Can the Word alone do its Job?
I've been reading Richard Hooker (1554-1600) as a part of my studies, and I've come across an interesting idea that he discusses in Book V of his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Defending the Church of England practice of the Public Reading of the Scriptures, Hooker makes the case that preaching is not absolutely necessary to evangelism. The Puritans decided that the goal of salvation could only be reached through the preaching of the Word, therefore, the public reading of the Scriptures as part of Worship was not needed, or should not be practiced, unless preaching followed. In other words, the only passages to be read aloud in a worship service were the ones that would presently be preached, exposed, and added to with commentary. Otherwise, according to the Puritan way, no public reading of the Scriptures would be allowed.
I found this story quite interesting and contemporary to us today. Many churches today have neglected the public reading of the Scriptures as a part of the worship service, except for the passages that will be preached on the day. Many argue that it is a time issue, that it takes too much time just to read the Bible aloud. Also, some would not see the point of reading a passage if it was not preached in the same service.
A few questions:
Is preaching necessary for salvation (evangelism)?
Must preaching follow the reading of the Word?
Can hearing the Scriptures alone be effectual for salvation (evangelism)?
What are the public Scripture reading practices in your local Nazarene congregations?
And please do not get me wrong. I am in no way claiming that preaching is unnecessary or useless.
The Peace of Christ be always with You,
Joseph
I found this story quite interesting and contemporary to us today. Many churches today have neglected the public reading of the Scriptures as a part of the worship service, except for the passages that will be preached on the day. Many argue that it is a time issue, that it takes too much time just to read the Bible aloud. Also, some would not see the point of reading a passage if it was not preached in the same service.
A few questions:
Is preaching necessary for salvation (evangelism)?
Must preaching follow the reading of the Word?
Can hearing the Scriptures alone be effectual for salvation (evangelism)?
What are the public Scripture reading practices in your local Nazarene congregations?
And please do not get me wrong. I am in no way claiming that preaching is unnecessary or useless.
The Peace of Christ be always with You,
Joseph
posted by Joseph | 11:00 AM
12 Comments:
Would it be ridiculous to just quote Romans 10:13-14?
"...for, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?"
Paul seems to be saying here that preaching (the proclamation of the Good News) is required if people are to come to faith. Of course, at the time he was writing this, any "Scripture reading" would need explanation to show how Christ had fulfilled those Scriptures. Now, we have much of that proclamation recorded for us in the New Testament. So the public reading of the New Testament could probably function as the equivalent of "preaching."
To answer your other 3 questions:
No, preaching doesn't have to follow the reading of the Word. (But I'd think it would seem a bit odd if it didn't, in a public Christian worship service.)
Yes, I imagine that hearing the Scriptures alone could be effectual for salvation. Some people have come to faith in Christ after finding a Bible (or portion of Scripture) and reading it for themselves. But I think that's because of what I said above: the NT contains the preaching/proclamation of the early church.
In our church (of the Nazarene), the only public reading of Scripture is during/part of the message. When we started the church 8 years ago, we did 3 readings before the message (with the message drawing from all 3), but sometime during the first year, we dropped the separate readings. Occasionally a passage of Scripture is read in between songs or before a prayer, etc., but it's not the norm.
Not entirely ridiculous, but it is not too hard to counter that verse with one in the same chapter.
Romans 10.17 - 'Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.'
If the word of Christ is what we read in the Gospels, and if faith comes from hearing the word of Christ, then it seems possible, even very likely, that hearing the Gospels is necessary for faith, which brings about the truth of salvation. Paul tells us that even hearing the Word alone is effectual for faith and salvation. He does call preaching, 'foolish' in 1 Corinthians as well.
I think our preaching can easily become opinionated and drift away from the text. Reading the Word and letting it stand alone seems to give more value to it. Allowing the Word to be proclaimed, untainted by our possible mistakes in interpretation, seems to be an act of reverence and awe for the Word of God. Not adding or taking away (ie, Revelation 22.18) also is avoided in reading the word alone.
I guess I'm trying to make a case for the validity of reading the Word, allowing it to stand alone.
In addition, many people don't even read their Bibles at home, so why should we not read the Bible more in Church?
May I ask why you stopped doing the readings in your church?
