Part One

The Suggestion of a Church Calendar

Perhaps as you read, I don’t have to argue for Christmas and Easter.  You accept that already for your church calendar.   Churches should acknowledge and honor the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  They include the birth and resurrection in the prayers, singing, and preaching of their corporate worship.

I suggest that a church have a calendar with events for the worship of the Lord.  Scripture does not require the special days, but a church should acknowledge the truth of them.  They can do that by putting them on the calendar, very much like inserting them into an order of service.

The Requirement of Order

The belief, teaching, and practice of scripture requires order.  You see order all over the Bible.  This is the nature of God.  Romans 8:29-30 reveal an order of salvation:

29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Here’s the order:  (1) foreknowledge, (2) predestination to conform to the image of the Son, (3) call, (4) justification, and (5) glorification.  Other examples of order exist.  Consider Matthew 5:23-24:

23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; 24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

Here’s the order:  (1)  Decide to bring a gift to the altar, (2) remember brother has ought against you, (3) Leave the gift before the altar, (4) go, (5) be reconciled to the brother, (6) come back to the altar, (7) offer your gift at the altar.

The Truth of Order

God is a God of order.  God requires order.  “Order” translates the Greek, taxis.  According to BDAG, it means:  “an arrangement of things in sequence,” “a state of good order,” and “an arrangement in which someone or something functions.”  Here are two usages of the word by the Apostle Paul:

1 Corinthians 14:40, “Let all things be done decently and in order.”

Colossians 2:5, “For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.”

Very often the priesthood, like that of Zacharias in Luke 1:8, is called an “order.”  The worship of Israel required order.  If you think about the tabernacle, it started with an outer court, then an inner court, the altar of burnt offering followed by the laver, and then into the holy place.  It ended in the holy of holies.  God prescribed order in the worship.

Worship, Order, and a Church Calendar

When one reads the account of the Lord’s Table in the New Testament one sees a particular order of observance.  This is seen in Matthew 26:26-27, Mark 14:22-23, Luke 22:17-20, and 1 Corinthians 11:23-29.  Someone takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it, explains it, partakes of it, remembers, and then in the same manner takes the cup.  He takes the bread first and then the cup.  One could say that the order makes sense as it will always.

True worship requires order.  A calendar puts the events of Jesus’ life in an order and observes them according to that plan.  It treats them like they occurred.  They happened at a time of the year.

One does not have to put events on a calendar to give them acknowledgement and honor.  Doing so, however, fulfills a principle of order, which is in the nature of God.  That obeys doing things in order.  It ensures the church will think on these events, meditate on them, emphasize them, and include them in prayer, singing, and preaching.

(More to Come)