The overall purpose for the reading of the Word is to let God speak. It is not, as some think, the time for educating the people, for long tedious exegetical sermons, or an evangelistic appeal. It is principally an address from God to the congregation that is expressed through reading and preaching his Word and is followed by an appropriate response from the people. . . . Congregational response to the Word is a very important means of sealing the Word in this heart and life.
-Robert Webber, Worship Is a Verb: Celebrating God’s Mighty Deeds of Salvation, Second Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Pub., 1996), 143, 145.