This blog post probably isn’t what you were thinking it would be. I’m not going to give any opinion here about when churches should return to gathered corporate worship, or what health measures we should take. (Although I will note that our elders at POPC are meeting this week to discuss when they want to open wide the church doors again for the saints here, and we covet your prayers.) Rather, I want to share with you a few sentences about public worship that I came across in the 1884 Encyclopedia of the Presbyterian Church in the USA (scroll down the page and you’ll see the link to this large book) . These points were succinct, encouraging, and I believe will be important for us all to meditate on as we prepare to return to gathered corporate worship, whenever that might be. How will we return? Will it be with a proper understanding of the importance of gathering together with the saints, and in a proper approach to our triune God?
Public worship is of great utility.
1. It gives Christians an opportunity of openly professing their faith in and love to Christ.
2. It preserves a sense of religion in the mind, without which society could not well exist.
3. It enlivens devotion and promotes zeal.
4. It is the means of receiving instruction and consolation.
God is eminently honored by the social worship of his people, and he delights to honor the ordinances of his public worship by making them means of grace. Most commonly it is by means of these ordinances that sinners are awakened and converted, and that saints are edified and comforted.
Public worship should be:
1. Solemn, not light and trifling (Psalm 89:7; Hebrews 12:28-29);
2. Simple, not pompous and ceremonial (Isaiah 29:13; 62:2);
3. Cheerful, and not with forbidding aspect (Psalm 100);
4. Sincere, and not hypocritical (Isaiah 1:12 ; Matthew 23:13 ; John 4:24);
5. Scripturally pure, and not superstitious (Isaiah 57:15).
— “Public Worship” in the Encyclopedia of the Presbyterian Church in the USA
As we continue to remain apart, may the Lord keep creating within our hearts the longing and hunger for His courts; and may we return with a spiritual frame of heart, in reverent joy, with simplicity and sincerity!