If Pentecostals affi rmed liturgy, their worship services could be even
more formative. First, liturgy helps to continually tell the story of the
community. Thus, liturgy would perpetuate the identity of the worship-
per and the worshipping community: forming, re-forming, and reform-
ing. Liturgy offers this formation by proclaiming the central beliefs of the
community through embodied action and narratives. 43 Second, building
on the previous point on embodied action, liturgy provides a concrete
manner in which the community can participate in active worship, one
that will engrain an affective knowledge that reaches deep into the core
of the worshipper and the worshipping community. This is why tongues
does not merely provide a cognitive message through interpretation, but
reaches the heart of the community through revelation of God’s pres-
ence amidst them. Hence, liturgy provides the embodied environment for
the worshipper to be formed. Even more, as the transcendent becomes
present as the signifi ed in the sign, participation in liturgy, and specifi -
cally the sacraments, leads to participation in that transcendent reality. 44
Therefore, the recognition of liturgy can help Pentecostals construct a
more holistic worship environment that will allow for greater participation
with and more knowledge of their beloved God. In the following section,
an exegetical and theological case study of the covenanting ceremony of
Exodus 20 will seek to show the materiality of the Israelite cultus and how
this materiality shaped Israel’s worldview, providing biblical impetus to
my overall argument through one of the most pivotal events in Scripture.
M ATERIALITY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT WORLDVIEW
The giving of the Decalogue in Exodus 20 was a covenanting ceremony
between Israel and YHWH, and was not merely a judicial moment of
establishing the law code of Israel. Biblical scholars have uncovered simi-
larities between the giving of the Decalogue in Exodus 20 and the Ancient
Near Eastern suzerainty treaty. 45 According to Meredith Kline, there are
two covenanting ceremonies in the Old Testament that most resemble
the suzerainty treaty: “the theocratic covenant as instituted through the
mediatorship of Moses at Sinai and as later renewed under both Moses
and Joshua.” 46 The elements of the suzerainty treaty are divided as such:
1. Preamble, which identifi es the author of the covenant, giving his
titles and attributes;
128 Y. SHIN