“Remember" And Worship: The Mandate And The Means

By Tim Ralston

The Bible paints vivid images of a universe wholly involved in divine worship. So God’s people throughout history have valued corporate worship as their crowning work, believing that “The heart of the Christian life is to be found in the act of public worship.” [1]

By the mid-twentieth century the crown had so tarnished that A. W. Tozer spoke of it as the “missing jewel.” [2] His prophetic voice inspired many to pursue the gem. Worship became a priority as books, conferences, and programs sprang up offering recovery strategies. Many of these new stones lacked the symmetry and purity of the original. Sometimes they were only a paste imitation that appealed to the senses but lacked enduring value. Much was made of Jesus’ words that true worship must be offered “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23–24). Populist teachers said Jesus disdained formal structure and gave us freedom to worship in whatever ways were culturally convenient and personally meaningful. With no prescription and only Acts’ descriptions, it became fashionable to argue that there is no authoritative biblical pattern for the corporate worship of the church.

Today, however, a consensus is growing among evangelical scholars that Jesus did give his disciples a basic paradigm for their formal gatherings. Because the model assumed an understanding of Old Testament theology, was practiced by all the churches, and rarely experienced problems demanding formal correction, explicit prescriptions in the New Testament Epistles were unnecessary. The form was practiced universally to the sixteenth century, at which time all the Protestant Reformers affirmed it. Its demise resulted from theological reaction, pious neglect, and the pragmatic spirit characteristic of American Christianity.

In Spirit And Truth

If we look more closely at Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman, it becomes clear that he was not eliminating issues of form in worship. In the first century, the culture had given the Greek verb, “worship” (proskuneo), the connotation of taking a religious pilgrimage to a place. [3] When the Samaritan women asked where she must go, Jesus corrected her misperception that “place” alone fulfilled God’s concerns.

“Spirit and truth” was an affirmation of Old Testament worship priorities. “Truth” denotes worship that conforms to a true knowledge of God offered in the pattern he prescribes. “In spirit” denotes worship qualified by personal integrity before God and a full engagement in the offering (and is not a reference to the Holy Spirit). [4] Hence, “spirit and truth” resonate Old Testament priorities for true worship. [5] Jesus’ words do eliminate all geographical limits (John 4:21), but such limits were not universally applied in the Old Testament, either. At times God did accept individual sacrifice offered apart from the Tabernacle/Temple where God’s Spirit resided. But today with the indwelling Holy Spirit, believers who gather for worship form his corporate dwelling place on earth (analogous to the Temple), which qualifies them to offer acceptable corporate worship. Jesus’ remarks redirected the woman’s focus from external trappings to the true issues that lie behind all acceptable worship. In this context Jesus’ answer begged all questions of form.

Does this mean that there was no pattern to corporate worship offered by the Church? Early believers “performed the liturgy” (Acts 13:32), suggesting a highly organized corporate activity. [6] The formal structure of their gatherings is not described in detail, but there are suggestions as to their priorities, [7] which reveal that they were “far more concerned with the principles of worship and the spirit which motivates the offering of praise to God.” [8] In their treatments of Old Testament texts they saw themselves as part of a community like that foreseen by the Old Testament prophets. [9] Hence, their priorities and preaching followed those of the prophets, emphasizing a wholehearted pursuit of God and unqualified obedience to the obligations of his covenant with them. Their record is obscure on questions of form, but Paul indicates there was consensus about decorum in corporate worship (1 Corinthians 14:33).

Clearly the early believers shared a common biblical theology about corporate worship. The apparent absence of pattern in the New Testament does not mean that their worship had no common structure. Rather, this may suggest they assumed it was universal and that an astute reader of the Scriptures would have known the theology behind it (just as the New Testament often assumes a fuller appreciation of other Church priorities and practices). Therefore, the search for worship form must not be dominated by the reductionism that only distinguishes between prescription and description in the New Testament. It should strive to reconstruct the biblical theology that lies behind the New Testament record.

