By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:
The Place and Purpose of the House of the Lord For the ChristianThe last piece from the Westminster Directory of Public Worship that we’ll cover before moving on to the Directory of Church Government beginning in September has to do with the physical places where we gather for worship. The major concern of the original authors of the DPW had to do with how Christians in Scotland, England, and Ireland were to handle former Roman Catholic churches. Did they need torn down completely and built differently? Was there a need to have some kind of cleansing service to get the bad juju out? Our section today makes it clear that the simple answer to that is no, no we don’t believe in things being stained by something that may or may not have happened in a structure of wood and stone or brick.
The other aspect of the question that the below helps us to think about is that as New Testament Protestants we are not overly concerned about the location of our worship. We can sing the psalms with joy in the heart in a cave as much as we can in a storefront or a thousand year old cathedral. Think of our forefathers in the faith at Bethany. When they first gathered as a unique body of believers they built a spring arbor to keep the sun off their shoulders, and were fine with that for close to a decade before a log structure was built. For believers we readily rest in the promise that Christ made about the two or three. That being said there is nothing wrong of course with having a nice, purpose-built building, and then making sure it is taken care of properly. It is a reason that God gave us Deacons (though that is not actually their main calling, despite what some might think). If we are going to have a meeting place, to piggy back off of Tuesday’s devotional, it should be excellent and a witness to the gospel itself. To that end let’s go ahead and read the paragraph for today from the DPW and move into deeper waters:
As no place is capable of any holiness, under pretence of whatsoever dedication or consecration; so neither is it subject to such pollution by any superstition formerly used, and now laid aside, as may render it unlawful or inconvenient for Christians to meet together therein for the publick worship of God. And therefore we hold it requisite, that the places of publick assembling for worship among us should be continued and employed to that use.