# Warrant for corporate confession of sin and responsive Scripture readings



## Afterthought (Jan 5, 2012)

One worship practice that I am unsure of its legitimacy is public confession of sin in public worship, though it appears almost all the Reformed churches do it. I suppose such could be done in various ways, but in particular, I had in mind when the congregation recites a prepared set of words to confess their sin together as part of the public worship service; it would seem strange to have private people confessing their sin in the public worship service anyway whether they get up in front of the congregation or everyone prays silently and individually during a period of the service (though I'm open to correction). I suppose it is basically a congregational prayer.

It would seem that the precedent for such confession of sin would be in Nehemiah, and for congregational prayer, Acts 4 (maybe there are other verses too that I'm not thinking about). However, I'm uncertain about the passage in Nehemiah because it seems there's something unusual going on because of the covenanting at the end. As for the Acts 4 passage, I'm uncertain of because I don't know whether everyone spoke at the same time or whether one person spoke for all. Perhaps a congregation could do such confession of sin provided they used Scripture words alone, considering that the Lord's Prayer is usable for public worship?

As for historical precedent, it would seem Calvin had such confession of sin in his service (though my historical knowledge on this point may be inaccurate), yet it seems absent from the Westminster Directory.


I'm also curious about responsive Scripture readings, which also seem absent from the Directory, yet are quite popular today, and yet I'm not sure can be justified as a circumstance. However, I have heard over and over again that the Psalms include responsive sections in them, and so presumably the Israelites would have sung or read responsively.


So any thoughts? What is the Scriptural warrant for these practices (if any)?


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## Afterthought (Jan 6, 2012)

Bumping.


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## NaphtaliPress (Jan 6, 2012)

We have had some threads before on some of this; this thread links back to some.
http://www.puritanboard.com/f67/responsive-readings-they-westminsterian-they-biblical-29792/


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## Afterthought (Jan 7, 2012)

NapthaliPress said:


> We have had some threads before on some of this; this thread links back to some.


Thanks! I guess that's a start. I didn't see anyone addressing the argument from the Psalms in favor of such readings. The history is quite interesting.


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## Wayne (Jan 7, 2012)

It would take some digging, but you can find a lot of sermons by the Puritans and their successors on into the 19th century on repentance from national sins.

There's one by William Jenkyn that I'm particularly impressed with (and had posted to the web, but it seems to be down at the moment).


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## Afterthought (Jan 16, 2012)

Wayne said:


> It would take some digging, but you can find a lot of sermons by the Puritans and their successors on into the 19th century on repentance from national sins.


Thanks! But I am not denying the legitmacy of such; I only mentioned it in the OP because it seemed to me to show the event to be an unusual rather than a weekly one. Unless it is from that unusual event we can infer that a weekly one--done as I described in the OP--is permissible?


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## Afterthought (Jan 30, 2012)

Bumping. Any more thoughts?


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## Afterthought (Feb 20, 2012)

I guess this thread helps answer some more of my questions concerning responsive readings: if the congregation is not allowed to publicly read Scripture, then they cannot responsively do so. Although I'd still like to see what the answer is (if any) to the position I made in the OP.

Another question: in that thread, it is proved that the offices of the NT are in continuity with the OT by appealing to a passage in Isaiah. However, I notice that those people mentioned in Isaiah are not the same that are mentioned in Matthew for the most part (the apostles are not called Levites). What is the function of this proof text? Perhaps it is merely establishing that the NT ministers fulfill the role of the OT leaders and so can do what the Levites did too?


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## Andres (Feb 20, 2012)

Let me get back to you. I'm not home right now and I believe that I have a paper there that might help answer some of your questions.


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## Afterthought (Feb 22, 2012)

Well, whenever you get around to it, thanks!


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## Afterthought (Feb 27, 2012)

While waiting....any other thoughts?


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## Andres (Feb 27, 2012)

Raymond, my apologies...I completely forgot! I have scanned the paper, now I just need to figure out the best way to share it on here.

---------- Post added at 09:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:59 PM ----------

Raymond, every time I attach the scans on here, they are too small to read. If you PM me your email, I will email them to you so you can open the files yourself and then enlarge them.


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## Afterthought (Feb 27, 2012)

Done. And I guess that means I'll be relaying information here if needed, though I hope others will keep responding too!


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## Afterthought (Mar 5, 2012)

I have read and thought about the paper that I was given. While it gives an explanation of why these things are done, it does not show the positive warrant for such (which seems to be the nature of the paper anyway), unless the positive warrant consists in a "God speaks to man this way, man responds to God this way," albeit a little more than that would be required to establish the warrant. I do have the paper in PDF now, but I do not know how to compress it to post it here.

Any more thoughts? I'll be making an edit later.


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## Afterthought (Mar 7, 2012)

Okay, here's what I wanted to edit in later. I recently realized that in the OP I assumed that recitation of the Lord's Prayer by the congregation was warranted. I'm not sure that it does have positive warrant (or for the congregation reciting any prayers), so it appears my use of that in attempting to provide positive warrant for congregational confession of sins in public worship (as described in the OP), actually reduces to the use of any sort of recitation of Scripture as congregational prayers. So instead of using that, my attempt at finding positive warrant reduces to arguments from passages like Nehemiah and Acts 4 where it appears the whole congregation is reciting the same form of words, along with passages where the congregation appears to respond simultaneously, including things that go beyond "Amen" like "All that the LORD hath spoken we will do" (Exodus 19:8).


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