Some Historic Lectionary
I found another interesting article written by Alexander Ring titled "The Path of Understanding: The Development of Lectionaries and their use in the Lutheran Church." He writes, "Christians congregations of the first century took their cues for the divine service from the worship practices of the synagogue, which used a lectionary to determine the readings for the service. … While there was some variation in practice, usually there were two Scripture readings in each service. The first was from the Torah, divided into 150 parts to be read lectio continua in a three year cycle, then a second lesson from the Prophets."
Ring uses the example from Luke 4:16-21, where this is not a Christian Congregation example. He will further use the same citation from Justin Martyr which I previously talked about. What was going on in the early church is very difficult to understand. I like the point that in Jewish Synagogues they would take three years to go through 5 books of the Bible. Thus, we take our example from them to read scriptures in a cycle.
This is our example for continuing with the Lectionary whether it be the three year lectionary or as Ring calls the Historic Lectionary. The point is simple that early Christians read scripture on Sunday. St Paul encourages people to read and circulate his letters. But this seems to be more supportive of what I was taught about the early church.
Most of the Churches in the Early church did not have many of Paul's letters until they were collected more in the Second Century. Most places would have read through the letters they had. I was also taught they took a lot of time to read these letters or books. I had a professor who told us, churches would read through the entire letter on a Sunday or an entire Gospel. You can really get a feel for Luke or Mark if you sit down and read it all the way through.
I understand the break down into sections but I also do not think the early church was narrowed service time of about 1 hour. They would spend most of the day listening and debating like Jewish Synagogues. Thank you.
Ring uses the example from Luke 4:16-21, where this is not a Christian Congregation example. He will further use the same citation from Justin Martyr which I previously talked about. What was going on in the early church is very difficult to understand. I like the point that in Jewish Synagogues they would take three years to go through 5 books of the Bible. Thus, we take our example from them to read scriptures in a cycle.
This is our example for continuing with the Lectionary whether it be the three year lectionary or as Ring calls the Historic Lectionary. The point is simple that early Christians read scripture on Sunday. St Paul encourages people to read and circulate his letters. But this seems to be more supportive of what I was taught about the early church.
Most of the Churches in the Early church did not have many of Paul's letters until they were collected more in the Second Century. Most places would have read through the letters they had. I was also taught they took a lot of time to read these letters or books. I had a professor who told us, churches would read through the entire letter on a Sunday or an entire Gospel. You can really get a feel for Luke or Mark if you sit down and read it all the way through.
I understand the break down into sections but I also do not think the early church was narrowed service time of about 1 hour. They would spend most of the day listening and debating like Jewish Synagogues. Thank you.
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