79 Gospel Fellowships Readings (Intro)

Gospel Fellowships Readings The importance of liturgy in the history of the Christian Church over the 2,000 years cannot be underestimated. Some of the earliest hymns in the Church were chants, or scriptural truths read aloud in unison. To verbally proclaim in unison holy truths of God will have a great effect spiritually on the assembly of believers, to strengthen and unify them in the faith once delivered to the saints. We are commended in the Scriptures to verbally proclaim our allegiance to the Son of God, confessing truths that we believe in our heart. Though modern-day evangelicalism is mostly non-liturgical, this was not so in the early days of Christianity. The New Testament suggests that Christian worship incorporated singing of hymns and psalms, prayer, vocal thanksgiving, and instruction. In the Gospel of Luke, 1 Timothy, and Revelation, we see preserved hymns that may have been used in the worship of the early Church. According to an old account of Christians, on an appointed day they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak and to recite a hymn antiphonally to Christ as to a God. Liturgy was surrounded mostly by the celebration of the Lord's Supper. One recommendation is for a gathering of believers to speak one or more of these readings aloud in unison or individually for thanksgiving and declarations of faith. This can build more unified faith and can grant a sanctity to the time together as the body of Christ and the breaking of the bread. This practice of reading Scripture out loud in an assembly or unified singing and reading of liturgy is not something that religious large churches invented, but rather it was a practice of the early Church. May God give us the grace to recapture this apostolic practice for the benefit of His body.