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The more I read about the history of Christian theology - and particularly thinking about our theologising about worship music - the more I notice a disappointingly human flaw. We too often do our thinking about God with our head over the shoulder, checking out someone else and trying to avoid what we see as their errors: for Augustine it was seductive paganism, for Luther it was highfalutin papistry, and for Wesley and Zschech it was suburban Anglicanism. A response to other ideas is necessary. But a theology forged largely as a reaction against something will have great weaknesses - knocking down someone else's sandcastle doesn't leave you with anything better, just a pile of sand. How sad to see ourselves as on a trajectory towards or away from someone else - our goal is to be more like Christ.

First, reactive theology quickly loses touch with the truth that worship is God’s idea, not a human invention. The Old Testament repeatedly reminds Israel that worshipping God means engaging with him ‘on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible’ (Peterson, Engaging with God, 20). Now, creativity is allowed – even encouraged – within those terms. But reactive theologies take human ideas as the starting point – the opposition’s practices set the agenda, and determine which questions are asked.

This means the relative importance of many practical questions (like whether to use instruments) is exaggerated. God is particular about many things, but not the style of music. Theologies which take the practices of other groups as their starting point will routinely get stuck answering the wrong questions: defining acceptable worship by style, rather than whether it helps believers engage with God and edify each other. 

Second, reactive theologies often force a wedge between two right answers. Reacting against the idea that worship is simply music, some assert that music has little to do with worship. They assume that the idea of worship as a ‘total-life orientation’ is an innovation of the New Testament writers, and one which supersedes the Old Testament devotional practices without a trace. This is inaccurate on both counts. When God taught the Israelites on Mt Sinai how he was to be worshipped, his instructions covered both ritual and lifestyle. And while the New Testament radically transforms worship to centre upon Christ, and places added stress on corporate edification in church meetings, worship music is still worship.

A theology of music in worship needs to be broad enough to see music as part of worship, without equating it with worship.

Third, reactive theology routinely overcorrects the opponent’s flaws. An illustrative example is Zschech’s insistence that worship music is addressed to God. This is an accurate correction to some reformed theologies which so emphasise the teaching role of music that God seems a distant third party. But to bolster her argument she makes the inaccurate assertion that Israel’s singing was exclusively ‘to the Lord’ and ‘they never sang to each other’, implying that we should not sing to each other (Zschech, Extravagant Worship, 189). Actually the Old Testament is full of people praising God by ‘noticing’ how great he is, and singing about it to their fellow Israelites – even to their enemies! Paul instructs Christians both to ‘sing and make music in your heart to the Lord’ as well as ‘speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs’. As with everything in church life we need to be aware of both the ‘vertical dimension’ (by which God ministers to us and we respond), and the ‘horizontal dimension’ (as we minister to each other). We are not to understand the horizontal and vertical aspects of church life separately, but rather ‘Paul’s teaching encourages us to view the same activities from both points of view’ (Engaging with God, 221). 

No matter what tradition we come from, we all need to form our own sense of what the Bible says about worship, and we need to work out what kind of place music will have in it. The better approaches, however, will be prepared to evaluate their own inherited tradition in light of scripture, accept what is good in other practices, and marshal whatever musical resources their culture can offer to realise a full biblical vision of music in Christian worship.

AJ

(Something like this post originally appeared as a section of my article in Case Magazine, 'Theologising about Music in Worship: A brief history from Augustine to Zschech', Case 23 (2010), 10-15. http://www.case.edu.au/index.php/case_magazine/case_23_music_and_theology/)

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Some very interesting suggestions have been raised in recent blogs (and comments on this blog). In this post I'd like to address the suggestion that we keep the word 'worship' in the technical sense of 'bowing down as a gesture of respect', roughly equivalent to the Greek προσκυνέω (proskuneo) and the Hebrew הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה (hishtachawa). My contention is that this is too small a view of worship.

Unfortunately, this post is going to have to get a little bit technical. But I believe that words are important, because we think in words, and God speaks in words. If you get words wrong sometimes it doesn't matter - but sometimes you can get God wrong. Also I should add that the 'small worship people' include many of my dearest friends, whom I love, and who are earnestly trying to teach more clearly what the Bible says. This, I think, is awesome, and a conversation worth contributing to.

I really do wish that the biblical idea of worship were as simple as is sometimes implied: wouldn't it be nice if we had three equivalent words, in three different languages, with three discreet ideas behind them. But, unfortunately, the 'small worship' camp has a couple of hurdles I think need to be addressed before I can sign on to their solution.