I don't think I could take anyone seriously who tried to argue that we shouldn't read too much Scripture in our services because it takes up too much time. And yet, even though they'd never say it, I am confident that this is the implicit reason many pastors and worship leaders don't devote more time and attention to Scripture.
In one of his books (The Body Broken I think) Robert Benson - who has become probably my favorite spiritual writer - makes the observation that most evangelicals or self-proclaimed "biblical" Christians (as if there are Christians who aren't?) would be shocked to discover that the worship services of liturgical churches contain more Scripture in one Sunday than they receive in a month of Sundays (so that's, let's see, 30 days in a month, so more than half a year, right?).
He makes an important point, I think. "WE" are the ones who take the Bible seriously - not those dirty Episcopalians who think they can pick and choose which verses they like and don't like to justify whatever their liberal agenda of the moment might be - and especially not those Catholics, who everyone knows don't even read the Bible (on their own) at all! And yet, liturgically speaking, neither tradition is allowed to pick and choose which verses they like and don't like, or use and don't use, or read and don't read, because they are bound, obligated, to give almost all of it voice at one time or another within worship. So who is it that actually does more picking and choosing...? (gulp.) I'm thinking we do.
And this is of course to say nothing of the fact that the great majority of the liturgy itself is drawn from Scripture. I'd like to sit down at some point and figure out a percentage of how many phrases in a given liturgy are lifted directly from Scripture - of course it would vary from tradition to tradition, but it would be interesting to know that, just to make up a number, Rite I of the ECUSA's '79 BCP is comprised of 87% scripture. Which provokes another thought: wouldn't it be great if there were standard, recommended dietary requirements for spiritual and theological nutrition? Every church could then be required to publish their own "Nutritional Facts," like you get on the side of the cereal box, about how much or how little you can expect of the important nutritional elements: Scripture, prayer, sacraments, fellowship, etc. And of course, as good consumers, we'd choose our church based on those figures! Yippee!
I'm not sure I really answered your 4 questions, Joseph. Here we go:
1. no, salvation is not contingent upon a homily;
2. no, a sermon need not necessarily accompany the reading of Scripture;
3. no, merely "hearing the Scriptures alone" does not effect salvation, although hearing the Scriptures read CAN effect salvation via the power of the Holy Spirit, without exposition or explanation from a preacher; and
4. all I'll say about my own church is, we could (and are trying to) do a lot better and be a lot more intentional about making space in our worship for Scripture to speak on its own terms and in its own Voice.
A quick argument, too, for the Word/word distinction. As Scripture is clear that JESUS is the creative Word (Logos) of God, certainly the Word-JESUS alone can do its (His) job. But to address the question you pose in the title of the post, I'd have to ask if you mean the BIBLE (word) or JESUS (Word), and what you are suggesting "its" (His?) "Job" is? ("effecting salvation" seems to be what you're driving at.)
The Bible (alone) cannot save.
Jesus (alone) can, and does, save.
Word, or word. Hmm. In the post title, 'Can the Word alone do its Job?', there is a contradictory statement there. 'Word' and 'its' do not match up. By doing that, you have found one of the major questions of soteriology and evangelicalism. Who does the saving? The Word or the word?
Of course I believe it is Christ who saves, not the bible, but actually, I believe it is the Triune God who saves for we cannot come to faith except through the work of the Holy Spirit, sent of the Father.
Effect might have been a bad word to use. Maybe 'bringing about faith' would be better, for Christ's salvific work was effectual 2,000 yrs ago.
I'm rambling. I guess the best way to say it would be that the word (unaccompanied by exlpanation) can bring about faith in the Word only IF accompanied by the work of the Holy Spirit.
In other words, the reverent reading of the word in public can bring about faith in non-beilevers even without preaching.
Good job catching that one Brannon!
Yes - thanks for making the correction viz. the Trinity. I'm certainly not a "Jesus only" Christian (i.e. heretic). By "Jesus (alone) can save, and does" I meant more along the lines of what you said - God saves us by offering us participation in the Divine life via the Incarnate Son (who "made His home among us that we might forever dwell in You [God]"), by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Or something like that...haven't had my coffee yet!)
