Rediscovering Worship

Past, Present, and Future

Wendy J. Porter, Porter

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781498208222, 9781498208246
• eBook ISBN: 9781498208239
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Many opinions contend in the church today for what constitutes true worship of God and how best it can be practiced. This collection of essays carries on a conversation between biblical scholars and church music practitioners. It begins with three studies investigating what we can learn about worship in the Old Testament, followed by essays on the teaching about worship in the Gospels, Epistles, and the book of Revelation in the New Testament. The church music practitioners featured in the book respond to each of these essays. The final essay by Wendy Porter takes a historical journey of theological reflection on Christian worship from the days of the early church, tracing worship developments in the Western church through the centuries to today. This is an important book for anyone who wants to think theologically about how and why Christians worship God.

1

“In Spirit and in Truth”

The Mosaic Vision of Worship1

Daniel I. Block

Introduction

These days if people ask what kind of church you attend, they probably do not have in mind your denomination, but the worship style: is it traditional, liturgical, or contemporary? In the past the differences in worship have revolved around the use of musical instruments in worship, but they extended to other matters as well: the use of creeds, formal benedictions, confessions of sin, or prepared prayers. In our concern to satisfy people’s liturgical and musical tastes, I sometimes wonder if we have explored seriously enough what the Scriptures have to say about acceptable worship. Yes, we acknowledge the legacy of Robert Webber in the Ancient-Future Faith movement, which seeks to recover the richness and profundity of early Christian worship. However, in evangelicals’ recent fascination with post-New Testament practices and perspectives, we observe an increasing tendency to accept early worship forms as authoritative and give decreasing attention to the theology of worship of the Scriptures. Indeed in some circles the Reformation principle of sola scriptura is threatened by enthusiasm to recover the worship of the early church, and practices become normative even when they lack explicit biblical warrant.2

But even when we agree that the Scriptures alone should be our ultimate authority for Christian worship, we are divided on to which Scriptures we should appeal. Should our worship be regulated by the whole Bible or are only the teachings and practices of the New Testament determinative?3 While rarely explicitly declared, the latter is implied by many scholars who write on this subject. In what I consider to be one of the most important books on worship from a biblical perspective, Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship, one of David Peterson’s declared goals is “to expose the discontinuity between the Testaments” on the subject of worship.4 Although the book is presented as a “biblical theology of worship,” and although the Old Testament is three times the length of the New Testament, and probably contains ten times as much information on worship, Peterson disposes of its treatment of the subject in 56 pages, while devoting almost 200 pages to the New Testament. For Peterson, the Old Testament’s focus on place, festivals, and priestly rituals provides a foil against which to interpret New Testament worship, which is centered on a person, involves all of life, and, when it speaks of Christians gathering, focuses on edification.5 The problem also appears in John Piper’s work. In a sermon entitled “Worship God!,”6 Piper contrasts Old Testament and New Testament worship, asserting that Old Testament worship was external, involving form and ritual, while New Testament worship concerns internal spiritual experience.7

Such generalizations are misleading on several counts. First, they underestimate the liturgical nature of worship in the New Testament. What can be more cultic and formal than the Lord’s Supper, the worship experience par excellence prescribed by Jesus, or the ritual of baptism, called for in the Great Commission (Matt 28:19)? Acts 2:41–42 describes the early church engaged in the external activities of baptism, instruction, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer.

Second, they misrepresent the shape of true worship as it is presented in the Old Testament. Carson is certainly correct when he interprets Jesus’ prediction in John 4:21–24 of a day when the focus of worship will shift from the place to the manner of worship and suggesting that “in spirit and in truth” (en pneumati kai alētheia) is “a way of saying that we must worship God by means of Christ. In him the reality has dawned and the shadows are being swept away (cf. Heb 8:13).”8 Peterson is also correct in suggesting that the worship “in spirit and in truth” of which Jesus spoke contrasts “with the symbolic and typical,” represented by Old Testament forms. However, his portrayal of worship “in truth” as “real and genu...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Contributors
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: “In Spirit and in Truth”
• Chapter 2: Worship that Fulfils the Law
• Chapter 3: “Varied and Resplendid Riches”
• Chapter 4: Worship in the Gospels
• Chapter 5: A Map for Our Worship Experience
• Chapter 6: Worship in the Book of Revelation
• Chapter 7: A Historical Journey of Theological Reflection on Christian Worship