First, the English word 'worship' already covers too big a field. A quick scan in my Oxford English Dictionary shows the word carries huge freight: respect, honour, reverence, actions showing veneration, appropriate rites, ceremonies, bowing down, honouring. That's even before we include more modern meanings ('take part in religious ceremony', 'sing a song').

Second, the way language works means that, while you can expand the connotations of a word, it is almost impossible to take them away by force. Try as you might, you are simply not going to get people to think of 'worship' as anything less than 'important stuff to do with God'. Tell them that stacking chairs, praising Jesus, or changing nappies is 'not worship', and they'll just think that you think that stacking chairs, praising Jesus, and changing nappies are too 'everyday' to show our respect, honour, or allegiance to Jesus.

Third, I really don't think the Bible does keep these ideas as separate as the small worship people sometimes suggest. So far as I can see, nobody has offered anything as thorough as David Peterson's Biblical Theology of worship in Engaging with God. In Chapter 2 he surveys the usage of all the terminology, revealing a great deal of overlapping usage in the terms:

• - proskuneo terminology suggests bowing, but often in a context of cultic practice where the intention is to serve (p.70)
• - bowing down and serving often appear as a phrase ("Do not bow down and serve those naughty idols" is a common Deuteronomistic catch-phrase)
• - the sebomai (reverence) word group can be used to refer to specific cultic acts
• - all three main terms (bowing down, serving, reverencing) are applied both to specific acts and also to a general life of obedience and respect.
• Fourth, latreuo simply doesn't mean 'Service'. It only ever refers to service in a cultic context, and it absolutely includes things like fasting and prayer (Acts 26:7) and sacrifices (Heb 9:9). It is distinct from other types of service (διακονέω, δουλεύω, θεραπεύω). We simply don't have a word like this in English, and in some contexts 'worship' is going to get at what the writer is talking about better than 'service'. 
• Finally, if we run with the small definition of worship, worship does NOT include offering sacrifices, praying, fasting, declaring God's praises, or expressing reverence (for these are most commonly described using other words). In fact, all that is left is literally bowing down. Which makes me wonder why Matthew had to specify in Matthew 4:9 that the disciples 'fell down' before they worshipped him. (Or maybe Matthew had a big picture of worship?)
• I do hear the concerns of those who want to think clearly and rightly about worship. I really do appreciate what they're getting at. But for linguistic and pastoral reasons I still side with David Peterson, Bob Kauflin and Don Carson on this one. Let's give people a big picture of worship.

 

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Does Romans 12:1 talk about worship as all of life?

In his blog post at the briefing, Philip Percival has been looking at the traditional understanding of worship as 'all of life'. Philip is a dear friend and mentor of mine, and over the years I have enjoyed very much kicking these issues around with him.

In his post, Philip questioned whether our lives are really offered as 'worship' in Romans 12:1, preferring the translation:

offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God - this is your reasonable service.

I've been thinking about this verse recently, and unlike Philip I actually think a type of worship is on view here.
Sorry to get technical for a second, but let's have a closer look at those squiggly greek words in Rom 12:1:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a thusian sosan (θυσίαν ζῶσαν) holy and pleasing to God—-this is your logiken latreian (λογικὴν λατρείαν). (mangled NIV2011 translation)

This verse begins a section of doctrine (chapters 12 and 13), within Paul's alternating structure of confirming doctrine then defending it in light of Israelite objections (Gibson&Nichols, 2011). Paul has just been defending his gospel against the charge that God has failed, because his promises to Israel have failed to come about. He now turns to show how we should live in light of that mercy in chapters 12 and 13.

The first thing that gets me in the mood for thinking about our lives as worship is the Old Testamenty worshipppy language: thusian is something offered as a sacrifice, here used in a figurative way (according to my Greek dictionary(BDAG)).

The second thing that gets me there is the use of 'service' language: latreian. This technical term is used almost exclusively in the sense of religious or temple based service in the Greek Old Testament (Ex 12:25, 13:5, Josh 22:27, 1Chr 28:13) and New Testament (John 16:2, Rom 9:4, Heb 9:1, Heb 9:6) and in inter-testemental literature (1Mac 1:43, 2:19, 2:22 and 3Mac 4:14). (Admittedly, the Hebrew word underlying most of these ('avoda, עֲבוֹדָה) is used more broadly.)

Now what does logiken mean here? I remember being hugely confused when I compared the different translations: "reasonable" (KJV), "true" (TNIV), "spiritual"(TNIV, ESV, Holman), or "true and proper" (NIV11). What gives? Can't these translators get it worked out?

