The latest part of this little series on 'what is a church' is entitled...

6. Godwards - thou shalt be unto me...

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His/Yours
Ron B

God deals with hand-crafted masterpieces not mass-produced replicas.

Biblebase Second Thoughts Blog

Ron wrote:
"Did you ever notice the order in this well known verse? Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ” Matt 4:10 NKJV. Worship first, workers second. What is true of the individual is true of the covenant community and is true of the local expression of that covenant community too. The 'purpose' of the universal church and the local church is to 'worship and to serve' in that order."

This reminds me of Mark 3.14.

"And He ordained twelve, that they should be with Him, and that He might send them forth to preach."

First and foremost: to be with Him.

After that, or more correctly, out of that, to be sent forth.

Quote: If we are to be worshippers first and workers second, then what does it mean to be a worshipper? According to Strongs: 4352, to worship can mean for instance, to fawn or crouch, to ( lit or fig ) prostrate oneself in homage, ( do reference to, adore ). When would be the appropriate time to do any of these things? The best answer to that should be provided by the account of Jesus in the gospels. Since we are told that we must all come unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, we should be able to identify in his life in which way he was a worshipper first and a worker second. I can’t find a single scripture though where Jesus is pictured as worshipping, although he himself is often on record as being worshipped by other people. He can be found fasting, watching and praying and doing many other things in relation to his Father, but there doesn’t seem to be any instance where he is purely worshipping. Yet, I am convinced we can learn a great deal from him about what it means to be a worshipper, for he had no doubt about how we ought to go about it in John 4:24, ” God is Spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

So in which way would he have worshipped his Father in spirit and truth? The gospels give us many instances that allow us to see how he went about his daily life in relation to God and people he came in contact with. Mostly from the accounts of his ministry, but even early on in his life we are not left with any doubt how he preferred to spend his days. Luke 2:49 “How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my father’s business?” It is obviously something that he felt he must do, we are not told whether this is in the nature of worship or serving, but he expected Mary and Joseph to understand that this was part of what he was about. There are many things he said he had come to do, but he never said I have come to be a worshipper. He did however say in Luke 22:27 “ But I am among you as he that serveth.” There is also a certain urgency in the way he motivates others to serve God that doesn’t make it sound like being a worker is second to being a worshipper, but actually a priority that must not be neglected. We can see this in John 9:4 “ As long as it is day we MUST do the works of him who sent me.” That this is highly regarded by God is clear from John 12:26, “ My Father will honor the one who serves me.” This is all the more remarkable because it was said at the feast of Passover and addressed to some Greeks who had come to worship.

The point I am making is that Jesus in everything he did was always doing those things that pleased the Father. In worship he wasn’t pleasing him anymore then in serving. In all he did he was exalting his Father, should we then make a distinction between worship and to serve? Don’t we worship him in everything we do? In serving we worship him and as we worship we serve him. In biblical terms serving and worship are so intertwined that within the context of the temple there simply can’t be any worship without observance to the service that is ordained by God.

so what is the point of adding service to worship in his answer to Satan?

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His/Yours
Ron B

God deals with hand-crafted masterpieces not mass-produced replicas.

Biblebase Second Thoughts Blog

I think it is quite intentional that the emphasis from scripture is worship then sevice. Worship encompasses all we are, and subsequently all we do. I'm thinking of Jesus calling the fishermen in the begining 'come follow me and I will make you fishers of men'.
I think I read in the small book by GW North called 'The Blood of God' http://mp3.biblebase.com/download_81.html
He says 'every word that Jesus spoke is carefully chosen'

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45 years in the making, 26 years being rebuilt....

Quote:
I don’t see adding service to worship as something secondary to it, but more as reinforcing the intended objective in Matthew 4:10 that worship must focus on God alone to the exclusion of everyone else. We are left in no doubt that in doing so we should serve only HIM. That puts the emphasis on an aspect of worship that is essential to it. We can read over and over again in the bible that the people God had brought out of Egypt to serve him at mount Sinai were often warned not to turn away from him in their heart and serve other gods. Had they not complied with that then their worship would effectively have been made void and without value. It may seem unthinkable to us that we would do such thing, but this world is full of things that would seek to distract us from devoting all our energy, attention, time, strength , etc to God alone.

There are many other scriptures that are helpful to illustrate that just because a word is listed as second in a sentence it is not necessarily less important then the first word mentioned. Take for instance Isaiah 56:6, “ Also the son of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord.” Is to love here secondary or essential to serving God?

The same in Deuteronomy 10:20 “ Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave and swear by his name. Is fearing God here more important then serving and cleaving to him less then serving, or can they be qualities that are indispensable in fearing God and therefore of equal importance?

Joshua 22:5 “ To love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul.” Do we really love God if we don’t walk in his ways? The answer to that is in 1 John 1:6 “ If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” So to walk in all his ways can’t be secondary to loving God, for without it we don’t have fellowship with him. Notice also that in this scripture to cleave unto him comes before serving as opposed to Deuteronomy 10:20 where it is the other way round.

See also Psalm 2:11, 95:6, 2 Kings 17:36, 2 Chronicles 29:11. This one seems to sum it up, Hebrews 12:28 “ Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.” So we must also worship God in an acceptable manner and must ask ourselves if we are really worshipping with reverence and godly fear and doing him a service? Can God send the fire, are our steps ordered by him, or are we merely serving our own purpose?

Take for instance Isaiah 56:6, “ Also the son of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord.” Is to love here secondary or essential to serving God?
good question, when i read it straight away i saw it with my new covenant eyes, first I join my self to the Lord, ie to be with him to hear his call of love and enter into a rest with Him. Second As a result of my joining to Christ I serve out of relationship. And the third point that comes to me is its a service of Love not a service of fear or works to gain approval.
Its good to look at these things, I think one aspect is not more inportant than another fred .
But there is a definate order in these things and that is the point I believe,

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45 years in the making, 26 years being rebuilt....

Quote:
Look up the word for worship in the Matt passage and see how the Bible uses it. This is not the service of a waiter but of a priest. I shall say something about this in the order of worship, praise, service.

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His/Yours
Ron B

God deals with hand-crafted masterpieces not mass-produced replicas.

Biblebase Second Thoughts Blog

Quote:
Are you sure that a priest is not a waiter? What was the priest in the following episode doing if he was not waiting on God’s table?

Leviticus2:7/8 “ And if they oblation be a meat offering baked in the frying pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.” ( God likes his dinner cooked in a particular way ). “ And thou shalt bring the meat offering that is made of these things unto the Lord: and when it is presented unto the priest, he shall bring it unto the altar.”

Certainly a priest waits on God, but he is not a 'deacon' in the sense that a 'deacon' was someone originally someone who ran to serve tables.

Strong's G1247 - diakoneō

The point I shall make, when I can get around to it, is that the word used of 'serving' in the wilderness accounts is an unusual one which points towards the man waiting upon God, rather than the one who waits upon tables.

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His/Yours
Ron B

God deals with hand-crafted masterpieces not mass-produced replicas.

Biblebase Second Thoughts Blog