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The doctrine of God, for example, is, for all intents and purposes, an Old Testament doctrine.
The New Testament adds virtually nothing to our understanding of the nature of God,
concentrating rather on the revelation of the Trinity. They find it very easy to draw flesh and
blood lessons concerning faith in God and living by faith from the narrative of the first
thirty-nine books of the Bible. The New Testament has very much less of this illustrative
material. And, the average evangelical is much more likely to explain the atonement of Jesus
Christ with reference to Isaiah 53 than to Romans 3.

The result is an odd mixture of approaches to the Old Testament. And what this amounts to in
practice is that Christians seem to feel rather free to take from the first thirty-nine books of the
Bible what they feel is relevant and leave what they do not.
This situation has vast implications for worship because most of what the Bible says about
worship it says in the first thirty-nine books. Most of what the Bible says about sung praise it
says in the first thirty-nine books, not the last twenty-seven. We know that the church in the
age of the apostles continued to sing its praises to God, but the New Testament provides almost
no description of the singing of early Christian churches. We know that Christian churches
gathered for worship on the Lord's Day, but we are told very little about how they went about
worship in the days of the apostles.

Now, is that because Pentecost cut the church loose from the regulations that had governed
holy worship in the church of God from the days of Moses, perhaps leaving in their place only
some very general principles? Or, is the relative paucity of information on worship in the last
twenty seven books of the Bible due to the fact that worship, including sung worship, had been
comprehensively explained, regulated, and illustrated in the first thirty-nine books of the Bible
and there was no need to re-cover that ground.

The latter is unmistakably the case in regard to certain features of Christian worship. For
example, you will find it virtually impossible to construct from New Testament materials
alone, a doctrine of the sacraments - Baptism and the Lord's Supper. We have the institution of
the Supper in the New Testament and we have mention of its use in a few places, and one
correction of its abuse. But nowhere are we told how such a thing as the Lord's Supper
functions, what its uses are, and how we are to partake of it and with what expectations. All of
that was taught in the Old Testament concerning the sacraments of that age and epoch.
Nothing more need be said except to make the necessary adjustments in form - baptism
replacing circumcision; the Lord's Supper replacing the Passover and the sacrifices. What these
things are and how they work - that was already revealed.

The relationship between the material of the Old Testament touching worship and the practice
of Christian churches in the new epoch is a huge issue with profound implications, and it is an
issue faced in all traditions and still today.

The question touches every conceivable aspect of worship. For example, it is the Old Testament

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