Did Jesus ask us to worship Him?

[trogiah]

After reading the posts in this thread I am wondering what you and others mean by the word “worship.” Jesus definitely wanted people to listen to the words he spoke. The scriptures record that God the Father said regarding Jesus:“This is my beloved son, on whom my favor rests, listen to him.”

So if by worshiping Jesus you mean we should listen to his voice above all other voices than I think Jesus did ask us to worship him.

On the other hand, Jesus, on several occasions, indicated he was not interested in grand and praising words cast in his direction, as some people have already pointed out. The related words that most stand out to me are when he says “None of those who say ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter into God’s kingdom but only those who do the will of the Father.”

Jim

 

[AlanFromWichita]

After reading the posts in this thread I am wondering what you and others mean by the word “worship.” Jesus definitely wanted people to listen to the words he spoke. The scriptures record that God the Father said regarding Jesus:“This is my beloved son, on whom my favor rests, listen to him.”

So if by worshiping Jesus you mean we should listen to his voice above all other voices than I think Jesus did ask us to worship him.

On the other hand, Jesus, on several occasions, indicated he was not interested in grand and praising words cast in his direction, as some people have already pointed out. The related words that most stand out to me are when he says “None of those who say ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter into God’s kingdom but only those who do the will of the Father.”

Jim

Thank you. You have summarized the exact observation I was trying to make.

Alan

 

[trogiah]

Thank you. You have summarized the exact observation I was trying to make.

Alan

You are welcome. Once in I while I get lucky.

 

[Liraco]

On the other hand, Jesus, on several occasions, indicated he was not interested in grand and praising words cast in his direction, as some people have already pointed out. The related words that most stand out to me are when he says “None of those who say ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter into God’s kingdom but only those who do the will of the Father.”

Careful now, he didn’t say “none”. He says:
Mt 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
Strong words to remind us to pick up our cross daily and follow Him.

Indeed, trogiah , His attitude of not wanting gran praise is because:
Mt 20:28 “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus wanted to show us humility, which He did to the extreme. He also came to undo what Adam did, which was trying to attain divinity through disobedience. Jesus on the other hand, was exalted by God through obedience.
Philippians 2:5-9 Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,

Do remember though that worship is to God alone, and remember the first commandment to love God above all else. Since Jesus is God, therefore we should worship Him.

---

You mentioned, Alan, Maybe it’s a “fake it 'till you make it” sort of a thing?.
Read above about “Lord, Lord” which counters exactly that. There’s no faking anything to God, He knows you better than you.

A fair question though, how are we supposed to freely choose love if we’re commanded to love God? God gave us free will precisely because without it, we can’t love. It can’t be coerced or else it’s a counterfeit of love.

Remember the commandments are not an imposition but a guideline for us to be happy. You wouldn’t be happy if we removed labels from everything and you drank rat poison, right?

The commandments are to guide us to HAPPINESS, and that is only found with God. He gives us the option to disobey and turn from Him, that’s our choice, but in His mercy God warns us of this and let’s us know exactly what we’re getting into. That’s why Jesus didn’t come as King the first time, because before justice is done, He extends His mercy as a second chance for us to repent, convert and be happy with Him.

If we choose to become slaves to sin, it’s our fault The consequences of rejecting God and happiness are our fault alone. No one forces you into sin (if you don’t will it, not sin, plain and simple).

Think of it this way, it’s like saying “Don’t jam that fork in the socket because you’re going to get electrocuted!”. You do it anyway, you pay the price, despite the warning AND being given the reason to avoid it.
Bishop Fulton Sheen said “Heaven is Love without Pain; Purgatory is Pain with Love; Hell is Pain without Love.”

The choice should be simple, but our fallen nature makes it hard. That’s why God gives us an abundance of graces, yet we still avoid or reject them because we want to.

 

[HisLamb]

To address the Mark 10:18 issue:

The point is precisely that the man called Him good without recognizing Him as Lord. In other words, he was calling Him a good man, a good preacher, etc. Jesus was trying to get them to see WHO He was. Sort of like saying, “you call me good because of my teaching, but you don’t really know Me.” It is further shown that the man does not understand Who Jesus is because he valued his money more than he valued Jesus.

It was not that Jesus wouldn’t let the man call Him good because He wasn’t God, it was that He did not want the man calling Him good without recognizing who He truly was (is).

 

[AlanFromWichita]

So many beautiful thoughts and scriptures supporting both sides of the question, how can any of them be “wrong” and the others “right?”

