Act 13:2

[Edgar_Davie]

Acts 13:1 lists several leaders of the church in Antioch who were worshiping. v13:2 has a footnote in my Jerusalem Bible that says of the term “*worshiping”*used in that verse: “The use of the term for Christian prayer in common[worshiping] puts this on the level with the sacrificial worship in the Old Law”. Does this mean they were saying Mass? My Protestant bibles translate the word as “ministering to the Lord”.

 

[jpy15026]

Snippit from Haydock Douay Rheims
“As they were ministering to the Lord”
Some others translate,* offering up sacrifice.* There are indeed good grounds to take this to be the true sense, as the Rhemish translators observed, who not withstanding only put ministering, lest, (said they) we should seem to turn it in favour of our own cause, since neither the Latin nor Greek word signifies of itself to sacrifice, but any public ministry in the service of God.

 

[cialovesyou]

“as the were worshipping”:
The cultic sense of leitourgein, “perform a service”.(cf.Ex 28:35,43;29:30,num 18:2)
So, it is quite possible this is a reference to Christian liturgy. Not much to go on though as the same word could indicate common prayer.

 

[Verbum]

Hi Edgar,

The verb “leitourgô” is used twice in the New Testament, in this passage and in Hebrews 10,11:

Every priest stands daily at his ministry*, offering frequently those same sacrifices that can never take away sins.

*Literally "stands… ministering.

“Leitourgô” refers to a public service, here obviously a sacrifice. It would certainly seem that your quote refers to the same thing, in the case of Christians, the Eucharist.

Derivatives of leitourgô used in the NT are leitourgia --service, cult (Luke 1,23. Phil. 2,17, Heb.9,21);* leitourgos* - officiant (Heb. 1,7 and 8,2); and leitourgikos - having to do with offcial service (Heb.1,14). All of these quotes, except possibly the last one, refer to public worship.

“Ministering to the Lord” is somewhat of a cop-out.

Verbum

 

[Todd_Easton]

In Bernard Orchard’s 1953 A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, page 1033, it says that the Greek word used here is the word from which ‘liturgy’ is derived.