NEW TESTAMENT WORSHIP

Singing set words that someone tells me to sing at the set times someone tells me to sing them began to have less and less appeal to me the closer I got to God and this so-called ‘worship’ actually began to disconnect me somewhat from God – relative to my personal time with God I was actually struggling to connect to God whilst singing like this in church and prayer nights, especially with some of the modern ‘worship’ songs and their lyrical content.

Regarding worship, Jesus actually said those who worship the Father (interestingly, worship the Father not Jesus Himself – another topic of study altogether….) will worship in spirit and in truth. What does this really mean? No one really explained that well enough to me, not even on the Internet so I dug into this myself to find the intended meaning of ‘spirit and truth’.   

SPIRIT
Jesus said in John 6:63 ‘my words are spirit and life’. That, on the face of it anyway, is fairly simple to understand!

Another interpretation of ‘spirit’ could read as follows – the word ‘spirit’ was used as a figure of speech in various combinations by the Hebrews to denote the greatest degree of any mental quality eg Luke 10:21 Jesus rejoiced in spirit ie exceedingly, and Acts 20:23 “behold, I go bound in the spirit into Jerusalem “i.e. with a fixed determination and a settled purpose.

It is interesting to combine those two thoughts about ‘spirit’ – so ‘spirit’ could paraphrase I guess in John 6:63 to read Jesus’s words ‘are the greatest degree (of words)’.

I’d like to say at this point that some of this here is only head knowledge learned from my personal studies and is not vivid revelation from the Holy Spirit like I’ve had in other areas of bible studies and I would appreciate and welcome any criticisms and correction of obvious errors.

TRUTH
Moving on to Truth, this next part is taken from Hebrew4Christians website. It’s quite deep but just focus on the conclusion if you’re like me and not especially intellectual!
“The Hebraic conception of truth, while not denying the importance of correspondence, seems to have a different focus. The Greek conception of truth as a static property that pertains to propositions inevitably led to metaphysical speculations about “essences” and “universals.” The Hebrew mind, on the other hand, seemed more focused on the dynamic, the changing, and the idea that truth involved the formation of the character of the person — and the restoration of the world. Especially in relation to God, to Whom the Jew must give account, the nature of truth becomes grounded in the moments of decision encountered in one’s life.  Shall I steal? Shall I turn a blind eye to social injustice? etc.

The Seal of Truth

The Jewish sages sometimes say “the seal of God is truth,” since the final letters of the three words that conclude the account of creation — bara Elohim la’asot (“God created to do” [Genesis 2:3])–spell emet:

In other words, God created reality “to do” (la’asot), which has come to be interpreted by the sages as meaning that it is our responsibility, as God’s creatures, to complete the “doing” of His Creation (tikkun Olam). TRUTH IS ABOUT DOING, NOT BEING … (capitalised and stressed by me)

Note that the “Seal of God” is not just a matter of sincerity. It is rather a matter of being true in the sense that you are living it, you are being with it, you are part of it. You exist inside this truth as a passion and this truth informs all of the decisions you make  in life. You therefore embody the truth and follow it in all your endeavors. In this sense Yeshua the Mashiach is the Truth, since in Him there was no mismatch between who He is and what He said. He is utterly trustworthy. His actions and speech are one and are entirely reliable. Jesus is the “Seal of God,” the one who authoritatively names of all creation, and His followers likewise should evidence this in their lives”.

Back to my thoughts now and summing this up it could be said – Truth is about ‘doing’, not ‘being’.
Jesus is ‘the Truth’ because He ‘did’ perfectly.

CONCLUSION

So, true worship should consider this – Jesus’s words are the greatest degree (of words) and ‘Truth’ is about doing these words.
My conclusion therefore is…

“Worship in spirit and truth is simply this – living a life of obedience”.

THOUGHTS ON PRACTICAL APPLICATION

IMO to set fixed times for singing set words is nothing more than an ordinance, one of the many ways the modern church is still entrenched in religion and tradition. And consider this, the New Testament remains virtually silent on this subject of singing, but it does tell us that everyone has something to bring to a meeting. Now, would it be fair to say that most modern Pentecostal church services give close to 50% of their time to singing, or ‘worship’, and what, 5% max for the congregation to share stuff? Just pause for thought and think about that for yourself a moment if you attend one of these churches, is your service Biblical? Is (doing) ‘service’ even Biblical? Shouldn’t we be going to meetings rather than doing service?

Am I saying singing is wrong, no not at all, of course not!! Me, I sing – when the occasion arises, but it is spontaneous and it is praise. It is usually after I have been praying or pondering for prolonged periods on the Word of God and my spirit is stirred – the Bible says the mouth is an overflow of the heart.

As I’m sure many are aware, family life can be rather hectic sometimes and to get a young family to church can sometimes leave us in a less than perfect spiritual condition at 10am on a Sunday morning and to suddenly ‘flick’ over into super spiritual singing at 10:01 was just often fake, for me anyway!! I was like the Pharisees, holy looking on the outside maybe but not quite so on the inside!!
Please think about this next bit carefully and again, these are only my opinions, but singing in a charismatic church for 30 to 45 minutes at the start of a service to help us feel good and receptive to a preach later on is no different to preaching the 10 Commandments to help people to be good later on…,isn’t all that just old wine?

