Worship (46)
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Not only is music rarely associated with worship in the New Testament but the Pentateuch is altogether silent on music associated with tabernacle worship. All of this highlights our skewed preoccupation with music in the current conflicts over worship.For the Glory of God (xi)
Since a house of worship is not a concert hall, the best place for a choir or musical groups is on the balcony at the back.For the Glory of God (330)
As the loving mother rejoices to be the fountain of nourishment to the babe which clings to her warm bosom, so the Christian father delights to convey, even by reverent reading, "the sincere milk of the word" (1 Peter 2:2). He has found it good to his own soul; he rejoices in an appointed means of conveying it to his offspring.A Theology of the Family
The reason why the reformation succeeded so well in Germany was because the peoples catechizing went along with Luther's preaching. It was laid as a charge upon masters of families, that they should catechize their children
Worship often involves other physical postures (lying, sitting, standing), as well as actions performed with the hands (clapping, raising of hands) or feet (marching in procession, dancing, jumping). For the moment, we observe only that the dominant physical gesture of worship in the Scriptures is prostration. Our contemporary squabbles over worship rarely-if ever-include discussions of physically bending the knee before God, which may be a measure of how uninterested people are in truly biblical worship. Surely worship that pleases God involves bodily gestures of subordination and submission.For the Glory of God (17)
(1) True worship involves an engagement with God and is focused on him. According to Jesus himself, true worship focuses not on the place but on the person of Christ, who is Yahweh incarnate (John 4:21–24). (2) True worship occurs at the invitation of the Lord and must be conducted on his terms. (3) True worship is communal. In worship the redeemed gather to celebrate the kindness that God has lavished on us collectively, without merit and without prejudice. Furthermore, true worship tears down the barriers of gender, class, and race. As Paul writes in Galatians 3:28, in the presence of God "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor
female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (4) True worship is driven by a deep sense of gratitude to God, first for his redemption, and second for his lavish daily provision. In true worship our focus is not on what we are doing for him but on what he has done for us. For this reason true worship should be a joyful event, not a burden to be legalistically borne. (5) Finally, true worship involves the lavish offering of one's resources and even oneself (Rom. 12:1) in sacrifice to and for the service of Christ.Deuteronomy (The NIV Application Commentary) (p. 398). Zondervan
You cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself.
A family without prayer is like a house without a roof, open and exposed to all the storms of heaven.
The way of family worship is a good old way, no new thing, but the ancient usage of the saints.Commentary Gen 12:6
We praise what we enjoy because the delight is incomplete until it is expressed in praise.
Pagan worship focuses on corporate and individual cultic efforts seeking to mollify the gods and secure their blessing. Today many Christians' understanding of worship differs little from that of pagans, except perhaps that God is singular and the forms of worship come from traditions more or less rooted in the Scriptures. Largely divorced from life, such worship represents a pattern of religious activities driven by a deep-seated sense of obligation to God and a concern to win his favour. But this understanding is unbiblical; it separates worship from daily life and compartmentalizes human existence into the sacred and the secular.For the Glory of God (23)
Human beings by their very nature are worshipers. Worship is not something we do; it defines who we are. You cannot divide human beings into those who worship and those who don't. Everybody worships; it's just a matter of what, or whom, we serve.
I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.
We may be truly said to worship God, though we lack perfection; but we cannot be said to worship Him if we lack sincerity.
We do not worship the created art of singing; we worship Him. Don't sing primarily because you love singing, or keep quiet because you do not. Sing because you love who made you, and formed you, and enables you to sing.
