of just sit there like a dumb animal waiting to be slaughtered and then just be ushered out the door when we when the people in charge tell us we're done. We're smarter than that and from my research on the first century church, whenever they gathered, it was very much a “one-anothering” kind of gathering.
That phrase “one-another” is used a lot in the New Testament. And by one-another, it implies that they're comforting one another, they're encouraging one another, they’re helping one another, they’re speaking to one another and they’re holding one another accountable. All of these things are things that have gotten lost in our modern church services as they stand today. So where can we go to find that experience once again? I believe that it will be found back in people’s private living rooms, their family rooms, their recreation rooms and in their back yard patios.
Now why is all of this important? Well, I think it’s clear that we may be in the end times, perhaps even in the very early stages of the Great Tribulation and as such, if my understanding of the scriptures is correct, persecution is coming. Church, as many of us have come to understand it, is about to dramatically change. A great falling away from the faith will come and given the way all of the “Woke” culture has taken over some of our, so called, mainstream denominations, may already be upon us and as such, it will be necessary for those who want to follow “The Way,” what early Christianity was known as, will more than likely need to go underground just as the early church did under the Roman persecution!
Pray about it and act accordingly!