What is biblical worship?

It's the difference between singing about god and singing to god yes the question could be said well why are you being so nitpicky about it i think it matters yeah i do too because i think it it makes a like an implication about where we believe god is right now welcome to the uncut podcast, i'm pastor luke and i'm pastor cameron and this is the uncut podcast where we have We have honest and uncut conversations about faith, life, and ministry.

Yeah. What are we talking about today? Well, today we're going to be talking about a question we got sent in to our text line. Did you know we have a text line? We do have a text line. What's our text line, Cameron? 716-201-0507. Yes, you can send in your questions, comments, and topic ideas there. We do read them. So we got this question that came in that said, Hi, Cameron and Luke.

Would love to hear you discuss different worship styles, what Scripture says about worship, and how that has changed in church history. As you mentioned, we talked about psalmody, hymnody, and contemporary worship styles.

Yeah, I think that's coming from the episode that we did two weeks ago or so, two three weeks ago now um about like how to distinguish or how to choose your church yeah and one of the ways that we said like in maybe not so much even right now but like well there was definitely this season where people were talking about worship wars worship wars yeah traditional whatever traditional means right or contemporary whatever contemporary means because Because I think in 50 years,

our now contemporary service is going to be called the traditional service. Yeah. You know, it's like, it's kind of a moving target. But what's that new contemporary service going to look like? Is it going to have like... It's going to be all... EDM. And all VR. Somebody's got to go on VR. Cameron's going to start twitching here in a second. But yeah, no, so it's a good question. And certainly worship style has changed throughout the course of the history of the church.

Yeah. um and so how do we want to approach it well i mean i guess like maybe we start with this question is there a biblical prescription for worship yes okay yes and what is it that our worship should be pointed at targeted at aimed at god himself himself. I agree. Okay. So I said that because I think your implication of the question was, is there a biblical style? Right. Right. Yes. But you answered the, well, and here's the other thing too.

I do think we should make a distinction here because the question is asking, And I'm not trying to be mean or I'm not trying to be super nitpicky, but I do think this is like an important distinction to make. Does worship only mean song and singing? Correct. Yeah. I mean, there's a broader question there. And I know what. Right. We're not dumb. We're not trying to be pedantic. We know what is being asked in the question.

But I think it is an important distinction to understand when we come to church on a Sunday morning, we don't have the worship part that happens at the beginning and the end. Right. And then we have the sermon part, and then we have the communion part and the giving part, and then we leave. And then they're all separate parts of Sunday morning service.

Service like all of those parts are acts of worship right um and so when we say a worship service we mean the whole of the thing right not an individual part that has primarily to do with music yes and i don't think that the questioner the person who asked that question i don't my My assumption is that they, you know, not that they think that there's only, like, musical worship is the only time to worship. I'm not putting that on there.

But it is worth just noting that even in our vocabulary, the way we talk about things. Because Romans chapter 12, verse 2 says, you know, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to the Lord. This is your spiritual act of worship, which is holy and pleasing to the Lord. So there's this holisticness to worship that sometimes is lost in the modern conversation because we tend to use worship to describe musical worship.

So sometimes if you listen to me and you hear me talk, sometimes I will use the term musical worship in referring to Sunday morning band worship, singing along, congregational singing, because I do want to make that distinction. I want to say that we can use the word worship to describe other things as well. Worship doesn't, like you said, start and stop with the first and last song. Yep. So, yeah. Yeah. So, we understand the question. Yes. And I think maybe that whole caveat was

more about like, don't put in the comments, but worship is more than just singing. Like, we know. Yeah, we know. But we also think that that's like, largely what the Bible does tell us about style of worship or like how to worship, it's not talking necessarily about musical worship. It's giving us theological principles for the holisticness of worship. Yeah. So, my answer to the question then, Is there a biblical prescription or description of worship?

My answer still remains the same. Yes, there is, but it's not about style. Yeah. But Cameron, what about the passage where Paul says, encourage one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs? What does he say? He says hymns, Cameron. Right. Paul says it. Yeah. And okay. So what is like, I will ask you, I will, I will ask you the imaginary interlocutor. Okay. Paul, tell me the difference between a hymn and a song.

Well, hymn has a particular, has an organ, and it has a particular verse structure, and it doesn't, it's not in a minor key, better not be in a minor key, and so forth and so on. So what you're saying is that there's like, no one really, there's not a difference. Well, I had somebody ask that question of me once upon a time, and I pointed out to him, I said, what's like the most popular hymn in the entire world?

Amazing grace i'm like okay was that song written when paul wrote that no okay was that style of music around when paul wrote that no yeah what where did the tune that belongs to amazing grace not the words the tune what's the history of that tune do you know where that tune comes from our song it was a bar song it was a tune that we use widely and it was put upon any number of lyrics And it was attached to the lyrics of Amazing Grace, and that's where it's most well-known now.

