Monday with...Brennan Manning

The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust—not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.

Brennan Manning, The Dick Staub Interview

Monday with Hans Kung

"The Church of Jesus Christ is home not only for the morally upright but for the moral failures and for those who are variety or reasons have not been able to honor denominational teaching. The Church is a healing community proclaiming the Father's indiscriminate love and unconditional grace, offering pardon, reconciliation and salvation to the down-trodden and leaving the judgement to God."

-Hans Kung

What a wonderful view of the Church that is!

Troubles on Tuesday

I was reading John Pipers book called future grace and I was struck by my attitude of fear in certain situations and I took these promises from his book and intend to reflect on these promises for certain situations. According to the film Facing The Giants the bible tells us to not fear 365 times, so that’s quite a lot. Maybe we should listen.

I was up praying on the Edge recently, it has such amazing views and is so high up. It looks down into the valley you can see for miles. I love going there to be with God, as I was driving up I was struck, when I saw by two people climbing, I have been climbing a few times and I was scared but can you imagine how amazing it was feel so free and secure to climb. So many people miss out on that amazing feeling because of their fears or anxiety. The extreme adrenalin junkies have to get over their fears but when they do they are so free to live, fly, jump, scale and move back the worlds limits. On Tuesdays I will reflect on a promise of God and how it can affect an area of our life and what the promise means, hence Troubles on Tuesdays.

Tuesday at college are silly they last for ages and go on forever. It is a day where you go from class/lecture to a meeting to another meeting to something else. It’s a crazy day!! I always struggle on Tuesday so reflecting on Tuesday is the perfect day for me. Maybe for you its another day or a different time in your life where you need the promises of God more than ever…so lets journey together and focus on God promises and the practical applications of this in our daily walk!

Monday with Aiden Wilson Tozer

“Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. It is a self-existent principle inherent in the divine nature and appears to us as a self-caused propensity to pity the wretched, spare the guilty, welcome the outcast, and bring into favor those who were before under just disapprobation. Its use to us sinful men is to save us and make us sit together in heavenly places to demonstrate to the ages the exceeding riches of God's kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”

-A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)

Old Testament Informal Worship...Lifestyle

Lifestyle- The hyponym of worship


Sacrifices and offerings are no longer required. But what we can learn about the theology of worship in the Old Testament by what lies behind Israel’s worship. All the things covered today have hyponym’s of a much greater principle which is where I would like to end today. The conclusion in my study of informal worship is that the superordinate of worship is lifestyle. All we have discussed and talked about today rely on the very fact that worship in the Old Testament is about a lifestyle of response to what God has done for us. This is our act of worship.

There are many other examples of informal worship but all of them rely on the fact that worship is lifestyle. Worship’s primary goal is the creation of a community in reponse to Yahweh. Yahweh has created a people and there worship must live out what it means to be his people. This defines our theology of worship and defines the Old Testament understanding of worship. As I have said previously although sacrifices and offerings in the Old Testament are no longer required but what we can learn from the Old Testament is that behind the lives of the worship of the people of the Old Testament was a commitment to a worshipping lifestyle as a community and as individuals.

Pierce points to 3 important elements of worship, firstly the two Hebrew terms means bow down, paying and homage. And the other meaning to work or serve. These two words are used in juxtaposition to each other to demonstrate the bibles interplay between lifestyle and liturgy. The second point is that so many prose sections are embedded with Psalms (Exod 15, Jud 5 etc), is suggestive of a close link between God’s actions, our actions and our praise of him. Thirdly, the diversity and pervasiveness of worship, eother in pratice or expression, throughout the entirty of the OT corpus suggests that it cannot be limited to only one part of life.

All of these factors point to the very heart of worship in the Old Testament as displaying God as in high, exalted position and his people below him. All I have talked about in my posts are all centred on the very nature of worship being a lifestyle, whether in temple or at the altar, whether in sacrifice or surrender, whether by singing or praying. Worship is much greater concept of living our lives as community the way God called us to.

Old Testament Informal Worship...Music and Singing?!

Music and Singing- The voice of worship


Music and singing played an important part of the life and worship of Israel. The people celebrated the might acts of God through music and singing. As we will see in a minute that Miriam and Moses led the people in songs and music to God. Music featured prominently in the worship of David, prophecy sometimes accompanied by music (1 Sam 10:5; 2Kgs 3:15). There were also negatives to the singing of song and making of music, we see in Amos (5:23) and in Exodus with the golden calf (32:18-19)

David introduced music into the sanctuary worship. His son and successor Solomon later retained it after the Temple was built (2 Samuel 6:5; 1 Kings 10:12). Music must have been considered an important part of the service, since Hezekiah and Josiah, the two reform kings, saw to it that music was included in the reformation (2 Chronicles 29:25; 35:15).

