The Importance of Multi-Generational Worship, Part 1

“One generation shall commend Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.” – Psalm 145:4

The Congregation

It was the LORD who first identified his covenant people, Israel as “קָהַל,” “qahal,” or “the assembled.” Learning from covenant statements throughout the first five books of the Bible, we see the importance of communication between generations in the family and in the community (Deut. 6:4-6). This “assembled” group of elect people was to serve as the nation from which God would manifest his presence in the world. The pinnacle of this manifestation was in the coming of God in “Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Mt. 1:1).

As we continue into what we might call the “Church Age,” we see this theme continued. In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible), the Greek word, “ἐκκλησία,” “ecclesia,” was given as the Greek rendering of the Hebrew “קָהַל,” or “assembly.” Does that word sound familiar? It should, as “ἐκκλησία” is also the Greek word that most English versions have translated as, “the church.” It means the same thing, an “assembly,” a “gathering,” or a “congregation” of people. We therefore see a continuation of the one people of God in the Old Testament, the Hebrews, fulfilled in the one people of God in the New Testament, the Church (Eph. 2:18-22). But what does this have to do with our worship? Keep reading