31: Assembly Required: What Church Gatherings Were Meant to Be

The New Testament and Church Assemblies

Welcome to the Ready for Eternity podcast, a podcast and blog dedicated to inquisitive Bible students exploring biblical truths that might not be fully explored in typical sermons or Bible studies. My name is Eddie Lawrence.

If you've ever wondered why the New Testament never calls church assemblies worship services, you're in the right place. Let's uncover the surprising truths behind early church gatherings. The New Testament never applies worship terminology to the church assembly.

This point may surprise many, especially since modern Christian practices often involve a focus on worship during church gatherings. A closer examination of the language used in the New Testament however, reveals something different.

It shows that the early church did not view their gatherings through the lens of worship as we understand it today. In fact, the terminology associated with worship was almost exclusively tied to Jewish temple rituals.

The New Testament church didn't continue these rituals after Jesus instituted the New Covenant. This episode is part of a series that explores the use of worship terms in the New Testament. These terms, when properly understood, reflect the context of the temple and its rituals, rather than activities in church meetings.

The Meaning of Threskeia in the New Testament

In this series, we've examined the Greek words that our English Bibles translate as worship. The last word for us to look at is the Greek word threskeia. The word appears four times in the New Testament.

Acts 26 5, Colossians 2 18, and James 1 26 and 27. It's rendered as religion in three of those appearances. Only in Colossians 2 18 is it translated as worship. The meaning of threskeia is not the modern conception of worship as we know it today.

Today we think of singing, praising, or engaging in formal services. Instead, threskeia in the New Testament, as well as the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, most commonly referred to the ceremony and ritual practices associated with the Jewish temple system.

In addition to examining the usage of the word in the New Testament and the Septuagint, Dr. Tom Wadsworth has also researched the writings of Josephus to gain insight on how the ancients used this word.

Dr. Wadsworth notes,.

A close survey of the use of threskeia in the New Testament, Septuagint, and Josephus reveals that the term has two basic meanings. The first is a religion, which can be defined as a set or system of religious beliefs and practices.

The second meaning is irreligious rites, which can be defined as ceremonial acts performed to or for a god, such as sacrifices performed in a temple.

Threskeia is about religion, not worship. The lexicon of the New Testament, also known as BDAG, defines threskeia as an expression of devotion to transcendent beings, typically involving cultic rites or temple worship.

This usage emphasizes the formal, ritualistic aspects of worship, sacrifices, offerings, and other sacred actions. Furthermore, scholars such as Moises Silva and Walter Randall in the New International Dictionary of the New Testament Theology and Exegesis and the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament highlight that the word encompasses the entirety of religious observance, especially those activities related to the temple and the priesthood, rather than the individual, inward aspects of faith or communal practices outside the temple.

Thus, Dr. Wadsworth.

Remarks, "...in the New Testament, Septuagint, and Josephus, none of these 100-plus references to threskeia, or threskeio, implies that singing or praising God with music is inherently a part of the term. So, it seems best to translate threskeia as either religion or religious rites, depending on the context.".

Pure Religion in James 1:27

In James 1 .27, the Apostle uses threskeia to speak of pure and undefiled religion. However, James doesn't associate threskeia with any temple rituals or sacrifices. Instead, he describes it as something quite different.

For instance, living out the ethical teachings of Jesus, such as caring for widows and orphans and keeping oneself unstained from the world. This reflects a shift from ritualistic religion to a living, practical expression of faith, one that focuses on love rather than ritual observance.

Thus, when James uses the term threskeia, he's not advocating for rituals. Instead, he's advocating a religion marked by ethical action and purity in daily life. Ethical living, not rituals. What about worship in Colossians 2 .18, the one place where threskeia is translated as worship?

Colossians 2:18 and the Religion of Angels

When Paul writes to the Colossians, he warns against the worship of angels. The word threskeia is again used, but it doesn't suggest anything related to the modern idea of worship as singing or praising God.

The Greek text is somewhat ambiguous, leaving translators with a choice of angels who worship or angels who are worshipped. It could be translated either way. Regardless, the question is whether worship is the correct word to translate threskeia in this verse.

Translating threskeia as worship in Colossians 2 .18 creates confusion. This is because the English term often carries connotations that do not align with the text. Modern readers associate worship with singing, praising, prayers, or a general act of devotion.

However, threskeia does not inherently include these ideas. Instead, it points to religious practices, ceremonies, or systems. If threskeia refers to the religious rites of angels, as many scholars suggest, using worship misleads readers into thinking the heresy involved praising or singing to or praying to angels.

However, there's no evidence in the New Testament, the nor in Josephus that threskeia ever involves these acts of devotion. The Colossian context further supports this. Paul warns against human traditions and ascetic practices, not acts of devotion.

A better translation of threskeia in this passage would focus on religious practices or religion of angels. This aligns with Paul's broader critique of adhering to unnecessary rituals rather than holding fast to Christ.

This translation is also consistent with how threskeia is used throughout the New Testament, the Septuagint, and Josephus' writings, where it consistently refers to religion or ritual practices, not worship.

The Church Gathering as New Covenant Edification

This understanding of threskeia as referring to religious rituals rather than general worship helps explain a significant shift in the early church. While threskeia was deeply associated with temple rituals and ceremonial practices, the evidence suggests that early Christian assemblies intentionally moved away from this ritual-centered approach.

They did not merely substitute new rituals for old ones. The church gathering was something fundamentally new. It's crucial to recognize that while threskeia was a term used to describe religious rituals in the context of the temple, early Christians didn't structure their assemblies around rituals.

Under the New Covenant, Christians are not meant to continue the practices of the Jewish temple system. Jesus' death and resurrection marked the fulfillment of the Old Covenant and its rituals. The evidence shows that the New Testament writers did not view church assemblies through the lens of worship as we use the term today.

The Greek word threskeia was closely tied to Jewish temple rituals and sacrifices. It represented a system of religious observance that the early church intentionally moved beyond. Again, see Hebrews 8, 13, and chapter 10, verses 1 through 18.

While praise and thanksgiving naturally emerged from church gatherings, the primary aim of early church assemblies was not acts of worship. Instead, they focused on mutual encouragement, teaching, remembering Christ's sacrifice, and equipping believers to spread the gospel.

This understanding challenges us to reconsider how we approach our church gatherings. By recognizing this intentional shift from Old Covenant rituals to New Covenant edification, we can better evaluate our current practices.

We must ensure our assemblies serve their intended purpose, which is strengthening believers and glorifying God through transformed lives rather than through formal religious observances. In the next podcast episode, we'll begin to connect the ideas that we've explored in this series of word.

Studies on worship. Thanks for listening to the podcast. We hope this episode has deepened your understanding of Scripture. If you found this content valuable, please share it with your friends. For more biblical studies, visit our website at ReadyForEternity .com.

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