These are all our points of view, to which we each adhere to varying degrees based on conviction level. Some, we say, are absolute truths. These, I suggest, may be absolute and they may be correctly instilled in your heart, but when it comes to human comminication, whether you’ve intended peace or otherwise, what gets accomplished in the heart of the receiver is how they receive it, not how the sender intended it.

So, I say, you may be directly in line with Jesus Christ Himself on the exact issue under discussion, but if you speak to me in human language and smiley and images and web links, then what I hear from you it what is means, implies, and feels like to me when I ingest your post, in terms of whether my heart is transformed by Him through the human interchange you have offered.

And if God hasn’t opened my mind to the message you’re trying to convey, then the Holy Spirit takes it from there for the greater good. And it’s all good. We can let it upset us that we can’t change another’s lifetime convictions with a few posts, or we have the option to not let it upset us. When I was in training for Crisis Intervention (on the Youth Crisis Hotline) they told us that we can only do so much, and that we cannot do this job unless we are ready to accept that we can’t always fix problems that have been going on with these kids for years, in a few minutes on the telephone. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the proverbial kitchen, I suppose.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everyone who has contributed to this thread. let the party continue … :dancing:

Alan

 

[Nicea325]

This is probably about the most difficult question I’ve asked myself, and after years of not mentioning it to anybody, I asked my pastor the other day, and now I’m bringing it to you.

It seems I read, but now can’t find, a scripture that says Jesus came as a servant, and not to be served – or something like that. I’m not sure about this, so don’t hold me to it.

When they called Jesus “good,” He said that only His Father in heaven is Good.

So He is divine, but why wouldn’t He let them call Him “good?”

Then we have Peter unworthy to have his feet washed by Jesus, but Jesus insists that Peter doesn’t understand. Seems to me Jesus did not want us to worship Him, possibly because He was showing us the way to be and we should not seek admiration from other humans.

Then we have John the Baptist, unworthy to untie Jesus’ sandals – but Jesus didn’t want to be treated above anyone else, and instructed John to proceed.

I got up the courage to ask my pastor, “does the Bible say anywhere that we are to worship Jesus?”

He referred to the desert scene:

I had just enough courage to ask one follow up question, “but isn’t He referring to His Father?”

Pastor said, “since Jesus was God, he was in effect referring to Himself.”



I let it go, with “thank you, Father, something to think about I suppose.”

What I thought but didn’t state exactly, that I was hoping he would think about it more and find me a better example, because in one case I see that He is saying only the Father, not He, is to be called “good.” In the other case, He says “God” but now equates to God?

In a prayer, reading, book, somewhere I remember a sentence something like, “He was God, but didn’t consider Himself equal to God.”

I’m not trying to start a fight, and I ask we keep the utmost of respectful tone in this thread. I really want to know. I want to believe that the Church practices what Jesus teaches. I believe it in faith, but I don’t understand it with my mind, and I struggle sometimes with believing in my heart – because my head just won’t quite let this go.

Can anybody help shed some light on this?

Thanks in advance,
Alan

P.S. One other thing that caused me to think of this question in the first place, was when I heard a Presbyterian minister claim that as Jesus rode on the donkey with people praising Him and throwing flowers or whatever, He wept. The minister suggested that Jesus knew by the way they were worshiping Him, that they still hadn’t “gotten the point.” That was before I ever started reading the Bible myself, so I didn’t go study it. It seems I found that reference about Him weeping one time, but now I can’t find it again.

Why do you call me good?: Jesus repudiates the term “good” for himself and directs it to God, the source of all goodness who alone can grant the gift of eternal life; cf Matthew 19:16-17.

Jesus is not denying His divinity. Remember he too was 100% human.

 

[brb3]

Why do you call me good?: Jesus repudiates the term “good” for himself and directs it to God, the source of all goodness who alone can grant the gift of eternal life; cf Matthew 19:16-17.

Jesus is not denying His divinity. Remember he too was 100% human.

Jesus in no way ‘repudiates’ the term ‘good’ for himself. He is GOD … and is acknowledging this very fact by what He says next.

Here’s the full quote.

And behold, one came to him, saying, “Teacher, what GOOD DEED must I do, to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about WHAT IS GOOD ? ONE THERE IS WHO IS GOOD. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which?”
And Jesus said, “You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neightbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have observed; what do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “IF YOU WOULD BE PERFECT, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; AND COME, AND FOLLOW ME.”