The problem is that all these translations are good: they capture part of what the phrase means, but lose something else (translations always do this to some extent, which is why we build our view of God based on the whole bible and not individual words). Logikos overlaps with 'reasonable' in the sense that it's not some unthinking animal response: 'carefully thought through'.

But hold your horses ... the same word is used in 1Peter 2:2 when he says 'crave logikos milk' - by which he means not carefully thought through milk, but milk in a spiritual (or, if you like, metaphorical) sense. This is another way Greek philosophers liked to use logikos, to signal a metaphorical or spiritual sense. So I think Philip's choice of 'reasonable' is part of the picture, but misses that our lives of service are in a spiritual, or metaphorical way, an offering of worship which is pleasing to God because of Jesus.

In the context, I think Paul is saying that we should offer our lives as if it were a sacrifice - and this pleasing offering to God is in a Spiritual sense part of our well thought out worship of God.

David Peterson's excellent study on worship sits on a lot of bookshelves, but sadly I think many people have missed his big picture. Peterson concludes that in the Old and New Testaments, worship includes at least three ideas:

1.     1.    To bow the knee in adoration, expressing submission to him and grateful recognition of who he is.
2.     2.    To serve him obediently both in specific acts and generally in life.
3.     3.    To show reverence or respect for God in every aspect of life.
4. I think we need to hold on to this kind of a big picture of worship - both specific acts, and a general lifestyle of service to God.

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Does your church have song leaders, or worship leaders?

Maybe there's no difference - a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, right? (Although I think Romeo and Juliet discovered the opposite in the end, didn't they?)

One of the things I enjoyed very much about seeing Bob lead worship at Twist was to see how a seasoned worship leader can pastor a room of people through the songs. He was not just leading a melody - he was exhorting and edifying us, helping us to let the word about Christ dwell in us richly. It was clear that song leading, for him, meant leading people in acceptable worship of God through Jesus in the Spirit. Worship is more than singing, but singing is not less than worship.

As a band you had to be on your toes - Bob would at various moments repeat a line or a whole chorus if he felt that we needed to focus on it its truth more.

The way he transitioned between songs, both musically and with his words, set us up to engage with God on a right and helpful level every time.  

More than anything, his passion for Jesus and love for the gathering of God's people was inspiring and contagious. There was never a sense that the time of worship was about Bob Kauflin - rather the focus was always on Jesus.

I wonder - what is the best worship leading you've seen, and why was it so effective? Say something about this post

I am grateful to my friend and teacher Greg Anderson (an ethnomusicologist and lecturer at Moore College) for bringing to my attention this part of C.S. Lewis' 'Screwtape Letters'. In this fictional work, a senior devil gives advice to a younger devil on how to distract or destroy the Christian he has been charged with annoying. He writes about the physicality of worship:

 

One strategy, the mentor devil Screwtape suggests to the young Wormwood, is to persuade the believers that ‘bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.’ (Screwtape to Wormwood, p16)

 

We are embodied worshippers, after all.

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Is such a thing possible?

Bob Kauflin had just spoken on worshipping God with our whole mind, soul and body. He had mounted a compelling biblical case (mostly from Psalms but also from the broader biblical corpus) for the appropriateness of responding to God with our bodies - kneeling, clapping, raising hands and shouting. He had observed that in Sydney we seem to have "two types of churches" - the ones with solid biblical teaching but little emotional engagement, and the ones with overwhelming emotional engagement but little knowledge about who we are engaging with. (And he had humerously pointed out that many people go to one type of church in the morning and one type of church at night.) And then he invited us to worship through music with him, feeling free to respond with our whole bodies (within some judiciously discerned biblical limits, of course). He didn't say it was wrong not to raise your hands. And he was careful to say we should be sensitive to our own culture. But he challenged us on whether fear of what other people might think was inadvertently communicating that what we're singing about is unimportant and unmoving.

And then something happened - the City Recital Hall, full of conservative Anglicans and Presbyterians, erupted in some of the most profoundly passionate singing I've ever witnessed. Not everyone raised their hands, or applauded the news that there is 'no guilt in life, no fear in death', but the view from stage was unlike any Twist conference I've experienced before.

What makes Bob's teaching at Twist Conference remarkable is that Twist Conference is the main music ministry conference in Sydney for Sydney Anglicans - who typically have been afraid of being too expressive, for fear of 'emotional manipulation' or 'distraction from the Word'. Bob, the pastor for worship development at Sovereign Grace, speaks from a unique position into the Sydney scene - he's more reformed than most of us, and his biblical theology is heavily influenced by our own David Peterson (whose book Engaging With God, Bob mentioned several times this week, saying it 'changed his life'). He even cited Calvin's commentary on 2Corinthians in support of using physical postures to aid true spiritual engagement.

