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What is worship?

What does worship look like?

How can we best worship corporately?

Worship by the Book brings together D.A. Carson, Mark Ashton, R. Kent Hughes, and Tim Keller to offer thought-provoking insights into the nature of corporate worship by approaching the subject from their differing church traditions.

Summary

Worship by the Book does not attempt to lay out a comprehensive theology of corporate worship. The book instead focuses on matters related to worship practice. The authors each bring their area of expertise to bear on the subject at hand, always seeking to keep worship God-focused and the edification of the church at the forefront of their minds.

The book begins with D.A. Carson’s scholarly attempt to define worship. He denotes the difficult task that lays before him, for the church heatedly debates the stylistic aspects of worship (11-13), the diversity of current options leads some to lock into their own tradition at the exclusion of the wider church (13-14), and there already exists a wide variety of opinions as to how worship should be defined (14-15).

In short, Carson’s exposition of Robert Shaper’s definition leads us to see worship in the following way:

“Worship is the proper response of human beings to God, precisely because he is worthy and delightfully so” (26-34).

From there, Carson analyzes how on this side of the Fall, our worship is a response to God’s redemptive work (34-38), how all worship is God-centered (38-41), and how Christian worship is Christ-centered (41-42). Then, he claims that Christian worship is Trinitarian (42-43) and that it embraces both adoration and action (43-44).

With the New Testament as our guide, Christians seek to follow God’s instructions in worshipping Him correctly in anticipation of the final consummation that Christians await (44-58). Carson closes with some practical conclusions that lead into the next part of the book, a collection of essays built on Carson’s biblical analysis which reveal different paradigms for corporate worship.

Mark Ashton and C.J. Davis open the practical section of the book by approaching worship from the Anglican high church tradition.

Ashton praises Thomas Cranmer’s Prayer Book as playing a “central role in… keeping the Bible at the heart of a nation’s life” (65). Though the Book of Common Prayer has a rich history and is filled with biblical teaching, recent revisions have watered down the truth of God’s Word and the new liturgy has created an “identity crisis” for Anglicans (66). Ashton takes us back to Cranmer’s achievement by laying out the reformer’s aims (intelligibility, edification, and corporateness) (69). He then shows how the Prayer Book is biblical (70-72), accessible (72-74) and balanced (74-75).

Ashton devotes the rest of his chapter to promoting the legacy of Cranmer and denouncing the human-centered perspective evident in the liturgical revisions brought about by the Church of England. He believes that all worship leaders should analyze their services and sermons and ask if they are biblical, accessible and balanced (82-88). He then adds various principles related to service structure, music, prayers, testimony, announcements, and special services celebrating Communion and baptism.

R. Kent Hughes leads us to the other end of the worship spectrum and offers a taste of free-church worship. Hughes respects the high-church tradition of worship, but finds the historical free-church critique of the liturgical view to be justified. He describes how preaching suffers in the Anglican tradition and that the Puritans (the fathers to the free-church tradition) were correct in maintaining a weighty exposition of Scripture (143-144). Anglican dissenters advocated the reading of full chapters from Old and New Testaments, denounced the short, rote prayers of the prayer book, and prized singing, simplicity and modesty (144-146). Though Hughes agrees with the free-church critique, he admits that recent days have led to a “free-fall to pragmatism” (147) with the de-biblicizing of corporate worship.

Hughes now lists six distinctives of Christian worship:

  • it is God-centered (149-151),
  • Christ-centered (152-155),
  • Word-centered (155-158),
  • consecrated (159-160),
  • whole-hearted (160-163),
  • reverent (163-166).

These six distinctives must be present in every worship service, even if the forms of worship differ according to culture. Hughes then gives some biblical advice about music in worship. He argues that music must serve the preaching, not distract from it (167) and that musical participation is required of every worshiper (168). Musical selection is important (169), musicians matter (171), and the congregation is in fact the chief instrument (171).

Tim Keller writes from the Reformed tradition, and he quickly states his displeasure with simplistic “worship wars” that promote only one style of service attached to a particular culture (be it a contemporary culture or a historic European one) (197). Keller looks to John Calvin’s practice for insights into the biblical nature of worship. What he finds is a variety of differing styles (199) that all maintain the Bible as the source and supreme authority for worship (202).

Reformed worship should reaffirm Calvin’s “core commitment” to the rediscovery of the biblical gospel of unmerited and free grace.

“God’s grace comes to us as a word to believe, rather than as a deed to be performed” (208).

Keller then lists some of the specific traits of reformed corporate worship. Its form and language is simple; its goal is to bring people face to face with the transcendent God; the rhythm and flow of the service reenacts the Gospel (208-217). Keller claims that worship services should be broken down into three main sections:

  • praise,
  • renewal,
  • commitment.

The worship practice of his church shows this three-fold aspect in each of the varying services.

Tomorrow, I will provide some personal thoughts on some of the issues addressed in Worship by the Book.

 

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