Is that what Paul's referencing? I don't think so. No. Yeah, I don't think so. He didn't have organs. They didn't have, you know, they didn't have, like, the structure of hymnody that we now traditionally have, you know. So, it's, what is that called? Anachronistic to say that that passage means, oh, well, there's like, we can sing psalms out of the Bible, we can sing hymns out of the hymnal, and every once in a while we can sing like a spiritual or something like that. Right.

So I think to answer the question fully would be to say like, okay, worship, any act of worship should be intentionally focused on the object of worship, not on the person ascribing the worship. Yeah. So when we worship here, we worship God. The focus is God on his holiness, on his goodness, on his glory, on his faithfulness, on him as a person, the qualities of who he is, his character, and all of that. Instead of... The opposite of worship focused on God would be worship focused on self, us.

Like, I feel this. I am this. That's probably the most significant and, I think, reasonable critique of a lot of contemporary worship music is that it leans towards a focus on self. We sing a lot about us in relation to God rather than singing about God or singing to God about who he is. And so it ends up becoming more of like a prayer, honestly.

Yeah. Like it takes the structure, our singing takes the structure of a prayer that asks God to act on our behalf. Yep. Rather than approaching God in his presence and then ascribing with our singing his holiness, goodness, faithfulness, kindness, justice, whatever quality. I think that there's room for – we do need those songs that are kind of like talking to our souls a little bit. I agree. Like, oh, my soul, why are you downcast?

Or like, you know, like that do have a little bit of self-reflection. I think there's room for those to be precisionally applied to helping us talk to our hearts, align ourselves and look towards Christ. But if that's all we ever do. I was at a church at a big conference. I was at a big church conference. Somebody got up. I'm not going to name drop or anything like that. But somebody got up, gave a fantastic message, and his message was essentially this.

We need to stop focusing on technique of church, and we need to focus on God. Yeah. Let's do that. Yep. Then he got off. Everybody was very happy with all the things that he said. We then sang, I think, How He Loves Us. And then we sang, what's the other one? Reckless Love. And then we sang, I don't know, something else. But essentially, we sang like three songs in a row that were all about us. We're all about like, which, like I just said, have their place. Yeah. But if it's all about us.

Yeah. This is an interesting thing because gospel music, the genre, the genre of gospel music has kind of become, it's kind of merged into, it's always had a place in contemporary music. But the themes and the styles have been kind of merging into contemporary music more and more. And one of the things that differentiates gospel music, whereas a big theme of that genre of Christian music, is it a lot of times talks about the implications of the gospel.

Like, my God has delivered me. My God has saved me. Like, so that kind of language is bleeding more and more as that genre has become, uh, its influences spread, which I'm not angry about, but we need to be wise about the, like that balance. Yeah. Right. I think one of the ways that I've heard described or I described, I don't know, it's like, it's the difference between singing about God and singing to God. Yes. Singing about God is kind of a contemporary style.

We're singing about the things that he does, especially in relationship to us. But singing to God is different. And for me, I think the question could be said, well, why are you being so nitpicky about it? I think it matters. Yeah, I do too, because I think it presumes or it makes a, it makes a, like an implication about where we believe God is right now. You know, like is God in the midst of our presence as we were in a gathered community? Is he, is God here in this moment?

Yes. Well, wouldn't it be weird to sing just about God if he was in the room? Right. Like, wouldn't, wouldn't it be more like, wouldn't you sing to God? Yeah. It's like me starting to tell a story. Hey, guys, you know Cameron the other day? Cameron was out doing this thing. Yeah. And he's right here.

The second thing I would say is like, okay, I've caught flack for this before. Oh, boy. Here we go. The Uncut Podcast. Yeah. It's not really too controversial, but I don't think. Maybe it is. That we don't... Like, there's not a whole lot of autonomy in heaven. Mm-hmm. Like... People are like, well, what do you mean there's no freedom in heaven, like autonomy in heaven? Well, I don't mean like that it's drudgery and like burdensome.

But what I mean is like that when in heaven, even right now, in this very moment that we're recording this, and for all of eternity, there have been heavenly or spiritual beings surrounding the throne of God, singing. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, right? You read about this in the book of Isaiah. You read about it in the book of Daniel.

You read about it in the book of Revelation, right? In the throne room of heaven is a continuous chorus of worship singing to God about his holiness, like ascribing to him his holiness.

And if we're praying prayers like jesus taught us to pray like your will be done your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven like there there's a whole lot of things that i think that we need to include in our understanding of what it means to singing about god versus singing to god like he is in the room i think it presumes how we feel like or what church is like is this a moment where where we are fully focused on God because he's here right now.

