Divisive Worship
The official gathering of God’s people in worship, that peculiar Lord’s Day assembly, is meant to be a place that divides. As Paul declares in 1 Cor. 14, it is the place where believers in Jesus are built up and edified, and unbelievers are convicted as the secrets of their hearts are revealed, and so fall on their faces crying out “God is truly among you.” The children’s First Catechism makes this clear when it answers the question, “Why did Christ appoint these sacraments?“ The answer is counterintuitive: “To distinguish his people from the world, and to comfort and strengthen them.” There are at least three reasons for this. The first is that the Church’s worship is unearthly. It is for those who are already citizens of the city of the living God. The writer of Hebrews says that in our worship, …you (2nd person plural) have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of th