Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Ben Witherington on Worship

Nice post here by Ben witherington (the third!!!) on the subject of worship in the New Testament.

I do wonder if he is drawing a lot of conclusions from a little data but on the whole very interesting.

I especially like his point about the way the NT always tries to use the most exalted language it can when praising God and this critiques those (contemporary) songs which tend to be a bit buddy buddy, or even lovey dovey! Let me know what you think :-)

3 comments:

  1. I went to a church service recently where one of the lines in one of the songs was, "You are the sun and bright shining stars"
    Do people even think about what they're singing these days?

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  2. hmmm, interesting. Kind of a reverse idolatry. But to be honest if songwriters are putting out such piffle, isn't that more a reflection of the sort of teaching they receive on a weekly basis?

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  3. What do you mean "reverse" idolatry? This looks like straight idolatry to me ;) It sounds completely pantheistic!
    Maybe the writer just failed to complete a metaphor they were trying to convey, or maybe, as you say the teaching they've received has been poor.

    Though panentheism is gaining in popularity, there is a danger that people confuse the objects of creation with the creator. (But I won't go there...)

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