So we don't need to talk about him. We need to talk to him. Right. So I think contemporary Christian music doesn't do as good a job of that as other...

Styles i was curious styles of singing or musical worship has done in the past yeah um and so when you talk about when the questioner asks about psalmody um and uh hymnody which is like using the psalms as worship using hymns as worship um do they necessarily or what is the a difference then between is like using the psalms better than using the hymns is better than using the contemporary or whatever and i would say i don't think universally no i

don't think it's like cut and dried that the soul a psalmody is a hundred percent better than contemporary worship all the time no no matter what any more than i think that hymns are more theologically accurate than contemporary music because there are some hymns with some pretty like like theology in them. So what I, what I'll tell you my perspective, you tell me if you agree or disagree.

My perspective is that when you look at kind of the progression of worship throughout the history of the Christian church, it really just represents the kind of like the cultural context that it finds itself in the generation or the era that it's in.

There are some exceptions to that, like there'll be still some Protestant denomination or Orthodox denomination or Orthodox and other denominations will be like they will have been trying to maintain a psalmody even rather than representing or mirroring the context. Or the culture that they're in. I understand that, and I don't have any problem with that.

But I would say that the change in musical worship has come primarily not as like a this is better than that, but more of like a this better represents the cultural heartbeat and gives people an opportunity to worship in a language and style that matches that. The way that their mind thinks even. Yeah. Well, yeah, there's so like, yes, because like if we were to get like, um, what's that song? Um, this happens all the time in Christmas hymns. How many people like my own example from my own life?

Um, what's that Christmas, Christmas hymn, Christmas song, Carol, uh, round yawn. Round young young virgin right you know what i thought that was saying for the longest time, yonder round virgin i thought they were referencing how pregnant mary was not that they were gathered around mary i thought they were talking about how just like big her belly was that she was round um that was what i thought as a kid it wasn't until like i was a little bit Silent Night.

That's what it was. I was singing a song in my head like, what song is that? Thank you. I'm sure everyone who's listening right now is yelling into their listening device, Silent Night! But no, I, like, as a kid, no one explained to me what that whole sentence meant. And so, I just was like, round, round. Well, her belly was round because she was pregnant. That's what I thought. That's not what that means. It means that they were gathered around her and the baby and the child.

Right. And so that happened to me as a kid. It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to figure out what that actually meant. Cause I had to relearn that at some point. Um, but that happens to, uh, what's, what's the other, what's the really old Christmas one. That's got all the old language that sometimes is sung.

Um, it's the one. It has all the, like Jesus, uh, um i'm i'm absolutely butchering with you on this one i know you're not um, i don't know um long awaited jesus or long come thou long expected jesus come thou long expected jesus the fact that that title of the song is hard to say yeah yeah to set your people free yeah that one that one it's got tons of just archaic language yet so if we were to sing only hymns there would just be a language problem yes um you

know and it's it's not very accessible some of the tunes are not easy to be sung some hymns were written to be um didactic like some some people wrote hymns as just a teaching tool um and they weren't actually created for the setting of worship um you know so there's you know and then.

Um you know there was a time at which like there were uh church ordained um what do you call them scales and keys in music so the church was like you can use this key in this interval and these these musics, but you can't use these. You can't use these minor tones or you can't use what was like referred to as the devil inner interval. So like you guys want to know what that one is. I, cause I've been waiting to say what that one is. It's go ahead. So if you guys all watch the Simpsons,

It's the Simpsons. Or if you're like more cultured and you're like West Side Story, it's Maria, Maria. Like that interval right there was not allowed to be used in church music for centuries. I did not know this. Yeah. I took music history because I thought it would sound cool and I got to use it once in my life. Yeah. Right now? Right now. It paid off. It paid off, mom.

So um you know people have been arguing about the styles the forms down to the specific notes you can use in worship for a very very long time and that might sound really really silly but don't tell them about amazing grace then yeah don't tell them about amazing grace um you know but like it's been inside of like i don't know if you experienced it much growing up but i remember remember people being like oh my gosh your church has drums in it just yeah the drums are pagan drums are pagan

um and so you know so there is and you know there can be beneficial discussion about that right like you know are we writing music that is also conducive to towards like a tone like if you were to take i don't know like i don't listen to enough like edgy pop music um But if you take like an edgy pop song and we just tried to be like Weird Al Yankovic it and we just like take all the lyrics off of it and put Christian lyrics on top of it, but it's like...