A Starting Point

The predominate language of worship in both the Old and New Testaments stresses “bowing down” in total submission to God as the one exercising power over the worshiper (hishtahavah and proskuneo) [10] and “serving” with an attitude of doing whatever God might ask of the worshiper (abad and latreuo). [11] Worship, whether public or private, begins as a formal statement of wholehearted obedience to God. Only those who obey God’s requirements for relationship with him are qualified to offer worship that God will accept. Participation in a covenant with God—and one’s obedience to God’s demands through that covenant—are prerequisites to acceptable worship. Sin, a sign of rebellion against God, disqualifies the offering. It transforms one’s confessions of submission and obedience into a lie.

The prerequisite of covenant relationship with God introduces a third concept: “remember” (zakar and mimneskomai). [12] A central theme of Old Testament covenant, it views a covenant relationship in three directions simultaneously. Looking to the past, one recalls the covenant’s inauguration, keeping in mind the nature of the relationship, its promises, and stipulations. In the present, it asks if the covenant responsibilities are being fulfilled and demands integrity of both parties. In the future, it anticipates God’s unfulfilled covenant promises and confidently expects their blessings. Remembrance permeates all Old Testament worship institutions, both seasonal (Exodus 13:3, 9) and Sabbath (Exodus 20:8). When tied to an action, it denotes an obligatory act of consecration to be repeated as a center of the gathering of God’s people. [13] Conversely, when one “forgets,” the relationship has been forfeited by a failure by one party to fulfill their part of the covenant. [14] The quintessential act of remembrance for the Jews was Passover.

Now consider the one, universal New Testament command to “remember.” In the Synoptic Gospels within the remembrance ethos of a Jewish Passover, Jesus gave his disciples a new rite involving sharing the bread and cup together, spoke of the “[new] covenant,” and then commanded them to “remember.” If his disciples understood their Old Testament, they would have wrestled with Jesus’ de facto definition of a central act for their formal regathering as a group, analogous to the festivals stipulated at the heart of Israel’s worship in which they were now participating.

Luke’s narrative confirms this suggestion. First, he describes the Upper Room scene: As the climax of his long journey to the cross nears, “when the hour was come ... [Jesus] reclined and the apostles with him” (Luke 22:14), then “taking bread [and] giving thanks, [he] broke, and gave it to them” (Luke 22:19). Then, only a few verses later, at the conclusion of his Emmaus story (Luke 24:13–35), Luke offers a striking parallel to the Upper Room: As evening approached “it happened that when he reclined with the disciples, taking bread he blessed it and breaking it he gave it to them” (Luke 24:30). The parallel suggests that Luke saw this scene as a re-enactment of the Upper Room event. This interpretation becomes sure upon the subsequent testimony of the two, “how [Jesus] was made known to them by the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35), as if the other disciples would find Jesus’ act very significant. In Luke’s second volume (Acts), the “breaking of bread” motif appears as a priority: believers “devoted themselves ... to the breaking of bread and prayers” (Acts 2:42) and met explicitly to do it (Acts 20:7, where it can be distinguished from their communal meal, 20:11). Luke presents the Lord’s Supper as a point of identity and worship for the disciples when they gathered. [15]

The Apostle Paul, Luke’s travelling companion, [16] presents a similar picture. His technical expression for church gathering (sunerchomai) [17] associates many corporate functions: mutual edification through the exercise of gift, discipline of individual believers, gathering of offerings, etc. But when focusing on specific issues raised by corporate worship (1 Corinthians 11:17–14:40), the first item addressed is the Lord’s Supper, where its improper celebration has disqualified all else that occurs (1 Corinthians 11:20). In addition, Paul’s well-constructed institution narrative has become the central text for teaching the rite, but his interpretation of the event is usually overlooked. The memorial command (“Do this in remembrance of me”) occurs twice, with both bread and cup (1 Corinthians 11:24–25). This repetition has no Synoptic parallel, indicating Paul stressed the Old Testament “remembrance” aspect of the act and its role in covenant renewal. [18]

Therefore, the absence of prescription concerning worship order in the New Testament has been assumed within the Old Testament remembrance theology used by Jesus to institute the Lord’s Supper, followed by his disciples, and taught by Paul. It denotes the celebration of the Lord’s Supper as a functional focus for worship gatherings.