When we recognize Jesus as our Good Lord … we will keep all his commandments and desire to ‘follow’ Him. The rich young ruler would not submit to WORSHIP [Obey] Jesus, … rather he put his faith in the Mosaic Law alone. He was seeking a GOOD DEED that would save him … not the GOOD Jesus.

Legalism, w/o worship of Jesus our Good Shepherd, … is not enough.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

When we recognize Jesus as our Good Lord … we will keep all his commandments and desire to ‘follow’ Him. The rich young ruler would not submit to WORSHIP [Obey] Jesus, … rather he put his faith in the Mosaic Law alone. He was seeking a GOOD DEED that would save him … not the GOOD Jesus.

Legalism, w/o worship of Jesus our Good Shepherd, … is not enough.

If you’re going to equate the term “obey” with the term “worship” then that could change things a bit.

To me, to obey is to do as instructed, for any reason whatsoever. If I obey my dad because he’s standing over me with a swinging belt, then am I really worshiping him by obeying him? If not, then does obeying always imply worship?

For example: let’s move the story of the Good Samaritan into a context more familiar with us than the context of the original, and see if we can make the comparison. For the two that passed the man by, pick two from the following list, or others that you make up: Catholic, Priest, Bishop, devout and active lay member. All of these do the “work of the Lord” which to me is like obeying. Let the man that stopped to help and tend to the beaten man’s injuries be one of the following: atheist, protestant, buddhist, agnostic, fundamentalist, satanist, or whatever terrible group you can think of.

Like in the original story, which did the work of God – the one who was neighbor to the hurting man? These are not people who worship God, at least not in the way we do.

Another example involves the Pharisees and the scribes:
Mark 7:6-9:

He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.’ You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” He went on to say, "How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition

So if you equate praise with obedience, what does the above quote mean?

Once again, consider this:
Matt 21:28-31:

What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards he changed his mind and went. The man came to the other son and gave the same order. He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did his father’s will?" They answered, “The first.” Jesus said to them, "Amen, I say to you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.

What is the connection between how we praise God and how we obey his commands? Is Jesus saying that there are prostitutes more righteous than those who are thought to be righteous and praise God?

here are a few more examples to take into account:
Jer 12:1-2:

You would be in the right, O LORD, if I should dispute with you; even so, I must discuss the case with you. Why does the way of the godless prosper, why live all the treacherous in contentment? You planted them; they have taken root, they keep on growing and bearing fruit. You are upon their lips, but far from their inmost thoughts.

Matt 15:7-9:

Hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy about you when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.’"

Mark 7:5-8:

So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.’ You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”

and finally,
James 3:5-10:

In the same way the tongue is a small member and yet has great pretensions. Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze. The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so, my brothers.

I don’t see it. I don’t see how praising God with our lips is either a necessary nor sufficient condition to determine obedience.

Alan

 

[brb3]

If you’re going to equate the term “obey” with the term “worship” then that could change things a bit.

So if you equate praise with obedience, what does the above quote mean?

What is the connection between how we praise God and how we obey his commands? I don’t see it. I don’t see how praising God with our lips is either a necessary nor sufficient condition to determine obedience.

Jesus said it, not me.

We honor [worship] God by our OBEDIENCE. Its not what we say … its what we do. As James taught “Faith w/o works is dead”.

Sincere Praise & Song is acceptible to God as Worship. And, the highest form of Worship is our THANKSGIVING FEAST / TODAH. We we receive the Eucharist in full faith and reverence … we are being FAITHFUL & OBEDIENT to the Lord’s command to us. Anytime we offer sincere Worship to the Lord … we receive Grace and Forgiveness.

 

[Mintaka]

I think what’s being missed here is that rabbis taught by asking their students questions, and by challenging their students’ answers and requests, asking for some kind of justification. (Remember, when Jesus was found in the Temple as a kid, He was answering the rabbis’ questions. So He’d been on the hotseat in His time.) So Jesus, as a rabbi, is supposed to ask people questions in order to get them to think and learn and discover what He means, and they’re perfectly aware that this is the game.

When Jesus does actually answer instead of question, He usually has some kind of twist in His answer that He wants His disciples and listeners to pick up, or there’s a scriptural reference. Again, they know this is the game.

Either way, it’s not a smack in the face; it’s an invitation to learn more by figuring out what’s going on. It’s not a process without humor or love. It’s not being mean and showing the disciples they’re stupid. It’s class in session.

