God Speaks

Excerpts from Thabiti Anyabwile post:  Who's Doing the Talking in Our Church Gatherings?

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The review left me asking myself: Who’s doing the speaking in our church gatherings?

The fatal flaw in my reviewer’s comments was his tendency to think that the service at its best is a conversation between man and man, a human dialogue, a gathering of people of rather equal status speaking to one another.  But is that really what’s happening in preaching and in the gathered worship of the church?  How we answer this question reveals much about our theology of the church gathering and of preaching in particular.

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The very structure reflects a running dialogue–not between the people gathered, though we “speak to one another in songs,” etc.–but fundamentally between God and His people.  We come singing to our God, but He speaks the first word in the “call to worship.”  We respond in song.  Then God addresses us again by the reading of His word.  We then speak to Him in prayer of confession.  Following the confession, God speaks to us in the “assurance of pardon” taken from Scripture each week.  Hearing His promise of pardon, we then respond in song.  God speaks next in the sermon.  God gets the bulk of the service to say what’s on His mind, disclosed in the word of God.  Following God’s word to us, we respond in praise.  We then receive the benediction or words of blessing from God, before sitting in silence (hopefully awe) before the God of the universe.

The Christian worship service is inherently dialogical.  The dialogue, however, involves a more important party than any living human.  The Lord of the Universe speaks during the service.  We have the wondrous privilege of being able to speak to Him as a community of saints.  When God speaks through the exposition of His word there certainly will be many reactions, but as our Sovereign speaks there should not be an interruption in favor of our pooling our comments and sharing our insights.  Our best wisdom is foolishness before God.  Better to first listen to the One who speaks, then talk with one another about it afterward.

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