I wonder if this is the start of a new culture in Sydney - where people no longer have to go to two different churches - one in the morning, one at night - to engage with God in mind, soul and body?

To check out Bob's thoughts on physical expressiveness in worship you can check out his blog topic here: http://www.worshipmatters.com/category/worship-in-the-church/physical-expressiveness-worship-in-the-church/.

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We are humbled and excited to have been invited to lead the singing for KCC's 'ONE' event at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. John Piper and John Lennox will be speaking on the topic 'One Savior. One Life. One Night. Don't waste it.'

But this raises the big question - what songs can you sing to bring 10,000 people together? These people come from all sorts of backgrounds (older, younger, baptists, anglicans ... ) and probably have very different tastes in music. This really is the same question we have to ask every Sunday at church - no two people have the same taste in music.

At the moment we're thinking along the lines of picking some well known songs - many of them hymns - and doing them in a 'Garage Hymnal' style. We're only going to be there for one night, so there's not much of an opportunity to build a common repertoire.

What songs would you choose?

The other things we're discussing is how you connect lots of people together so they feel part of what's going on? Steve Williams at Crosstalk noticed that, at KYCK convention for high schoolers, when we stopped putting a video of the singers on the screen during singing, the students at the back of the hall stopped focusing on the singing and started talking and texting. The decision to take the video down was motivated by a good principle - not wanting to make us the focus of the event, and not wanting to be a distracting. But in the end we found that in a large room that was misguided. In a big room, like the Entertainment Centre, how do we make sure that people up in the nose-bleed rows can still feel like they're part of what's going on?

We have 20 days to work these things out alongside the One event committee. Any thoughts would be most appreciated!

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As I turned on my headlights and peered out through my car’s icy windscreen this morning, I wondered quietly to myself whether I really had to go to church that morning?

After all, God is everywhere. We can worship him anywhere. We should worship him everywhere.

So why bother actually going to church? After all, there is nothing particularly special about our church building. God is no more present in that place than he is in my very warm and very inviting bed. Worship is all of life. I can worship God anywhere. Perhaps it’s just the wholesale individualism of my Australian culture creeping into my thinking, but at that moment, my home seemed like a particularly good place to worship.

But instinctively, Christians know that they are to gather. It’s been happening right from the start (Acts 2:1, 46). But why?

All of life is worship. But there's more to worship than all of life.  Last post we saw that worship involves not one, but three, of God's ideas:

1. 1.    To bow the knee in adoration, expressing submission to him and grateful recognition of who he is.

1. 2.    To serve him obediently both in specific acts and generally in life.

1. 3.    To show reverence or respect for God in every aspect of life.

The very simple point I want to make in this post is that these ideas about worship (particularly the first two) need other people - maybe not every time, but most of the time! When we gather we can worship in different ways to when we’re apart, and those different ways are indispensable. They're not more important ways. But they are particular ways. It doesn't have to be in a church building. It doesn't have to be at a particular time. But sometimes Christian worship needs other people. That's why we can say that congregational worship is a ‘particular expression of the total life-response that is the worship of the new covenant’ (David Peterson, Engaging With God, 220-21).

So what can we do when we’re gathered as a church that we can’t do alone on a bus? Here’s 6 things I’ve thought up quickly... I’m sure you can add more.

First, when we gather we worship God together. We saw last post that one of God's ideas about worship is that it involves bowing the knee in adoration, expressing submission to him and grateful recognition of who he is. This is more focused than just a general attitude of life, it implies a conscious acknowledgement on our part of who God is. The obvious way we can do that is by praising him: noticing who he is and what he is like and what he has done: Hebrews 13:15 encourages us: ‘Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.’

Now, I can praise Jesus in my own head on the bus. I can confess his name in thousands of practical and spoken ways every day of my life. But one particular way to praise God together is by being together with other Christians.

Second, when we gather to worship we worship in Song! Now, you can sing to yourself in private. We love hearing stories of people listening to music and being encouraged to worship God on the bus or on the train. But music is most musical when it’s done together – when the voices of a hundred different people become one in perfect harmony. Worship is much more than singing, but a life of worship certainly should have singing in it. And singing is just one of those many parts of the worship picture doesn’t work as well in a purely individualistic context – hymns are best used ‘for the strengthening of the church’ (1 Cor 14:26). One particular way you can honour and revere God is by singing, and singing is best done together.

