Kinghezy
Puritan Board Sophomore
Got it, thanks!
Mid-Week Prayer Meetings
- Thread starter Grant
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Got it, thanks!
Grant
Puritan Board Graduate
@Ben Zartman
I think we may disagree with the Normative being the rule for worship outside of Lord’s Day Public worship. I do not want to derail the thread to hash that out but I did want to provide two very helpful post by @iainduguid. His post do not specifically relate to the question or yes/no on women praying in a public church gathering, but relating to how we approach worship in Private and Secret context. I hope this helps you better lay out your thoughts my brother. I have become convinced that the principle of the RPW does regulate the ALL spheres of worship (public, private, secret) because worship is regulated by scripture alone.
1.https://www.puritanboard.com/thread...l-worship-services.100188/page-2#post-1223432
2.https://www.puritanboard.com/thread...l-worship-services.100188/page-2#post-1223441
Also @NaphtaliPress had a solid quote from John Owen here:
https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/so-much-for-the-call-to-worship-before-or-after-owen.100600/
I think we may disagree with the Normative being the rule for worship outside of Lord’s Day Public worship. I do not want to derail the thread to hash that out but I did want to provide two very helpful post by @iainduguid. His post do not specifically relate to the question or yes/no on women praying in a public church gathering, but relating to how we approach worship in Private and Secret context. I hope this helps you better lay out your thoughts my brother. I have become convinced that the principle of the RPW does regulate the ALL spheres of worship (public, private, secret) because worship is regulated by scripture alone.
1.https://www.puritanboard.com/thread...l-worship-services.100188/page-2#post-1223432
2.https://www.puritanboard.com/thread...l-worship-services.100188/page-2#post-1223441
Also @NaphtaliPress had a solid quote from John Owen here:
https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/so-much-for-the-call-to-worship-before-or-after-owen.100600/
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I've posted this elsewhere, but this was a helpful statement on the Facebook Covenanter forum about the regulative principle of worship applying to all worship, yet with a difference that answers some of the difficulties often raised in family and private worship if the RPW applies there. Posted by RPCNA theological student, Pacific Coast Presbytery, Seni Adeyemi:
Times family worship are far different from public worship, but it [RPW] still applies to both. From the moment of the call to worship, the congregation enters into the special presence of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, mount Sion, an innumerable company of angels, etc. That is why during that time period between the call to worship and the benediction, only the elements of worship are to be done (reading and hearing of Scripture, prayer, psalm-singing, preaching, sacraments, etc.) and nothing else. During family worship there is no special entering into the presence of God like in public worship. Thus there is simply a duty to do the specific acts of worship (pray, read scripture, sing psalms); but there is not a special time during which only those things may be done. Thus acts of non-worship (reading man-made devotionals, discussion, etc.) may be done as helps during those times, because there is nothing special about the time called ‘family worship.’ When you read Ryle you are not worshipping God, even though you do it during that time you call family worship. But you are not so bound to only do formal acts of worship during those times because there is no entering into the special presence of God. Properly speaking, the duty of family worship is only fulfilled insofar as the formal acts of worship are performed. So the RPW does govern both public and family worship, albeit in different ways. The RPW governs the acts of worship in family worship (i.e. only prayer, psalm-singing, and scripture-reading are counted for worship), but it governs both the acts and the time set apart for public worship, such that nothing other than formal acts of worship may be done in the special presence of God.
iainduguid
Puritan Board Junior
This is helpful in some ways but it still displays the fundamental misunderstanding of the RPW that is very common in our circles: the idea that the RPW in itself tells us how we should worship. It does not: it is a preliminary principle, drawn from Scripture, that Scripture alone can regulate our worship. Thus the RPW applies to every act of worship, public or private (and to all in the same way), because it requires us in all our worship to be governed by positive Scriptural warrant (which itself can take a variety of forms: command, principle, positive example, good and necessary inference, etc). The difference between public and private worship is not that one is governed by the RPW and the other is not, or that they are governed in different ways by the RPW (what other way could there be?). It is that the Scriptures give us different precepts, examples and inferences that apply to private worship than public worship.
