Missions and Worship?

Thanks J.D., PastorSBC, and Mexdef for you kind comments.

I feel that many Christians today have a skewed view of what worship really is biblicaly, and I think when one unserstands what true worship is, then Piper's comment makes sense.

 

No Shannon, we are not saying what we "think" he meant, we are explaing what he was really saying in the context of his book. Have you ever read "Let the Nations be Glad!"? I recommend that all who would tear into this quote in the OP do so before they offer their comment. Perhaps then things would be clearer because I see many on here who are totally missing the point of what Piper is saying.

I tried to point this out. He is not talking about Christian's and their worship, but the heathen and their lack of worship! Because lost humaninty does not give God what He wants and deserves most of all, we have missions, so that other worshipers will be added to the ranks of those who are already worshiping.

Incredible! Here you are doing exactally what you accuse others of doing: saying what we "think" Piper meant. I read the book, I know what he means and he is right on Scripturally.

C/A has nothing to do with this. You are viewing Piper through a non-Calvinist lense. Just because he is a Calvinist doesn't make everything he says wrong. Calvinists don't filter everything through this imaginary lense that non-Calvinist have created. As one who is calvinistic, I read pleanty of non-Cals and appreciate and am blessed by their work. Again this has nothing to do with the discussion. The lack of true worship and how missions produces worshipers is.

Why does one mis-practice, make everything else JP says wrong? This sounds like a smear tactic similar to those who went after McArthur on the whole alledged blood fiasco.

Lets just stay on the the topic of worship and mission.

 

But John, worship is reflecting the glory and worth of God! So his quotes are completly compatible.

 

Looking at the quote in the OP and the later quote, I think they are consistent with each other. The first quote says worship is our ultimate goal, because that is what we will be doing for eternity. Missions will stop in the next age. Missions is simply a means to that ultimate end.

And it's also important to not so narrowly define worship, as has been pointed out. Worship entails all that we do when we glorify God.

 

But John, worship is reflecting the glory and worth of God! So his quotes are completly compatible. </font>[/QUOTE]Compatible? Yes. Equal in meaning? No. So which does Piper mean is the ultimate goal of the church? (And please give me Scripture--no one has yet in defending Piper.) You can't have it both ways.

 

Andy, look again. BOTH quotes use the term "ultimate goal." There cannot be two "ultimate goals," since Piper uses the singular "goal" in both statements. So which one is it? And please give Scripture.

 

But John, worship is reflecting the glory and worth of God! So his quotes are completly compatible. </font>[/QUOTE]Compatible? Yes. Equal in meaning? No. So which does Piper mean is the ultimate goal of the church? (And please give me Scripture--no one has yet in defending Piper.) You can't have it both ways. </font>[/QUOTE]I would say they are equal in meaning because worship is glorifying God in all things. I can not give you one lone verse that supports this, but if we look at the overall picture of Scripture we see that God's whole desire is to be glorified (worshiped) by His creation. As I said, worship is a lifestyle of glorifying God.

 

Sorry, friend, saying two words with unique meaning are equal in meaning doesn't make it so. What would you think of a Bible version that substituted "give glory" every time the Greek had a word for "worship?"

And sorry, again, I am only interested in Scripture (in context, of course). It's what I live by, and I'm sure you do too--don't you?

 

JoJ,

I think we all would agree that glorifying God is our ultimate goal. Do you agree? Some verses:

Psa. 86
Isa. 60:21
Rom. 11:36
I Cor. 6:20, 31
I Cor. 10:31
Rev. 4:11

Now I know that "glorify" and "worship" have different Greek/Hebrew words for them. But in my everyday usage of the English language I often equate worship with glorify. I don't think of worship as merely what we do on Sunday mornings; I think of worship as what we do in all of our service towards God (which the ultimate goal is to bring him glory). Rom. 12:1-2. Maybe I'm being sloppy to interchange the words glorfiy and worship. Maybe Piper's being sloppy in that regard. But I don't think he's being contradictory. He's trying to communicate the same truth, albeit with slightly different verbiage.

So what exactly is your beef with it? What do you say is our ultimate goal before God?

 

Right Andy, that is what I have been saying since page two of this thread. I will repeat it again in case any missed it. Here is what I believe that the Bible teaches worship is:

We have the tendency to think that worship is what one does on Sunday at church, or is what one does when he sings a song at church, but worship is much more than that. Worship is a lifestyle.

Worship is when I find all my statifaction in God. Worship is my heart exploding with radient joy that wittness of the power of Christ in my life. Worship is moment by moment passion for God to be glorifed in every aspect of my life. Worship is when I see the blackness of my sin and how dead I am apart from redeeming Grace. Worship is when I rejoice that He has buried my sins in an ocean of redeeming blood.

Worship is a lifestyle of glorifying God, and that is what God wants above all things. The God-centrednes of God is assurance that He will fulfill His great commission through His children, and I am so glad He has chosen me to be a part of that great end.

