The following article was forwarded to me several times in the past week. I originally received it from Kristen Hartley at www.kingswaymusicstore.com
It is written by author Stephen Mansfield. Stephen is a New York Times Bestselling Author and speaker, who has penned such books as The Faith of the American Soldier, The Faith of George W. Bush, and Benedict XVI: His Life and Mission. While Stephen is a contemporary writer, he often draws from history to shape his words. His books on George Whitfield, Winston Churchill and Booker T. Washington are widely-acclaimed biographies.
While most of us understand that all of life is worship, Mansfield speaks of the practice of coming together for “corporate worship”… I think it is worth the 3 minute read.
The Priority of Worship…A Lesson from the Early Church.
“Dates and dead people. If that is all history is, then we have nothing to learn from the past. Yet, the very idea of restoration means that God is bringing into the experience and understanding of believers today those wonders with which God’s people of old were intimately familiar.
One of the lessons the early Church can teach us, as we experience the power and glory of worship, is the priority of worship.
The early Church had a saying about the ultimate importance of worship: lex adorandi est lex credendi, or we believe according as we have worshiped.
Remember that the earliest Christians did not have the benefit of the New Testament as we do; nor did they have the blessing of 2,000 years of Christian teaching to rely upon. Though they faced the horrors of persecution from without and seductively false teachers from within, they were kept on course by clinging faithfully to the reality of Jesus which was revealed to them as they worshiped.
These pioneers of the faith strongly believed that what they needed to know of Jesus was revealed as they declared His glory. Their King enthroned Himself upon the praises of His people, and, as the Spirit gave them liberty to enter God’s presence, they were not only transformed but taught as well. Through worship, God revealed truth just as He released power.
We see this pattern in scripture. The early Church was not surprised when John’s revelation of Jesus was received as John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day (Rev. 1:10). Nor did they think it strange when God spoke regarding Paul and Barnabas as the Church at Antioch was worshiping the Lord and fasting.
In fact, many scholars now believe that the Christ-hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 originated as a prophetic word given while one of the churches worshiped. The hymn was then circulated among God’s people, and Paul was led to quote the already familiar hymn in his letter to the Church at Philippi. Clearly, with prophetic teachings like this, God was teaching His infant Church a right understanding of the Lord they worshiped.
We thank God today that we are becoming the worshipers God seeks and that worship for us is no longer simply a two song warm-up for the sermon. But have we truly learned the vital priority of worship as the early Christians knew it.
A student from Nigeria studying in the United States recently spoke of the power of God as he had witnessed it in Africa. When asked why the marvelous works of which he spoke are so infrequent in the American Church, he said, “In Nigeria we worship God, but in America, you study Him.”
While we should be grateful for the powerful teaching in the body of Christ today, we should also be aware that theology without worship puts us in danger of embracing an arid intellectualism. Theology divorced from worship means a loss of the prophetic nature of preaching and reduces the teaching ministry of the Church to no more than the communication of facts. When this happens, we become like the early Greeks in seeking wisdom and knowledge apart from relationship.
When worship and teaching are in right relationship, worship centers theology in the risen Christ, and theology gives the worshiper the ability to glorify God in mind as well as in heart. Worship prunes and expands theology while theology gives expression to what has been revealed in worship.
Throughout Church history, entire revivals have begun when God’s people began to experience in worship what their theology did not allow for. When their theology caught up with their experience in worship, it meant the dawning of a new day for the faithful.
The Scriptures do not say that God seeks those who worship, but rather those who are worshipers, those who have made worship of primary importance in their lives. This is the great lesson of the early Church that without New Testaments or even church buildings, a people who regarded the worship of God as their main purpose on earth turned their world upside down. They lived what they believed, and they believed what God revealed in worship.
The power and glory of worship have transformed the Church throughout the world. But when the priority of worship is fully restored to God’s people, the world will recognize that we have been with Jesus as we turn our world upside down just as the early Church did in its day.”
This reminds me of a line from Matt Redman’s song “Mission’s Flame” where he sings “let worship be the heart for mission’s flame… out of dynamic worship experiences comes the heart and passion to reach others for Him…
By the way, we are hosting the next “Albany Worships” event here at Grace Fellowship on Friday, January 29th @ 7 pm.
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