On Sat, 04-30-05 11:22 am
Donna, in response to Philip Yancey’s article about worship being much more than just the music during a service, left the following comment to my post pointing to it:
In all the time I have spent in church, I have always associated ‘worship’ with music because that is the only context in which I heard the word mentioned. I remember when it hit me for the first time about a year ago that worship isn’t about the music. I was reading casually (not studying) in Genesis 22 where Abraham was taking Isaac to sacrifice him, and stopped when I read:
22:4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. 5 And Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.’â€
I couldn’t get past that passage. They went to worship? It sounds funny now, but I thought ‘It didn’t say anything about musicians going along on the trek’, and that is when I realized that there was something I had not been told in church about worship.”
I attend a Bible church and am your basic hands-in-my-pockets or clasped-behind-my-back kind of guy when it comes to singing during the service. Not everybody shares my superior view of this practice, however, and so I notice those individuals who raise their hands while singing. I have learned to let them be who they are and enter into the presence of God however they see fit (like they really needed my permission to begin with).
Being the way I am, I sometimes find myself wondering why no one raises their hands during the offering. I don’t mean during the song that’s played at that time, but as the plate goes by and they drop in their check. Is this any less an act of worship? Where’s the passion and sense of communion at this point in the service? (I must say that I am as emotionally and spiritually numb during the offering as I am during the singing, thus displaying my integrity.) Has worship suddenly stopped? I don’t think so, and yet it seems that the offering is often viewed as a necessary “commercial” that interrupts an otherwise good time.
If you were to ask a person who lived during biblical times what comes to mind when they think of the word “worship,” you might be surprised both by what they say and what they don’t say. What they likely would not say is singing or music; what they might say would be things like animals, sacrifice, smoke, and blood. During the times recorded in the Bible, worship was about death and loss and not about having a good time.
This is not to say that singing or music don’t have their place, for certainly they do. It is to say that we may have “neglected the weightier matters” of worship (apologies to Mt 23:23).
For my money, the foundational verse about worship is given to us by Paul in his treatise on the gospel, i.e., the Book of Romans:
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” – 12.1-2
Worship begins – and ends – with the sacrifice of our lives. It is not something that occupies us just on Sunday mornings, but throughout the week as well. It encompasses the totality of our being and affects everything that we do. It includes singing on Sunday morning, but also giving our money, listening to the sermon, working during the week, living with our families. It’s about how we drive, talk, treat strangers, vote, pray, study, think, blog, and anything else you can imagine.
If we really believe the Bible – that is, if we actually want to do the things we know – we will not relegate worship to an hour or so on a particular morning of the week. We will understand that every breath we take is preparation for worship.
We will live our lives in the sight of God, as Paul reminds us (2 Cor 2:17, 4:2, 7:12, etc.) and remember that there is no split between our “religious” and “secular” lives. We are whole individuals, not compartmentalized or fragmented. Our spiritual service of worship ought to reflect that.
Thanks for this reminder that worship is life-encompassing.
I can’t say that I ever wondered why people don’t raise their hands during the offering but I have wondered why they don’t raise them during hymns. It seems that that gesture is reserved for contemporary choruses for some reason.
DrMr, Thank you for your thoughtful response. I am also a hands-behind-my-back worshiper, and I also close my eyes to block distraction from God. What bugs me is when the “worship leader” stops and spends 5 mintues encouraging the non-expressive worshipers like myself to raise their hands, or clap, like we’re deficient in some way because we don’t. I want to tell him to leave me alone. I often shed tears when I worship (with our without music), but I don’t hear anyone encouraging the rest of the congregation to do so; that would be ridiculous.
You said
It’s about how we drive, talk, treat strangers, vote, pray, study, think, blog, and anything else you can think of.
That is a challenge to live a life of worship, one causing me to evaluate how I worship God in all of my days, not just my Sundays.
I also close my eyes to block distraction from God. That didn’t come out right….I close my eyes to keep things from distracting me from focusing upon God. That’s better.
Excellent post, Mike. I’ll be writing about it on my blog today. Peace.
Mike,
I am definitely not a hands behind the back kind of worshipper in public or private. I think there are actually two different concepts of worship. What Abraham probably did in the example was pray. His prayer was motivated by a sense of God’s character and faithfulness and he was moved to some type of doxology.
So this inspired “doxology” type of prayer is what we usually mean and what the bible usually means by worship. Sure I express my love for my wife by calling her when I am going to be late (indirectly saying ‘I love you’) BUT what we normally mean by saying “I love you is directly saying “I love you”. So too with worship. We indirectly worship by the things we do, BUT that is not what the bible usually means by worship (the big exception being Romans 12:1-2).
So the question is how much direct worship do we do in our private life. Do we spend a considerable amount of time worshipping God directly and in that time how do we express our selves.
Are we people who say “Oh., I’m not that expressive” but at the same time we rarely spend time, say an hour or so, just directly expressing our love to God in direct worship.
How much daily direct conscious contact do we experience is the issue and a vital issue for personal holiness.
Great post.
Christianity, which is a life of worship, has collectively been reduced to a two hour service of worshipping and listening. Thanks for the challenge to bring it back to blood and sacrifice.
I came across this post after pondering a question, “What is worship and how do I do it?” I was looking for words to say or specific acts to perform. This post reminded me that obedience to God is worship. Not that I should shun singing and other expressions, but simple adherence to God’s word is the highest form of worship we can do.
Thank you for the post. It helped me see the story of Abraham and Isaac in a new way. When Abraham said he was going to worship, there was more than likely no singing or raising of hands, but he understood worship to mean sacrifice and obedience. Now I understand that too.