After The New Testament

Sources confirm the centrality of the Lord’s Table to Christian worship after the New Testament. Christian leaders throughout the Roman Empire share this viewpoint. [19] Even the official report of Pliny, governor of Bythinia (C. 111–112 C.E.), to the Emperor Trajan describing Christian activities may support it. [20] Having “examined” Christians, he concludes that their primary gathering involved a “sacramentum.” This Latin term, usually rendered “vow,” was the Eastern church’s translation for the Greek word, “mystery”, which still is the technical term for the Lord’s Supper. Early Christians were reticent to reveal anything of it, fearing misinterpretation of the Eucharist as cannibalism by nonChristians (as it often was). Pliny’s prisoners under duress likely used this word to denote their weekly celebration of the Table. [21] For the next 1, 500 years there is no record of Sunday gathering of Christians that did not include the Lord’s Supper.

In summary, a properly understood biblical motif of remembrance in the Old Testament pinpoints divinely-commanded covenant practices which focused a community’s relationship with God and expressed their worship. When one moves to the New Testament, the command to “remember” for all Christians is associated exclusively by Christ himself with one corporate rite, the Lord’s Supper. According to biblical theology, this association argues he intended this act to be the organizing focus for his followers’ gatherings. Evidence from the New Testament and earliest post-biblical sources consistently show that their gatherings for corporate worship were arranged with this rite as a central element.

The Reformation And Beyond

Today the Lord’s Supper remains the focus of worship offered by all ancient forms of Christianity. Only denominations formed after the Protestant Reformation have lost it. How did those who profess to be most dependent upon the Scriptures neglect the biblical theology of remembrance and the priority of Lord’s Table? The loss occurred in three major stages. The first occurred during the Protestant Reformation itself. Its leaders united in teaching a weekly celebration of the Table as the heart of the church’s corporate worship. (This, in part, explains why its theology was such an important-and divisive-issue between them.) Unhappily, outside Germany, civil authorities forbade frequent communion, fearing that the spiritual responsibility demanded of weekly participation by an unprepared populace represented “too radical a change from the late-medieval practice of infrequent reception of the sacrament.” [22] Subsequent Reformed practices and elements of English Puritanism were fueled by an extremist rejection of Roman Catholicism that regarded a weekly Eucharist as “papist,” producing liturgical minimalism in their worship.

The move to America, westward expansion, and the chronic lack of ordained clergy made matters worse. Congregations sprang up served by non-ordained preachers who, because of their high regard for the sacraments, depended on itinerant ordained ministers to supervise their irregular celebration. For many the Eucharist was a rare event in church life, and this irregular pattern of celebration became the “norm” in subsequent church practice, even when clergy became available in sufficient numbers to allow resident ministry. [23]

The overwhelming effect of the Second Great Awakening completed its displacement. Originally a revival ended with a common baptism of converts (Saturday), followed by celebrations of the Lord’s Table according to the pattern of each congregation participating in the revival (Sunday). Under Charles Finney’s influence the revival emphasis shifted to the pattern and tools of successful conversion: preparatory music, an extended sermon, and a call to decision. The pragmatic evidence that revivalist services filled pews on the frontier gradually overwhelmed the worship convictions of worship traditions elsewhere. This service model became standard Sunday worship, [24] to be further strengthened by the Charismatic renewal emphasis. Ask the average person today to define corporate “worship” and you’ll hear, “The music,” or, perhaps, “The preaching.”

Recovering The Feast

Although most agree on the spiritual value of the Lord’s Supper, to include it as a central aspect of regular congregational worship meets many obstacles. One school of thought argues that “it destroys the welcoming environment that the church tries to create” and “can be celebrated in a side room after worship.” [25] This perspective denies the very teaching of the celebration’s role for Christian community. Others may object that giving it a regular place in worship will either require us to reduce something else, such as sermon length or number of songs, or uncomfortably extend the time of the service. These issues are legitimate, but basing our worship practices on fulfilling our preferences confronts us with an interesting spiritual dilemma. To act only as we want makes corporate worship the idolatry of our own desires, transforming our expression of submission to God’s will into the satisfaction of our own flesh.

Many wonder that a too-frequent repetition will make it mundane and less meaningful. On the one hand, the argument is transparent for its hypocrisy. We would never apply this standard to the sermon or the music. On the other hand, the objection reveals how little we understand of the themes, motifs, and theological implications taught by each celebration of the Lord’s Table.

