A Better Covenant

So you walk into church, someone picks songs for you to sing, you greet your neighbor, then….. here comes to the message for the week.  There is a lot of talk about “expositional preaching” and different types of hermeneutics and preaching styles. There are books on how to preach, classes in seminaries about homiletics and the like. There are actually some really good books that help you preach Christ from all of the scriptures, which can be used greatly to see Christ in your own personal studies.  I don’t have a problem with that. My concern comes when I hear “expositional preaching is the cornerstone of the Sunday Gathering”. I hate to say this but what I hear is “come sing and hear someone preach to you for 45 minutes to an hour and you can’t say a word”!

The last sentence above is where I have the problem. I think preaching is important, but not the most important. I think sound biblically teaching is to be expected but not at the cost of mutual edification. Let me explain what I mean. Go to a church by one of my favorite authors. The church typically has anywhere from 500 people or upwards of people gathering. Now just say I have a question. What are my options as it relates to the way the normal church gathering looks? Don’t know I will tell you.

A. Do absolutely nothing, act like you understand and come back next Sunday hear the next sermon preached without comprehending the previous ones.

B. You can send an email (maybe it gets read, maybe it doesn’t, maybe you get a response most likely you won’t) and hopes that someone will answer your question. But there is a problem what if the person down the row doesn’t understand either?

Now what if we were to look at the teaching styles in New Testament. You will see a quite different approach. Here are a few scriptures for us to consider for discussion.

1 Corinthians 14:

26 What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. 27 If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. 28 But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. 30 If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. 33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

Now I am not going to spend my time defending verse 35 there are a lot of good stuff out there on it. What I will address is the fact that when the believers in Corinth gathered they each had something edifying to bring. The other reason we know that the gathering were interactive was the fact that Paul is addressing the women asking questions and interrupting the gathering maybe disrespecting their husbands.

Next we have Hebrews 10:24-25

24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Now this is the famous “you should be in a local fellowship” verse. You hear this all the time when people are discussing why you should go to church. The problem is I don’t agree with the common use of this verse. So lets discuss why.

1. This verse would have impacted the original reader much more differently than it would here in America. It may be more along the lines of what you see in the underground Church in China. This letter was written so to encourage the Jews not to turn back to Old Covenant (hence the emphasis on the Old Covenant being obsolete with no hope being found in it). This Jews were under immense persecution. To be a Christian was to be in a rebellious religion that was worthy of death. The pressure to turn back was appealing.

2. Thus you have the “not forsaking the gathering”. Why would they want to forsake? They would have been identified as Christians and thus would have been likely to suffer persecution. The writer is telling them to don’t be afraid, meet together and then he says “encourage one another”.

Now I must ask, how often are any one anothers worked out on a local Sunday gathering. How about close to never! Once again you go, someone chooses the songs for you, you sit down and let some “exposit” the text for you for the next 45 minutes to an hour, you go home and do it again next Sunday. There is little mutual encouraging going on. The Pastor is the “big mouth” and you are the “big ear”. There is actually very little interaction between Christians in the “audience” you may have more if you are in a black church because you have the famous “turn to your neighbor” but in the typical bible preaching church this interaction is nonexistent.

My last  couple of verses are found in Acts

Acts 2:42

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts

It is quite funny when I hear this verse used to defend small groups. As if the Sunday gathering is where you are preached and sang to and then small groups is where the mutual edification is employed. I couldn’t agree less. If we look at what occured at the temple it is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of what our “temple worship” looks like. The synagogues were actually interactive. Multiple things were discussed and anyone could bring an exhortation hence we have Jesus proclamation of himself in Luke 4:16-20.

We also see Apollos, Paul and Stephen debating in the synagogues with the Jews. Any man was free to speak and give an exhortation, but today this idea is completely punted. There is one primary speaker and he and he alone is qualified to bring a “word of encouragement” to the “brethren”. Now not only that the people mentioned in Acts 2 met in the temple day by day and there was fellowship, true biblical “koinonia” going on amongst the brethren.

My final set of verses is found in Acts 20

7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. 8 There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. 9 And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. 10 But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” 11 And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. 12 And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.

The word translated talked there is where we get our word dialogue, which means to argue, reason or discuss (thanks Blue letter Bible what would I do without the Internet). Paul wasn’t holding a monologue with them (I recently saw a post about how we should preach longer, NOT!) he was having a dialogue with them.

Listen, each of us are priest of God. We each have a right and an obligation (“speaking to one another”, “edifying one another” “let all your speech be edifying” “don’t let any unwholesome word proceed, but that which is for building up”) to exhort and admonish one another. What I find today is quite different from what I see in the scriptures. It is funny why we are so immature today in the faith. We don’t give people the opportunity to mature. It is typically one or two men cultivating and developing their gifts and the only way for you and I to do this is to go plant a church or pray that we can do it in “small groups”.

Let me sign off by saying I don’t believe everyone is called to be the primary teacher, but I do believe that we are all called to teach one another. I also don’t believe that the Sunday gathering is to be a monologue as if I am paying to here a motivational speaker (it is funny many people pick on Olsteen, but at least he keeps his to 20-25 minutes tops). We come to be built up and it is funny that in our classrooms we ask questions, when someone is giving instruction in the secular world there is questioning and interaction, and even in our small groups there is interaction, but on Sunday this is forbidden. Once again just my observations but definitely worth discussing.