Ordination is not something we do at every worship service, but it is something incredibly special that we do occasionally in our worship service. For a young person like Timothy, it was incredibly important that Paul and other Christian leaders laid their hands on him and appointed and empowered him to be the pastor at Ephesus. This is the same for us today. We ordain our elders and deacons in the church, and they receive from God the authority of that office and the grace to fulfill its responsibilities by prayer and the laying on of hands of other leaders in the church. This is, in part, how the mission of God continues in the church from generation to generation as new leaders and pastors are raised up, examined, ordained, and installed in fulfillment of their calling to follow Christ.

The Apostle Paul wrote at least two letters to his young protege Timothy. Timothy was installed as the pastor of the church at Ephesus and in 2 Timothy 4, Paul instructed him to “Preach the Word. Be prepared in season and out of season.” This same command applies to all pastors in Christian churches today. At City Line Church, preaching the “God-Breathed” Word faithfully is central to what we do in worship, because God is central to what we do in worship. Our preaching isn’t always going to be the hippest or coolest, but it will be about God the Father, sending God the Son to save us, and the Father and Son sending the Holy Spirit to teach and empower us as the church. God, in his unconceivable love towards us, decided to communicate with us, in the Words of Scripture and through his Son Jesus. So, we will preach the Word faithfully at City Line Church every Sunday as part of our worship.

The reading and hearing of Scripture is one of the most important acts of worship during the worship service. In our society and culture in general, we have less and less awareness and understanding of Scripture. We rarely see or interact with Scripture outside of Sunday morning. Reading Scripture in worship helps us maintain the centrality of the Bible in our lives as Christians. The reading of Scripture coupled with the preaching of God’s Word stands at the center of our worship and constitutes one of the privileged moments of worship. It is God speaking to us. We can have, even in churches that have a ‘high view of Scripture,’ a slight understanding of the Bible. We can easily have a ‘too low’ view that can subtly creep into the Bible reading of even those with the highest view of Scripture's authority and inspiration. It's the view that has taken hold whenever we come to the Bible without a sense of expectation that we are meeting with the one who made us and sustains our every breath. These two passages, one from the OT and one from the NT, point us to the divine nature of Scripture and the importance of reading them publicly.