To emphasize the homogenous nature of the new pagan-Christian religion, the state decreed that the first day of the week would be a holiday. The idea was to encourage pagans to observe it along with Christians. Rather than calling it "the Lord's Day" or something, they retained one of the names that had been used for a couple of centuries, dies solis, the "day of the Sun." Pagans were used to worshipping the Sun, not Jehovah, so the state gave preference to them on this point.
Thus to this day, we pay unwilling homage to the Sun on Sunday, along with the Moon on Monday, plus a mini-pantheon of Norse, Teutonic,Germanic and Roman gods: Tiu, Woden, Thor, Frigg, and Saturn. Sleep well tonight. In case there's anything to these other religions, we're covered.
Around A.D. 500, a gentleman whom history has given the name Gregory the Great was serving as bishop of Rome. At that time Rome had long lain in ruins and wasn't much more than a cow pasture. Yet despite this, the power of the bishop of Rome was growing. Gregory invented an order of worship and then decreed that it would be the only one for all churches in Christendom.
*For Catholics, that "order of worship" has not been changed in fifteen hundred years. But dead or alive, it is repeated every Sunday in literally millions of places. But before you (likely a Protestant) say "tut-tut" at such lifeless ritualism, you should know that Martin Luther and John Calvin invented the Protestant way of worship, and it hasn't changed in over four hundred years! Furthermore, it is just as unimaginative, ossified, hidebound, ridiculous, boring, dead, and irrelevant to modern man as what Gregory invented!
*It's a funny thing about religion: Once "deified," certain elements never change.
A total revolution is needed in the way Christians gather. But rejoice! An exciting new Christian revival - the open church life - now brings with it an infinite number of ways to gather and to worship.
Let us look at one last man of this era. He and his contribution are often overlooked. I refer to John Chrysostom, who bequeathed to us Christian oratory. Unlike the other traditions I mentioned so far, this one might appear at first glance to be very scriptural. The powerful sermons of Spurgeon, Ironside, and Jonathan Edwards, for example, will reverberate through history. There is a difference, however, between the speaking skills Chrysostom gave to the Christian tradition and the speaking of called men in the first century.
*That difference is not a fine line, but a vast gorge.
John Chrysostom-for better or for worse-left us with polished, professional pulpiteerism, a far cry from the New Testament business of prophetic utterance.
Modern sermonics, homiletics, hermeneutics, rhetoric, oratory, and all related fields find their origins not in the first century prophets, but in the Graeco-Roman tradition of rhetoric. (Rhetoric is the structure and style of what you say.) Then, it was a rhetorical gift. Today, it's platform science. For instance, seminaries today teach us that the ideal sermon has an introduction, three memorable main points, and a conclusion. That's exactly what Aristotle said in his Rhetoric (no coincidence).
*A good sermon in a seminary classroom is a brilliant, well-thoughtout message that flows from the mind; a good "sermon" around a kitchen table in A.D. 100 was a brief but sound message that flowed from the heart and sprang from the situation at hand rather than being etched in marble beforehand.
In his early pagan years, Chrysostom was a student of rhetoric. In fact, he was the most promising young orator in the Empire. His name, Chrysostom, means Golden-Mouth. Then he got saved and ended up as the spell-binding bishop of the church in Antioch. History has judged him to be both courageous and foolhardy-and an egomaniac. He and two or three other orators-turned-Christian pulpiteers caused the Greek oratorical skills to replace the Judaeo-Christian practice of the prophet. As a result, today we have an awful lot of pulpit pros, while the old-fashioned, free-speaking prophet has become an endangered species.
*What we hear on Sunday morning is in the tradition of Greek orators and not in the lineage of the church planters, men like Peter or Paul of Tarsus with their fierce, bold proclamation of the gospel in marketplaces and open homes. Such Hebrew preachers spoke sporadically, as prompted by the Holy Spirit. We get our preaching today every Sunday between 11:25 and 11:59, Holy Spirit or no. They spoke extemporaneously, with little or no formal speech training. Someday you and I may be forced to abandon our polished platform rhetoric and follow their pattern - when the Scripture is fulfilled:
