Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 60:2 (Fall 1998)
Article: Liturgical Studies
Author: Terry L. Johnson

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WTJ 60:2 (Fall 1998) p. 297

Liturgical Studies

Terry L. Johnson*

* Terry L. Johnson is senior pastor of the Independent Presbyterian Church, Savannah, Georgia.

I. Leading in Prayer

In light of the public nature of the Lord’s Day worship services of the church, the prayers in those services are of necessity public and partake of the qualities of public ordinances. This means that public prayer will differ from private prayer in both its subject matter and its aim. Namely, public prayer must edify the public. Prayers offered in public are audible, not silent, and must be intelligible because they aim at not personal but public edification. Their purpose is to bless both God and the congregation. There are two audiences, one on earth and one in heaven. This is precisely the apostle Paul’s point in 1 Cor 14:14–19. If one prays “in the Spirit” (whatever exactly that means) so that one cannot be understood, the prayer may be a sincere expression of thanksgiving, but (and here is the crucial point) “the other man is not edified.” Better are five intelligible words that may “instruct others” than “ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Cor 14:17, 19). Public prayer, while addressed to God, is for public edification and instruction. It is another kind of pulpit speech, closely related to preaching. This understanding of public prayer was typical of early Protestantism and the whole subsequent free church tradition (Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist, Methodist). Public prayer was considered a gift given by God to those whom he calls into the public ministry, and was to be cultivated through prayer disciplines and the careful study of the devotional language of the Bible. Because faith comes by hearing the word of God, the use of scriptural language and allusions in prayer was understood to be of critical importance. The congregation will be edified as Scripture-enriched, impassioned prayers are offered in public worship, they believed.

Convictions like these lie behind the liturgical reforms of Bucer, Farel, Calvin, and Knox, as they wrote Scripture-based prayers in their Orders of Worship and encouraged

WTJ 60:2 (Fall 1998) p. 298

free prayers.1 They are clearly evident in the attempted reforms of the English Puritans, as seen in their Middleburg Liturgy, in the Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God, and in Richard Baxter’s Savoy or Reformed Liturgy, presented to Charles II in Puritanism’s final attempt to reform the Prayer Book. Throughout the Reformation and Second Reformation period of over one hundred yea...

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