Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Worship

The Bible teaches us to "consider one another", but not worship one another. Consideration (for other people) is limited, restricted and plural. Worship (of God) is unlimited, unrestricted and singular.

I can think of four questions we could ponder about worship --

A -- Who to worship
B -- How to worship
C -- Where to worship
D -- When to worship

Without going into detail, the answers I see are straight-forward.

A -- WHO
Old Testament -- "Thou shalt have no other Gods before ME."
New Testament -- "Thou shalt worship the Lord Thy God, and him only shalt thou serve"

B -- HOW
Old Testament -- God accepted many different kinds of expressions of worship, too numerous to mention.
New Testament -- "the true worshippers shall worship in spirit and in truth" (no restrictions placed on how to express that worship).
It makes sense to me that since God is Omniscient He knows all feelings of worship we have toward him, regardless of how we express them. {"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these..."}

C -- WHERE
Old Testament and New Testament -- no restrictions placed on where to worship God. It makes sense to me, that since God is omnipresent, he can be worshipped anywhere. {Jonah worshipped God "out of the belly of hell."}

D -- WHEN
Old Testament and New Testament -- no restrictions placed on when to worship God. It makes sense to me that since God is eternal He can be worshipped anytime -- he always IS -- the I AM. Therefore, NOW is always appropriate.

To summarize:
A -- WHO? -- GOD ONLY
B -- HOW? -- ANYHOW
C -- WHERE? -- ANYWHERE
D -- WHEN? -- ANYTIME