Are you interested in true worship? Check out this new eBook and hardback at the Puritan shop:
True Psalmody by The Reformed Ministers
Puritan Worship (Click to Enlarge Image)
A view of worship guided by the Regulative Principle, and other important matters.
Throughout the history of the church, one of the most important topics found throughout the Bible, or, for that matter, the lives of the most well-known people of God, is the nature of true worship. All Christians throughout the history of God’s people have striven to please God in acceptable worship. However, as Jesus said, many are teaching as doctrines the commandments of men – especially in our day and age.
What’s new in our age?
Music ministers. Youth “this or that”. Choirs. National holidays as part of the worship service. Bands. Concerts. Special music. Dance. Plays. Healing hours. Prophetic ministries. The list goes on and on. From the time of the early church, to the recovery of the Gospel under the Reformation, to the second Reformation and the Puritan divines, even through to times around Edwards or the Princeton Theologians, there was a general adherence to what the Bible taught concerning acceptable worship. But what did they believe?
There is a growing need to study the doctrine of the church and the doctrine of Worship. Ignorance on this subject is not bliss since God commands the gathering together of His people for this express purpose (Heb. 10:25). The Puritans knew worship very well. Much of their writings were directed to this end. Worship should be reflected in the entire life of the believer as his manner of glorifying God. Without worship, men lose a sense of self. That is why the lost try to fill the void that only worship to the Creator of the Universe is meant to hold. They have a gnawing sense of emptiness when true worship is not being given to the Sustainer of their being. Worship and the church, then, even on that level alone, is one of the most important, if not the most important doctrine one could study.
The church is also having an identity crisis. Since they do not know their Bibles, they have lost a sense of who they are before God. Hopefully some, if not all of these articles, will help the church find her identity again, remembering the old paths that the church has always walked upon, and the people of God will remember again how to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
Dr. C. Matthew McMahon, March, 2002