Lead Family Worship with a firm, fatherly hand and a soft, penitent heart: Even when you're bone-weary after a day's work, pray for strength to carry out your fatherly duty. Remember that Christ Jesus went to the cross for you bone-weary and exhausted but never shrunk from His mission. As you deny yourself, you will see how He strengthens you during Family Worship, so that by the time you finish, your exhaustion is overcome.Theology of the Family, 96
Observation shows that families which have no household worship are at a low ebb in spiritual things; that families where it is performed in a cold, slugglish, negligent, or hurried way, are little affected by it and little affected by any means of grace; and that families where God is worshipped, every morning and evening, by all the inmates of the house in a solemn and affectionate service are blessed with increase of piety and happiness. Every individual is blessed. Each one receives a portion of the heavenly food.Thoughts on Family Worship
if God be the Founder, Owner, Governor, and Benefactor of families, then families are jointly to worship God and pray unto Him.How May the Duty of Family Prayer Be Best Managed for the Spiritual Benefit of Every One in the Family?
I hope you will never be averse to it or weary of it. God forbid you should: you are not weary of meal times, if you be healthy. Know and keep these appointed times of coming to God. If you promise to meet a person of quality at such an hour when the clock strikes, you rise up, crave pardon, and tell the company [that someone] tarries for you, you must be gone. Oh, take not more liberty with God than you would do with men, and keep your hearts continually in a frame for duty.A Remedy for Decaying Religion
Family prayer and the pulpit are the bulwarks of Protestantism! Depend upon it, when family piety goes down, the life of godliness will become very low. In Europe, at any rate, seeing that the Christian faith began with a converted household, we ought to seek after the conversion of all our families and to maintain within our houses the good and holy practice of family worship.
family worship will prevent much sin. It awes the soul, conveys a sense of God's majesty and authority, sets solemn truths before the mind, and brings down benefits from God on the home.
the whole household should be gathered together to bow before the Lord--parents and children, master and servant--to confess their sins, to give thanks for God's mercies, to seek His help and blessing. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with this duty: all other domestic arrangements are to bend to it.
we may observe what fearful threatenings are pronounced against those who disregard this duty. We wonder how many of our readers have seriously pondered these awe-inspiring words: "Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name" (Jer 10:25)!
And verily there is one spring and cause of the decay of religion in our day, which we cannot but touch upon and earnestly urge a redress of; and that is the neglect of the worship of God in families by those to whom the charge and conduct of them is committed.Second London Baptist Confession
People often try to fix their families by making surface changes in important areas, but until they deal with worship, they will find themselves like the men of Judah--healing "the hurt of [the] people slightly" (Jer. 6:14). So many maladies in family life can be traced to the abandonment of family worship.A Theology of the Family, 45
We should do well if we added to our godly service more singing. The world sings: the million have their songs; and I must say the taste of the populace is a very remarkable taste just now as to its favourite songs. They are, many of them, so absurd and meaningless as to be unworthy of an idiot. I should insult an idiot if I could suppose that such songs as people sing nowadays would really be agreeable to him. Yet these things will be heard from men, and places will be thronged to listen to hear the stuff. Now, why should we, with the grand psalms we have of David, with the noble hymns of Cowper, of Milton, of Watts - why should not we sing as well as they? Let us sing the songs of Zion they are as cheerful as the songs of Sodom any day. Let us drown the howling nonsense of Gomorrha with the melodies of the New Jerusalem.http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0998.php
music should be selected and presented to glorify God and promote reverence and awe. This commitment will naturally result in excluding certain kinds of music (narcissistic and subjective lyrics, jarring and raucous tunes).For the Glory of God (242)
evangelicals must rediscover that truly worshipful music is primarily congregational and united the body of Christ. The New Testament pattern has everyone engaged, as worshipers sing to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.For the Glory of God (242)
Music that glorifies the Father and the Son is driven by the Spirit and the Word. It is not merely emotive (driven by atmospherics), but instructive, didactic, informative, and transformative. Truly worshipful music admonishes the carnal, corrects the sinner, challenges the lazy, reproves the indulgent, encourages the depressed, comforts the sorrowful, and inspires the lethargic.For the Glory of God (233)
