Ii. What We Can Learn From The Data
I. THE DATA
Although our data from Paul regarding the church gathered for the worship of God are relatively sparse, there is just enough for us to make some general observations — and we must be especially careful in this case not to make too much of his silence regarding certain matters.
We begin by noting that the language of “gathering” for the purpose of worship in the sense we have defined it occurs only three times in the Pauline letters, all in 1 Corinthians, and always in the context of correcting an abuse. First, in 11:17-34, it occurs in a context where Paul is admonishing the “haves” as to how they are treating the “have nots” (the language of v. 22) at the Lord’s Table. Here the language of “gathering” occurs five times (w. 17, 18, 20, 33, and 34); in v. 33 Paul specifies, “when you gather to eat,” referring of course to the eating of the Lord’s Supper that has been the point of contention in what has preceded.
Second, the terminology also occurs in chapter 14 (w. 23 and 26), where Paul is correcting the Corinthians’ singular enthusiasm for speaking in tongues in the assembly. One should also note v. 19 where he says that “in the assembly I would rather speak five intelligible words than thousands of unintelligible ones” and v. 33 where he refers to what takes place “in all the churches of the saints,” referring specifically to their gatherings.
The third occurrence of this language is in the very difficult sentence in 5:3-5, where in the context of excommunicating the brother living in incest, Paul says (literally), “when you and my spirit assemble together with the power of the Lord Jesus.” What this means specifically is a matter of some debate, as you might well understand, but there can be little question that Paul is referring to the gathering of the whole church. Most likely Paul understands himself to be present by means of the Holy Spirit, as his letter, which he understands to function as a prophetic word in their midst (14:37), is being read in the assembly.
It is probably of some importance to note that in two of these instances (11:20 and 14:23) Paul speaks of their “gathering together in the same place,” while in 14:23 he also notes that it is the “whole church” that is gathering in this way. Furthermore, in 14:26 Paul actually specifies some of the activities that take place when the church is thus gathered: “When you assemble,” he says, “each one of you has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation.” I tend to think that we should probably add “and so forth” to this list, since Paul proceeds in what follows to take up not only tongues and interpretation, but also “prophecy and discerning prophecies,” neither of which is mentioned in v. 26 (although it is possible that “revelation” stands for prophecy in this case).
Although these are the only places where this specific language occurs, there are at least five other passages which also reflect Christian worship, and perhaps several others as well.
a. Paul refers to the Lord’s Table in two other places in 1 Corinthians. In 10:16-22 he argues that the Corinthians’ own meal in honor of the Lord means that they cannot join their neighbors in the meals at the pagan temples, since that means to eat in fellowship with demons.
b. In a much more allusive way, in 10:1-4 Paul images Israel in the desert as having had their own form of baptism and Lord’s Supper. Of the latter he says, “they all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink,” referring to manna and the water from the rock.
c. In 1 Cor 11:4-5 Paul refers first to men and then to women as “praying and prophesying.” Although this passage does not mention the assembly as such, both the language and its location in the letter argue for a church context. In the immediately following passage where he corrects their abuse of the Lord’s Supper, Paul begins in v. 17 by stating, “in the following instructions I do not commend you, for when you assemble it is not for the better but for the worse.” This would seem to imply that what has preceded also took place in their assembling together.
d. Finally, in the twin passages in Col 3:16 and Eph 5:18-20 Paul speaks of their being filled with the Spirit, so as to teach and admonish one another with songs of various kinds, as they offer praise and thanksgiving to God. What makes it clear that this is referring to Christian worship is not only the mention of teaching and singing, but that in Col 3:16 he specifically mentions the “message about Christ” as dwelling in their midst as they teach and admonish one another through singing.
Along with these rather clear allusions to Christian worship, we could add some more indirect references, especially those passages that refer to the “church that meets in [their/her] house” (Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19; Col 4:15), as well as those passages that state or imply that Paul expected his letters to be read in the gatherings of God’s people: for example, Col 4:16 (where the Colossian and Laodicean letters are to be exchanged and read in the churches), plus the doxology at the end of Philippians and the grace that concludes all of his letters, both of which function best in the context of worship.