Search

1. Development The church’s “occasional services” are called such not because they are used infrequently but because they are rites that have been developed for specific occasions. The term is thus comparable to the variety of poetry called occasional verse. …

1. Term and Development 1.1. Term In the pagan world, “liturgy” (Gk. leitourgia, from leı̈tos, “concerning the public,” plus ergon, “work”) originally had an entirely secular use, connoting the service owed to the public by persons of means; in addition, philanthropists took on additional service, also called liturgy. The basic meaning was thus “service for the people.” A secondary, cultic usage developed for the term, perhaps because ultimately the public was to benefit from the service rendered to the gods. This cultic meaning was adopted in the LXX and in Hellenistic Judaism for a number of Hebrew terms involving the service of God, and ultimately for priestly service, but the two strands of meaning appear to be mixed. At the time of the birth of Christianity, the Jewish world understood the term as meaning “service to God for the good of the people.” The NT reflects all of these uses, with additional emphasis placed on the sacrificial signi…