Family of God: [Church_of_Christ] Re: The essence of worship

Greetings Clay and all, ED Boggess

I began this thread and in the first post provided an extensive list of
references the show the meaning of the word that is translated "worship"
in John 4 where Jesus says true worshipers worship in spirit and truth.
The list of references demonstrated that the worship that must be in
spirit and truth is a conscious reverencing or paying of homage that
issues forth in our bodily posture or action. That is what the evidence
shows.

What has happened since? The references have been ignored. The reasoned
presentation has been passed over. Instead the response has been to make
declarations void of evidence and contrary to the evidence. Why do you
suppose this is? If there is biblical reason to reject what was placed
into discussion, surely we would have begun to see it by now, wouldn't
we?

A genuine student of the Bible allows the Bible to lead him to what he
believes. He does not go to the Bible with an agenda and force upon it
what he desires it to teach. Thus I offer biblical evidence, not to
prove what I believe as much as to simply see what the Bible says for
itself. I am willing to go wherever it leads me. So the evidence leads
me to conclude that the worship of John 4 (which is the critical passage
since it is the one where Jesus teaches "true worshipers worship God in
spirit and truth") is not everything we do. I can do it anywhere and I
can do it alone or with others, but it requires my conscious focus on
reverencing God. Moreover, once that is in place Jesus also teaches me
that to be "true worship" it must be "in spirit and truth". What does
that mean? I believe it means that the human spirit must be focused on
God, thus "in spirit"; and that it must be in harmony with God's
revealed word, thus "in truth". I know that this last stateement rubs
the fur of a lot on this forum the wrong way - then let them turn
around! Because when all is said and done, it will still read "in
truth".

Someone did make a weak attempt to say "in truth" means genuine or
sincere. But the trouble with this is it makes "in truth" mean the same
thing as "in spirit"! Moreover it ignores the context both immediate and
the larger context of John's letter. Jesus prayed, "sanctify they by
your truth, your word is truth" Jn 17. He counseled they stay in his
words and they would know the truth and the truth would make them free.
In the immediate context Jesus answered the woman that the Samaritans
were in error, not "in truth". The phrase is a prepositional phrase both
in Greek and in English, used with the force of an adjective - thus it
tells what kind of worship is required: "in sprit and truth". But
suppose it is treated as an adverb, which is necessary if "in truth"
were to mean genuine or sincere. In other words, "in truth" would modify
the verbal action of worshipping. Suppose you take it that way, what do
you do with "in spirit"? You certainly cannot treat half the phrase as
an adjective and the other half as an adverb!

The most satisfactory course is to see "in spirit and truth" as
contrasted with the Jew's and Samaritan's worship of before, the former
void of spirit and the latter void of truth.

ED Boggess

> When will it finally dawn on ALL of us that: We assemble to encourage
> and build one another up? We assemble to break bread and drink the cup
> of our savior in remembrance of Him? We worship from within our hearts
> and minds in spirit, where ever we are? We worship in "spirit" and not
> by keeping a physical worship law any longer, that's the kind of
> worshippers the Father seeks "NOW'. Worship in spirit may produce
> physical activities and one may observe those physical activities in
> others, but those activities do not produce a rigid pattern as if the
> follower's actions are being prompted by a physical worship law
> Followers can, will and did organize to some degree in order to come
> together to break bread and edify one another. But organized
> activities as observed in the NT are not LAW, it's simply all of them
> deciding when to get together to break the bread and drink from the
cup
> and to edify and encourage one another. Was it on Sunday or everyday?
> What difference does it make when they decided to get togather? They
> were no longer under physical worship law. We have mistakenly assumed
> that with them organizing, freed from law so as to be in one another's
> presence, MUST HAVE BEEN LAW and that the Apostles simply failed to
> mention it? (i don't think so). Grace and peace Clay
>

__._,_.___

Messages in this topic (75) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic

Messages | Database | Polls

Participation guidelines: List policies are posted in the files area as listpolicies.html

We don't want to see you go, but if you must, the address is Church_of_Christ-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com