Posted on 08/06/2015 9:05:01 AM PDT by LearsFool
"Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying,
This people honoreth me with their lips;
But their heart is far from me.
But in vain do they worship me,
Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men." - Matt. 15:7-9
Jesus confronted the religious leaders of His day often, and exposed their man-made teachings and practices - ostensibly invented for serving God. In inventing these traditions, they had in fact invalidated (made void) the word of God (Mt. 15:6, Mk. 7:13).
What does it mean to have a heart that is far from God? Does it mean being a pagan, Satanist, atheist, polytheist, etc?
In the passage above which Jesus quotes from Isaiah, this heart is one that substitutes his own ideas for God's, while at the same time claiming to be serving Him. It's the one who's "got a great idea!", rather than humbly submitting to what the Lord has commanded. It's the one who comes up with great plans to accomplish God's goals more effectively, instead of meekly following God's plan and trusting Him to accomplish what He wills, in the way He wills.
Such a person invents his own ways to serve God, to please God, and to worship God, and then expects God to accept them. But though he honors God with his lips, his heart is far from Him. Otherwise he would simply do what God says...and God would be pleased.
What's the result of such hubris, willfulness, haughtiness? Vain worship. Not vain in the sense of conceited, but in the sense of being pointless, not achieving its purpose.
Worship of God has a purpose, but that purpose is not achieved when we invent our own ways of doing it. If our hearts are so far from God that we do things our way instead of His, we may as well stay home and sleep in on Sunday. After all, they both accomplish the same goal in the way of worship.
Imagine a wife asking her husband what he'd like for his birthday dinner. After all, she says, it's his special day. He says he'd like fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and chocolate cake. Later he comes home to a dinner of HER favorite meal - pot roast and apple pie - instead. Was she really interested in pleasing her husband?
Is your church worshipping in vain? Invalidating the word of God? Does your church do things that "sound like a great idea!" but are not found in God's instruction book? Look around next Sunday. Ask around. Whose precepts are guiding your church, man's or God's? Keep your ears open for phrases like, "Well I think..." or "It seems to me..." and other expressions that can indicate a heart that is far from God.
Honoring Him with our lips isn't enough. If our hearts are near to Him, we will follow only His commands.
And we'll leave our own ideas in the parking lot where they belong.
How can a brick and mortar building worship God...
The “church” is made up of believers...
“Where two or more are gathered in my name”...
If you watched “The Passion of Christ” by Mel Gibson, what did you think of it?
Christians assemble on “the Lord’s Day”, not the Sabbath. This is one of the differences between the old covenant and the new.
It’s called the Lord’s Day because that was the day Jesus was raised from the dead - the first day of the week, which we call Sunday.
That's the tradition all right....but not what christ in the bible says to do.
Jesus was speaking to people who had been given instructions by God through the Law and the Prophets. And He quoted from Isaiah, through whom God had spoken to people similarly instructed.
In order to be pleasing to God, these two audiences needed to draw nigh unto Him with their whole hearts rather than their lips alone, obeying His commands rather than their own devices.
We see such a heart in Abraham when he offers up Isaac. We see it in the Israelites as they march around Jericho. We see it in Noah as he builds the ark. God says the heart that obeys His commands is the one that draws nigh to Him.
Jesus says the heart that disregards God’s commands is far from Him, and that the worship from such a heart is unacceptable.
I thought it was very well done.
Do you have any favorite Christian/Biblical movies?
None of the biblical apostles did. Sunday worship was driven by the desire not to look Jewish to the Roman overlords. There were a series of Jewish revolts against the Roman empire beginning in 66 AD and ending in 135 AD. As a result Jews were hated by Rome and it became dangerous for early Christians to keep the biblical sabbaths. Those who stuck with the bible ended up dead or went into hiding. Those who wanted to hold on to their lives, wealth or social standing switched to Sunday and made up justifications for doing so.
They didn't. Read carefully, and understand Hebrew culture:
The Havdala service is an Hebrew custom to extend the joy of the Sabbath, and to usher in the new week. It happens at sundown after the Sabbath ends and is done often in home settings - It is the origin of 'pot luck', with everyone bringing a little something, gathering together to eat supper. Bread and wine feature prominently in the blessing before the meal, and speakers stand to preach during the dinner...
Re-read the NT with that understanding, and the whole thing changes.
Certainly wise words in your post. Begs the question though: HOW can we know the best way to worship God? And I’m not talking about just “not sinning” (which, while certainly difficult, at least has plenty of Scripture to validate such a desire)
But worshipping God? The actual act, as to what it means specifically HOW it’s done? I don’t see that in Scripture (at least not very much, other than the occasional, almost in passing mentions of “assembling on the first day of the week” and/or “not forsaking the assembly of each other”).
No, we don’t read, for example: whether or not women can be pastors or...
...what kind of music is most pleasing to God, if any (classical, contemporary rock, heavy metal...) or no music during worship or...
...what time of the day, and indeed what day of the week or...
...is it even compulsory to GO and worship Him at a church building or can He be appropriately worshipped in someone’s house or...
...what Bible readings are best for the worship service and when should one passage be used over another. Or should the Bible be read aloud at the worship at all? Or...
...what prayers should be used? Should they be informal prayers or formalized prayers composed by some individual or committee beforehand? Should they be read aloud or only in silence? Or...
...what posture should be taken at the worship service, and when should different postures be implimented? Or doesn’t posture matter?
I don’t see these questions answered in the Bible. I don’t see the Bible saying explicitly “It doesn’t matter how you worship the Lord” either.
It’s just silent on the matter. Scripture is silent on how it should be done, how one of the most important things we SHOULD be doing is done, even in the most basic of questions above.