So “Why do you say I am good?” is not a denial. It’s an invitation to enter the rabbi game of answering the rabbi’s questions in order to learn something. In this case, He was in fact leading up toward the fact that He was good, was in fact goodness Himself, because He was God. (Ditto being the Way, the Truth, and the Life – only possible for God, of course…)

 

[Liraco]

I think the waters may be muddied by equating obedience with worship. As you mentioned, Alan, obedience to your father is not worship. There is a distinction there, as you rightly intuit.

When we are rightly following God and we see Him behind the authority of others and are obedient (give onto Caesar what is Caesar’s), we are obedient to God who asks us to respect those with proper authority.

Is Jesus saying that there are prostitutes more righteous than those who are thought to be righteous and praise God?

It’s not that because of being a prostitute that person is more righteous than someone who thinks they are. Remember Jesus came for the sick, the sinners, and if they **repent **they will be made righteous by Him. The hypocrites who thought themselves righteous on the other hand are farther from God, their pride makes them ignore their own sin. Whoever is unrepentant can’t be forgiven.

I’m sure you’re still chewing on a lot of what’s been said here. I pray the Holy Spirit enlightens you (and pray for that too). God bless.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Jesus said it, not me.

We honor [worship] God by our OBEDIENCE. Its not what we say … its what we do. As James taught “Faith w/o works is dead”.

I honored my earthly father by obeying him. I do not worship him; he did some things wonderfully but other things I’m intentionally doing differently with my kids.

If you want to define worship as obedience, I’m OK with that as long as the other posters agree that’s what we mean. If you say it’s about obedience, I’m on board with you on that. Chances are, we may have different opinions as to HOW to go about that obedience.

I’m also not sure how “faith without works it dead” is an allusion to worshiping him. I can have faith in Him and do good works, without ever singing a song to worship Him.

Sincere Praise & Song is acceptible to God as Worship. And, the highest form of Worship is our THANKSGIVING FEAST / TODAH. We we receive the Eucharist in full faith and reverence … we are being FAITHFUL & OBEDIENT to the Lord’s command to us. Anytime we offer sincere Worship to the Lord … we receive Grace and Forgiveness.

If it’s OK with God, it’s OK with me to sing. I play piano at Mass every Sunday. I love playing praise and worship hymns for people to sing, both the old ones I played 40 years ago like Praise to the Lord, and the newer-ish ones like “The King of Glory” that was only in the guitar Mass when I was little.

As far as faithful and obedient to the Lord’s command, if you are talking about the Last Supper, as I read it He said to “do this in remembrance of me.” Again, I can do things to connect with my earthly father in remembering him, without necessarily worshiping him.

Like I said, we can open up the term “worship” to mean anything we do in His name. Then I’m OK. If we mean Jesus wants us to sing about His being a king and all that, then there’s where I’m questioning how much it is God’s command and how much we have constructed an earthly-designed discipline that we believe meets God’s command. If the latter, is it infallible, and if it isn’t, may I not question it? After all, until I question something I really don’t know if I can believe in it or not. I guess I’m a bit like Thomas in that way. Just because 99 out of 100 Catholics believe it, isn’t a reason my mind and heart will willingly believe it, if that’s basically the only evidence we get from it. My personal view of God and faith in influenced by, but still is not completely dependent on, the Dominant Thinking of others in my group.

Alan

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Either way, it’s not a smack in the face; it’s an invitation to learn more by figuring out what’s going on. It’s not a process without humor or love. It’s not being mean and showing the disciples they’re stupid. It’s class in session.

I agree. He put the smackdown on their ways of thinking, not on their persons. It was actually quite beautiful and impressive to watch how the Master Teacher took people into places so far from where they’ve been before, partly by shocking them out of their comfort zones.

Alan

 

[AlanFromWichita]

When we are rightly following God and we see Him behind the authority of others and are obedient (give onto Caesar what is Caesar’s), we are obedient to God who asks us to respect those with proper authority.

Maybe it’s partly my engineering background, maybe it’s because when I was little I was frequently humiliated by teachers and other kids when I was right and they were wrong, objectively. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen how easy it is for entire classrooms to gobble up a story that isn’t quite right. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen experts in the Church teachings on these very forums, saying things that are technically accurate but give a wrong picture because they use loaded words as if they were sterile – which they may be for academic expert who are primarily “head” people and not “heart” people.

