Two Thousand Years
of Doing It Wrong?

What is this page about?

Here is how the claim sounds. This page wrote it as an example. It is not from a real person.

First, agree with what is right in it.

• People can say the words of worship and not mean them. This often happens.
• A form can become an empty shell. The Bible says it strongly: “These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” (Matthew 15:8) Jesus said this to very careful religious people.
• Old words do not save a service where nobody means the words.
• This page does not say that ceremony is holy or that older is always better.

So the question is not “Can forms be dangerous?” They can. The question is smaller. Is it true that the first Christians had no fixed order? And what does a church lose when it drops the old one?

The short answer

1. The church that says it has no liturgy has an order of service. A countdown and music. A welcome. Three to five songs that grow loud and then soft. Announcements. The offering. A forty-minute sermon. A response. The end. It is the same every week, in thousands of rooms. A visitor knows it after two Sundays. That is a liturgy.

2. So the difference is this: did anyone write it down? If you do not like a written prayer, you can find the sentence. You can take it to a meeting and get it changed. This has happened many times. If you do not like an unwritten order, there is nothing to point to. It has no text and no author. It is just “how we do things”. That is the strongest kind of rule.

3. The oldest description of a Christian Sunday service already has the well-known shape. About the year 155, a Christian named Justin wrote to the Roman emperor. He explained what Christians do on Sunday.

• Everyone comes together.
• The writings of the prophets and the apostles are read for a long time.
• The leader preaches about them.
• Everyone stands and prays.
• Bread, wine and water are brought. The leader gives thanks at length. The people answer “Amen”.
• Helpers give it to everyone and carry some to people who could not come.
• Money is collected for children without parents, widows, sick people, prisoners and strangers.

4. The oldest Christian handbook already gives fixed words. It is called the Didache, and it may be from the first century. It gives the words for baptism. It gives the words of the thanksgiving prayers over the bread and the cup. It tells Christians to confess their sins before they break bread on the Lord’s day. And it tells them to pray the Lord’s Prayer three times a day.

5. An outsider describes the same thing. In the year 112 a Roman governor named Pliny wrote to his emperor. He said that the Christians met on a fixed day before the sun came up. They sang a song to Christ, one group answering the other. Later they met again to eat together. He had no reason to say nice things about them. He was hurting them to get information.

6. It came from the Jewish meeting house. Jesus stood up to read. He was given the book, he read, he closed the book, he sat down and taught (Luke 4). Paul spoke “After the reading of the law and the prophets” (Acts 13:15). After Jesus rose, the apostles still went to the temple “at the hour of prayer” (Acts 3:1). The Last Supper was part of the Passover service, and it ended with a fixed song (Matthew 26:30). Planned readings, given prayers, the people’s “Amen”, and the psalms were all there already.

7. Parts of the liturgy are inside the New Testament. Paul passes on the words of the Lord’s Supper as a fixed tradition: “For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you” (1 Corinthians 11:23). Some passages, like Philippians 2:6-11, sound like songs that Paul is quoting. And Paul expects the church to say “the ‘Amen’ at your giving of thanks” (1 Corinthians 14:16).

8. Churches that have not spoken to each other since the 400s still pray the same words. “Lift up your hearts” was a normal custom in North Africa about the year 252. Today it stands in the same place in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian and Ethiopian services. One of these churches separated in the year 431. Churches that stopped talking could not copy each other later. So they had these words before they separated.

9. In the oldest evidence, the Sunday service ends at the Lord’s table, not at the sermon.

On the first day of the week, when the disciples were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them

Acts 20:7 · World English Bible

In simple words: On the first day of the week, the followers of Jesus came together to break bread. Paul spoke to them.

They came together to break bread. The preaching happened while they were there.

10. The Reformation did not end the liturgy. The Reformers wrote this themselves.

Falsely are our churches accused of abolishing the Mass; for the Mass is retained among us, and celebrated with the highest reverence.

The Augsburg Confession, 1530

In simple words: People say that our churches have ended the Mass. That is false. We keep the Mass, and we hold it with the greatest respect. (“Mass” was the old name for the service of the Lord’s Supper.)

Luther’s service of 1523 was the old service with one prayer taken out. John Calvin wanted the Lord’s Supper every week. The city leaders of Geneva said no and gave him four times a year.

11. Even the people who ended the English prayer book wrote a new order. In 1645 they wrote a guide for worship. It gave the order of the service. It asked for one chapter from each part of the Bible at every meeting, with the books read straight through in order.

12. Take the order away, and five things happen. See Part 2.

13. But two thousand years does not prove that something is right. This page says so plainly. Things can last a long time for many reasons. The liturgy has carried mistakes too, and the Reformers took some out. The long record shows something smaller. The shape is very early. It appears in churches that had no contact. And each part of it does a job that we can name and test.

So here is a fair test. Does a church without the old order read more Bible, give the people more to say aloud, and break bread more often than a church with a liturgy? Then by this page’s own test, it is doing better.

