I. THE DATA
Chapter 8
The Holy Spirit and Worship in the Pauline Churches
Let me begin by defining the term “worship,” since it is another of those “accordion” words that tends to gain meaning by however much air one pumps in or out of it. Strictly speaking, worship has to do with homage or adoration offered to God, which is what is intended by the Greek word most often rendered into English as “worship.” In English, however, the word “worship” came to pick up an extended meaning, not found in Greek, having to do with what takes place when Christians gather for that purpose. Usually it refers to the whole event, sometimes as an adjective (e.g., “worship service”) but often simply as a noun (e.g., during “worship”). A more recent nuance of this latter usage narrows its point of reference to one or more of the activities directed specifically toward God, especially singing, plus the praise and prayer that occur during singing (e.g., “our worship time”).
My interest for this lecture is with the so-called “worship service,” for which, it must be pointed out, there is no word in Paul’s Greek. When he does refer to this event, he uses either of two verbs that mean “to assemble” or “to gather together.” Thus he refers to the Corinthians as “assembling as a church” (1 Cor 11:18; lit. “when you gather together in assembly”), or of “the whole church assembling /gathering in the same place” (14:23).
My interest here is in exploring, first, the nature of these “gatherings” in the Pauline churches, and, second, in the role of the Spirit in their gatherings.
We should note at the outset that this is a somewhat tenuous task, in that Paul offers no specific instruction on such matters in his letters. Which makes perfectly good sense, since “worship” is something they simply did, very much like eating, so that there was no reason for instruction or analysis. What we learn, therefore, comes to us by way of Paul’s correcting some abuses. And since these are so case-specific, we must admit that we know far less than we should like to know, and of course far less than we would like to admit to.
What I propose to do is quite simple. First, I will offer a very brief overview of what is available to us as working data; second, I want to make some observations about several aspects of these data, trying to ferret out what we can learn about worship in Paul’s churches; third, I note the crucial role of the Spirit in their worship; and finally, I conclude by focusing on a single aspect of worship, namely the role of singing.