“If your idea of God, if your idea of the salvation offered in Christ, is vague or remote, your idea of worship will be fuzzy and ill-formed. The closer you get to the truth, the clearer becomes the beauty, and the more you will find worship welling up within you. That’s why theology and worship belong together. The one isn’t just a head; the other isn’t just emotion.”-N.T. Wright (For All God’s Worth, 10)
If ever we allow ourselves to simply know and never live then we have forsaken our knowledge and abandoned God. Knowledge isolated from true worship is deadly to our souls.
“Christian doctrine isn’t a matter of intellectual algebra. It’s directly integrated with the way people behave.” (27)
4 comments:
That is why the School of Ministry (a one year program for lay leaders taught through The Master's Institute Seminary) I attend uses a "head, heart, hands" approach as its teaching/learning paradigm.
Essentially, God renews our mind, heart, spirit, will, and even our bodies, and then calls us to "do" (expand His Kingdom). Rather like learning to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself.
Inheritor,
that's a good approach. I like that... I might borrow it.
We so disconnect who we are from who Yahweh is that understanding is like a mist. In Gen.1 our forming was “in Our image” Yahweh speaking within the fullness of the Godhead. The understanding from early on (Hebrew thought) has been that since man is the image of the Creator that our actions ill or good were as if actions upon Yahweh Himself. Jesus did not change this -” what you do to the least…”.
Therefore the life we live and actions among and with others constitute worship and even theology because our actions come forth from our heart condition and reveal what we understand of who He is. Understanding the intent of our created condition goes a long way to understanding the Creator. Harm and destruction careless stewardship displays a disregard for the Creator because disregard for His property (this includes people) shows disregard for Him as something He values. When we devalue what to Him is valuable we reveal that He has no worth for us ie “worthless” instead of “worth - ship”.
Pastor Art
good thoughts Pastor Art. Bad or irresponseble understanding of God creates bad or irresponseble people. It all starts and finishes in the heart.
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