First Lesson in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)

First Lesson in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP) is the first appointed Scripture reading after the psalms in Morning Prayer in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It stands between the Church's prayed Scripture in the Psalms and its sung or said response in the canticles, especially the Te Deum Laudamus or Benedicite Omnia Opera Domini.

In the 1928 BCP the First Lesson is not a detachable devotional reading. It is part of the public office by which the Church hears Scripture in order, day by day. The lesson normally brings the congregation into the Old Testament, the prophets, or other appointed Scripture before the second lesson from the New Testament. Morning Prayer therefore teaches Christians to receive the whole Bible as the Church's book: prayed in the Psalter, read in the lessons, answered in canticles, confessed in the Creed, and turned into petition in the collects.

Place in Morning Prayer

The rubric follows the Venite, the appointed portion of the Psalter, and the Gloria Patri:

Then shall be read the First Lesson, according to the Table or Calendar.

The order is deliberate. Morning Prayer begins with Scripture sentences, confession, absolution, the Lord's Prayer, versicles, the Venite, and psalmody. Only then does the office place the congregation under the appointed lesson. The First Lesson is thus heard by a people already summoned to repentance, restored by the Gospel promise of pardon, and trained by the Psalter to praise, lament, fear, trust, and obey.

The 1928 rubric also gives the reader a public formula:

Here beginneth the First [or the Second] Verse of the [or such a Chapter]. of such a Book; and after every Lesson, Here endeth the First [or the Second] Lesson.

That formula keeps the lesson ecclesial rather than private. The minister or reader announces the biblical book and location, reads aloud, and closes the lesson so that the congregation can receive the reading as an act of common prayer.

Table, Calendar, and Ordered Hearing

The phrase "according to the Table or Calendar" points to the Prayer Book's lectionary discipline. The reader does not ordinarily choose a passage to match a personal theme. The Church hears Scripture as appointed, in course and in season, alongside the calendar of Sundays, holy days, fasts, and ordinary days.

This order protects Anglican worship from narrowing the Bible to favored texts. It also makes the First Lesson a school of patience. Genesis, Exodus, the histories, prophets, wisdom books, and other appointed readings are heard because they belong to God's revelation, not because they are immediately easy or fashionable.

The New Testament commends this public reading of Scripture:

Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.

Morning Prayer follows that apostolic pattern. The office joins reading, doctrine, praise, and prayer. The lesson is not an interruption in devotion; it is one of the chief acts of devotion.

Old Testament and Christian Hearing

Because the First Lesson commonly gives the Old Testament or an earlier appointed reading, it trains the Church to hear the Scriptures that formed Israel's worship, prophecy, law, wisdom, and hope. Anglican use does not treat these texts as discarded background to the Gospel. It reads them as Christian Scripture within the whole canon.

The risen Christ gives the governing principle:

All things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

This does not flatten the Old Testament into isolated proof texts. It means that Morning Prayer hears the law, prophets, and psalms within the history of creation, covenant, judgment, mercy, promise, and fulfillment in Christ. The First Lesson therefore belongs naturally after the Psalms and before the canticles: Scripture is prayed, Scripture is read, and Scripture is answered by praise.

St. Paul gives the same theological foundation for reading the older Scriptures in the Church:

Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

The First Lesson is consequently pastoral as well as doctrinal. It gives the Church patience, comfort, warning, hope, and a long memory of God's dealings with his people.

Canticle Response

After the First Lesson, the office does not move immediately to exposition or commentary. It appoints a canticle. In ordinary use the Te Deum is the principal response, with the Benedicite as an alternative:

WE praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting.

The response matters. The Church answers Scripture with praise before it analyzes Scripture. The Te Deum gathers the lesson into Trinitarian confession, the worship of angels and saints, the incarnation, passion, resurrection, ascension, judgment, and the Church's plea for mercy. When the Benedicite is used, creation itself is summoned to bless the Lord, fitting lessons that display God's works in creation, judgment, and deliverance.

This pattern is distinctively Anglican: Scripture read aloud, canticle sung or said, Creed confessed, and collects prayed. The First Lesson therefore participates in a larger grammar of hearing and response.

Scripture and Anglican Doctrine

Article VI of the Articles of Religion gives the doctrinal rule that stands behind the Prayer Book's daily reading of Scripture:

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man.

The First Lesson embodies that doctrine liturgically. Anglican worship does not merely say that Scripture is authoritative; it reads Scripture publicly and repeatedly. The authority of Scripture is learned not only in controversy but in the daily habit of hearing God's Word in the assembled Church.

The collect for the Second Sunday in Advent gives a classic Anglican account of how Scripture is to be received:

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.

That collect names the spiritual aim of the First Lesson. The lesson is read so that the Church may hear, mark, learn, inwardly digest, embrace, and hold fast the hope given in God's Word. This is why the First Lesson belongs to common prayer and not only to private study.

Use in Worship and Teaching

In parish worship, the First Lesson should be read audibly, plainly, and without haste. The reader's task is not to dramatize the text but to let the appointed Scripture be heard as Scripture. The announcement and closing formula should help the congregation know where the reading begins and ends.

In teaching, the First Lesson is best explained by following the order of Morning Prayer. The congregation has prayed the Psalms; it now hears the appointed lesson; it answers with the Te Deum or Benedicite; it later hears the Second Lesson, confesses the Apostles' Creed, and prays the collects. This connects the topic naturally to Daily Office Lectionary (1928 BCP), Scripture in the 1928 BCP, The Psalter (1928 BCP), Te Deum Laudamus (1928 BCP), Benedicite Omnia Opera Domini (1928 BCP), and Second Lesson in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP).

For Reformed Episcopal and classical Anglican readers, the First Lesson is a practical expression of the Reformation insistence on Scripture's sufficiency and the catholic habit of hearing Scripture in the Church's ordered worship. It is evangelical because it submits the congregation to God's written Word; it is catholic because that Word is heard in common, in course, and in the prayer of the whole Church.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Daily Office (1928 BCP)
• Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Evening Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Daily Office Lectionary (1928 BCP)
• Psalms in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Te Deum Laudamus (1928 BCP)
• Benedicite Omnia Opera Domini (1928 BCP)
• Second Lesson in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer