Now to the issue of doing what the NT says and nothing more. I have to guess to some here but on the basis of info already given and allowing for ignorance on my part. …
I’m wracking my brains to come up with a NT ‘license’ for a call to worship…?
Now I could be silly and point out that license is not given to worship in the medium of English, to have glass windows in a building that we may use, to use silver or pewter or ceramic for the elements used in the Lord’s Supper, pews or alternatively chairs to sit on. But maybe not so silly; I’m interested in how these slip through the net and yet instrumental music doesn’t.

On the other side of the coin: things mentioned as being important in worship that I suspect don’t occur should be considered, again for a sense of how the intellectual structure behind this fits together. So …
where are tongues, interpretation, prophecy, words of knowledge etc? And indeed the Lord’s Supper and, I repeat, foot washing? What reasons are given for them not to be there? Or expected? (That last question makes an assumption which could be wrong, of course).

How important do you think the theological-thematic progression through the elements of the service (call to worship…psalm…prayer…psalm…sermon etc) is?

I think that in our tradition, we have seen ‘liturgy’ as bad and pretended we don’t have one (when in fact we do!!) This often results in a service having a helpful structure, but poorly ordered (theological) elements.

For example, I’ve been at many, many Highland Presbyterian services where the call to worship is vague. “Let us begin our worship with…” Who am I worshipping? And why? Then the opening Psalm is randomly chosen and is not explicitly a Psalm of adoration, which again makes me unsure of who we are actually worshipping and why. Following this, the prayer is directed to God, but it is not theologically structured. It is basically a big list of requests and petitions.

The liturgy itself has not confronted me with the gospel. It has not led me into the presence of God through the theological gateway of the gospel.

As we have come together into the presence of God, the liturgy has not first challenged me that this God is superlatively holy – and that my first response (as the regulative principle teaches us) to him should be outright adoration, then followed by explicit contrition and repentance before him.

If we were to decide that the theological progression of the service (in terms of specific Psalms chosen, and the theological purpose of each prayer) should be deliberately chosen to faithfully follow the Biblical pattern of worship though… Then the call to worship would be a clear call to praise the Triune God. The opening Psalm would have to be one of overt adoration or immediate confession. Then the opening prayer would have to begin with specific adoration leading to specific confession of sin.

Again, the Biblical pattern for worship follows confession of sin with the relief of pardon – which we can find in the gospel preached in word and sacrament.

Using the bare bones of our tradition (acapella Psalms, readings, preaching, sacraments), we have everything we need for a very edifying liturgy – where the gospel is apparent even in the order of service. It’s a shame that in many places, we Presbyterians are just not switched on in this way; and have left ‘liturgy’ to the Anglicans.

What say ye?

I would say that the answer to the footwashing question, though, could/might be helpful if I can resume where I left off.

If you’re genuinely interested in the responses – well, they’re all obviously fair questions that i’m not in principle afraid of tackling, but i’m a bit cautious about whether it’s worth my time to write a response if all it’s going to do is spawn a hundred and one other questions. Anyone can list question after question with the rhetorical effect of making the stated position look hopelessly flawed – to me it seems more like some kind of courteous form of messageboard trolling than serious engagement. Not that i’m expecting you to be convinced by me or vice versa but i just don’t have the luxury of time to handle it (i’m meant to be submitting my thesis in a couple of months from now and it’s hectic (that’s privileged info (please feel free to feel privileged))) and behind ma puir wee blog there’s only me that sits in the pew of a weekend, not your full time apologetics ministry. I hope that doesn’t sound too feeble?

All seven sacraments appear in scripture but the context is never extensively elaborated. One cannot construct a liturgy (or ’service’ such as you have described) based on the NT. If we relied on the NT for the Eucharist we would have to perform the passover ritual and insert the words of institution. But you wouldn’t even be able to do that without relying on extra scriptural sources (and rebuilding the temple). We have nothing more than the bare words required for baptism. Acts does not tell us what ‘the prayers’ entailed.

The Byzantine and Roman liturgies all contain essentially the same elements which we see in the heavenly liturgy of the Book of Revelation. There is clear evidence for the use by the Apostles of anointing the sick and two kinds of laying on of hands. Christ tells the Apostles ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.’ Christ clearly alters the character of marriage by repealing the Mosaic divorce laws. Who are you to say that contrary to the unanimous consensus of all churches of Apostolic origin these are not sacraments? Where do you get the category of sacrament from anyway?

These churches claim the Apostolic authority to govern the liturgy and trace their liturgical traditions back to Apostolic times. You may deny their credentials but at least they claim to possess them. You don’t even claim the authority to govern the liturgy. On your own terms your worship is arbitrary and un-scriptural. Reading out a lot of scripture doesn’t make up for it.

You have never answered any of the very serious objections to your position. Why don’t you accept foot washing as a sacrament? Why do you worship on a Sunday for that matter? You say there are ‘consistent, coherent, and scriptural responses to all the points’. I have never seen them. I have asked protestant theology professors and CU reps, I have seen live debates on these topics and read debates on them. I have never seen a single protestant who could deal with a single one of these points. On one occasion I saw a representative of Wycliffe Hall was reduced to complaining it wasn’t fair to ask him the question.

Re #11, i’m in two minds about how and whether to respond. You must know that there are consistent, coherent, and scriptural responses to all the points you raise, and you must also know that lumping so many disparate issues into the one post after failing to take on board the points made in #9 kind of makes it look like you don’t really care about the discussion as such and would rather just rant. Am I being unfair?

In its written form it requires interpretation.

The individual is not competent to give this interpretation.

Without the correct understanding of revelation the scriptures will not give life because they will not lead to Christ.

Read incorrectly they will lead to destruction.

The Church of the Living God to whom the scriptures and all the deposit of faith was given, who determined the canon, of whom it is is said ‘who hears you hears me’ is the pillar and the foundation of the truth.

She is the sole authorised interpreter of scripture and the guardian of the deposit of faith.