Bethany Over Bank of America

By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:

Valuing the Covenant Community of Faith on the Lord's Day

Good Morning!

The first chapter of the Westminster Directory of Public Worship has within it two ideas that we will take up one at a time: The Assembling of the Congregation and Behavior in the Public Worship of God. Both important parts of what we do on the Lord’s Day (and at other times in our lives). While these will be connected in the quotations I’ll share, we will be sure to give each their due. It is important to remember at the start that the very word Church has as its definition, Gathering Together. The Greek word Ekklesia, where we get our translation of Ecclesiastical, or in English, Church, means those who assemble together for the purposes either of religious worship or to hear speeches from political leaders. We shade away of course from the latter for sure in this case, but we do need to see that there is a common bond. Each refers to the unity of the body. The first speaking of those united together in Christ, the second of those bound to a common place, a polis, or city. It is why when we talk about coming to Church we mean more than just attendance in a building. Just as we speak about Americans, we also talk about Christians.

To say we are assembling together as the church is a statement about the way we care about one another. It’s an act of loving your neighbor as yourself. Seeing worship as many voices joining forces as one to praise the name of God Almighty in His grace and love. To say Bethany ARP Church is to reference history, tradition, hope, dreams, a common confession of faith, and all numbers of ideas that look back and forward to the promises we each have in our Savior. 1 Corinthians 12 is a popular place to go to explain this more clearly. Paul there uses the individual parts of the body to describe that an arm is useless without a shoulder connecting it to the heart, lungs, and brain. The same is true of the Church and the gathering she does on the Sabbath morning. We are to think of ourselves as incomplete when men and women, who are otherwise not providentially hindered, miss out on the means of grace that God designed that we would benefit from together.

Here is a quote from the first chapter to get us started:

WHEN the congregation is to meet for publick worship, the people (having before prepared their hearts thereunto) ought all to come and join therein; not absenting themselves from the publick ordinance through negligence, or upon pretence of private meetings.

Continue here.

See also:

• The Reformation and the Worship of God - by Benjamin Glaser (substack.com)
• Not With Candles, Crooks, or Canaries - by Benjamin Glaser (substack.com)