Many of us live in contexts and cultures in which there is fierce competition among churches, each advertising itself as more interesting, more appealing, more entertaining than the others. It sometimes seems that no gimmick is too crass and no strategy too absurd for these churches as they attempt to one-up the others and fill their pews.
Yet the Bible has little time for such novel and inventive strategies, for God tells us how we are to worship him. He makes it clear that our worship is to be centered around his Word so that every part of our public worship is drenched in the Bible. A worship service without the Bible is, quite simply, not a worship service at all! Ligon Duncan says it well: “The New Testament says that when churches gather they should read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, and see the Bible.”
As we gather to worship, then, we are to read the Bible so God can speak to us. We are to preach the Bible so a preacher can exposit that Word and apply it to us. We are to pray the words of the Bible and to ask God to drive it home in our hearts and lives. We are to sing songs that declare the great doctrines of the Bible. And we are to “see” the Bible as its truths are pictured in baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We are people who are utterly dependent upon the Word and who therefore, week by week, gather around the Word.