To the issue at hand, it seems to me part of the disagreement in this thread is whether a mid week prayer meeting is more like public worship or private worship. If it is an extension of public worship, then it makes sense that the Scriptural rules about public worship would apply; if it is more like an extended family worship time, then different rules would apply. Very possibly different churches treat it as one or the other, so seeming differences are actually both appropriate behavior in context. There is, after all, no direct Scriptural instruction about Wednesday night prayer meetings. We are making inferences from passages whose primary focus is elsewhere.
Afterthought
Puritan Board Senior
This was a disagreement on FB last year between those in my church and those in others that otherwise hold the same views on midweek meetings/worship. My church would say that "any man" has authority because God gives it in places like 1 Tim 2 and 1 Cor 11. The others would say that the "men" in such passages should be understood to be ordained (although it should be noted that the reasoning used to arrive at that conclusion actually requires that not any ordained person but only ministers ought to lead in prayer in public worship).
GulfCoast Presbyterian
Puritan Board Senior
Our mid-week service is a essentially bible study first, and a prayer meeting second. It is opened with a communal meal (yay pizza! boo meatloaf!) then prayer by the Pastor (or Assoc. Pastor); then prayer requests are solicited from the congregation. The Pastor then prays through/over the requests. He then teaches the bible study. The meeting is then closed with prayer by the Pastor. It lasts about 90 minutes.
Grant
Puritan Board Graduate
So on Lord’s Day mornings before classes and service, a 9:15 prayer meeting is held for any to come. The meeting is in a classroom. Request are given and anyone (man or woman) is allowed to pray (goes around the circle) with the Pastor closing the time in prayer. My wife and daughters do not pray out loud during this time. My family really cherishes this time.
Mid-Week Meeting: We share a meal and then go to a classroom. Prayer request are taken. Only the Pastor prays. We then watch a DVD series covering some doctrinal topic.
U
Username3000
Guest
That is very helpful.
Ben Zartman
Puritan Board Junior
@G This is what I've been trying to convey, but with poorer expression. All worship must be regulated by God's Word, but different contexts have different requirements.
"During family worship there is no special entering into the presence of God like in public worship. Thus there is simply a duty to do the specific acts of worship (pray, read scripture, sing psalms)"
I am assuming you agree with this and I am wondering if the concept of some special presence on Sunday morning is confessional or Puritan or where did it originate. I mean, Jesus said that where two or three are gathered He is in their midst, so there is a very real presence of the Lord even when it is just a few praying together outside an official meeting. It seems rather awful to think that we are doing some duty without the real presence of the Lord. I generally don't find it to be mere duty without presence. I've Sundays that felt like duty, and midweeks that were "outpourings".
Jonathan Edwards has a section in religious affections (around page 300 in my paperback) of all the people in the bible who had powerful encounters with the Lord when alone. And of course in Christian biography there are many stories of people with a profound sense of the direct presence of the Lord and his leading or comfort or help when alone, and that has happened to me as well. My response to this would be that there is no special presence of the Lord on Sunday that can't happen all week or alone or with two or three gathered.
However, when the bible speaks of the gift of discerning of spirits (and maybe this is not what that term means) I have at times have a distinct awareness of the holy angelic hosts on Sunday, and I always think when that happens that it matters to wear headcoverings. I have also had a distinct awareness of angelic (or possibly Holy Spirit) presence on a couple occasions driving where I believe they spared my life from certain death on the road. But I never had that strong sense of angelic hosts midweek that I can recall, or praying at home.
Of course my impressions and discernments mean zero and opinions have to be formed from scripture, but it is something I am thinking about. Is there a traditional Reformed position that the angelic host is present at the weekly gathering in a special way that isn't the same the rest of the week? From my limited subjective impression that would be true, but I don't want to go by my impressions. Perhaps the guarding angels are always present all the time in the same manner?
U
Username3000
Guest
That was spoken in the context of church discipline, not about God being with believers in an extra special way when the numbers are sufficient.
Yeah, my husband just told me that is the traditional Reformed position and many folks he knew in seminary believed in the Sunday morning special presence. Not everybody though, at least in the PCA back then ( 1970s).
Funny thing, a while ago on Wed night at the end ( the meetings are somewhat informal with a family feel), the meeting was officially over, and our pastor said hey let's sing a little while longer if anybody wants to hang around. We started singing and it's like the holy spirit fell in joy. One of those book of Acts moments where the overflowing joy just came down and swept through us. I wish it was always like that, those tastes of heaven.