I cannot just “will” my mind to believe something, no matter how many other people do – or say they do – especially as long as there is some sort of red flag that makes me want to further question that thing I wish I could believe. This has been a key ingredient for some of my greatest successes in engineering, in emotional and mental healing, and in troubleshooting interdepartmental conflicts. I can explain further, but for this post I’ll leave it at that.

Now, I can give my mind permission to believe something, if there are no red flags in my mind that are unresolved. It is up to my subconscious, and only at the call of God, to make the final determination on what I do or don’t believe.

That all said, my inability to control or even know completely, my precise beliefs, is not a problem for how I should treat other people, in order to follow God’s commands. It’s easy to love God. Not so easy to love each other. At least with our faulty social training when we are little and are taught intellectually to love but we are “trained” by example and experience to do just the opposite, by practically all the authority figures in the world.

My ability to find and detect even slight flaws in other people’s logic and reasoning, have directly resulted in improve safety for equipment that flies over your head B-52’s or B-1 bombers, that control the dropping of the bombs so they hit the target, not your house. Likewise, if the airborne command post model EC-135 is called upon to take orders from the president to launch our nuclear missiles, you might like to know that a skeptic like me has had a hand in designing the secure communications equipment through which the president gives the order, and the enemy hopefully cannot decode the signals.

So you see, it’s my job to question everything, even the things my boss tells me are axiomatic. It is my job to confirm whether we have placed sufficient qualifications on things that we know when they will be absolutely “guaranteed” to work correctly and reliably, so we may specify under what conditions equipment will and won’t work.

Space shuttle challenger blew up not because of engineering error, but because management made a conscious decision, even after being warned, to launch the shuttle even though conditions were clearly outside those the engineers stated were allowable. People like me, you see, annoy people in charge of things because we tend to think in absolutist terms, and thereby mess up their schedule. I saw the failure analysis sheet that was done for the O-rings, as it was done for every single part in the entire space shuttle. Each part, down to the last bolt, was analyzed for its chance of failure, under what conditions failures are sufficiently unlikely, and what are the likely consequences of the failure. The analysis stated clearly and unambiguously, that the design was only certified to work in temperatures above freezing. It said that if the temperatures are at or below freezing, failure was “probable” and the likely results would be, “loss of mission, loss of equipment, and loss of life.”

Well, the engineers were right. There were icicles hanging on the shuttle in the exact area of the O-ring, and managers in charge of launch decisions were told that the O-rings were not certified for use when it is freezing, with possible catastrophic results. The managers, having delayed it enough, decided to go ahead with the launch anyway, and the thing exploded and all the crew members died, including the first the first teacher who would have gone into space and taught a class from space, Christa McAuliffe. In my personal opinion, those who made the decisions against the warnings of the engineers, should have been tried for murder because of their wanton behavior toward the lives of the crew. For more information, see wikipedia on Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster. I worked for Boeing at the time, and I was privy to some of the internal documents on this matter.

Can you see why I split hairs about the exact meaning of the words we use?

It is objective fact that I’ve held other people’s lives in my hands as I analyzed my own designs and other people’s designs. I know just how easy it is for an error to creep in that makes all the difference, that nobody else in the room would have thought of. Now I’m being asked to take the words of people who claim they are infallibly correct on something, and that I must agree with them or my eternal life is at stake. I’m sorry, but I will ask questions until I’m satisfied I know the answer one way or another – or at least to a large enough degree I can design a system to work whether or not we know the answer for sure.

From my point of view, being technical makes it harder to have faith in what other fallible people tell me I should have faith in. My spiritual director helped me by suggesting I read Job 37-40.

Alan

 

[brb3]

If you want to define worship as obedience, I’m OK with that … If you say it’s about obedience, I’m on board with you on that.

I’m also not sure how “faith without works it dead” is an allusion to worshiping him.

It’s not what I think that matters. It’s what Jesus taught, and the Apostles received from Him, and what they ‘defined’ for us via Scripture/Traditions.

The whole theme of both OT and NT scripture revolves around ‘obedience’ as THE acceptable/necessary form of Worship. Examine closely what Christ taught on the ‘vain worship’ of the Sadducees/Pharisees. They worshipped with their minds ONLY … not with their Hearts. Christ told the 1st Century Jews to ‘do as they say, NOT AS THEY DO’. And, also teaching that UNLESS our righteousness exceeds theirs… we [too] will not see the Kingdom. What did Mary teach ? “DO whatever He tells you” God’s ways are so far above ours … we can’t fully understand His thoughts.

