Mandates

My comments yesterday about church-ese need some explanation. Not all the points I made yesterday are wrong activities. It isn’t wrong, for example, to worship on Sunday morning. It isn’t wrong to enjoy the sermon. It isn’t wrong to care for the church property.

However, those things can’t be mandated either. Here’s the principle I work with: If God did not require the practice in his Word, then we can’t require it either. You will not find a mandate about worshipping Sunday mornings, for example. You won’t even find a mandate to weekly worship.

Do I think it’s wrong to worship on Sunday morning? Absolutely not! But it is not wrong to worship on Tuesday at 7:24 pm either and skip Sunday morning.

Our principles always must come from what God said. What God mandates, we mandate.

Here’s some of what I think God has mandated for our worship:

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship,

to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)

Pretty simple, I think. We are to be devoted to

• the Word (that’s what the apostles’ teaching turned into)
• to fellowship
• to communion
• to prayer.

We must mandate what God mandates and not require what God does not require.

Pretty simple.