1 Corinthians 14.26-31: Questions on the order and organization of worship

[Sean Kealey]

This passage of scripture is the hardest for me to reconcile with any organized religion. It was a major reason to my being part of a house church for the last 5 years. Now that I am being more and more convinced of orthodoxy, I would really like to understand the churches position on this passage of scripture. It would seem to me that Paul is here describing a very open-participitory meeting. Each person bringing a hymn or a lessonn or a revelation, etc. If one is speaking and another gets a revelation, the first is to stop talking and let the second speak. (I have always been curious to see that happen in an organized church. I can only imagine how fast the person interrupting the speaker would get thrown out of the building.) Anyway, this passage does not sound to me like a description of what I would see in a meeting of an Orthodox (or as I said any organized) church meeting. Please, brothers and sisters, help me to understand this passage according to the teachings of the church. Thank you.

Sean

[Owen Jones]

Sean,

I think there are perhaps good reasons and bad reasons for why the order of worship evolved as it has. First the context. St. Paul is addressing in particular the manner in which the Corinthians worship. He is decrying the chaotic and ultimately self-centered manner of worship of the Corinthians while going overboard to try to be charitable to them and addressing them as an equal. But he is very alarmed about things, including over-indulging in food and drink as actual parts of the worship service! Including women "speaking" in Church. (there is some debate about what that means. It probably does not refer to whispering to another during the service, but taking an active leadership role in the service. And speaking in tongues as the dominant form of worship.) A gazillion things can be said about speaking in tongues, but by any measure, it leads to ego inflation.

So that is the context, which, unfortunately, latter day pentacostals completely twist around in order to defend the very same free-wheeling style of worship that St. Paul decries.

Even so, it is clear that in the early Church, worship was nowhere near as formalized and stylized as it is today. One example, catechumens were instructed to make a public confession of their sins prior to their baptism. One can appreciate the spiritual power of this. So why do we not do this today? Because it became much abused. People would betray confidences. Such public confessions at times no doubt led some to get carried away and abuse the privelege. Likewise, the form of worship in Corinth.

I sometimes feel like standing up and "prophesying" in Church. I become more than a bit frustrated at times, particularly at the preaching. But is that true prophesy, or simply my ego? More often than not the latter. Imagine if this became common practice. People would abuse the privilege rampantly. While we might get one minute of sound spiritual power out of somebody, the rest of it would be a chaotic mishmash of self-centered drivel. Also, what we have now is an incorporation of imperial court ritual. The monarchical symbol of our ritual is important but, alas, sadly lost on our mass democratic sensibilities.

The RC and Episcopal Churches, once considered Catholic in worship at least, have surrended to the mass democratic sensibility and have altered worship to reflect contemporary ideology. (Although, oddly, Marxist lesbian bishops in the Epsicopal Church love dressing up in miters).

Thank God Orthodoxy is not radically altering its worship ritual, which has stood the test of time. It is designed to help us enter the mystery of God's Kingdom, while effacing our own egotistical desires and consciousness. Thanks be to God.

[Alec Lowly]

Sean writes:


"This passage of scripture is the hardest for me to reconcile with any organized religion. It was a major reason to my being part of a house church for the last 5 years. Now that I am being more and more convinced of orthodoxy, I would really like to understand the churches position on this passage of scripture."

One of the peculiarities of Christian assemblies that claim to be "based on the Bible" is they somehow believe that the picture they see of early church worship in the first century is the pattern or model for the church worship of all succeeding centuries, right up to our own.

These Christians somehow fail to realize that if this were true, it would mean that the leading of the Holy Spirit somehow stopped in the first century, i.e., the leading "into all truth" stopped, despite the fact that the Lord Himself indicated that this would be a gradual, unfolding process (John 16:33).

These Christians also fail to appreciate the human aspect of the process, i.e., that the Christian faith would ultimately be embraced by a multitude of peoples, each bringing their particular cultures, languages, histories, etc., to the worship of the Risen Lord.

The irony gets even richer when you consider that the New Testament proves that the early Christians absolutely did one thing when they worshipped -- they celebrated the Eucharist. Yet few of these "Bible-based" Christian assemblies celebrate the Eucharist every Lord's Day. Most celebrate it only on special occasions, like once a month, quarterly, whatever.

Things like this really perplex Orthodox when these Christians insist that their faith and worship is "Bible based," while ours isn't.

Besides, as I have often challenged these folks, "Name one Christian church that ~isn't~ Bible-based." Then they begin to see that the real issue, for starters, is not scripture, but the interpretation of scripture. And that is inseparable from tradition, which these Christian assemblies often condemn without realizing that their condemnation of "tradition" is itself a tradition.

I had better stop now .

In XC,
Alec Lowly, sinner