chapter 3 the Order of Worship

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Permalink Reply by Mark Collings on January 21, 2011 at 8:24pm

Worship to the Jews was study and prayer.  Think about it.  Purposeful intellectual investigation combined with spiritual enlightenment.  Often our church will "reason together", searching the scriptures, discussing and praying to God for direction or understanding.  I think of that as worship.  Singing songs is, well, singing songs.  It is an offering of praise to our God.  But when it comes to worship, I like the Jewish version better.

Permalink Reply by Jim London on January 22, 2011 at 7:19am

Hi, Mark. These four lines that you posted present some pretty controversial statements! At least for guys like me whose bent it is to find some clarity in conversations :)

You say,  "Worship to the Jews was study and prayer" In that, are you alluding to the synagogue component of their lives? If so, are you suggesting that this was the only aspect of their religious life? That it was the sum-total of their "worship"? Or are you speaking of the lives of Jewish believers in Christ who, having been expelled from the synagogue, continued the synagogue style? And if the latter is the case --that is, you are refering to Christ-followers -- why are you thinking of the study and prayer as their worship and relegating singing of songs to just "singing songs" (as if the singing is not their worship), but still acknowledging that singing is "an offering of praise to our God"? Mark, I need a map to make a way through your thoughts! :) Help!

What do you think of this thesis: Whatever was done by the church when they met would be significantly different from what those folks did, religiously, before the Holy Spirit was sent in full measure. For sure, the study and prayer that was previously central to their synagogue gatherings would continue. But surely, as believers now indwelt by the Spirit of God, the new dimension of spiritual gifts and of God-knowing, they would meet quite differently, wouldn't they? Shouldn't we think that, in fact, they were coming together with each one bringing "a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation ... for the strengthening of the church" (1 Corinthians 14:26) They would "speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs ... always giving thanks..." (Eph 5:19) What do we envision their meeting to be like if they do as Paul instructs in Colossians 3:16: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs ..."?

Out of preference, we can choose what we like better?

See how I can be a pest?

Permalink Reply by Mark Collings on January 22, 2011 at 8:40am

Jim- I think controversy may becoming our trademark here in Red Deer :-). As we are discussing worship in the context of pagan institutional influences on Christianity, it might be beneficial to look at how pagans worshipped.  The pagans would use methods to get people to empty their consciousness and imbibe the spirit of the deity.  Chanting and forms of meditation were some of the ways.   These of course can all be seen in practice in Christianity.  Did not Jesus instruct us not to do this?  Did he not say to pursue God with your whole being, body, mind and spirit?  So should not our worship be guided by scripture and marked by revelation and reverence toward God?  Certainly the church as audience, that is not fully participating in church activity on the Sunday morning gathering,  is something derived from the pagan  form of "worship".  The word worship in Hebrew suggests submission or bowing down.  In the Greek, it suggests kissing or licking the hand.  Either way, the idea is to show reverence to God.  How we show reverence to God is wide and varied, but ultimately we would likely agree that we give our lives (pouring them out as a drink offering) as a form of worship.  Paul says we worship "in the spirit" , which may allude to freedom from ritual.  What is worship to us?  Most people I know think of praise or singing as worship, in its ritualized form under a worship leader with practiced musicians and a program.  They don't think study and prayer as being worship.  In organic church we habitually follow that pattern by sometimes playing over produced, maudlin, praise music on CD (which as you can see I detest) and standing waving our hands in the air, as we did in the institutional church.   Nothing wrong with this of course, but is this our only form of worship?  I would say it is part of worship if we are showing reverence to God, and not just getting an emotional buzz. So in our discussion about worship, I brought a Jewish perspective on the subject to broaden our understanding of what worship is to be for followers of Jesus, a Jew.  This of course includeds the activities in 1 Corinthians 14:26.

Permalink Reply by Jim London on January 22, 2011 at 11:04am

Thanks, Mark. Having the context of your comments helps! If you keep talking like this, we're going to start wondering whether we can't any longer refer to the folks on the platform as "the worship band"! Ha! Take them out of the picture and sermons will have to become an hour long so that attenders are getting their money's worth for disturbing their Sunday morning rest!

 

By the way, I often break out in praise to God -- and reach my hands upward in longing -- in the strangest places and at weird times! Can't help it! Will try to exercise a bit more dignity/ self control. :)

Permalink Reply by Mark Collings on January 22, 2011 at 11:39am

As a former charismatic, I have the same tendency.  But in organic church "raising holy hands" isn't a command!  :-). 

Permalink Reply by Cindy Skillman on January 22, 2011 at 11:21pm

Sorry to come in late here. I think the Jews did worship in song as well as studying and praying. We see Jesus singing a hymn with His disciples as they went to the Garden of Gethsemane, and I think this was a standard practice with the Jews on their religious feasts -- I'm guessing it was daily fare as well, since they would have known their hymns by heart -- and that would take rehearsing regularly through use. They had (and we have) the Psalms as their hymnbook, so lots of variety. I'm not a devoted student of Jewish culture during the time of Christ (though that is a worthy study), but it seems to me likely that a society which made a practice of memorization (due to the shortage of printing presses) would make quite a lot of use of music. It only stands to reason. Do YOU still know what kind of place MacDonald's is? I'll bet it's such a happy place, and I'll bet if you're as old as I am, you remembered that right off.

 

While we do worship Jesus in study, in prayer, in our daily lives, in serving one another, etc., we also worship Him in song. We (meaning our little corner of the church) enjoy singing together, but we don't imbibe in the pagan practices of creating a highly charged emotional environment in order to manipulate people. Sometimes the worship gets into the realm of the Spirit and sometimes it remains in the intellect, but as we learn our songs better, it seems to me that people are better able to "enter in." We usually do sing at the beginning of our gatherings. It seems to get us all focused on Jesus and helps us to kind of get into the mode that now this is the time for us to share His love with one another as opposed to the time to tell that funny story that just came to mind, etc. We may also "burst into song" at any time during the gathering as the Spirit leads.

 

Many of our songs have been written by brothers and sisters from our group and from other OC groups. Many are old hymns; some contemporary commercial Christian songs; some are contemporary songs we know from our old churches. If it glorifies Jesus and our group likes it, it's fair game for our song book. And of course, we just spontaneously sing songs that all or most of us know even if they're not in there.

Permalink Reply by Terry Johns on January 22, 2011 at 11:44pm

I think it's important to remember, that the rejection of our past Church experiences doesn't validate our intellectual doctrines formed out of our own hurt and woundedness.

 

Like I have said many times on this forum, forming strong and controversial opinions that our based on woundedness and a rejection of the past only goes to illuminate that maybe our problem is anger and not incorrect doctrine or form.