Many think of evangelism as the great task of the church; it is not. Yes, without evangelism the church cannot function faithfully. Dead churches do not evangelize. Yet evangelism, though a great mission and task of the church, ranks below worship. Missions exist because worship does not. In heaven, evangelism does not exist; there, and on earth, the chief purpose of the church is worship. Worship ennobles our service; Scripture identifies church members as stones in God’s temple–the holy place devoted chiefly to worship (1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:21; 1 Pet. 2:4-8).
We may consider three senses in which the Scottish Presbyterian tradition has employed the term constitution. George Gillespie, writing in 1641, frequently alludes to individual laws and regulations of the church as constitutions. The same sense of the word is found in the Church of Scotland’s Barrier Act of 1697. Alexander Henderson, also writing in 1641, uses the word to designate the characteristic form, composition and membership of the church’s superior courts. From these and similar usages, the modern meaning of the term, signifying a body of fundamental principles with which all other legislation must harmonize, gradually emerged during the years between the Glorious Revolution of 1689 and and drafting of the U.S. Constitution in 1789.
