Foundations of Biblical Worship

 

John Frame talks about the many different expressions of worship and that there were many different kinds of worship in the OT periods.

One of the main points in this book is the fact that worship is both edifying and evangelistic. “Worship is performing service to honor somebody other than ourselves. It is both adoration and action.[1]” He points out in his book that worship is a selfless act where it is not about God’s thanking us, but our thanking him, and “we must ask God what he wants us to do in worship.[2]

The author also makes a point of saying that we need divine direction for worship.

Christ fulfills Old Testament worship because he is a high priest in the heavenly tabernacle, he is the ultimate sacrifice, he delivers us from sin and we can enter his courts with praise.[3] John Frame talks about singing to the Lord as an important act of worship and talks about the history of how people worship through song. He explains that because many people were illiterate, they used to just sing and chant scripture, and the fact that a lot of scripture is poetic made it easy to memorize. It served as a memory aid for the people of God. Music was a way to glorify God and instill the word of God in their hearts by singing. John Frame mentions that worship in the Hebrew means “labor,” “service” or bowing, bending the knee, paying homage; therefore, there is no passivity, but participation. John Frame adds in his book many ways of expressing worship to God through affection, joy, sadness, presentation of gifts, cleansing, in awe and adoration of God, in form of dance, clapping, singing, lifting hands, painting, kneeling, and playing instruments.

            He also talks about the acts of the Apostles and their healing gifts only being for a certain time in the past, but I did not like that comment because God heals today.

He did not seem to believe in spiritual gifts for today’s day and age, which is sad that he has to miss out on that. John Frame had a lot of good points about how believers in the past expressed themselves to God in many ways, and he backs it up with a lot of scripture, but his theology about the body of Christ seemed wrong. The reason why it is wrong is because I Corinthians 12 says “the body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body.” The Bible is also contrary to Frame when it says, “in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having the gifts of healing”(I Cor 12:28).  

 

 

Robert webber says that because Western society has been shifting from a modern world to a postmodern world, “new revolutions and science, philosophy, and communications-in all areas of life are shifting us toward the affirmation of new values.[4]” Apparently according to Webber “science says we live in an expanding universe; we are, philosophy states, in an interrelationship with all things; and we increasingly communicate through visual and symbolic means.[5]”

 

Webber wants to keep the value of tradition and gives us a good starting point to witness in a postmodern world:”the centrality of Christ in a postmodern world.[6]”

Webber says “the issue in the postmodern world is not to prove the Bible, but to restore the message of the Bible, a message which, when proclaimed by the power of the spirit, takes up residence within those who know how to hear.[7]”

In relation to Christian worship, postmodernism has also change the face of worship where its not about rationalizing anymore, its about experiencing the power and relationship of Christ.

In Ancient Future Faith Robert Webber wants people to know that Christ’s victory over evil is the key to early Christian tradition and the renewal of our personal faith and life in the church.[8]Faith begins with “Christ becoming one of us in order to destroy the power of evil and restore us and the world to God.[9]”

Webber also talks about the special importance of community in the community of faith so that It is seen as an “extension of Jesus.[10]” As we look at what it means to be the church as an extension of Jesus, it is an “embodied experience of the kingdom of God;” therefore, people will come to faith not by some kind of reasoning, but because they have experienced a “welcoming God in a hospitable and loving community…[11]”

Webber makes a valid point of addressing individualism and how revivalism has spun from it creating more of a focus on the individuals experience and strayed from corporal experience in the body.[12]

Webber talks about the four most prominent images of the church being the people of God, the new creation, the fellowship of the faith, and the body of Christ.[13]

He talks about the challenges in postmodernism and how it has brought advantages and disadvantages, for example:  The postmodern view of intimacy and closeness to the individual has made it hard for the community of faith to worship as a community where people are drawn in by the presence of the “body” of Christ. It is coming to the point where we are just individual worshippers when we gather as a community of faith. Webber says, “Knowledge comes through participation in a community and in an immersion with the symbols and the meaning of the community.[14]”

 

In Webber’s book Worship is a Verb, he talks about the importance of participating in worship because it is a two way communication with God. He emphasizes on the fact that much of todays worship services are centered around the pastor and the audience, but there needs to be an active involvement of each member of the body of Christ (I Cor 12-14). He says, “the focus of worship is not human experience, not a lecture, not entertainment, but Jesus Christ-his life death and resurrection.[15]”

Webber makes a point to say that our worship services are so centered around the pastor and if anyone wants to respond it is sometimes seen as odd or inappropriate 3 but this should not be the case.[16]

We are an audience in much of the worship services we attend and spectators for entertainment. Webber says that our churches are characterized by overfamiliarity and with this also comes the inability to have a sense of Gods transcendence.

We come from a self centered culture. He talks about the richness of worship and how we must behold God in worship and revere him. There are people who say that emotions have to be separate from worship, but that is not true.

Worship has to do with our heart, our interior person, our longing for God, and our openness to his spirit. The music, banners, liturgical dance, drama, color and the symbolic use of space and other artistic objects are vehicles through which worship is offered to God.[17]Webber says, “worship should be a congregational action that involves the whole community as a whole and engages all; the people in an active response to the fixed order of preparation, word, table, and dismissal.[18]”

IV. Engaging God

Engaging God is a book that focuses on a lot of the historical practices of the church before Christ and after Christ. There is a lot of focus on the old temple practices and how worship was incomplete at this time because our inaccessibility into Gods presence. There is an emphasis on the significance of Christ and the new temple typologically related to symbols of the old temple. Peterson talks about the terms used in the Old Testament for worship being homage, reverence, respect and service. The fact that he uses a lot of Old Testament passages shows his emphasis on the transcendence of God and how he is a consuming fire. He uses a lot of imagery from Moses encounter with God on Horeb and Israels experience with God in Exodus 19:5-6, The proposal of Yahweh to Israel. He says that God’s immanence in the Old Testament can be seen with the engagement of Israel in Exodus 19:5-6 where he promises that if the Israelites obey him, they will be his treasured possession, a kingdom of Priests and a Holy nation.

On the other hand, his transcendence is displayed in the fact that “the people had to be ritually pure so they could approach God, on his terms, at his holy mountain.[19]”

Peterson talks about Exodus 20 that Israel was to enjoy a personal and moral friendship with God.[20]” Peterson makes it clear that worship of the living and true God is an engagement where he proposes to us and he alone is the one who makes it possible.[21]

 

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