Worship, Revised and Expanded Edition: Reformed according to Scripture

by Hughes Oliphant Old

The first Christians took over many of the worship traditions of the synagogue. They did not take over the rich and sumptuous ceremonial of the Temple, but rather the simpler synagogue service, with its Scripture reading, its sermon, its prayers, and its psalmody. We find many evidences of this in the New Testament. In Acts 4:23–31 we read of Christians gathering for prayer. Their prayer service began with the whole congregation singing psalms. Several times the apostle Paul tells Christians to sing psalms. In 1 Corinthians 14:26 Paul tells the church that when they are gathered together for worship, among other things they are to sing psalms. The text actually reads, “When you come together, each one has a hymn, . . . a revelation.” This probably means that the whole congregation is to sing a psalm, but it may indicate that the first Christians had cantors like the synagogue. The cantor would sing the text while the congregation answered by singing “Hallelujah” after each verse. It surely did not mean that everyone was supposed to get up and sing a solo. In