The main elements in the first part of the church service, the service of the Word, are the readings of Scriptures and the sermon. Within the Reformed tradition, the ministry of God’s Word as a separate liturgical act rightly holds a high position. This is evident already from the fact that the sermon by far takes the most time during the service. And if you ask church attendees what they come to church for, then my guess is that the answer will often be “to hear God’s Word,” in which case people mainly think of the sermon. For pastors/ministers, the preparation of the sermon obviously requires the most time and energy.

The central position of the sermon in the Reformed church service often affects how we view and deal with the other liturgical elements such as the readings, songs, and prayers. This will be discussed in this chapter as I elaborate on the place of the Scripture readings.

Reading Parts of Scripture⤒🔗

As we said earlier, we can assume that the readings in the Christian congregation have always had a prominent place and that this use may have been taken over from the synagogue.

In the New Testament we find examples that in the synagogue and in the Christian gatherings there were readings from the “Law and the Prophets” (Acts 13:15) and from New Testament letters (1 Timothy 4:13; Revelation 1:3). For the rest, very little is known about the Scripture reading with the first Christians. For instance, we do not know at what point during its meetings the Christian church started reading from the Old Testament. Did this happen right from the start, or is it a later development? It remains likewise unclear as to when people began to read from the four Gospels during the church services. It is assumed that the various accounts of Jesus’ suffering from the Gospels were read annually during the celebration of Easter.

We receive more information from about the middle of the second century. Justin Martyr writes that on Sunday morning it was customary to read from the “memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets,” with which he would have meant the New and Old Testament. The early church father Tertullian (roughly 160-230) also tells us that during the Christian services readings from both  Testaments were used. It is unclear, however, whether one had two lectures in one service: one from the Old and one from the New Testament.

Although it is certain that the Christian church was reading from the Old and New Testament during the church services from around AD 150 onwards, it is not clear in what form this happened. When it was customary in the first centuries of our era that people in the synagogue were familiar with a continuous reading (lectio continua) of the Law and the Prophets, it is possible that the Christians took over this practice. The lectio continua implied reading (and explaining) Bible books from start to finish, spread out over a number of services.

More information about the manner in which the Scripture readings took place is found sporadically in sources from the third century and more frequently in writings from the fourth and fifth centuries. It appears that during this time different traditions had developed. In one specific area, the practice arises that there are four readings in the service: from the Law, the Prophets, a New Testament letter (“epistle reading”) and the Gospel. Elsewhere it was customary—when they had already read from the Old Testament—to limit it to the Prophets, but there were two readings from the New Testament: one from the apostolic letters and one from the Gospels. From a later date came the practice as it became dominant in the Western church, where there was a reading from the letters and from the Gospels.

In general, it applies at least from the fourth century onwards that the Old Testament was given an increasingly marginal place in the church service. On the other hand, the reading from the New Testament, and especially from the four Gospels, got a more dominant position. This coincided with the development of the so-called ecclesiastical year: certain pericopes (Gk. perikopto = cutting around) or sections of the Bible were chosen from the Gospels, specific to the act of salvation that was celebrated during a certain period of the ecclesiastical year. The sermon was directly connected with the lectures and was primarily aimed at explaining the readings and applying these to the daily life of the Christians.

During the Middle Ages, the Scripture readings maintained their place in the Mass, but the sermon began to disappear. The lectio continua had long since disappeared in the liturgy of the Mass. In the classical Roman missal from 1570, which goes back to ecclesiastical traditions until the sixteenth century, no Old Testament lectures were included. In the new Roman lectionary from the sixties of the last century, the reading from the prophets has again been restored.

The Lectio Continua←⤒🔗

The Reformation in the sixteenth century not only restored the sermon as a liturgical act, but Calvin also opted emphatically for the lectio continua. This means: spread over the services that were held on Sunday and Wednesday, Bible books were read and explained from A to Z. Calvin was opposed to the use of pericopes. He pointed to the old church, where according to him it was customary for the people to hear the Bible books read and explained in their entirety. Calvin rejected a system of reading pericopes (sections) in which the lectures are tuned to the ecclesiastical year, because these pericopes were often ill-considered and taken out of context. In De Christlicke ordinancien der Nederlantscher ghemeinten te Londen (1554), Marten Micron reports that the lectio continua was common in this congregation. The part that was read was of such a length that the preacher could explain and expound on it in an adequate, upbuilding manner. The Church Order of Kurpfalz (1563) also prescribes the continuous reading, but the edition of 1585 states that the pericope system may also be maintained.

