By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:
The Place of Corporate Praise in the Worship of the Presbyterian ChurchGood Morning,
We have reached the end of the main section of the Directory of Public Worship. When we went through the shorter catechism it took us a year, and then the larger catechism took two years. It was my design to work through the DPW in a year as well and we have kept that schedule for sure. It is hard to believe that we have been doing these Thursday confessional devotionals since the spring of 2020. If you get the email version we are on #459 including the Tuesday one. I thank you again for your support and diligence in reading these labors of love.
God in His sure and blessed providence had the writers of the DPW close out their document with the singing of God’s people. It is fitting that this is the case since if you go and read the book of Revelation what do you see? The elders and those who have gone before are to be found gathered around the throne praising, adoring, the name of the LORD. Their words are: “You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.” (Rev. 4:11). If this is our future then the Divines are interested in making this our present. Something we may not totally understand when we gather as one on the Lord’s Day is that we are in a sense forsaking ourselves in order to make Christ paramount. We are giving up our words to use the words God has provided for us in His grace.
Uniquely the singing of praise while not the same thing as prayer is like it in the way that it is our speaking unto Jehovah from the heart. Unlike prayer though the DPW is going to show us that the content of our sung thanksgiving is largely already provided to us in the psalms. When Jesus sought to lift up His voice with His friends after the Upper Room experience He used the words that David had given to the covenant people of Israel a thousand years before in the Hallel psalms of Psalm 113-118, witnessed to us in Matthew 26:30.
Here is the opening sentence of today’s section of the DPW for you to meditate on:
It is the duty of Christians to praise God publickly, by singing of psalms together in the congregation, and also privately in the family.