# RPW and mid-week meetings



## daveb (Oct 24, 2006)

Hello all,

Just thinking out loud here. If we are to consistently follow the RPW then I would think that mid-week prayer meetings would not be permitted. Since we are not commanded by Scripture to hold mid-week meetings we should not do so.

Any thoughts?


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## MW (Oct 24, 2006)

daveb said:


> Hello all,
> 
> Just thinking out loud here. If we are to consistently follow the RPW then I would think that mid-week prayer meetings would not be permitted. Since we are not commanded by Scripture to hold mid-week meetings we should not do so.
> 
> Any thoughts?



I would imagine the RPW applies whenever there are public meetings; it doesn't exist to limit public meetings to time and place. Times and places are traditionally circumstances of worship, which are to be governed by the general principles of the Word with Christian prudence. At most we should say that the RPW gives priority to Lord's day services; but Scripture tells us to exhort one another daily.


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## daveb (Oct 25, 2006)

armourbearer said:


> I would imagine the RPW applies whenever there are public meetings; it doesn't exist to limit public meetings to time and place. Times and places are traditionally circumstances of worship, which are to be governed by the general principles of the Word with Christian prudence. At most we should say that the RPW gives priority to Lord's day services; but Scripture tells us to exhort one another daily.



Hi Matthew,

Thanks for your response, still thinking through this. Would we be able to have church services every day of the week if we so choose? I would think so if the RPW doesn't limit our meetings.


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## Blueridge Believer (Oct 25, 2006)

I, for one wish we could have meetings 4 or 5 days a week. I need the fellowship and the preaching of the Word. just my  worth.


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## rmdmphilosopher (Oct 25, 2006)

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was busy almost every day of the week preaching at various pulpits other than his own... Do you suppose these meetings were specially held for him to preach at, or something that the churches did regularly whether he was the speaker or not? Midweek meetings are of large interest to me, too... Could they be a valuable practice to begin? At the same time, if we did have midweek meetings, what we do to distinguish between our worship on weekdays and our worship on the Lord's Day?


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## NaphtaliPress (Oct 25, 2006)

While weekday meetings may be beneficial and folks should be exhorted to attend those they can, they should not be required upon pain of discipline, as the regular Lord's day services. Six days shalt though labor, etc.


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## daveb (Oct 25, 2006)

NaphtaliPress said:


> While weekday meetings may be beneficial and folks should be exhorted to attend those they can, they should not be required upon pain of discipline, as the regular Lord's day services. Six days shalt though labor, etc.



This is a good point. Any meetings outside of the Lord's Day services should be voluntary not required.


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## MW (Oct 25, 2006)

Agreed. So the Session, in determining mid-week meetings, is bound in a measure by the willingness of the people to attend them. An historical note -- they often used to make the midweek "lecture" (as it was called) on market day. It seems that it was converted into a prayer meeting as a result of revivalism.


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## NaphtaliPress (Oct 25, 2006)

This section from Gillespie’s _Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies _while arguing against the imposition of pretended holy days, confirms this position as longstanding regarding week day meetings. _EPC_ (Naphtali edition, 1993) 1.7.31-36._ Sect. 7 _​ The Bishop presses us with a fourth argument, taken from the calling of people in great towns from their ordinary labors to divine service,12 which argument Tilen also beats upon.13 ​  ANSWER. There is huge difference between the rest which is enjoined upon anniversary festivities, and the rest which is required during the time of the weekly meetings for divine worship. For 1. Upon festival days, rest from labor is required all the day over, whereas, upon the days of ordinary and weekly meetings, rest is required only during the time of public worship. ​ 2. Cessation from labor, for prayers or preaching on those appointed days of the week, at some occasions may be omitted; but the rest and commemoration appointed by the church, to be precisely observed upon the anniversary festival days, must not be omitted, in the Bishop's judgment.14 ​ 3*. Men are straitly commanded and compelled to rest from labor upon holidays; but to leave work to come to the ordinary weekly meetings, they are only exhorted.* And here I mark how the Bishop contradicts himself; for in one place where his antagonist maintains truly, that the craftsman cannot be lawfully commanded nor compelled to leave his work and to go to public divine service, except on the day that the Lord has sanctified, he replies, _If he may be lawfully commanded to cease from his labor during the time of divine service, he may be as lawfully compelled to obey the command_.15 Who can give these words any sense, or see anything in them said against his antagonist's position, except he be taken to say, that the craftsman may be both commanded and compelled to leave his work and go to divine service on the week-days appointed for the same? Nay, he labors to prove thus much out of the ninth head of the First Book of Discipline, which says, _ In great towns we think expedient, that every day there be either sermon or common prayers,_ etc., where there is nothing of compulsion, or a forcing command, only there is an exhortation. But ere the Bishop has said much, he forgets himself, and tells us,16 that it were against equity and charity to astrict [_bind_] the husbandman to leave his plough so oft as the days of weekly preaching do return, but that, on the festival days, reason would that, if he did not leave his plough willingly, by authority he should be forced. Which place confirms this difference which we give between rest on the holidays and rest at the times of weekly meeting.  

*13.* Tilenus, _Paran._ _ad Sco., _cap.16, p. 64. *14.* Ubi supra, p. 25. *15.* Ibid., p. 17. *16.* Ibid., p. 27.​


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