But, God gave us some things in everyday life to help us understand what is needful of us. Take your Pet for example. Man’s best friend, the dog. When do we, far superior in wisdom to our pets, enjoy them the most ? When they are obedient to their master ! An obedient pet is a joy & we will do much for them ! A disobedient pet is a nightmare, and not far from the ‘dog pound’.

Didn’t Christ speak of the disobedient [and the heathen] … as ‘dogs’, ‘swine’ & ‘goats’ ? On the otherhand … he taught us to be OBEDIENT Sheep. This is a great mystery … but, meditate on it for awhile and get back to me.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Thank you for bearing with me patiently. I will try not to waste your time.

It’s not what I think that matters. It’s what Jesus taught, and the Apostles received from Him, and what they ‘defined’ for us via Scripture/Traditions.

Stop the presses! I noticed you say, “it’s not what I think that matters.” That helps to make my point that we need to be careful in telling another person what God believes, even if we are so confident that we consider it “absolute” and “beyond questioning or interpretation.” OK, moving on…

The whole theme of both OT and NT scripture revolves around ‘obedience’ as THE acceptable/necessary form of Worship.

I’m OK with that. Note that I may not accept that singing certain types of songs, assuming the certain postures, saying certain words, etc. are absolutely implied by our call to obedience.

God’s ways are so far above ours … we can’t fully understand His thoughts.

Agreed, with no qualifiers. :yyeess:

But, God gave us some things in everyday life to help us understand what is needful of us. Take your Pet for example. Man’s best friend, the dog. When do we, far superior in wisdom to our pets, enjoy them the most ? When they are obedient to their master ! An obedient pet is a joy & we will do much for them ! A disobedient pet is a nightmare, and not far from the ‘dog pound’.

Nice example. I used to ponder what lessons I can learn from my dog. He loves me unconditionally even when I say mean things to him or even if I’m slightly demanding or even mean to him on occasion. Except for the time he felt badly when he couldn’t find the newspaper in the front yard, he never separates himself from me, even after I may discipline him. I could be talking about either of two dogs I’ve owned, a Lab and a Golden Retriever – both with nearly perfect dispositions and attitude toward its master and family. He is a great model of the attitude of an excellent servant, who genuinely loves its master.

Didn’t Christ speak of the disobedient [and the heathen] … as ‘dogs’, ‘swine’ & ‘goats’ ? On the otherhand … he taught us to be OBEDIENT Sheep. This is a great mystery … but, meditate on it for awhile and get back to me.

I’ll take your word for it without looking it up. I agree we are called to obedience. I’m just not sure we are specifically called to worship him using specific means such as verbal ejaculations and singing certain types of songs. I think we can worship Him by giving food to a hungry man or drink to a thirsty man.

If you agree that to the extent we are commanded to “worship” Him, that acts of mercy are in fact forms of worship, then we have no disagreement and this discussion can now go into the archives and be over. :tiphat:

If by “worship” you mean specifically singing, clapping your hands, speaking out enthusiastically during group prayer in a certain tone of voice, etc. – basically worshiping in a form that conforms to somebody else’s idea of worship – then we don’t yet have an agreement.

Alan

 

[mark_avery]

Jesus was pleased with the centurion,for his faith from the father.so i would suggest,he could be equally pleased if you worshipped the Father through him not always too him.

 

[trogiah]

Careful now, he didn’t say “none”. He says:
Mt 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
Strong words to remind us to pick up our cross daily and follow Him.

Not that it is all that important to the overall question but I did go to the New American Bible linked on Bible.com and found it just about as you say.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

I usually try to be accurate and so was wondering how I missed those first words. Then I was reading my St Joseph edition of the New American Bible copyright 1970 and found the verse written

“None of those who cry out, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of God but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

I don’t think the change of words carries enormous importance and found the rest of your comments very much something I would agree with. I just had to prove to myself that my memory isn’t that bad yet

peace,

Jim

 

[trogiah]

Reading through these posts, several Scripture verses come to mind that seem relevant to what constitutes true and right worship, whether it be of the Father or the Son.

“It is mercy I desire and not sacrifice. And knowledge of God more than holocausts.”
Hosea 6-6

also
from James 1-27
“Looking after orphans and widows in their distress and keeping oneself unspotted by the world make for pure worship without stain before our God and Father.”

These help me make sense out of the question.