What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged, and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:26–33a ESV)
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40:8 ESV)
“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” (Malachi 3:6 ESV)
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2 ESV)
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, / and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. (Psalm 51:10–12 ESV)
We have learned many things from our parents. They repeated again and again instructions like wash your hands before you eat or brush your teeth before bed. They taught us sayings like “A stitch in time saves nine” or “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Many of these things we did not understand at the time but they served us well if we followed them and taught us when we didn’t.
When I was taking my first call to a congregation in Utah, I found a pastor who once served out there and gave him a call ahead of time to ask about what the ministry was like there. He told me many interesting things, including that all the congregations in Utah used the liturgy. Why? He explained that it was a protective factor that helped church members to recognize the false teachings of others.
Now, to be sure, it does not protect against all false teaching as there are several churches that more or less maintain the liturgy but have embraced unbiblical teachings. However, it does protect against a particular false teaching that is prominent among the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) as well as among many churches in America. In general, the liturgy helps to protect us against enthusiasm and emotionalism.
To understand how it does this, you first have to understand what the liturgy is and what is meant by enthusiasm and emotionalism because these words aren’t talking about being excited or having emotions. Instead, they are related to a disconnect from God’s Word!
So, to begin with, the Liturgy has been formed by Christians over the centuries. It wasn’t proscribed in God’s Word but it does contain God’s Word. It has been ordered in such a way to prepare us to hear and receive God’s Word, to confirm His teaching, to catechize and strengthen us in His teaching, and to provide a proper setting for us to receive our Lord’s gifts. It immerses us in God’s Word and forms and shapes us according to His Word. It lays down God’s Word in our hearts so that we might recognize when something or someone is straying from God and His Word by what they are saying or doing.
This is why changes to the liturgy can be destructive as they can set-up a new teaching or unfound us from the teaching that was keeping us tethered down. The liturgy shows us how God comes and makes His home with us—namely, in Word and Sacrament. The liturgy leads into respective interaction with God, to prayers of intercession and thanks, and to a recognition of our sin, God’s holiness, and His grace, mercy, and forgiveness.
Now, in this regard, Emotionalism is defined as seeking to know God through emotions. It is usually tied to the idea that we can “feel” God’s presence via those same emotions. Such sensing of God’s presence is emphasized in how music moves someone or how some words emotionally impact you, or
Emotionalism is not about “having emotions during worship” or being emotionally touched by the gospel or even by the music. That can and will happen naturally. We have been created to have and experience emotions. Rather, Emotionalism involves looking at those emotions to tell you about God and what He is doing or saying. So, instead of using emotions to tell you something about yourself, Emotionalism teaches you to use them to tell you what God is saying or doing.
You might be able to see from here how this can be destructive and how prevalent a problem this is in America, not just in churches in America. People justify actions by how it makes them feel. Living together, sexual immorality of all sorts, even theft, gossip, and many political positions are embraced because they make me feel good. It is likewise the justification given for why you should do good works—because it makes you feel good! Some people will cite a “burning in their bosom” or a feeling to convince themselves that this is what God wants me to do. In other words, emotions become the arbiter of truth.
Enthusiasm works similarly because Emotionalism is a variety of Enthusiasm. Martin Luther defines the word for us in the Smalcald Articles which are contained in the Book of Concord:
In these matters, which concern the spoken, external Word, it must be firmly maintained that God gives no one his Spirit or grace apart from the external Word which goes before. We say this to protect ourselves from the enthusiasts, that is, the “spirits,” who boast that they have the Spirit apart from and before contact with the Word. On this basis, they judge, interpret, and twist the Scripture or oral Word according to their pleasure. Müntzer did this, and there are still many doing this today, who set themselves up as shrewd judges between the spirit and the letter without knowing what they say or teach. The papacy is also purely religious raving in that the pope boasts that “all laws are in the shrine of his heart” and that what he decides and commands in his churches is supposed to be Spirit and law—even when it is above or contrary to the Scriptures or the spoken Word. This is all the old devil and old snake, who also turned Adam and Eve into enthusiasts and led them from the external Word of God to “spirituality” and their own presumption—although he even accomplished this by means of other, external words. In the same way, our enthusiasts also condemn the external Word, and yet they themselves do not keep silent. Instead, they fill the world with their chattering and scribbling—as if the Spirit could not come through the Scriptures or the spoken word of the apostles, but the Spirit must come through their own writings and words. Why do they not abstain from their preaching and writing until the Spirit himself comes into the people apart from and in advance of their writings? After all, they boast that the Spirit has come into them without the preaching of the Scriptures. There is no time here to debate these matters more extensively. We have dealt with them sufficiently elsewhere. (SA III.VIII.3-6)[1]
Clearly, the problem is that enthusiasm puts something else in the place of God’s Word—something else becomes the authority, whether it be your emotions, your thoughts, reason and logic, or even some person. Enthusiasm replaces God’s Word with some other authority. Thus, it replaces Jesus and God with an idol.
Since the liturgy is based in God’s Word and structured so that the high points are hearing God’s Word and receiving God’s promise in Holy Communion, teaches us against such enthusiasm. It doesn’t prevent a church or people from embracing enthusiasm but it functions to form and direct us against it. Just as the Lord’s prayer teaches us for what and how we should pray, so the liturgy teaches us how to worship God and how He dwells with us and relates to us. For this reason, it is good for us to reflect on the liturgy we use and consider how it is directing us and our children back to the Lord and His Word.
This is a good reason not to needlessly dispense with it but rather to examine and embrace it. And yet, we cannot embrace a legalism here, that is must be this way. It is not commanded by Scripture although Scripture does show the value to such ritual and rites as long as they teach properly about our Lord and God. That was the function of all the rites in the Old Testament—to point to Jesus, to teach the Israelites about God, to be tutor that lead them to Christ (Galatians 3:24).
We are no longer bound to this or that form of the liturgy; we are free in the gospel to change or alter it. And yet, stability serves to teach us that God does not change—that His Word is not like the wind, one day blowing this way, and the next day changing direction and teaching something different, even contrary. No, God’s Word remains the same and since He does not change it is good that our worship has consistency.
But not only for us, it is good for our children! They can learn and know what is happening even as God’s Word forms them in their thoughts and actions. They even memorize it. The repetition teaches them to hold these words from Scripture or teaching of God in their hearts and lives as it also teaches us.
So, let us seek to understand why God’s people over the centuries put together the liturgy as we have it. Let us examine the beneficial changes and learn from those that created problems. Let us grow in our own worship as we understand what we are doing and saying and why we are doing and saying it. Let us understand the Scriptures we are quoting and what they mean as well as understanding how they are teaching us and forming us—how they are preparing us and protecting us. Like those sayings of our parents—the wisdom and teaching they gave us as children—God’s Word in the liturgy does not return void. It teaches and shapes us and helps guide us back to our Lord and His Word.
Gracious Father, You gave us Your eternal Word to teach us and guide us in all our ways and it does not return void. Thank You for the many teachers You provided before us who embraced Your Word and began to use it in worship to teach the next generation. Help us to rejoice in these lessons and to grow in our understanding an appreciation of them. Guide us by Your Spirit to cling to Your Word and not to be misled by anything that tries to set up an idol in its place. Grant us ever to worship You and You alone along with Your Son and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.
[1] Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, and Charles P. Arand, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 321–322.