The Louisiana Quaker eLetter

ISSN 1523-4924—Vol. 1, No. 5

"PROPER CHRISTIAN WORSHIP"

What is the proper way for a Christian to worship God? A usual way this question is answered is by looking at our worship forms today, doing some comparative backward-looking to the first two centuries of worship practice, to Scripture, to Acts and the Epistles, evidence from the social sciences, and more comparisons with Jewish customs that were retained in the liturgy of the first Christian churches. Then, having done this, the bickering starts over rituals and forms—vestments, plain dress, water baptism, the Lord's Supper, hand raising, the laying of hands, bowing, kneeling, prostration, foot washing, fasting, tithing, conversational prayer, silent prayer, speaking in tongues, hymn singing (or the lack thereof), programmed versus unprogrammed worship, pulpit ministry versus the ministry of believers, and so on, and so on. People get angry over these things. Blood has been shed. People have sinned in these disputes.

An early precedent of the discordant voice still captures my imagination. Several years after David became King of Israel, he decided to bring the Ark of God to Jerusalem. The event was a exciting procession complete with singing, music, sacrifices, offerings, blessings, and gifts. As for King David himself:

"David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord with all his might, while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets." [2 Sam. 6:14-15]

Watching him from a window was Michal, the daughter of Saul. "And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart" [2 Sam. 6:16]. Later, coming out to meet him, she gibed: "How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, disrobing in the sight of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!" [2 Sam. 6:20]. His response is instructive:

"David said to Michal, 'It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord's people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.'" [2 Sam. 6:21-22]

David would continue to honor God and celebrate before him in ways that even David himself would find humiliating and un-kingly, and it would not change his office. Already an accomplished musician [1 Sam. 14-23] and poet [2 Chron. 29:30], David had found another means to express his delight in the Lord.

Now it does not follow from this that the proper form of worship is always dancing and leaping, nor that it should even include this expression. I mention this to underscore that true worship begins in an individual's response to the uniqueness and power and presence of God. This, of course, has changed over thousands of years.

During the patriarchal period (as expressed in Genesis), worship took the form of prayers of praise and thanksgiving, acts of obedience (e.g., circumcision), ritual purification, altar building and animal sacrifice. But it was the exodus from Egypt that resulted in Israel as a worshipping community. For the 300 years of the Mosaic period, the Law brought together and made standard the institutions of Hebrew worship of God. Liturgy now includes "Amen!" or "Hallelujah!", singing, prayer, reading of God's Law, burnt offerings and other sacrificial worship, the keeping of the Sabbath, seasonal festivals, tithing, rites of penitence or purification, and the presence of music and dance. The Jewish tabernacle and priesthood both come from this period. This elaborate liturgical edifice became part of Israel's existence as a covenant community, encouraging personal piety and reminding each of them of their dependence upon God's covenant love. Even this edifice underwent change over time—especially from tabernacle to temple, and the growth of the synagogue as a place of worship—but the early apostles, themselves Jews, worshipped together in accordance with their tradition.

The first Christians gathered daily for worship not only in the Jerusalem temple, but also in the homes of believers. Activities included fellowship, prayer, instruction in the apostles' doctrine, and the Lord's Supper [Acts 2:42-47]. The Gentile churches of Asia Minor and Greece met for group worship on the first day of the week [Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2] and observed the Lord's Supper, the singing of hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs [Col. 3:16], prayer, and the reading and teaching of Old Testament and apostolic doctrine [1 Tim. 4:11-13]. There were also presentations of spiritual gifts [1 Cor. 12:1-11]. One sees this also in Paul's instructions on orderly worship in 1 Corinthians 14.

Paul, who wrote extensively on worship service, was well aware of the old forms and new freedoms in Christian worship—and of the tension between the two. But his remarks in Romans 14 are worth reading in this context, for here he argues for individual accountability before the Lord in worship preferences. Why? Because Christ himself spoke of this. In the Gospel of John, when Jesus talks with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, he first tells her that the place of worship is no longer important [John 4:21] and then declares:

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshiper must worship in spirit and in truth." [John 4:23-24]

And also in Matthew we find Jesus telling us that the worship of God is a matter of heart and spirit [Matt. 6:2, 5, 16], and not fundamentally a public action.

As social beings, though, we of course need gathered worship. But what we need most is a corporate worship that "leads to peace and mutual edification" [Rom. 14:19], for each of us is a part of the body of Christ and has something to contribute to the whole [1 Cor. 12:12-31]. The liturgy and forms in gathered worship are always secondary to the need to worship from our heart and spirit, in obedient response to the revealed word of God.

There is and ought to be nothing more important than our personal relationship with the Lord. So our worship should be sincere and unfeigned, as we draw near to the Lord with a humble and contrite heart [Isaiah 66:2; see Psalm 24:3-4], as we seek to express our love and appreciation to him for his continued presence in our lives, as we wait upon him in silence, or as we leap and dance, like King David, in delight and celebration.

—Merle Harton, Jr., The Louisiana Quaker

All biblical references are NIV unless otherwise noted.

BOOK for the month:

Thus Saith the Lord?  By John Bevere. Creation House, 1999. ISBN 0-88419-575-9.

This enduring little book belongs in the hands of every Christian reader. Its author wrestles boldly and skillfully with a theme rarely dealt with in issues of God's gifts: How to know when God is speaking prophetically to us through another. The result is a rich, well-written source of information and insight, with suggestions of solid scholarly accomplishment.

Contemporary Quakers know that prophetic ministry is not a recent phenomenon, but was returned to the church as early as the 17th century. But still the complex issue of true discernment is as relevant today as it has been in the history of Friends, especially in the unprogrammed meeting. This book therefore speaks as much to the contemporary Quaker as to the Charismatic or Pentecostal.

Bevere's stage for this issue is a wide one. He is concerned with all forms of prophecy, including what he finds potentially the most devastating—personal prophecy, or prophetic words for an individual, a couple, a group. So he is concerned at least to bring these prophetic forms into the light, to show the sometimes horrifying effects of the false prophet, and then in didactic fashion to teach us how to follow Paul's charge in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21:

"Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good."

In the process, Bevere looks backward to God's first prophets, to the Old and New Testaments, to the kind of prophecies they declared, and finds that their common chord is to express God's heart to his people, to turn them back to his ways. If turning hearts back to God is the major function of the prophetic, then the minor function of prophecy (telling the future, personal words) seems to be the rule in many churches where this "gift" is found.

In outlining the dangers of the false prophet in today's church, Bevere creates an affecting picture of counterfeit prophecy's effects: broken marriages, dashed hopes, divided congregations, unrealizable promises, terrorized pastors, rebellion, despair, guilt and discouragement. What is most frightening is that many prophecies pass the usual tests and still turn out to be false—often too late to repair the damage. Many of these the author personally experienced.

Heeding Jesus' command to "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing" [Matt. 7:21 NKJ], Bevere produces a carefully crafted reconstruction of the Holy Spirit's role in today's church, and shows us how to know true prophecy as clearly as one can know the false. The outcome is an encouraging, solid, Scriptural-based, and refreshingly intuitive formula for true discernment. This book will be a blessing to every Christian who seeks to walk more closely with the Father. - MCH

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Copyright © 1999 by Merle Harton, Jr.