Third, when we worship in public we encourage other Christians. By worshipping in public we don’t only honour God as he deserves, we also also encourage our fellow Christians. That’s why the writer to the Hebrews says ‘Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’ (Heb. 10:25). Mutual encouragement is certainly a particular way we can worship God, and to encourage someone is easiest when they're around.

Fourth, when we worship in public we challenge the whole world to join us. God demands, and deserves, to be acknowledged among all the nations, says Psalm 46:10. So it is right that we declare his praises in public, where passers by from all nations can hear (Psalm 96). In fact that’s what happened in Acts 16:25 when Paul and Silas were in prison: they were singing and all the other prisoners were listening to them.

Worship in public three audiences: God, the Christian in the pew next to you, and the unbeliever down the street. One particular part of worship is to acknowledge him among the nations. This can happen very effectively when we're apart (actually on the bus is a great place!), but it can happen in a particular and complementary way in public gatherings. 

Fifth, there is safety in numbers! When we only worship apart there is a great danger of false worship creeping in. But when we worship together, together we can test the spirits (1John 4:1), weigh prophecy (1Cor 14:29), and therefore resist false doctrines and keep each other accountable.

Sixth, the way that God distributes his spiritual gifts means that some of our worship has to be with other people. As we saw last post, a big part of worship is to serve him obediently, both in specific acts and generally. Now you can and should serve God wherever you go. But the whole way that God has set up service in the church means that you’re going to have to meet together regularly as part of that service. Togetherness and Service go tightly together. Read Romans 12, particularly verses 4 to 8. How many of those ways of serving God can you do on a desert island with no other people around?

People often think of spiritual gifts as something belonging to the person who has that gift. I have the gift of teaching, so I’m good at teaching. You have the gift of healing, so you can make sick people better by praying for them. But 1Corinthians 12 tells us that this is only half of the story: if you have the gift of healing then actually I have the gift of healing too – because through you God might choose to heal me! We tend to think a spiritual gift belongs to the person who exercises the gift, but actually I think gifts are given to the church for the benefit of the everyone, and only through that individual. So to serve God as is intended, we need to be together sometimes (a lot, actually!)  

Worship is not like breathing. You can breathe anywhere, and you certainly don't need other people to do it. But in order to live a life of total worship, you're going to need other people.

All of life is worship. But worship is more than just all of life lived in some general sense in recognition of God. There are particular times and places when we are called to worship in particular ways. Some worship should be gathered worship.

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I noticed on Phillip Jensen's blog this week the question of worship came up:

Ask Phillip - 'Do we go to church to worship?' from Audio Advice on Vimeo.

According to Phillip, we don't go to church to worship any more than we go to church to breathe. I had already written some thoughts on worship to post this week, so the timing fits in nicely. Phillip's view affirms something deeply true about worship I want to affirm as well, but we need to hold it together with some of the other things that the bible teaches about worship. So here is part one of a series of posts on Worship: God's Big Idea

Part 1: Worship is through Jesus

It's funny how words can mean different things in different circles. In Garage Hymnal we get the privilege of working alongside a bunch of different people in different churches. And I've noticed that many of them use the word 'worship' in different ways.

For some people ‘worship’ means pretty much the same thing as ‘church music’: worship pastors wield guitars; worship time is when you dim the lights and power up the amplifiers. When I talk to them on the phone, these people ask us to come 'do the worship' at their church.

For other people, ‘worship’ means ‘a lifestyle of honouring God’: every day trying to please God more and more. But occasionally these well meaning people go so far the other way that we start to wonder whether going to church has anything more to do with worship than sitting on a bus. These people usually ask us to come 'lead singing' at their church.

In both cases we know what they mean (and we happily turn up with our guitars to lead singing/worship). But one thing I learnt studying language at uni was that the way we talk about things does affect how we think about them. And on reflection both these ways of talking about worship I think actually sell us short of the full biblical picture of worship.

My teacher David Peterson has spent a lot of time searching the scriptures to try to work out how the bible talks about worship. And he has come up with this very helpful definition: in the bible worship is about approaching God and engaging with him.

But it’s not about approaching God in any way we like. We must engage with God ‘on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible.’ (David Peterson, Engaging with God, 20.) That means that worship is God's idea – and the only right way to approach God is through Jesus.

Engaging with God could be a frightening thought. The Old Testament taught God’s people that even their good works were dirty rags (Isaiah 64:6). But thank God that the New Testament greets us with an incredible invitation, that ‘through Jesus’ we can ‘offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name’ (Hebrews 13:15).

So the first thing we need to know about worship is that it can only happen through Jesus.

In my next post I'm going to dig out some words from the bible to try to nail down what ideas are tied up in the concept of 'worship'. Stay tuned.
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