The music of Israel was glorifying to God as He commanded through David and His prophets. The law of Moses was given totally to Moses. That which was given to David was not given at Mt. Sinai, and is not repealed. Psalms 92:1-3, "It is a good thing," says the Psalmist, "to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O Most High, to show forth Thy loving kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night, 3 Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery, upon the harp with a solemn sound."

Main Passage: Exodus 15:1-21

What does this say about worship?

Here we see Moses and Miriam singing or reciting poems of praise to God. These songs consist of thanksgiving and praise, and give us an example of the response of Israel to the victories that God has gifted them. Music and song are a key way to respond in celebration in the ANE and these two hymns show us the place of songs and music in worship to God. This song also in the words of Ashby ‘The song of the sea’ or ‘song of Moses’ is not just a piece of primitive poetry inserted into the narrative out of respect for it antiquity…It may well be very old, but its functions in the narrative to show on of he main reasons the Hebrews were delivered from Egypt so that Yahweh would revealed as a cosmic king.’ The use of songs and worship in the Old Testament are used for much more than just to celebrate what God has done for them, they were also used to proclaim God and speak theological truth.

We see here that music and singing are legitimate forms of worship in the Old Testament.

Old Testament Informal Worship...Prayer?!

Prayer- The Conversation of Worship

Prayer in the Old Testament is rooted deep within earliest expressions of faith (Gen 4:26). As a form of communication with God, it was for the people of Israel rooted deeply within the covenant and is offered on the assumption that God hears and answers prayer (Jer. 33:3). Although we do see times of disappointment and anxiety when prayers go unheard (Pss 35: 22-23). Psalm 66: 18-20 gives us insight into prayer and the important of prayer in the worship of Israel. Prayer in the OT is used both as a model of private devotion and public corporate worship. It is however seen as an expression of an intimate and personal relationship between God and His people. Therefore unconfessed sin getting in the way of this. Isa. 1:15 gives a stark warning about prayer ‘When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.’

Main Passage: 1 Kings 8:23-53 Solomon’s Prayer

What do we learn about Prayer as a form of worship here?


Thomson says Prayer is made enabled because of the relationship that exists when God created man in his image. Along with this enablement, however comes a certain level of personal responsibility. Because the challenge of reflecting God is all encompassing-not limited to religious aspects but to every instance of life- there are clear links between how one lives and the prayers that is one is able to pray (Jer.11: 14). Solomon expressed all these factors in his prayer at the dedication of the temple.

Although this is said in the temple and is maybe not informal worship what Solomon prays here is important because he highlights the central role that prayer plays in the life of Israel. In many ways King Solomon prayer is a actually a prayer about prayer.

Solomon shows us 3 clear foundations of how to approach God in prayer:

1. The reputation of God (1 Kgs. 8:15-19a, 21-23)

The reputation of God as a basis for assurance in prayer is grounded firmly in Israel’s view of history. The understanding of God’s interaction with previous generations gave Israel a confidence and understanding of how he relates to us. Solomon builds off the perspective that God can be seen in the light of what he has done for (in his case his father) previous generations and it is from this that gives meaning to prayer.

2. The promises of God (1 Kgs. 8:19b-20, 24-26, 53-61)

What one thing was at the very heart of all covenants?

At the heart of every covenant is relationship and it is this that Solomon is focused upon here. He reforces that we can live in future confidence of God’s covenantal relationships because of what he has done in the past.

3. Character of God (1 Kgs. 8:27-52)

Solomon outlined several occasions when we might approach the temple to pray. The occasions themselves serve to portray God as great and incomparable and yet involved in the lives of His people. Nowhere is the tension between God’s grace and justice evident than in prayer. We must never forget the lavishness’ of God’s grace before bodily going before him in prayer.

Hannah’s Prayer in Samuel is a great example of this theology that Solomon lays out here of prayer being put into the personal devotional life of his believers. Hannah’s two prayers are two distinctive examples of experiencing God in prayer at two completely different poles of life, unrelenting sorrow and unspeakable joy. Hannah displays exactly what Solomon was talking about.

We see here that prayer is a legitimate form of worship both in the public corporate life but also in the individual private life.