Apostolic Theology

The sixth Psalm might look at bit depressing at first. It starts out with God's rebuke, anger and displeasure. But in that, it's true to life. For "all the world" is "guilty before God" (Rom. 3:19); "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). And so we were all "by nature children of wrath" (Eph. 2:3). Psalm 6:1 isn't just how David felt in that moment. It isn't something we can't relate to. Rather, Psalm 6:1 is an acknowledgment we all must come to when we repent of our sins and turn to God the Saviour. 
And that acknowledgement leads into the most honest of prayers in Psalm 6:2: "Have mercy on me, O LORD, for I am weak." 
This is the true prayer of a Christian. For Christians are those who look only to the Lord for mercy. We see the reality of our own weakness — our own inability to sort ourselves out. We know that we cannot save ourselves. And so we know that what we need, always and above all…

The Guidance has been issued by Her Majesty’s Government for the re-opening of churches for public worship, and now it's clear that we won’t be able to sing for quite some time yet. And yet for Pentecostals (and many other charismatics and evangelicals), singing tends to be a major part of what we do when we gather to worship together. I’ve already seen chatter online about whether it’s possible to worship without song, or whether churches should open in July when it will be possible in England and Northern Ireland (NB there is still no date for the opening of churches for public worship in Wales and Scotland) or wait until later in the hope that it’ll be possible to sing then. Others have been asking what we’d do in church if we can’t sing.

So, I thought it might be useful to think about worship without singing and to draw some wisdom from Pentecostals of the past for ways they encouraged worship without song.


Can we worship together without singing?For many of us, singing and musi…

In Psalm 5 we encounter the first of the imprecatory Psalms ⁠— Psalms which call down God's judgment. This Psalm calls upon the Lord to pronounce the wicked 'guilty' and 'cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions' (v.10). But how could we, who have been boastful (v.5), who have spoken falsehood (v.6), who have been unfaithful (v.9), who have flattered others with our tongues (v.9), who have rebelled against the Lord (v.10) ever call down God's guilty verdict on others who have sinned like us? Parts of this Psalm sit uneasily on our lips.
And yet, they don't sit in any way uneasily on the lips of the Chief Musician — Jesus, our true worship leader. As the Sinless One, He can call down God's judgment on sin without hypocrisy. As the One to whom the Father 'has entrusted all judgment' (John 5:22), He can justly pronounce the guilty verdict. 
And yet, this Sinless One who can call down God's judgment in this Psalm, is the One who bear…

As we pray to the Father, Jesus leads us in prayer and the Holy Spirit helps us pray. So our prayer involves the Word (because Jesus is the Word) and the Spirit. We can never separate the Spirit from the Word, because we can't divide the Trinity. So, if we know that we need the Holy Spirit in prayer (which I'm sure Pentecostals do know), then we need to know as well that we can't divide the Spirit from the Word. Our prayers rely on Jesus — the Living Word — and He leads us in prayer through the Spirit-inspired Scriptures — the Written Word. The Holy Spirit works by the Word, even in prayer. 
So, one of the reasons the Scriptures have been given is to lead us in prayer. I've already written about the importance of rooting our prayer in Scripture when I wrote about the Daily Office and about praying all the Psalms. There we were thinking particularly about praying the very words of Scriptural prayers. But today I want to think a bit more widely about being led in prayer b…

To help and encourage you in prayer, we're broadcasting Morning and Evening Prayer each day (Monday-Saturday) at the Pentecostal Prayerbook.

Morning Prayer (available from 7am UK time): words here to pray alongEvening Prayer (available from 5pm UK time): words here to pray along Each podcast will last 15 minutes or a bit less and includes a chapter from the Old Testament, a chapter from the New Testament, and a Psalm, as well as prayers of confession, of praise, of faith (the Apostle's Creed), and some prayers for the day. (At the minute, it's just me on the podcasts, but I'm hoping I'll be able to get some other people involved to pray along with me as well as we go on.) 
To find out a bit more about Morning and Evening Prayer and why they're a helpful way to pray, have a look at this post.
We'll also be posting a short podcast each lunchtime to help you to meditate upon a Scripture. Especially in this time of lockdown, many people are finding it hard to c…

With its final confident declaration, ‘I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety,’ the fourth Psalm is a favourite for night-time. Yet this Psalm is much more than a simple bedtime prayer. Although nowadays it’s prayed by millions of people every night (it is, after all, the first Psalm of Compline, that last time of daily prayer before sleeping), David originally gave the instructions for singing it to only one person: the ‘chief musician’ or ‘choirmaster’ (depending on what translation you’re using). This was the worship leader who led Israel in praise in the Tabernacle and Temple, and that’s who, first and foremost, sings this Psalm – the worship leader.

But if that makes you think of a solo from a chap with skinny jeans, a guitar, and a hipster beard (my apologies to all those who lead congregations in song at this point!), it might be worth thinking again. Who is our worship leader? The New Testament never uses a term anything like…