14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic resource for understanding biblical aspects of worship, March 20, 2006
This review is from: Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship: Celebrating the Legacy of James Montgomery Boice (Hardcover)
This book is a very well-written and thoughtful examination of the various aspects of worship, written from a Reformed perspective. Before you begin, it's important to know that this book does not define "worship" narrowly to mean "the singing time of the service," but the entire Lord's day service. Each chapter touches on a different topic, beginning with the very foundational question: Does God care how we worship? There are a couple of chapters that answer this question (which the authors answer "yes" as they outline the regulative principle of worship). Then subsequent chapters discuss expository preaching, hymnody, the Lord's supper, baptism, public prayer, etc. It is very thorough and scholarly, yet readable. If you are wanting to learn about how to design a worship service that will entertain people or draw crowds, don't bother with this one. (Actually, maybe you need to read this more than anyone else!) If you want to learn biblical principles for how to design a worship service after God's own design - one that truly honors and pleases Him, get this book. I am making it a gift to the pastoral staff of my church.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Call To Biblical & Faithful Doxology, November 2, 2007
This review is from: Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship: Celebrating the Legacy of James Montgomery Boice (Hardcover)
The essays deal with contemporary issues surrounding modern worship and examine cultural influences that have stormed into church services. This book is a well-constructed and sanctified plea from various steady voices that we stay true to the vision delivered to men by a holy God. The deficiency of modern worship is that it is visibly man-centred and continues to seek solutions to its problems through culture-related methods, and not through means that are conceivably permitted by scriptural sanction. The purpose-driven turning to various forms of media to attract and entertain the crowds, remind us of the golden calf, as Michael S Horton so well reminds us, which sole attempt is to overthrow established mediums resulting in a church saturated with scriptural neglect.
Ch 1: Does God Care How We Worship? J Ligon Duncan III:
'The Bible (God's own self-disclosure and revelation) - not our innovations, imaginations, experiences, opinions, and representations - is to be the source of our idea of God...The Bible is to be central in forming our image of God and informing our worship of Him.' p 31
Ch 3: Responding To Recent Criticism, Derek W H Thomas:
'Evangelicals respond to biblical authority (which they accept) by saying, 'It all depends how you interpret Scripture.' There is no way, according to that principle, of avoiding total bondage to our present culture.' pp. 84-85
Ch 4: Corporate Worship, Edmund P Clowney:
'The Spirit confirms the presence of Christ our mediator and our heavenly priest. Paul teaches this in the Book of Romans. He tells us of three groanings: the groaning of the creation, waiting for its renewal; our groaning as Christians, yearning for the redemption of our bodies at the resurrection; and the groaning of the Holy Spirit who makes intercession for us (Rom 8:19-27).' pp. 100-101
Ch 5: Expository Preaching, Albert Mohler Jr.:
'Calvin instructed his congregation about authentic worship by reminding them of the purpose of preaching: 'We come together in the Name of the Lord. It is not to hear merry songs, to be fed with wind, that is, with a vain and unprofitable curiosity, but to receive spiritual nourishment. For God will have nothing preached in His Name but that which will profit and edify.' p 119
Ch 6: Evangelistic/Expository Preaching, Mark Dever:
'It is best to avoid any kind of invitation that would lead them to think that in responding to our invitation they have responded savingly to Christ. The confusion and carnality that reigns in so many evangelical churches today shows the disaster that such well-intentioned mistakes work in people's lives.' p 138
Ch 7: Baptism, D Marion Clark:
'But God has not made many covenants with many persons. He has made one covenant with His people in Christ.' p 174
Ch 14: Worship In All Of Life, William Edgar:
'In Romans 12:2 Paul prohibits conformity to worldly patterns. The phrase literally says, 'Do not scheme together according to this age'. Christians often are not aware of the subtlety with which conformity beckons.' p 346
Ch 15: Worship & The Emotions, W Robert Godfrey:
'We need to be clear about the role of faith not only in justification, but in every aspect of the Christian life. The foundation of all Christian living is faith's looking away from the self to Christ and His promises...For a proper understanding of the affections therefore in the Christian life generally and especially in worship, faith must be kept central.' p 363
'We must be reminded that there is a permanent relationship between faith and the Word.'
Institutes 3:2:6
Ch 16: Worship Through The Ages, Nick R Needham:
'David Wells comments that the revivals had an unintended net effect of replacing the passion for truth with the passion for souls. We can see something like this even in the genius of Jonathan Edwards, who very much gives the impression in his revival writings that the function of a worship service is the conversion of sinners. We can understand the forces at work that inspired our ancestors to think in this way, but it already marks a fateful step on the subjectivist journey.' p 408
Ch 17: Calvin's Theology Of Worship, Hughes Oliphant Old:
'Surely one of the things that characterizes Calvin's approach to worship is his deep appreciation of God's revelation of Himself to Israel. This appreciation of the OT and its relevance to the Christian is in no way unique to Calvin. He inherited it from Oecolampadius, Capito, Zwingli, and Bucer. They had been pioneers in the recovery of biblical Hebrew. Calvin shared this deep appreciation of Hebrew with Bullinger, who, in his working out of covenant theology, put such an emphasis on the unity of the old and new covenants.' p 417
'We are to drive away all invented gods and are not to render asunder the worship that the one God claims for Himself.'
Institutes 1:382-383
'Calvin would have a hard time with those who today like to make worship an occasion to display their ethnic or national culture or to promote political solidarity, social awareness, peace of mind, financial success, self-realization or family togetherness. The gods of fortune and fertility, culture and nationalism, are not to be named among us. 'You shall have no gods before Me' (Exodus 20:3) teaches us to make worship theocentric rather than anthropocentric.' p 418
Ch 18: Ministry Today, Michael S Horton:
'C. Peter Wagner argues, 'Traditional church models no longer work in our fast-changing world. A commitment to reaching the lost is driving new apostolic churches to find new ways to fulfill the Great Commission.' - as if God had left the 21st century church to find new ways to fulfill the Great Commission other than Word and sacrament.' p 442 Incredulously, Wagner claims knowledge of many reports of 'divine visitations of Jesus, angels and lights, without the Word or a preacher' - in a mission context. For the Reformed the form of the worship service is seen only as the official engagement between the worshippers and God, which provides the appointment necessary to effect a genuine meeting between God and His gathered people.
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