obedience as worship

When one looks at the Gospel records themselves it is clear that “…Jesus did not ask for homage but obedience. He always had much more to lose from his friends than from his enemies. Admiration has always blunted his sword. It serves to dull the original outrage of his mission. Veneration assumes that we know what kind of man he really was and that we approve of his demands. It blinds us to their radicalism and inoculates us against being wounded by them. In fact, our well-speaking makes him vulnerable to his own curse: ‘Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is what their fathers did to the false prophets.’” (Paul Minear, Commands of Christ: Authority and Implications.) I think what he is pointing to here is true. Nowhere does Jesus call us to worship him in the Gospels…what is clear is that he does demand obedience. Obedience is the worship we should render him. And when we merely approve of him, as Minear suggests, the can easily domesticate his demands, making them into sayings and aphorisms. What think ye?

September 14, 2007 | Filed Under christology, discipleship, following jesus |

Comments

12 Responses to “obedience as worship”

Alan Hirsch on September 14th, 2007 7:02 am

And by the way, this does not mean that I do not think we should not worship Jesus. It is simply pointing to something in the Gospels, in the teaching of Jesus himself. It also highlights the more Hebraic idea of action as worship/sacrament. Obedience IS worship!
Wes Roberts on September 14th, 2007 7:12 am

…preach it, bro!

…am in another corner of the US of A wrestlingm, in a unique way, with this very issue.

…thank you!!

…I needed your words and injunction
Patrick on September 14th, 2007 10:21 am

1 Samuel 15:17-26

Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.’ Why did you not obey the LORD ? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the LORD?”

“But I did obey the LORD,” Saul said. “I went on the mission the LORD assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal.”

But Samuel replied:
“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.”

Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the LORD’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them. Now I beg you, forgive my sin and come back with me, so that I may worship the LORD.”

But Samuel said to him, “I will not go back with you. You have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you as king over Israel!”
Jarrod Saul McKenna on September 14th, 2007 2:34 pm

g’day Al looks like the Spirit’s moving in simular ways in the comments over in Hamo’s backyard blog:
http://www.backyardmissionary.com/2007/09/jesus-bigger-than-christianity.html

Weird!
Sarah Rooney on September 14th, 2007 5:45 pm

Spot on post.
james petticrew on September 14th, 2007 6:29 pm

Isn’t this essentially what Paul is talking about in Romans 12 “1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship.”
Paul seems to be implying that worship is a whole life activity and so is expressed in obedience as much as devotion. We are in danger of reducing worship to simply an emotional experience. If we scratched the surface views of contemporary Christians on worship I suspect they would say that worship is some sort of emotional encounter with God.
We need to get back to worship as response to God’s character and action. When God reveals who he is in word and deed our response should be in word and deed, it should involved the head, heart and hand.
Richard Clarke on September 15th, 2007 1:44 am

Very well said everyone, and I will add this:
Anytime someone says, “Let’s worship now…”, I am thinking; what are you doing the rest of the time?
len hjalmarson on September 15th, 2007 1:54 am

The cult of personality so common in charismatic circles has exactly this effect. We put people on pedestals so that we can admire, but not imitate them. After all, they are different than us.. exceptional.. have “anointing” or whatever. But the main result is that we excuse ourselves from following Jesus ..
joe on September 15th, 2007 5:20 am

if you read in the book of Amos it seems clear that God is after our obedience rather than what we call worship. The book of Amos is filled with God’s outrage over “worship” without obedience. for example:
Amos 5:21-24
“I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.

Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.

But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
Peggy on September 15th, 2007 10:12 am

Alan,

Yes, yes, yes!

This is exactly the conversation I was having with my favorite disciples (my three sons ) last night! The point we keep coming to as we read through the Bible is that God asks people to obey…and that it is God’s will that we need to be worrying about, not what we want.

And, for my sons, they realize that their parents are obeying God when we teach them to obey us and God…and so when they obey us, they are practicing obeying God. (Of course, we are not asking them to obey in ways that are not biblically consistent with loving God, loving others.)

My middle son then said: That’s great…when we’re young and living at home, we have to keep practicing and practicing by obeying you. But when we are grown up and don’t live with you anymore, then we have to have practiced enough to be able to obey God on our own. It’s like singing in the choir…we practice and practice and then we can sing in the concert without having to be nervous or look at the music. (Yesterday was his first day in school choir!)

So, where does that leave this generation…the one that is so very unwilling to enbrace discipline and obedience? Clueless, I guess!

At all times we are to be loving God completely and our neighbors as ourselves. That is what it means to obey.

My boys are practicing loving each other–because I John says that if we say we love God, but hate our brother, we’re liars…that would be disobedient liars

Which takes me back to my usual soapbox: I’m not talking to you about understanding another thing until you can already DO what you KNOW!

Richard and Len, I completely resonate with your comments…
Ted M. Gossard on September 15th, 2007 3:39 pm

Good point.

What I’ve seem in worship is really not much of following a personality but more like getting into some kind of experience, as if that’s what it’s all about. This is a good reminder of what’s it’s all about, and experience is not the point in it but rather beside it. Though that will become strong at points if we make this our endeavor. But if experience is what it’s about for us, then I lose out in this endeavor.
Deebs on September 15th, 2007 8:16 pm

i’d have to agree with that quote alan. in terms of an habraic spiritual perspective, jesus was continually pointing people towards the father… not himself.

i think it’s part of our nature… our insecurities push us to idolise people/things/ideas… and i think we just as easily idolise “jesus” as we can anything else… in saying that i guess it’s more an idolisation of the idea of jesus… like when he says that he cannot stand luke warm faith; he wants all or nothing. it is simply not enough to believe the right stuff; if it doesn’t translate to action it means nothing. but this is nothing that hasn’t been said here before by others… i’ll shut up and keep listening!