Friday, March 13, 2009

Old Testament Informal Worship...Party Time!!!


Meal Time or Party Time- The community of worship

Lets look at Deuteronomy 14:22-28 what forms of worship are here?

Here in chapter 14 is great example of what I have entitled meal time but could be called party time. Tithing was common in the ANE and the money was given to the sanctuaries for the upkeep of the priesthoods, (Num. 18:21-25 and Lev. 27:30-33) give us an insight into the relationship between tithing and maintenance of religious systems. The deuteronomic law had tithing in a different aspect. Two important extensions are placed here on tithing. The First is in verse 23, the tithe bring a feast. The first extension in the words of McConville has the aim to ‘teach Israel to revere God more, sound like worship maybe? The second extension is seen in verses 22-27 is centred around the provision for non-sacrificial slaughter because of the expansion of the land. The worshipper is enabled to feast at their chosen place. This other form of celebration is a further example of untied Israel rejoicing and worshipping together. It ends with a call to all to join in a tri-annual gathering where all can participate in the blessings of Yahweh.

The argument here is that God is providing a place to party. Can you picture that tri-annual gather with all sorts of crazy food and worship going on because they were celebrating what God had blessed them with. This is worship too, here in chapter 14 all of Israel came together and brought one-tenth of their blessing’s and had a massive party to worship God. Campolo goes on to say, “God is a God who loves parties … who loves celebration. To all of us who are down, beaten, tired and sad, he says, ‘Come with me. We’re going to have a party.’

So here we meals and party time as legitimate form of response and gratitude and therefore worship.

1 comment:

Ian@UK said...

I wish there was more eating and celebration in church :D