Much less any more that might come up in a group of people, all of whom love the Lord with all their heart, so desire to worship Him the best way possible, the way that is pleasing to Him, but have no idea of how this is manifest in a practical sense.
These answers are not forthcoming from Scripture alone. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Because truly, when one loves another, one desires to do what the Other wants, not what oneself wants.
So again, I commend you for your post. It brings up a vital question, a question so obvious it’s often overlooked in its simplicity. Seems to me it begs more exploration. It will be interesting to see if reasoned exploration is forthcoming.
Nor was Jesus talking about the church being built on Peter. Jesus was talking about Himself (as the Son of God) as the foundation of the Church. Peter had just confessed his belief that Jesus was the Son of God. On that fact, Jesus' deity, would the church be built.
Matthew 16:16 - And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Matthew 16:18 - And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock [Jesus' deity] I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
What we find in the Bible are the practices and commands given to the churches by the apostles whom Jesus chose and equipped to teach on His behalf. One of these practices was assembling on the first day of the week to partake in the memorial feast, etc.
Now we can call it “Firstday” if the more common “Sunday” offends us. But whatever we call it, it’s the day after the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the seventh day, and there are seven days in the week. So the early disciples, under the direction of Jesus’ own apostles, assembled on the first day of the week, just as we read about in Acts 20.
Roamer_1 explained Acts 20 in his previous post.
But what I want to point out is this. IF the dissolution of the 4th commandment was taught by Christ and understood as such by his followers then it begs a couple of questions:
1. Why no controversy? The sabbaths are in the bible. They had been observed by Israelites for thousands of years. Surely there would have been an uproar and discussion among early Christians and persecution by Jews. By contrast look at the issue of circumcision...huge controversy that reverberates throughout scripture and it wasn't even one the ten big ones! Nah, it's clear that very early Christians kept the sabbath.
2. Look at traditional church history. The issue of whether to keep the biblical sabbaths wasn't officially decided until 360 AD (or thereabouts). It's exactly because there was no biblical precedent for it. Those verses you're going to point to are all latter day justification for abandoning it. There are just as many, if not more, new testament references to sabbath worship and observance.
Thank you for your reply. Those are excellent questions, in that they seek to know what God expects of us and how we can please Him.
It may take more time and space than we have here to explore the Bible’s answers, but I’ll get started so that you will at least see that God does tell us what He wants of us, and that He doesn’t expect things of us that we can’t know or do.
- We do know whether or not women can be pastors. Paul, in 1 Tim. 3 and Titus 1, lays out the qualifications for this office - which qualifications exclude women.
- We do know what kind of music is pleasing to God. In Col. 3:16, Eph. 5:18-20, etc. we’re told what music God wants, and what instruments are pleasing to Him.
- We do know what day of the week we are to assemble. In Acts 20, 1 Cor. 16, etc. we find the practices and commands delivered to the disciples and churches by the Lord’s apostles.
These are a few examples of God being very specific. But that’s not to say He’s like a movie director who hands us a script and demands we recite the lines with such-and-such a tone and inflection. But rather, He has given us commands within which we must abide, while leaving us a great deal of latitude and freedom in which to obey these commands.
For instance, though He commands us to give of our money for the work of the church, He does not command from us a tithe (10%) as He did under the Law of Moses. Rather, we are to give as we’ve been prospered, as we’ve purposed in our hearts, and cheerfully not grudgingly (1 Cor. 16, etc.)
I hope this helps, and that you’re stirred to dig into the Scriptures to learn more of God’s commands for worship and service to Him, out of a heart that wants to draw nigh to Him. :-)
While the old covenant instructed the Jews to observe the Sabbath, the new covenant contains no such instruction. What we find in the Scriptures instead is the practice of and commands relating to the assembling of the saints on the first day of the week.
Whether others had a custom of assembling for other purposes on that day or not is as irrelevant as the assembling of spectators at a Sunday Nascar race. :-) All we’re interested in is what Christ delivered to the saints through His apostles, and that’s the assembling on the day He was raised from the dead to commemorate His sacrifice, etc.
Just exactly....where in your bible does it say that?
Sorry....no cigar. Paul says nothing about Sunday in this passage...but he does reference the seventh day Sabbath:
2Κατὰ down/according to/as per (+acc), against (+gen) μίαν one (acc) { σαββάτων sabbaths (gen) ἕκαστος each (nom) ὑμῶν you(pl) (gen) παρ’ frοm beside (+acc,+gen,+dat) ἑαυτῷ self (dat) τιθέτω let-him/her/it-be-PLACE-ing! , θησαυρίζων while TREASURE UP-ing (nom) ὅ τι who-/whom-/whichever (nom|acc) { ἂν ever ♦ ἐὰν if-ever } εὐοδῶται he/she/it-should-be-being-PROSPER-ed , ἵνα so that / in order to /because μή not , ὅταν whenever ἔλθω I-should-COME , τότε then { λογίαι collections (nom|voc); eloquent ([Adj] nom|voc) ♦ λογεῖαι collections (nom|voc) } γίνωνται they-should-be-being-BECOME/HAPPEN-ed .
He is telling the folks to set aside offerings on one of the Sabbaths (μίαν σαββάτων) and when he comes by on his way to Jerusalem (for Pentecost) they'll be there waiting for him. Nothing is said about Sunday although most Catholic/Protestant translations would like you to believe that.
σαββάτων is Greek for Sabbaths (plural) and Paul is speaking about the seven "Counted" Sabbaths between Pesach and Shavuot [Leviticus 213:15-16]. It called the "Count of the Omer."
I'll address the rest of your passages in another post...... so as not to make them too long.
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