How to Have a New Testament Church Meeting

by Rusty Entrekin

The Corinthians practiced what are called participatory, open, or interactive meetings. Should we imitate them in this regard?
Did you know that the Bible gives us guidelines on how to have a church meeting? These instructions are found in 1 Co 14:26-40.

1 Co 14:26 begins with “What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.”

In this verse, the apostle Paul was describing what normal church life was like for the Corinthians. It may come as a shock to us to realize he did not say, “When you come together, the minister of music has a song, and the pastor has a word of instruction.”

Instead, “everyone” of the brethren at Corinth came ready to contribute something. Some might think that the Apostle was criticizing the Corinthians for this. Perhaps there was some mild criticism intended, for as we read on, the apostle provides guidelines regarding who can speak, how often, and when. He restricted the number of those who could publicly speak in tongues and prophesy in a given meeting, and corrected the behavior of some of the women. But if there was any criticism intended in verse 26, it was quite limited. Paul did not go on to restrict the right to speak to only a few men. He did not say, "Brethren, this ought not to be. Only the pastor and the minister of music should speak." Instead, he assumed the right of any of the brethren to speak in the meeting, and simply provided guidelines for doing so. Thus, his intent was merely to provide some course corrections, not to cancel the entire flight!

This verse makes it startlingly clear that at Corinth, the right to publicly bring a teaching to the entire church was not the exclusive right of one paid professional. Pastors were not the only people who were allowed to bring a word of instruction during church, and ministers of music (had they existed back then) were not the only ones who introduced songs to sing!
In Col 3:16, we learn that things were apparently like that at Colosse, too:

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”

“Speak to one another,” Paul also wrote in Eph 5:19-20, “with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In the above verses, notice the emphasis on teaching “one another”, and singing to “one another.”

Reading this, it becomes painfully apparent that the way most of us have church today was not "normal" in New Testament times. Back then, church meetings were a time when the everyday, non-professional Christian contributed to the meetings. The right to teach in church was not the exclusive domain of the paid professional.