Consider some of the possibilities. [26] As a memorial, the Lord’s Supper summarizes all we share together in God through our relationship with Christ. [27] An act of covenant renewal, it demands our recommitment to obedience before him, the strengthening of our faith and hope, and our unity with all believers (past and present) in the church universal.

As a Eucharist (the exclusive, technical term used by the church fathers), we give joyful thanks for God’s blessing upon and sustaining provision for his creation. Eating gratefully accepts “our daily bread” from his hands.

As Communion (koinonia) we share in Christ’s person and his people (1 Corinthians 10:16–17, 21), peace through our reconciliation with God and unity together in Christ (analogous to the Thanksgiving Offering). Eating affirms our equality in salvation, service, and gifts, and forsaking of all that threatens to fracture our unity as one people.

As an expression of sacrifice, we see the expansive nature of Christ’s atonement. Eating expresses our union with him, offering ourselves for the world in submission to God’s will as living witnesses to his character and his work.

As a mystery (a heretofore hidden work of God), we celebrate the wisdom of God (Ephesians 3:9–11; Colossians 1:27) and his Kingdom (Mark 4:11), our union with Christ through the Spirit, and the bonds uniting every member of Church throughout space and time (Ephesians 3:4–6; 5:32).

As a foretaste of eschatological banquet (Luke 22:15–18; 1 Corinthians 11:26), we look beyond each celebration to Christ’s return and our reunion with him at that feast of joy. (The Eucharistic prayers of the early church over the bread and the cup regularly ended with the cry “Maranatha,” as in 1 Corinthians 16:22, meaning “Our Lord has/will come.”) We eat and expect the fulfillment of God’s promises, the vindication of his work and character, and enjoy the sense of “festival” of that future age even now.

Such variety shows the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is such a deep reservoir of theological expression for the church that it could function for the worshiping community as the application of every sermon and focus the experience evoked by every song. Rather than continue a rote statement of its penitential aspects (“Jesus died for you; consider what a sinner you are.”), those who lead at the Table have a vast pallet of hues from which to integrate each new celebration with all the possible themes of congregational worship.

Summary

Based on the remembrance theology of the Old Testament, Jesus’ command to “remember” in the Upper Room designates the Lord’s Supper as the central act around which his followers gather to celebrate their covenant with God through him. The Gospels and descriptions of the early church support this. History testifies to centuries of faithful practice. When the Eucharist was corrupted, the Reformers attempted its recovery but civil priorities in Europe prevented it. Issues in America displaced it. For those who profess biblicism in the midst of worship renewal, the time is right for its recovery.

The Lord’s Supper, pregnant with theology, offers us an antidote to the shallowness of our Christian experience and the legacy of immaturity left by self-serving models of corporate worship and superficial theologies of the Church. It demands the formation of biblical community and provides a foundation for the witness to the world which represents the presence of Christ. If this is the jewel, is its setting (the Church) willing to be adorned with it?

About the Author

Timothy J. Ralston, Th.M., Ph.D., is associate professor of pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary (Dallas, Texas). A specialist in New Testament manuscripts and textual criticism, he also teaches congregational worship, spiritual life, and homiletics.

