Theology of the Church, Mentor's Guide, MG03

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T H E O L O G Y O F T H E C H U R C H

different content (Jesus as Messiah and Savior), but very similar to Jewish orientation , yet including the significant and central addition of the eucharist (i.e., the Lord’s Supper) at its center, (Acts 2.42, 46) along with prayers being offered to God in the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 4.24-30). While we see evidence for their assembling to pray, fellowship, and to hear the Word of God preached and taught (e.g., Acts 2.46; 5.42), the first community changed its day for services from the Sabbath to Sunday, the first day of the week, since the Lord Jesus was raised upon the first day of the week. While scholars disagree regarding the nature of the form of the worship of the first generation apostolic Church, there is consensus that the form was simple and devout. The evidence of the New Testament and the non-canonical writings reveal that while the service had no formulaic process or standard approach, the heart and center of the Christian services was the celebration of the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day. The Didache (ca. 95-150), an invaluable and quite early source of evidence for Christian belief and practice of the early Church, provides us with a rich narrative of how the first Christians celebrated the eucharist, detailing the prayers they used, liturgical directions that needed to be followed, along with the forms of prayer to be prayed. Time was allowed for open-ended prayer at certain times of the service (liturgy). Before any of the believers could celebrate the Lord’s Supper, confession of sin was required for all who desired to participate in their celebration ( Didache 14.1). The Jewishness of the service of the early Church was quite evident, and therefore, the guidelines and contours of Jewish praise and worship would have resonated in the midst of the earliest Christian assemblies. It may be interesting for you and the students to know a little about the beginnings of the concept of liturgia , that special order and schedule of worship structure used in many churches today worldwide. One of the early fathers of the Church, Justin Martyr, notes in his First Apology which he wrote near the middle of the second century, a clear description of the Christian service, with the Lord’s Supper (or eucharist, “thanksgiving”), also referred to in the Didache (14.1). Justin describes the

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