Like yeah with that right you know is that a stylistic thing that we think we should do and sure i probably not but so there is room for discussion there but i do think largely it's been generations and people like fighting well we should stay back here and people saying but we don't know what that means anymore and it doesn't connect with our hearts yeah yeah expression brings meaning yeah individual expression brings not individual expression but

cultural expression brings yeah greater levels of meaning so and then there's other aspects of like worship the question doesn't really ask this but there's other aspects of worship that are now like, not now but have filtered into the church where now it's like is that should we be including those things in our worship services.

I remember a time period where screens and projectors were an issue. Yep. Right? And then certainly you'll see criticism of big auditoriums with no windows. Yep. With like light production. Fog machines. Fog machines. Hayes machines, more correctly. Right. And then all of that, like what is that meant to do? What does it mean? Is it okay? Is it not okay? And Cameron, really, you're old school. You're talking about projectors. Really, the thing is LED walls now. LED walls now, right. Yeah,

we've looked at them. Yeah. Yeah. They expensive. They expensive. So, yeah, I think that there is... I would be i don't know if i go that far i i would i was gonna say i was gonna say i would be comfortable with any like contextual expression of worship that kept god at the center.

Um but i think, i don't know yeah because i there are things that i'm uncomfortable with in cultural expressions of worship like i'm not like a auditorium no windows, light show pastor comes down from a zipline yeah balcony like i right you know there is like a high High, high, high production. Right. Which lacks really a sense of transparency and vulnerability and puts at, I think, the center the production value over the presence. Right. Yeah.

I i agree yeah and like a lot of that really does like it's personal personal discernment right like it's it's really difficult like we that's a preference for me it does get down to a preference a little bit or it comes to i don't know i think that like there's room for conviction even but it comes to a place of where we have to share our own personal convictions and maybe maybe not worry about the Joneses next door.

Like, but the other thing that I will say, that's the other end of that coin is there is a story in the old Testament where. David wants like water from a particular fountain or well in Jerusalem or something like that.

Do you remember this story, Cameron? can you help me fill in the details or do you talking so he wants like this particular like water from and then his mighty men they're like out on the battlefield somewhere and his mighty men sneak through enemy lines and borders to go and get this and then they come and they bring it back to him um he might have been like wanting to like offer like a sacrifice or something to to the Lord,

but he was like separate, but he was away from like the altar or something. And he brings it back and the mighty men give it to him. And David says like, I will not offer and sacrifice a thing that did not cost me anything.

Um, and I think that's a important, um, important corrective or idea because like sometimes when we start talking about worship preferences um what we sometimes want is a worship that lasts lacks anything of us or doesn't ask anything about of us it's exactly how we think it should be it's really easy for us to do we We like it a lot. It's the style we prefer, but it doesn't cost us anything. And so that's a corrective that I sometimes will bring about.

So did you find the passage I was talking about? I think so. Maybe. It was the water, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking in 2 Samuel 23. It was the well in Bethlehem near the Philistine territory. In the Philistines, that time David was in a stronghold. David longed for water and said, oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem.

So three mighty men broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate, carried it back to David, but he refused to drink it. Instead, he poured it out before the Lord. Far be it from me, O Lord, to do this, he said, is not the blood of men who went at risk of their lives. And David would not drink it. So it may be a translation issue where David's like, I'm not going to drink something that cost me nothing. Yeah. But unless there's another, unless there's another.

Something similar, another story. Yeah. I don't know. I'm going to have to go and Google and look.

Put it in the show notes. Put it in the show notes. But anyways, regardless of whether or not that's the story or not, I think the principle makes is biblical in that like it isn't actually all about what we prefer or what is most amiable for us. Because worship is, at its core, a sacrifice of sorts. Yep. And so I don't think it's always to, like, well, I can't worship because this is not the tune I like. We only do hymns, or it's only this way, or something like that.

Well, no. Like, if, I mean, granted. Like, you know, assuming that we're singing songs that are Godward, that are good, that are faithful.

Um like it's just not the style you want like can you make an effort yeah right um because yeah you're gonna like certain styles of songs better than others but worship isn't just preference it's also an act it's a choice that's actually i think that's a really really important thing to note too is that worship is not a musical worship is not simply an emotion, right? It's, it's also a choice choice. Yeah. You have to choose to surrender yourself.

You can't worship your preferences or your opinions and worship this worship, the God of heaven at the same time, at least not in totality or in spirit and in truth. Yeah. Worship happened whether or not you had a static emotional experience.

Yes so do you have anything else you want to say about that i don't think so okay thanks for the question yeah it was a good question yeah very good question um keep the questions coming if you have them 716-201-0507 um if you like this episode or others that you've watched please please share it social media or with a friend or whoever like it, subscribe and rate it wherever you're listening. That'd be great for us. Music. We'd be encouraged by it as long as you're reading it good.

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