I read about that guy in jail for 14 years who was tortured- Wurmbrand was it?- and he said sometimes the presence and joy of the Lord flooded him in his cell in a way he had never known before or after. Not that going to church was an option for him.
Five years ago I got sick and ran a fever up to 103 for 11 days in a row. The first week I would be so cold and huddle under covers and then wake up a couple times a night in such a sweat that my pajamas and the sheets were soaking wet. It was so awful. But the presence of the Lord came down and I was enveloped in a cloud of love for maybe a week. I've never known anything like it. God is love- it was so real.
This matters for ministry to people who can't make it to church for invalid reasons.....I always assure them that God is truly and fully present with them even when they are lying there alone and can't go to church.
Anyway, I suppose this has gotten off topic, but the holy presence can be poured out in a special way at other times than just Sunday morning.
It's axiomatic in Christian theology that God is everywhere. So, the question is: what does it mean for God to say he will be present someplace, or in or for some circumstance or occasion? It is to say: his presence will be special, it will be for the express fulfillment of some purpose of his; and his believers are to expect the fulfillment of his word of promise.
God is specially present for the solemn gatherings of his people, as much now as he was in ancient days, Heb.12:22ff. Deut. 4:10, "Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words." He brought them out from Egypt that they might sacrifice to him, Ex.5:3. And whenever the people gathered to answer the special call of God, it was a memorial: where the people stood in solidarity with convocations past and present, as one transtemporal assembly; and God acknowledged or remembered them. Num.10:10, "Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, you shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your God: I am the LORD your God."
Will God be with a very small and informal gathering of believers, just two or three? I think we shouldn't doubt it, Heb.13:5; nevertheless, as mentioned already the context of a given statement must be dominant for interpretation and understanding. Is the statement concerning "two or three gathered" a general principle, which is simply applied in the Mt.18:20 context to church discipline? Or does it speak to the claim of Jesus' authority to preside in even the apparently least-momentous of church activity?
If the Savior and Lord did not institute a kingdom and a government for it, then we should say indeed that no heightened expectation for his special presence would accompany one summons or gathering above any other. Did he appoint a continued weekly day of meeting for his people, a holy convocation? Who is authorized to do such a thing in his name? But if he did, and if there are such appointed, then we should expect him to keep his promise, and to make those assemblies "a memorial before [our] God."
Of course, our God is perfectly capable of drawing near to us (and making himself felt) whenever he wishes. But it isn't the subjective experience that defines his presence, or invokes it. We may and ought to thank God for sweet seasons of his rapturous love, or other tokens of his eyes upon us. But his word is that which is the real locus of his proximity; and where his word is presented with power according to his promise is where we should be attending.
Come to prayer meetings, too. They're not as momentous activity as a worship service, and I hope to hear the voices of all in attendance who desire utterance.
God is specially present for the solemn gatherings of his people, as much now as he was in ancient days, Heb.12:22ff. Deut. 4:10, "Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words." He brought them out from Egypt that they might sacrifice to him, Ex.5:3. And whenever the people gathered to answer the special call of God, it was a memorial: where the people stood in solidarity with convocations past and present, as one transtemporal assembly; and God acknowledged or remembered them. Num.10:10, "Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, you shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your God: I am the LORD your God."
Will God be with a very small and informal gathering of believers, just two or three? I think we shouldn't doubt it, Heb.13:5; nevertheless, as mentioned already the context of a given statement must be dominant for interpretation and understanding. Is the statement concerning "two or three gathered" a general principle, which is simply applied in the Mt.18:20 context to church discipline? Or does it speak to the claim of Jesus' authority to preside in even the apparently least-momentous of church activity?
If the Savior and Lord did not institute a kingdom and a government for it, then we should say indeed that no heightened expectation for his special presence would accompany one summons or gathering above any other. Did he appoint a continued weekly day of meeting for his people, a holy convocation? Who is authorized to do such a thing in his name? But if he did, and if there are such appointed, then we should expect him to keep his promise, and to make those assemblies "a memorial before [our] God."