Ok, here’s another angle. . . Why is it just Scripture vs. Sermon? I absolutely agree with what your saying Brannon, regarding the saturation of scripture within high church liturgies. And I laugh at the absurdity of so-called ‘biblical’ Christians claiming to have a higher view of Scripture than Orthodox or otherwise. Ha ha!
But it seems to me the initial question underscores our (over-) emphasis on word (be it written or spoken) vs. image. Where’s the centrality of the Table in all this? Of course, for Protestants, the sermon or spoken word has become the central focus of our worship and apparently the primary means of leading someone to salvation. But we are starving here!
John Dillenberger challenges me as he talks a lot about this tension in his writing, reasserting the importance that the central image of the Table brings to proper worship. The table, if it is not in fact the center of our worship, is at least as important as the word proclaimed, whether in sermon or scriptural form. P. Julia.
Julia,
I believe if you take a look at a majority of the conversasions here and on Sacramental Nazarenes you will find that most of us agree with you about the Table's centrality in worship.
The emphasis of this particular blog is concerned with the question of simply Reading the Scriptures as a valid part of the worship service and the possibility of hearing the word spoken and not preached as being a means of grace, which, through the Spirit, brings about faith in the hearer.
Who is John Dillenberger?
Joseph
I do not think that it is odd at all that in the BCP that for both morning and evening prayer except for on Sundays, most of the time, that a sermon or homily is not even given. I think that it is good to hear the Word read and not preached on from time to time. There is something about just listening to the reading of the Word that is helpful. I know that often times when reading the Gospel out loud before I preach on the text on Sunday mornings that something will come to me from hearing myself read it that I some how missed in hours of sermon prep. Maybe I'm just wired different, but I think that the public reading of Scripture is a power witness to the Gospel. I think we need to hear good expository preaching, but at the same time I firmly believe that at other times we need to let the Word stand on its own, as a means of encountering the Living Word "JESUS".
I use three readings every Sunday and preach on one of the readings.
I also use two or three readings at our mid-week prayer gathering (NO PREACHING). I can not see how people can sit through a sermon that is basically a nice talk with a few scripture verses threw in for good major. In some churches there is no public reading of the Word. Just a sermon loosely based on a few verses.
Peace in Christ,
Steven
The people who spoke in what we now call the 'word', helped bring people to faith by their speaking. If what they spoke became what we now call 'holy', then obviously all those who came to faith through hearing their words came to faith through hearing the 'holy word'. Does that make sense?
Example: Peter's words spoken in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, now made 'holy' in the Scriptures, brought thousands to faith in Christ through their hearing. How can we say that publicly reading just those words of Peter, without any preaching or commentary added, can't bring someone to faith today?
Thanks for the comment Pastor Steven, and kudos on reading the word in your services.
Joseph
Obviously I am waayyy late to this conversation, and for that Joseph has my apologies.
Just a couple of thoughts. In our service, as well as the "traditional" service, the only scripture read is that which is about to be preached. My first response, and one that has already been mentioned, is that if this is due to time concerns, then that is absolutely pathetic. I don't believe that people are going to leave a church because the service goes 5 minutes past 12pm and if they do, they weren't committed in any way, shape, or form in the first place.
However, I wonder if we are echoing a medieval mindset in our refusal to read scripture in service. I.e. Do we not read it because we have it ingrained in our minds that it must undergo exegesis in order for the layity to fully understand and appreciate it? Maybe not, but just a thought.
In recent weeks we have begun reading a passage of scripture as part of worship during our wednesday night programming with the teens. I find that it brings new depth to our worship regardless of if I am preaching on that passage or not.
Finally, nothing is necessary for salvation, save for the "faithfulness of Christ" and the only thing that can "effect" it is the movement of the Holy Spirit. This sounds profoundly cliche and obvious, but I think too often we attach unnecessary "necessaties" to salvation. This can certainly come through the reading of scripture or the homily but also through any number of ways and means.
grace and peace
I agree 100% with this article. Has anyone seen the site called Naznet? It's basicly for losers who have no minds. It's full of censorship and loves to tear others apart who don't agree with them.
And then you have John Seaman who is a DS from Michigan advocating a return to the "holiness language". This is the reason I left the Nazarene church....listening to dogmatic trash like he is advocating.
Then you have a secret society in the leadership of the denomination where no one knows how much GS's or DS's make. Go figure why this denomination won't last long.
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