The challenge of New Testament Worship
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image via WikipediaIn the New Testament, the ancient offerings are replaced by the worshipers themselves. Worship is quite literally the act of offering ourselves to God. This was the apostle Paul's point when he urged us "to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Rom. 12:1). When we gather with other believers to "offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name" (Heb. 13:15), we are offering ourselves to him anew, body and all. It is precisely the sort of wholehearted offering Jesus had in mind when he said that the Father is seeking those who will worship him "in the Spirit and in truth" (John 4:23–24). In the Old Testament, the place of worship and everything about it was considered holy. Worshipers were taught to approach that "sacred space" with awe and reverence. Today, God's people, both individually and corporately, do not visit that sacred space; they constitute that sacred space. Paul instructed the Athenians that God does not live in temples made by human hands (Acts 17:24), but his point was not that God has no earthly dwelling place. God dwells in a temple made with his own hands; he dwells within his people. Their bodies have quite literally become his earthly abode (1 Cor. 3:16–17).
The question for us, then, is this: When we gather for worship, does this sacred event generate within us any similar sense of "awe and reverence"? As Richard Foster says, when the early believers in Acts met for worship,
they were keenly aware that the veil had been ripped in two and like Moses and Aaron they were entering the Holy of Holies. No intermediaries were needed. They were coming into the awful, glorious, gracious Presence of the living God. They gathered with anticipation, knowing that Christ was present among them and would teach them and touch them with His living power. (Celebration of Discipline, p. 141)
Is this how we come to worship?
A perceptive observer of our contemporary church scene might be forgiven for scratching her head over such a question, wondering whether we have grown oblivious to the significance of our own gathering. How often, she might ask us, do you prepare for Sunday as if it mattered, guarding, for example, Saturday nights so as to be fresh and focused the next morning? How come our pre-service gathering so often sounds more like a bowling alley than a people meeting to offer themselves anew to their God? How is it we are we so susceptible to the lure of personality and entertainment up front, obscuring the God-centered purpose for which we have met? How prevalent is the notion that we can worship just as well at home, or on the golf course, or before a TV screen—or perhaps forfeit worship altogether due to inconvenient weather, the priority of other things, or who may be preaching that week? 