Various synods in the Netherlands from the sixteenth century also spoke in favour of the lectio continua and wanted to drop the custom of the lectionary pericopes when the time was considered ripe to do so. Especially in the villages people appeared to be attached to the pericope system of reading. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, large-scale use of pericope rosters was practiced in the Reformed churches of the Netherlands. It was not until the nineteenth century that it became general practice that the minister would determine what was to be read in the church services and what text he was going to preach.

My plan is to discuss reading schedules and to address the question whether and in what sense they can have meaning for our liturgical practice (see Chapter 6). In any case, we see that in the past the church has given different shapes to the Scripture reading as a liturgical act. Often these considerations were based on substantive considerations: for example, the marginalization of the Old Testament was not always a guileless choice in favour of the New Testament, but it was also sometimes linked to an undervaluation of the Old Testament. Or, to mention a worthy consideration, the practice of having different readings from the Old and New Testaments, with the last one being a reading from one of the Gospels, can be seen as a liturgical concretization of the words found in Hebrews 1:1-2: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”

Multiple Lectures←⤒🔗

In our current practice it often happens that the Scripture reading is limited to the chapter from which the preacher has chosen his sermon. Without saying that this may be a bad habit, we could still consider whether it would not be of greater gain, for example, when we take a reading from the Old and New Testament as a rule. Especially in a time when the significance of the Old Testament comes under pressure, it can be a meaningful statement and an opportunity to show the current meaning of the old covenant.

When we have a variety of readings, it may be a valuable idea to take up an old tradition and to save the Gospel reading as the “high point” toward the end. By consciously choosing Scriptures from both Testaments, this practice may well express the coherence of Scripture. That is a broader approach than that lectures are selected in response to the question of what the preacher wants to address in his sermon.

In any case, it seems important to me that we carefully handle the Scripture readings in the worship service, in the sense that we pay attention also to the presentation. Many churches make use of readers, whether in special services or also as a rule. That is in itself an excellent practice, provided we have an ear for the way in which Scripture is read. Not everyone has a suitable voice or the ability to read well. It is of course wonderful to have children or young people take care of the lectures, but in such cases make sure that they read well: not too fast, with attention to the punctuation and to place the accents on the right words. It is anything but a waste of time for inexperienced readers to practice on Saturdays in the church hall, where someone can listen critically and give directions. Scripture readings must be treated with care, because after all it is about the rendition of God’s Word.

Moreover, Scripture reading has been a core moment in the liturgy, right from the start of the Christian church. At least, with a few exceptions, such was the case. An exception, for example, was the practice in the Netherlands in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At that time the worship service consisted of the sermon, and all other liturgical elements were considered as frills. This came to expression in the course of the elements surrounding and during the service. In our time it is customary for the pastor to be present in the church from the votum to the benediction, and that he is present in leading the liturgy. If we were to walk into a church building in the eighteenth century to attend a service, we would find someone who read the Law and/or the Scriptures while the church people came in and searched for their places. The pastor showed his face only when it was time for the sermon. He would then read his sermon text, continue with his sermon, and finally offer a prayer of thanksgiving. With that his task had ended and in the experience of the church people the actual service was also done.

With this practice the Scripture readings were anything but a key moment in the liturgy; rather, it was a bit of an add-on and served merely as a devout exercise of diversion for the churchgoers until the preacher started the “real work.”

Fortunately, this practice is a thing of the past. And everyone will agree that opening and reading the Bible is anything but a side issue in the liturgy. That is why it is even more surprising that these are not occurrences where ministers present the Scripture reading as an introductory step toward the sermon through their announcement. I wonder sometimes if it does not come to the surface here that our church service—despite decades of liturgical reflection—is still often synonymous with “a sermon with a support act and a conclusion.”

However it may be, announcements such as “In connection with the sermon we will read...” degrade Scripture as being an appetizer for the main dish, the sermon, and this does not belong in a Christian worship service. The Scripture reading is not a stepping stone to the sermon, but the sermon is the administration of the Word that has been read. In the sermon the portion that was read, that is, the gospel message, is unfolded before the congregation and laid upon the hearts of the listeners. Scripture readings should not fit the sermon, but instead the sermon must reflect the readings. It is different with the Scripture readings in the afternoon service, when there is a teaching service in which a Lord’s Day from the Heidelberg Catechism is dealt with. There the sermon deals with a section from a confessional document as its topic, and the chosen Scripture readings serve as support and confirmation for what is argued and taught in the specific Lord’s Day in the Catechism. The liturgical component of “Scripture readings” in the afternoon service therefore differs in nature from the section of the same name in the morning service. There might be something in it to make this more clear in the order of the service; for example, by first reading the specific Lord’s Day from the catechism, followed by the lectures from the Bible, or by integrating the readings into the teaching as it is given through the sermon.