Just to illustrate this, how many people who sing, actually fully understand, fully believe and are fully obedient to all the words they are singing? Have you, like me, ever sung words like this, “Lord, I give you my heart, I give you my soul, I live for you alone”? Do you live for the Lord alone? I certainly don’t 100% and I’ve never actually met anybody who appears to do so, in fact I’ve ever only personally met one man in the whole of my life who gets anywhere remotely close to that… So, that makes me a hypocrite if I sing those words, just like the Pharisees who used to preach the 10 Commandments to make people be good but were then guilty of breaking them themselves….!!
Rather, as born again believers, we know that once the heart is changed, goodness overflows outwards without the need for rules to ‘force’ goodness and similarly once we are close to God, singing flows out of the mouth, spontaneously, rather than with set words sung at set times, and usually sung at a much slower speed than my inner joy wants to release them!!

One final observation that must be considered, although I will make no more of it here than just a lighthearted consideration…
If we consider the generally accepted understanding of ‘spirit’ we must therefore also accept that music is physical and therefore of the flesh – and we know the flesh profiteth nothing. Before I was a Christian I used to say that music was my drug of choice – it stirred my flesh in a way nothing else could. In fact it still does, that’s why I rarely indulge in listening to music nowadays. That’s why I also ask is there really a need for the great ‘worship bands’ and all those musical instruments we have in some churches today? What are they stirring?

Many years ago I was asked to do “the worship” one night in our house group meeting and I did an experiment back then. I gave out some wonderful lyrics to a song to all members present and asked them what they thought and the reply was a unanimous positive response. I then played that song on a CD player and the response was very different – The lyrics were from a very heavy rock band called Whitecross and nobody approved but I’d made my point – music seemed to be a physical experience, not a spiritual one because the words in that song were the same spiritual words they’d approved of earlier!

But being serious again and back on topic, can you see what I’m trying to say, music is simply a physical phenomena isn’t it?

Well, it is however quite clear and I do concede to the fact that music can be a portal into the spiritual realm, but also a portal I believe the enemy greatly exploits not only outside but inside the church too (it’s wise to bear in mind how New Age and the occult use repetition, and incantation…) but that is another lengthy and very serious discussion altogether about deception… Here in this ‘essay’ I am just talking about music and so called ‘worship’.

So, a final repeat of my earlier conclusion.
Jesus said my Words are spirit and life and NT worship for me is simply this – obedience to Christ and being ever more so grafted into the vine to the glory of God the Father. If we love God, we show it by being obedient to Christ. Initially this is a choice, and often a difficult one but as we allow the holy spirit to move in our hearts that choice becomes much easier. Jumping up and down and raising our arms in ‘worship’ on a Sunday morning and then going out the church door to lead a carnal (and sometimes sinful) Sunday afternoon is not exactly my idea of worshipping my Lord yet time after time I’ve witnessed that in churches.
So, if we really wish to worship the Lord, rather than simply singing our dear little hearts out to our favourite tune on a Sunday morning, and at prayer night in the week if you’re one of the keen ones, we must make that everyday choice of allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts – worship in spirit and in truth.

God bless

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WHAT THE RESPECTED REFORMERS SAID….

I’ve copied this text below direct from this site…

http://bebaptized.org/Music.htm

“It is an historical fact that instrumental use in the worship service did not come about for roughly 650-700 years after the church had been established. The early church fathers railed against such a thought as using an instrument in worship. Even the Reformers from 500 or so years ago could not stand the thought of instrumental music in worship.

These days the churches of Christ are known for several beliefs unique to them, non-instrumental music use among them. But this has not always been so. Several hundred years ago many other denominations shared the same convictions regarding instrumental music in church. Hundreds of years ago, this was not a unique “church of Christ” belief and practice. It was a widely held belief in many different denominations:

These statements are from the founders of the Lutheran, Reformed and Methodist churches:
Martin Luther stated, “An organ in the worship of God is an ensign of Baal.”
John Calvin said “Musical instruments in the celebration of praises of God would be no more suitable than the burning of incense, the lighting of lamps, and the restoration of other shadows of the law…men who are fond of outward pomp may delight in such noise; but the simplicity which God recommends to us by the apostles is far more pleasing.”
John Wesley said; “I have no objection to instruments of music in our chapels, provided they are neither seen or heard.”
Charles Spurgeon, some say, the greatest Baptist preacher of all time protested; “I’d as soon pray to God with machinery as to sing to God with machinery.”
Adam Clarke (Methodist) said, “I am an old man, and an old minister; and I here declare that I never knew them productive of any good in the worship of God; and have had reason to believe that they were productive of much evil. Music, as a science, I esteem and admire: but instruments of music in the house of God, I abominate and abhor. This is the abuse of music; and here I register my protest against all such corruptions in the worship of the Author of Christianity,”

They could plainly see then what every Bible student should be willing to freely admit today.

To claim that instrumental use is seen in the Old Testament and in the Psalms is to be ignorant of what the New Covenant is all about. Jesus said, “New wine for new wineskins” (Luke 5:38) If we are going to use parts of the Old Testament as guidelines for our worship, will we also use incense and start sacrificing animals? Using that line of reasoning, it won’t be long before we are in search of a Levitical priesthood. The point is, they did lots of things under the Old Covenant that are no longer done under the New”.

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Just a little add-on here five years after I wrote that main text (and not yet seeing it a priority to re write this article yet) here’s some more thoughts…..

Like Jonathan Edwards, I look at types and shadows much more than most people ever do and it occurred to me that Old Testament worship with musical instruments must be a shadow of something too – a shadow of ‘the melody making in our hearts’ I wonder? (Eph 5:19)
A look at the Greek could easily make the ‘yourselves’ in that passage singular – Eph 5:19  ‘Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord’.
Just a thought although it looks like I’m not quite on track with this one. I’ve spoken to three guys who “know” Greek. One says it is plural, two say they have no idea! If you know Greek well enough, please feel free to let me know on this one.