You might
not be aware of it, but virtually *all* Christians outside the 20th-century
fundamentalist and charismatic movements are liturgical and always
have been. In recent decades it's been controversial for a Presbyterian
or Lutheran or Methodist church to add to its liturgical services
a "contemporary" service. Even congregations that are not
overtly liturgical still sing hymns (repeating written words by rote
to praise God) and often feature a remarkably inflexible overall order
of worship. And of course it's impossible not to begin repeating
yourself in prayer, especially when you're meeting for daily prayer.
We go further and make sure that all the prayers we mean
to pray get prayed every time. Remember, Christ didn't condemn all
repetition; only that repetition which is vain.
Early Christianity, like Judaism, was a liturgical religion: There
were set times of prayer, specific readings and prayers and hymns
to be used, and a weekly and seasonal rhythm to life. In Acts 13:2,
the Greek text tells us that the Holy Spirit spoke to the Church "while
they were engaged in the liturgy (leitourgounton) and fasting".
The apostles were no strangers to orderly worship at set hours and
days: "Peter and John went up together
to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour" (Acts
3:1). In fact, the Jewish Mishnah
details the specific hours and purposes of the daily prayers at the
hours which Scripture calls the third, sixth, and ninth hours (9am,
noon, and 3pm), along with the other daily prayers.
In the original Christian
Jewish synagogues a specifically Christian liturgy began to develop:
At first just a Messianic version of the Jewish liturgy, and later
it grew more differentiated and focused as the Agape meal became
separate from the Eucharist later in the first century.
The exact wording of the prayers at various points in the Liturgy
was fluid and the "president" of the congregation
ad-libbed within familiar guidelines, which rapidly coalesced into
patterns we can recognize today. But outside of Corinth (the most
dysfunctional parish in the New Testament!) we don't see anything
like modern free-form services, either in Scripture or in history.
But don't take my word for it: Within a decade of Apostle John's
death at the end of the first century, one of John's disciples,
Ignatius the bishop of Antioch, wrote a bunch of letters as he was
being carted off to Rome for martyrdom. The local Churches that
received these letters kept them, copied them, and shared them with
one another, so we know that at the time of John's death, Ignatius'
letters were considered normal Christianity by Christians
throughout Asia Minor. It's eye-opening to see what Christian
worship and authority look like in Antioch about 100 AD.
More
details
Here's a link
to Ignatius' letters.
Justin Martyr wrote a
description of Christian worship services about 150 AD. |
