Assembly 2.0: Part 11.1: Introduction; Prayer

The subset of Bible study — theology — relating to the assembly and church organization is called ecclesiology.

Today, the heart of worship (in the popular sense of the word) is the song service. If someone speaks highly of the “worship service,” they likely have the quality of the singing in mind — especially in the Churches of Christ. They will secondarily think about the sermon. After all, the two parts of the assembly for which we hire professionals are the the singing and the sermon. Prayers, the Lord’s Supper, and contribution may be handled by amateurs and done poorly, and we won’t much complain. But if the sermon or the singing is bad, we’re either firing someone or changing congregations.

Locations

Don’t forget the recent posts on congregational autonomy, Parts 10.7 – 10.11. The early church met in homes as a single congregation in each city, with a single eldership. Their gatherings were very much small group meetings today, except these gatherings served the same role as our Sunday morning assemblies in our church buildings.

Prayer

However, the early church thought very differently.

“Worship,” we have noted, is sometimes now a way of talking about music. This would have baffled Christians of the first centuries; music was often important for their communal gatherings, as were buildings or food, but music was neither the most central or distinctive aspect of their gatherings nor identified with “worship” as such, any more than other ritual activities were. Yet sing they did.

McGowan, Andrew B. (2014-09-30). Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical, and Theological Perspective (Kindle Locations 2381-2383).

McGowan points out that “worship” in the First Century church begins with prayer. The church gathered first to pray.

(Acts 1:13-14 ESV)  13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James.  14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. 

(Acts 2:42 ESV)  42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 

(Acts 3:1 ESV)  Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 

(Acts 4:31 ESV)  31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

(Acts 6:4 ESV) 4 “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 

Acts uses “pray” and its cognates (words with the same root) 30 times, compared to 23 for “baptism.” And yet we treat Acts as a manual on baptism and regularly ignore its teachings regarding prayer. As you can see from the above verses, prayer was not the only reason for the church to gather, but it was a major reason. Indeed, “sing” is found but once in Acts (16:25), and this is a reference to Paul and Silas singing in prison. Singing was doubtlessly part of the early Christian assembly, but it was not the focus of the assembly. It’s not even mentioned in the several passages that describe the Christian assemblies, such as at the end of Acts 2.

Ritual prayer

Very early, the church began to pray the Lord’s Prayer routinely. The author of the Didache (100 – 125 AD) instructs his readers to pray the Lord’s Prayer daily. However, we have evidence of ritualized prayer that’s even earlier —

(Acts 2:42 ESV)  42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Most commentators take “the prayers” to be a reference to particular prayers, that is, the prayers ritually said by the early Christians.

Finally, they devoted themselves ‘to the prayers’ (tais proseuchais). The plural form with the article in Greek suggests that the reference is to specific ‘prayers’ (KJV, NRSV, ESV), rather than to prayer in general (TNIV, to prayer). In the context, this most obviously points to their continuing participation in the set times of prayer at the temple.

David Peterson, The Acts of the Apostles (Pillar NTC; Accordance electronic ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 161.

Finally, there is mention of prayers. If the reference is not to part of a Christian meeting, it will be to the way the Christians observed the set Jewish hours of prayer (3:1).

I. Howard Marshall, Acts: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale NTC 5; IVP/ Accordance electronic ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1980), 89.

The best evidence we have is that the Jews prayed either twice or three times daily, at the third hour (9 a.m.), sixth hour (noon), and ninth hour (3 pm). We know that Daniel prayed three times a day, which became the Jewish tradition. We have some evidence that during Jesus’ day, the Jews prayed at the hours of sacrifice (third and ninth hours). It’s likely that by the time of Jesus, these prayers were ritualized — memorized prayers written for this purpose.

It seems likely that the early church continued the Jewish practice, at least for a while, but soon modified the practice to include the Lord’s Prayer and to otherwise express specifically Christian beliefs.

We also have —

(Lk. 11:2-4 ESV)  2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.  3 Give us each day our daily bread,  4 and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”

Jesus assumes that his disciples will pray, and the language suggests a routine, ritualized way of praying.

Jesus replied by delivering a form of words. His opening, When you pray, say, shows that he intended the prayer to be used just as it stands. In Matthew it is introduced with, ‘Pray then like this’, which makes it a model on which we can base other prayers. Christians have found both approaches helpful.

Leon Morris, Luke: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale NTC 3; IVP/Accordance electronic ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 211-212.

In the Churches of Christ, we have a “low church” worship tradition, meaning that we don’t do the Lord’s Prayer — which seems to violate a fairly direct command. We prefer to think of the Lord’s Prayer as a model, which we may or may not follow. But the early church doubtlessly prayed the Lord’s Prayer, although with variations in the text (as McGowan demonstrates), routinely, likely daily.

We low-church Christians think that ritual prayer is not meaningful. We prefer extemporaneous prayers. But the early church (and Jesus) evidently disagree. After all, by what right do we say that saying the Lord’s Prayer weekly leads to insincerity? Have you asked your friends who do that what it means to them?

The Jewish tradition, going back for centuries, is to use memorized prayers because memorization makes certain that we cover certain points that are important, and repetition allows us to focus on the meaning and on God.

Now, my point isn’t that our low-church approach is wrong but that it’s not the only possible approach and not the First Century approach — which should be respected if not followed.

Posture

Again, we who have a low-church tradition give little thought to our posture while praying. In church, we don’t kneel; we don’t stand; we sit. Most of us sit and bow our heads to pray in church. We figure God surely doesn’t care because he’s concerned with the spoken or unspoken words of the prayer.

But the early church thought of the mind, body, spirit, and soul as a unity. The body mattered. Its posture was a part of the prayer — just as much as the words.

Just so, the early church gave considerable thought to prayer posture — a complete non-issue in the Churches of Christ. The preferred posture was standing, with arms outstretched, reminiscent of the cross. Just so, the Jews generally prayed standing, with arms lifted toward heaven — more like a Y than a Christian T, if that makes sense

Hands were normally lifted or outstretched for both praise and supplication in the Old Testament, Judaism, the ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world. Diaspora Jews usually washed their hands before prayer, so “pure [or holy] hands” became a natural image for genuine worship (cf. also Ps 24:4).

Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (Accordance electronic ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 610.

Of course, there are many examples in scripture of prostration or bowing, which the early church considered approved but not appropriate except in unusual circumstances.

Again, I’m not suggesting that this is a law we must obey, but that we have obviously failed to follow this binding example in 1 Tim 2:8, urging  men to lift holy hands in prayer. We don’t do it, but the command, example, necessary inference hermeneutic would require it.

Worse yet, when one of our members lifts hands in prayer, we are prone to criticize them. Rather than being pleased to see a member honor a command, we sneer that they’re drawing attention to themselves (unlike the loud complainers) or acting “Pentecostal.” We should be ashamed.