The Day Together

The Day Together

121112

Life together under the Word begins at an early hour with a worship service together. "O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I plead my case to you and watch." Ps. 5:4. There are many other references to praying in the morning. The Scriptures remind us many times of men of God who got up early to seek God.It is vain to get up early and worry says the Psalms. But, "there is such a thing as rising early for the love of God. That was the practice of the men of the Holy Scriptures."

Three things should form a part of every daily worship service.

  1. Prayer. Using the Psalms as a form of prayer is an ancient practice that should be continued. If there are Psalms that one feels they cannot pray, they should use the ones they can, but read the other and remember they are Scripture and therefore the holy word of God. Jesus Christ clearly prayed the Psalms as that was the practice in his time for Jews. Shy should we not do the same? The Psalter is the great school of prayer.
    1. We learn that prayer means praying on the basis of promises.
    2. We learn from the prayer of the Psalms what we should pray.
    3. We learn to pray as a community.
  2. Scripture Reading. (121113) Reading selected passages daily is valuable, but "the Holy Scriptures are more than selected Bible passages." It is important to read complete passages from both the OT and the NT regularly. DB suggests an OT chapter and at least half a NT chapter twice a day. "…those who are not willing to learn how to deal with the Scriptures for themselves are not Protestant Christians."
  3. Singing Together. We are told in Psalms to "sing to the Lord a new song. When we sing together, we both speak and pray the Word at the same time. The music is completely the servant of the Word. <I wonder what DB would have thought about some praise songs, what I call 7-11 music. cae> "There is no place in the worship service where vanity and bad taste can so assert themselves as in the singing." DB is talking here about unison singing, not harmonized singing.

Prayer Together. 121114 While set prayers cane be a help and these prayers can be beautiful and profound, extemporaneous prayers is important and even vital to a Christian prayer life.

Breaking of Bread. The scripture talks about 3 kinds of community at the table that Jesus keeps with his own—the daily breaking of bread at meals, the breaking of bread at the Lord's Supper, and the final breaking of bread together in the reign of God. In all three, the thing that counts is that "their eyes were opened and they recognized him." What does it mean to recognize Jesus Christ in the breaking of bread?

  1. Christ is the giver of all gifts.
  2. The girts are only given for the sake of Christ as the whole world is preserved for the sake of Jesus Christ.
  3. The community believes that its Lord wants to be present wherever it asks him to be present.

"Hunger begins only when people desire to keep their own bread for themselves."

Work. After morning worship, the Christian's day until evening belongs to work. "Prayer should not be hindered by work, but neither should work be hindered by prayer." Prayer surrounds the whole day, not in a way to hinder or interfere with work, but to promote and affirm it. "…whatever you do, in word of deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus." Col 3:17. Our daily bread is not a result of our work; it is provided to us by God's grace.

Evening Worship. A psalm, a hymn, and prayers in the evening are a way to end to day. Important in the prayers is forgiveness and reconciliation.

Charles Eklund 2018