Of course, our God is perfectly capable of drawing near to us (and making himself felt) whenever he wishes. But it isn't the subjective experience that defines his presence, or invokes it. We may and ought to thank God for sweet seasons of his rapturous love, or other tokens of his eyes upon us. But his word is that which is the real locus of his proximity; and where his word is presented with power according to his promise is where we should be attending.
Come to prayer meetings, too. They're not as momentous activity as a worship service, and I hope to hear the voices of all in attendance who desire utterance.
I was thinking of this thread last night. We had a real nice meeting of all prayer and songs. Fewer people but some were away.
What occurred to me for the first time in my maybe mentally dull brain is how suitable it is for men to pray like men, and women like women.
I noticed that three men prayed about persecution in foreign nations and for our national government and repentance. The areas they prayed for are areas where one senses great spiritual battle with wickedness and in some cases demonic powers. While they were not loud or forceful, there was a sense of men leading in battle, prayer battle, in those areas of great opposition to God's kingdom and people.
The female prayer last night was for the sick and for the financially needy and hurting in the church. Sort of maternal. Women wanting to see people helped. The pastor and a visiting pastor prayed very pastoral prayers....you could sense a heart of guarding over souls with caring strength.
Maybe there is meant to be a femininity and masculinity even in petitions. I remember way back 40 years ago in my charismatic days when Derek Prince said that for whatever the reason, it seemed to have bad effects on women to battle/pray against major demonic strongholds and it was best to leave that to men. There was soooooo much wrong in that entire movement and in all the fighting the devil teachings, but even so, men handled "battle prayer" better than women.
Before the 2016 election there were a couple woman I knew (in other churches) who looked and dressed feminine and were friendly helpful people, but the minute they opened their mouth to pray it was like they turned into guys. I did not disagree at all about how bad Hillary was or how much is wrong in DC, but, maybe women are meant to more petition in a motherly way as opposed to try to be fighting on the front line. Its hard to describe it and I am just really pondering this subject today. Buy I wonder if some people who are against women praying have been around something that isn't meant for women and they rightly feel like something is wrong. I don't have a scriptural basis to think how I am thinking, more just an intuitive sense.
What occurred to me for the first time in my maybe mentally dull brain is how suitable it is for men to pray like men, and women like women.
I noticed that three men prayed about persecution in foreign nations and for our national government and repentance. The areas they prayed for are areas where one senses great spiritual battle with wickedness and in some cases demonic powers. While they were not loud or forceful, there was a sense of men leading in battle, prayer battle, in those areas of great opposition to God's kingdom and people.
The female prayer last night was for the sick and for the financially needy and hurting in the church. Sort of maternal. Women wanting to see people helped. The pastor and a visiting pastor prayed very pastoral prayers....you could sense a heart of guarding over souls with caring strength.
Maybe there is meant to be a femininity and masculinity even in petitions. I remember way back 40 years ago in my charismatic days when Derek Prince said that for whatever the reason, it seemed to have bad effects on women to battle/pray against major demonic strongholds and it was best to leave that to men. There was soooooo much wrong in that entire movement and in all the fighting the devil teachings, but even so, men handled "battle prayer" better than women.
Before the 2016 election there were a couple woman I knew (in other churches) who looked and dressed feminine and were friendly helpful people, but the minute they opened their mouth to pray it was like they turned into guys. I did not disagree at all about how bad Hillary was or how much is wrong in DC, but, maybe women are meant to more petition in a motherly way as opposed to try to be fighting on the front line. Its hard to describe it and I am just really pondering this subject today. Buy I wonder if some people who are against women praying have been around something that isn't meant for women and they rightly feel like something is wrong. I don't have a scriptural basis to think how I am thinking, more just an intuitive sense.
Lynnie I don't know exactly how to reply except to say I think you're onto a thing that's true-- I think the biblical basis for determining proper times and places for women to pray aloud/thus "lead" in prayer must come from the creation order. But I have recognized the same thing, that it's lovely for a woman to be publicly clothed in gentle and modest ways ("motherly" being a good picture word) and express herself in conversation and in prayer in those kinds of ways. For sure.
C. M. Sheffield
Puritan Board Graduate
All of these things are routinely addressed in our meetings with only the men leading in prayer.
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