Well, we DO... have to confess Jesus as our Saviour when we answer the Altar call. So what's the problem?
In most modern church services, a layman keeps his mouth shut! He sits and he listens.
You have nothing to do with it except sit there and listen or to take a little wafer in your mouth or perform traditional rituals
en masse. You are there as a recipient. You are not there to give anything.
In contrast, in the New Testament period or the period of the synagogue system, the layman had as much to say as anybody. When Paul was in Asia Minor or Greece amongst the Jews, they would all get together on the Sabbath. They had to work during the weekdays just like most of us do. They did not have the luxury of being able to turn on the radio or getting out
Cruden’s Concordance or study the Scripture. They did not even have the Scripture because it was too expensive to own one in those days. The scriptures were on vellum, skins, and expensive materials. They had to go to the synagogue to study. So the synagogue meeting was a time of communal fraternization, a time of fellowship, when the Jews would come together on the Sabbath day. When the Jews came together you know talked!
Before we explore the purpose of the church meeting, let's first explore why most Christians gather for "church" today. There are basically 4 reasons:
1) corporate worship,
2) evangelism,
3) hearing sermons,
4) fellowship
As strange as it may seem, the New Testament never envisions any of these reasons as being the purpose of the church meeting. In regards to a place of worship, evangelism, sermonizing, and fellowship, the New Testament teaches worship is something we live. It is the setting forth of the thankfulness, affection, devotion, humility, and sacrificial obedience that God deserves
at every moment. Unfortunately, for many Christians, worship is the equivalent of singing choruses, hymns, and praise songs. (Many mistakenly call this "praise and worship.") Worship goes far beyond singing.
Likewise, the Bible never equates the purpose of the church meeting with evangelism. The New Testament demonstrates that the evangelism commonly occurred outside the meetings of the church. The apostles preach the gospel in those places where unbelievers frequented such as the synagogue, and the marketplace. (Acts 14:1; 17: 1 - 33; 18:4, 19). Fellowship is simply one of the many organic outgrowth that emerge when God people joyfully enthroned the Lord Jesus (Acts 2:42). Yet as necessary as fellowship is to the life of the church, it should not equated with the purpose of the church meeting.
1Co 14:26 What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.
Mutual encouragement was the hallmark of the gathering. "Every one of you" was its most outstanding characteristic. Even the songs themselves were marked by an element of mutuality. Paul extort the brethren to "speak to
yourselves, teaching and admonishing
one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16). In such an open format, the early Christians readily compose their own songs and sang them in their meeting. Freshness, openness, and spontaneity are the chief marks of this meeting. Mutual edification is its primary goal. The meeting reflected a flexible spontaneity where the spirit of God was in utter control. Jesus Christ was free to move through any member of his body as He willed. And since He was leading the meeting, everything was done in an orderly fashion. In fact, the Holy Spirit so governed the early church that if a person receive an insight while another was sharing, the second speaker was free to interject his thought (1 Cor. 14:29-30).
The truth is that many Christians -like Israel of old- still clamor for a king to rule over them. They want a visible mediator to tell us what "God hath said" (Exodus 20:19; 1 Sam. 8:19). Unfortunately, the presence of a human moderator in a Christian gathering is a cherished tradition to which most believers are fiercely committed.
But it does not square with Scripture. Far worse, it suppresses Christ’s Headship. But these restrictive positions are light-years away from the free and open exercise of spiritual gifts that was afforded to every believer in the early church gatherings.
What is the Sunday Morning Sermon?
In short, the modern Christian mindset equates the sermon with Sunday morning worship. But it does not end there. Most Christians are addicted to the sermon. They come to church with an empty bucket expecting the preacher to fill it up with a "feel-good" message. Remove the sermon and you have eliminated the most important source of spiritual nourishment for most believers (so it is thought) yet a stunning reality is that the sermon has no root in Scripture. Rather, it was borrowed from the pagan culture, nursed and adopted into the Christian faith. Granted, the Scriptures do record men and yes even women preaching. However, there is a world of difference between the spirit inspired preaching described in the Bible and the modern sermon. This difference is virtually always overlooked because we have been unwittingly conditioned to read our modern day practices back into the Scripture. So we mistakenly embraced today's pulpiteerism as being Biblical. Let's contrast the two.
The modern Christian sermon has the following features:
v It is a regular occurrence-delivered faithfully from the pulpit at least once a week.
v It is delivered by the same person, typically the pastor.
v It is delivered to a passive audience; it is essentially a monologue.
v It is a cultivated form of speech, possessing a specific structure. It typically contains an introduction, three to five points, and a conclusion.
Contrast this kind of preaching mentioned in the Bible. In the Old Testament, men of God preached and taught. But their speaking did not map like the modern sermon.
Here are the features of Old Testament preaching and teaching:
v Active participation and interruptions by the audience were common.
v They spoke extemporaneously and out of a present burden, rather than from a set script.
v There is no indication that the Old Testament prophets or priests gave regular speeches to God's people.
Instead, the nature of Old Testament preaching was sporadic, fluid, and open for audience participation. Preaching in the ancient synagogue followed a similar pattern.
Now we come to the New Testament, Lord Jesus did not preach a regular sermon to the same audience. His preaching and teaching took many different forms. He delivered his message is to many different audiences.
His disciples follow the same pattern, as the apostolic preaching recorded in Acts possesses the following features.
v It was sporadic.
v It was delivered on special occasions in order to deal with specific problems.
v It was extemporaneous and without rhetorical structure. The spontaneous and non-rhetorical character of the apostolic message delivered in Acts is evident upon inspection. (Acts 2:14-36; 7:1-52; 17:22-34).
v It was most often dialogical (meaning it include feedback and interruptions from the group) rather than monologue (a one-way discourse).
The Greek word often used to describe first century preaching is dialegomai. Our English word "dialogue" is derived from it. In short, apostolic ministry was more dialogue than it was monological sermonics (William Barclay,
Communicating the Gospel Sterling: The Drummond Press, 1968, pp. 34-35).
Suppose You Want To Try New Church.
You may want to attend a church called the "FirstPresbycharisbaptist Church." When you inquire about becoming a member, they hand you a "statement of faith" listing all of their theological beliefs. Many of the doctrines that appear on this list go far beyond the essential foundations of the faith that mark all genuine Christians. As you continue to attend the "FirstPresbycharisbaptist Church" you quickly discover that in order to be fully received, you must hold to
their view of spiritual gifts and eternal security. Perhaps
their view of election and the second coming of Christ must be believed. Baptism may mean being sprinkled or getting dunked in a 4 x 6 tank? Whatever it may be, if you happen to disagree with them on one of these doctrinal points, you are made to feel that you would be happier attending elsewhere!
Do you see the problem with this? While "FirstPresbycharisbaptist Church" claims to be a church, they do not meet the biblical requirement for church. They have undercut, the biblical basis for fellowship, which is the Body of Christ
alone. In the eye of the Lord, they are not church. They are a
sect. Nowhere does the Bible sanction us to divide from other believers on account of a doctrinal difference. On the contrary, God forbid any division on doctrinal grounds. Romans 16:17 and Titus 3:9-11 does not refer to doctrinal error.
They instead refer to people who use doctrine to polarize an embroil the church. These are those who use their own doctrinal beliefs to divide God's people. Scripture is very clear, if a person belongs to the Lord, then he is part of the church.
Alter call... Please!
Paul
