The Bible and the Liturgy

There is an indissoluble link between the Bible and the liturgy. The early Christian liturgical assemblies gathered to read what Justin Martyr called “the writings of the prophets” and “the memoirs of the apostles.” This translates into what later Christians called the Old and New Testaments and which the Council of Nicea in 325 canonized as one collection of sacred scripture. The canonical Hebrew Scriptures were a given for Christians. The Christ-event made no sense apart from its Old Testament background. Indeed, the only interpretation of the Christ-event in the canonical gospels was that such-and-such happened “to fulfill what was written in the scriptures.” But the gospels and letters of the apostles became canonical scripture because they were read in the Christian liturgical assemblies along with the Hebrew Scriptures. The ecumenical Council of Nicea agreed on a universal or catholic canon based on the canons of the local churches. The reading of scripture in the Christian assemblies made the Bible the church’s book. The liturgy was Scripture’s home. But once canonized, the Bible assumed an authoritative or normative role in the church, also governing what is construed as orthodoxia, “true worship.” The historic liturgy is not based on the Bible as if there were a prescribed order of worship in the New Testament. But the Bible is the liturgy’s primary text. The text of the Bible pervades the historic liturgy. The texts of the sacred scriptures of the Old and New Testaments serve as the words for the liturgical assembly’s praise of God, confession of sins, adoration, edification, profession of faith, intercessions, thanksgiving, and supplication and also as the source of the assembly’s ritual actions and accouterments. Consider the following use of the Bible in the chief order of worship known in various current traditions as the Mass, the Eucharist, and the service of Holy Communion.