True worship involves reverential human acts of submission and homage before the divine Sovereign in response to his gracious revelation of himself and in accord with his will.For the Glory of God (23)
Many evangelical churches resist physical prostration as an expression of homage and submission before God. This resistance represents both an unfortunate overreaction to Roman Catholic abuses and the arrogance of our culture. Although genuflection before a superior is universally recognized as a legitimate expression of respect, Western culture, impatient with expressions of deference, has discarded these millennia-old symbolic gestures.For the Glory of God (16)
Edith Humphrey correctly identifies five maladies that plague worship in the North American church: (1) trivializing worship by a preoccupation with atmospherics/mood (it's all about how worship makes me feel); (2) misdirecting worship by having a human-centered rather than God-centered focus (it's all about me, the worshiper); (3) deadening worship by substituting stones for bread (the loss of the Word of God); (4) perverting worship with emotional, self-indulgent experiences at the expense of true liturgy; and (5) exploiting worship with market-driven values.For the Glory of God (xii)
Something really seems wrong to me when parents want to take their children in the most formative years and put them with other children and other adults to shape their attitude and behavior in worship rather than having them right there to shape them. Why wouldn't parents be jealous to model for their children the tremendous value that they put on joyful reverence in the presence of almighty God?http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/should-children-sit-through-big-church
Of course, it is over their head. It is supposed to be over their head. They are beginners. The English language is over their head as soon as they come out of the womb. But we don't say: Well, let's put them with other children in their own situations and limitations so they can understand a word or two. No. We immerse them in the English language every day that they don't understand 90% of in the hope and expectation that they grow up into joyful use of the English language. Long before children understand fully what is going on in worship and what is sung and what is said, they are absorbing tremendous amounts of what is valuable.http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/should-children-sit-through-big-church
The greatest stumbling block for children in worship is parents who don't cherish doing that worship, they don't love it, children can feel the difference between duty and delight. They know if Dad loves being here.http://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/should-children-sit-through-big-church
[Chrysostom] urged that every house should be church, and every head of a family a spiritual shepherd, remembering the account he must give even for his children.Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity Vol 3 , 545
They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another... Psalms and hymans they sing to one another, striving to see which one of them will chant more beautifully the praises of their Lord. Hearing and seeing this, Christ rejoices.Ad uxorem, bk2 ch8
Brethren, ye are ordained of God to rule your own houses in his true fear, and according to his word... And therefore, I say, ye must make them partakers in reading, exhorting, and in making common prayers, which I would in every house were used once a day at least.Works of John Knox, Banner of Truth, 2014, 4:137
I am persuaded from my own ministry experience in hundreds of churches that so little family worship regularly exists in Christian homes today, that even in most of our best
churches, most of our best men do not even pray with their
wives (and children if they have them) much less lead them in
ten minutes or so of worship as a family.Family Worship, 13
Brethren, I wish it were more common, I wish it were universal, with all [Christians] to have family
prayer.
We sometimes hear of children of Christian parents
who do not grow up in the fear of God, and we are asked how it is that they turn out so badly. In many, very many cases, I fear there is such a neglect of family
worship that it's not probable that the children are at all impressed by any piety supposed to be possessed by
their parents. A Pastoral visit, pulpit v 54, 362-63
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. The Problem of Pain (53)
The essence of worship lies in our mind's true vision of God and our spirit's true authentic affections for God.
Some bodily worship is necessary to give liberty to our own devotion; yea though in secret, so more when with others . . . 'Tis necessary that there should be something bodily and visible in the worship of a congregation; otherwise, there can be no communion at all. Miscellanies #101
We're thinking about him whom angels gaze in adoring wonder as the beauty of His person glows before their very eyes and they do not ever feel that a slice of eternity is already too much as they gaze at his glory. No! Eternity, to the thousands upon thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand angels is nothing! Too short in seeking to know something of the glory of His person. Rezolution 2010 - Christ and Him Crucified http://www.rezolution.co.za/Messages.html
We become like what we worship. Counterfeit gods (123)
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