Five things that happen without the order

1. The man at the front becomes the service. There is nothing else in it.
2. Teaching slowly changes. There are no fixed words, so nobody can notice the change.
3. Feeling becomes the test. People ask, “Did I feel that we worshipped?” Nothing else is measured.
4. The Bible gets smaller. One man chooses the passages. Every preacher has passages that he loves and passages that he never uses.
5. The people become silent. See Part 4.

How old is it?

You cannot tell the age of a prayer by how it feels.

• “Lift up your hearts.” It was known about the year 252.
• A prayer about bread that was scattered on the hills and brought together into one. It is from the Didache, maybe from the first century. It sounds modern, because modern prayers have copied it.
• “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” This sounds very old. It is from the 1960s.
• “Let all mortal flesh keep silence”. Many people know this as a hymn from the 1800s. It is a song from the church of Jerusalem in the 300s or 400s.
• “The Lord be with you.” People answer, “And with your spirit.” This is known from the 200s. The greeting is even older. In the Old Testament a farmer says to his workers: “May Yahweh be with you.” (Ruth 2:4)

This cuts both ways. Old-sounding words can be new. New-sounding words can be very old.

Something nobody expects: the people become silent

Both sides usually believe the opposite. People think of free worship as worship where everyone takes part. They think of the old service as one man in special clothes and a silent crowd. Count the words that the people say aloud, and it is the other way round.

In the full Lord’s Supper service of the English prayer book of 1662, the people say many things. They answer after each of the Ten Commandments. They say the creed. They all confess their sins together. They say “Holy, holy, holy”. They say the Lord’s Prayer two times. They say “Amen” after every prayer. That is between six hundred and eight hundred words. The service is free to read, and you can count it in ten minutes.

In the usual free service, the people sing. Singing is real taking part. But apart from the songs, the people usually say nothing. Every spoken word comes from the stage.

What does your order of service teach?

A service teaches by its shape. Look at six parts of a usual free service.

1. Three to five songs before anything is read. This teaches that people must reach a certain feeling before they can hear the Bible. It also teaches that “worship” means the music. In every old service, “worship” is the whole service.
2. Announcements between the songs and the sermon. This teaches that the songs and the sermon are two separate blocks.
3. An offering with its own speech. This teaches that giving is a payment to the organisation. In the oldest description, the money was for children without parents, widows, sick people, prisoners and strangers.
4. A sermon of forty minutes, half of the service. This teaches that the people have come to be spoken to.
5. A response at the end: a song and a call to decide. This teaches that the most important thing happens inside each person, and he must do it. The old service ends with something put into your hands.
6. The end, with no Lord’s table and often no blessing. People leave with teaching and with their own feelings. In the old service, a blessing is spoken over the people. They did not earn it.

Five questions for a service

These questions are about the shape of a service, not about its style. A small group in a living room, with no building and no music, can pass all five. They test a service. They do not test a person.

1. How much of the Bible is read aloud, just as reading?
2. Who chooses the readings? Is there a fixed plan, or does the preacher choose each week? With a fixed plan, people hear things that nobody would choose.
3. Apart from singing, what do the people say aloud?
4. Do people confess their sins, and is forgiveness spoken to them aloud? Forgiveness that is spoken aloud is something outside you. You can rest on it.
5. What happens if the minister is away this Sunday? If nothing can happen without him, the service is the man.

Fair arguments against this page

“Jesus warned against vain repetitions.” He did: “In praying, don’t use vain repetitions” (Matthew 6:7). This means many empty words, in the hope that many words will move God. Is it a rule against fixed prayers? Look at what Jesus says next: “Pray like this: ‘Our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). He answers the warning with a fixed prayer.

“1 Corinthians 14 shows a free meeting.” It does. Everyone brings a song, a teaching or a message. This is the best passage for the other side. But see what Paul does. He gives rules for the rest of the chapter. Only two or three should speak, one at a time. He ends: “Let all things be done decently and in order.” (1 Corinthians 14:40)

“A man with no faith can hide behind a liturgy.” This is true, and it is a real cost. But a service with no written order does not show which man has no faith. It shows which man has no talent. A preacher with charm and little depth passes easily. A godly man with a dull voice does not.

“The liturgy kept mistakes too.” Yes. The Reformers said so and took some out. But why could they? The mistakes were written down. Someone could point to a sentence and argue for a change. Nobody can do that with an unwritten habit. A written form can be corrected. A habit can only be broken, and only by the person in charge.

Check it yourself

1. Read Justin’s description of Sunday worship from about the year 155. It is three short chapters, free online. Write down the order he gives.
2. Read the Didache. It is about nine pages.
3. Read Acts 2:41-47, Acts 20:7-12 and 1 Corinthians 14, one after another.
4. Read the Lord’s Supper service in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Mark every line that the people say.
5. Read the other side: the opening pages of the 1645 guide for worship. It gives the best argument against fixed prayers.