A college classmate of mine wrote a series of articles on “The Christian Assembly” back in the early 70s that, IMNSHO, gives a fair/balanced view of NT gatherings. You can read it at:
http://www.nevadachurch.org/theassembly.html

Again, I speak of the PURPOSE of NT assemblies. As I stated in my first comment, WORSHIP certainly happened, but only because WORSHIP defines the Christian’s entire life.

Blessings.

I’ll pass on the debate. Not a hill on which I intend to spend any time. I really don’t care what any group of Christians decides to do in their worship. I do care what I do in mine or the worship I lead.

Also…I don’t believe the NT requires liturgy. I believe the Bible models it. If a person can’t see liturgy in the worships sections of Revelation, no debate will shed any light on that.

I don’t believe it is proscribed, prescribed or scribed. It’s modeled. It’s done. There’s an undeniable presence of liturgical form in New Testament worship where there is an awareness of the Old Testament forms.

Or you can have the worship at Corinth. That’s fine too, but it’s the zoo and the nursery combined, which is pretty much what a lot of megachurches are becoming.

This is a discussion about whether evangelicals will use Biblical resources for worship or continue using resources from a culture saturated with entertainment as an idol. That’s not a hard choice, Frank. No matter how much liturgy or what form…that’s not a hard choice.

Oh…I also can tell when the anti-Catholic artillery is lining up, and I can see the gun barrels from yonder hillside.

No thanks, but thanks.

On the pro-liturgical side (at least when it comes to evangelicals), descriptions of liturgical praxis in scripture do not seem prescriptive or complete enough to warrant some of the conclusions being drawn. Secondly, and linked to the previous point, it would seem that the extent to which OT liturgical traditions were living ones is ignored – intellectual assent that they were living is forthcoming, but is not so convincing when so many people in this camp seem to be united in their oppositions to *all* things contemporary.

The anti-liturgical side at least has intellectual consistency on their side on that particular point. However, they sacrifice it when they start ignoring Jesus’ use/refocusing of existing Jewish practices onto himself (especially in John’s Gospel) coupled with the extent to which believers of Jewish extraction seem to continue to celebrate Jewish Feasts/participate in daily jewish religious practice.

FWIW, I personally find some liturgy to be useful – and in it’s way a richer set of versions of the sorts worship practices I am comfortable with, but that’s an autobiographical point masquerading badly as a theological one. Besides, I come from a somewhat charismatic background – and charismatics generally have the most rigidly defined liturgy of all .

You have misunderstood me if you think I have said, “The Bible does not command us to gather together and worship”. Plainly, that is the command of the Scripture to us: be part of the church, and participate in joint/community worship.

The question is this: what is “liturgy” and is it required? Michael says it is required, and many people would agree with him, but I’d be willing to bet that even if we didn;t ask Michael we couldn;t get all those people to agree on what “liturgy” means.

There is no question that community worship is required by the NT. Please let’s not misunderstand Scripture for the sake of our own liberty.

Without being combative, but in an effort to engage this topic ocnstructively, would you care to go 5 questions back-and-forth on this one?

I’d offer the DebateBlog for a forum, but I know you have, in the past, sought to make this sort of thing more, um, cross-platform if you will. It would be a great springboard from the last exchange I had at D-Blog, which was on the Regulative Principle.

The thesis I would propose it this:

Is there a liturgy prescribed by Scripture for the NT Church?

And to give you a leg-up in the discussion, my first question would be this:

Would you please define the word “liturgy” for the scope of this debate?

We could do ask-and-answer across our blogs if that would make this more agreeable. I think you’re flat-out wrong, but I also think this is a question which good people disagree on so I don’t think your opinion makes you a bad person. I’ll try to make sure my readers and my friends can keep that same clear head if you care to engage this directly.

Brian

Duffer Dan
Sparks, NV