Notes

1. H. Lietzmann, The Founding of the Church Universal (London: E.T., 1950),124.
2. A. W. Tozer, Worship: The Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: Christian Publications, n.d.).
3. H. Greeven, “proskuneo,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, G. Kittel, ed., G.W. Bromily, trans. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 6:764.
4. M. Dods, “The Gospel of St. John.” In The Expositor’s Greek Testament, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1979), 729; W. Hendrickson, New Testament Commentary: Exposition of the Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1953), 167–68; L. Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1971), 270–71; A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman, 1932), 5:66–67; M. Tenney, “The Gospel of John,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 9 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1981), 56; B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1881; rep. 1981), 73.
5. Cf. The prophets indicted Israel’s failure here: Ps. 40:4–8; 51:16–17; Isa. 1:16–17; 6:1–7; Jer. 6:20; 7:16–23; Amos 5:21–27; Mic. 6:6–8.
6. R. Meyer, “leitourgeo,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, G. Kittel, ed., G.W. Bromily, trans. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), 3:215–25.
7. R. P. Martin, Worship in the Early Church (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1975), 132–33. This book identifies three components of Christian worship within the Corinthian community: a charismatic element (“enthusiastic praise and prayer under the direct afflatus of the Spirit”), a didactic element (“all ministry in intelligible speech which aims at clarifying the will of God”), and a eucharistic element (“a Jubilate of thanksgiving”) offered by prayer, hymns and canticles, or the distinctive Christian ordinance of the Lord’s Supper. He concludes that “ ... there is, of course, no place in the New Testament which clearly states that the Church had any set order of service and very little information is supplied to us about the outward forms which were in use” (134).
8. Worship in the Early Church.
9. D. Bock, Proclamation From Prophecy and Pattern: Lucan Old Testament Christology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987); R. M. Davidson, Typology In Scripture: A Study of Hermenuetical Tupos Structures (Berrien Springs, Michigan: Andrews University Press, 1981).
10. E. Yamuchi, “chavah,” Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, R. L. Harris, ed. (Chicago: Moody, 1980), 1:267–69; Greeven, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 6: 764.
11. Theological Dictionary, 758–66; H. Strathmann, “latreuo” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, G. Kittel, ed., G.W. Bromily, trans. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), 4:58–65; C. D. Isbell, “Ibd”, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, R. L. Harris, ed. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), 2:1064. For a survey of some other Hebrew worship terms, see A. Hill, Enter His Courts With Praise: Old Testament Worship for the New Testament Church (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996).
12. E. Yamauchi, “zkr,” Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, R. L. Harris, ed. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), 1:241–43; O. Michel, “mimneskomai,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, G. Kittel, ed., G. W. Bromily, trans. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), IV:675–83; J. Behm, “anamnesko,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, G. Kittel, ed., G.W. Bromily, trans. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 1:348–49.
13. E. H. van Olst, The Bible and Liturgy, J. Vriend, trans. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmanns, 1991), 18–20. Similarly P. Bradshaw, Two Ways of Praying (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1995), notes that the biblical forms of prayer (berakah and hadoyah) common to both Old and New Testaments “are primarily acts of remembrance” (47).
14. Cf. E. Merrill, “Remembering: A Central Theme in Biblical Worship.” In the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 43:1 (March 2000), 27–36; J. R. Cosand, “The Theology of Remembrance in the Cultus of Israel” (Ph.D. dissertation, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1995).
15. One can see how Eucharistic vocabulary would intrude into earlier mealtime scenarios. See E. LaVerdiere, The Eucharist in the New Testament and the Early Church (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996).
16. Acts 16:10–17; 20:5–15; 21:1–18; 27:1–28:16.
17. J. Schneider, “sunerchomai,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, G. Kittel, ed., G.W. Bromily, trans. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 2:684.
18. See Paul’s statement “because of the angels” (1 Cor. 11:10). Angels witnessed to each party’s integrity under Old Testament covenants to vindicate God’s righteous judgment. Their presence here indicates New Testament worship represents covenant renewal in which God is held righteous for judging his people, so Paul’s concern for the Corinthians’ experiences (1 Cor. 11:29–32).
19. For example, Clement, ad Corinthians 3:5 (Rome, 96 C.E.); Ignatius, ad Ephesians XX, ad Smyrnaeans VI, VIII (Antioch, c. 98–115 C.E.); Didache 3:9, 10, 14 (Syro-Palestine, c. 90–100 C.E.); Justin Martyr, First Apology 65–67 (Rome, c. 150–155 C.E.).
20. He writes in part “ ... they were in the habit of meeting before dawn on a stated day and singing alternately a hymn to Christ as to a god, and that they bound themselves by an oath [sacramentum].... This done it was their practice to separate” (Epp. X, 96–97; Lightfoot’s translation).
21. Compare Tertullian, that “We also take in meetings before daybreak ... the sacrament of the Eucharist” (de Coron. III).
22. J. White, Introduction to Christian Worship, rev. ed. (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1990), 81.
23. Protestant Worship, 121.
24. Introduction, 154.
25. T. Wright, A Community of Joy: How to Create Contemporary Worship (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1994), 122.
26. For a survey of themes, see H. Davies, Bread of Life & Cup of Joy: Newer Ecumenical Perspectives on the Eucharist (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1993); E. Kreider, Communion Shapes Character (Scottsdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1997).
27. C. D. Erickson, Participating in Worship: History, Theory, and Practice (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Pess, 1989), 54–55.