I don't see why some have a beef with this. And for the record John yes I do use the Bible, but some things need to be viewed in the overall context, we don't have one verse that proves the trintiy, but we see it indicated throughout the Scriptures. Same with God's glory being God's chief concern, and worship being a lifestyle of glorifying God.

 

Piper means that to worship is to reflect and display the glory and worth of God, in other words, that they are equal in meaning. Since you say that these things are not equal in meaning perhaps you would like to explain why.

When we read about worship in Revelation we hear things like this:

and this:

and this:

and this:

That sounds a lot like reflecting and displaying the glory and worth of God to me.

 

Then you are defining worship as giving glory to God. Fine. That's a workable definition, though being a linguist I much prefer the common linguistic definitions which I gave earlier. Be that as it may, giving a definition using another word is a far cry from saying they are equal in meaning.

Note the differences in meaning from a standard reference work. (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition)

Worship: "worship (wûr´shîp) noun
1. a. The reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, an idol, or a sacred object. b. The ceremonies, prayers, or other religious forms by which this love is expressed.
2. Ardent devotion; adoration.

Glory:glory (glôr´ê, glor´ê) noun
plural glories
1. Great honor, praise, or distinction accorded by common consent; renown.
2. Something conferring honor or renown.
3. A highly praiseworthy asset: Your hair is your crowning glory.
4. Adoration, praise, and thanksgiving offered in worship.
5. Majestic beauty and splendor; resplendence: The sun set in a blaze of glory.
6. The splendor and bliss of heaven; perfect happiness.
7. A height of achievement, enjoyment, or prosperity: Paris in its greatest glory.
8. A halo, nimbus, or aureole. In this sense, also called gloriole.

You want me to explain why "glory to God" and "worship" are not equal in meaning? I just don't understand what you are saying. They are different words--how could they mean the same thing? Frankly I just do not believe in using words carelessly.

Those are great verses in Revelation, but where is worship mentioned in them? You are not proving your point.

 

It is Saturday morning here in Japan. I have to go out and do some evangelism, work at the church and then come home for a pizza party for our church people. Busy day!

I do want to say before I go, though, that this has been an excellent thread for me. It has really made me think through something that strangely, as a missionary I have not spent much time with: the ultimate motive for doing missions. Kudos to DeclareHim for starting the thread. If I have time I'll post more, but things are very busy through Monday, with a pastors' fellowship at that time.

I've come to believe through this great interaction with you guys that the ultimate motive for missions is love for Christ, causing obedience to Him. Why are we "ambassadors for Christ?" 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 says it all:

14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:
15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.
16 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

 

No, I am saying that Piper is defining worship as giving glory to God. I happen to think that he is right but we are talking about his ideas, not mine.

Check out number 4 in your definitions of "glory". Piper's use is not careless, it is legitimate. Besides, lots of different words mean the same thing. Do you glorify God, or do you priase Him, or do you laud Him? Or maybe you exalt Him, or magnify Him. Roget's says that those different words all mean the same thing.

If it is not worship then what do you suppose it is? Let's look at a longer section from Rev. 4 then:

So the first passage that I quoted is worship, according to Scripture. The other passages are not expressly called worship, but they are so similar I don't see how you could argue otherwise. So, surprise me. What is this in Revelation 5 if it is not worship?

(But please finish your pizza first.)

 

http://desiringgod.org/library/what_we_believe/pastoral_teaching.html

The Priority of Worship - By Dr. Piper

Although the three ministry priorities of Bethlehem Baptist Church (worship, nurture and outreach) are all crucial and are all intertwined, nevertheless, worship stands at the top of the pyramid. The ultimate end for which God created man is to see God's glory and worship Him fully. Worship is the motive and the goal of all our deeds of love done to fellow believers (nurture) or to unbelievers (outreach). Seeing and being captivated by the glory of God makes us long to align ourselves with God's purposes of love. And the goal of our loving others is to build believers and unbelievers alike into people with greater and greater capacities and desires to praise the glory of God's grace.

I copied the above from his website. After reading the previous post and then Dr. Piper’s statement, I still see that the foundation has to be outreach first and not worship. Below are my reasons.

1. 1Co 6:20 - For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

Why do we glorify God? We are bought with a price. We glorify because the gospel of God’s grace came to us. This happened first and because of this, we should glorify God in our body.

Worship naturally follows once we are saved. Outreached touched a soul, the soul was bought with a price, and now he/she can glorify God in our body and in our spirit, which are now God’s.

2. Col 1:27 - To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

The riches of his glory is “Christ in you, the hope of glory:” There is no glory unless you are reached with the gospel. Therefore, the foundation of the triangle that Dr. Piper speaks of should be “outreach” and then the worship, and nurture is built on it.

3. Eph 1:12 - That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

We should be to the praise of his glory, WHY -- Who first trusted in Christ. Praise and glory is the results of those who TRUSTED in Christ.

Praise, glory and worship have always been the RESULTS of some type of outreach. The outreach can be deliverance as in salvation or deliverance as when God delivered Israel or his saints from the World (Egypt, Philistines, etc).

When Moses, Joshua, Samson, Samuel, David, Daniel, The 12, Paul and others were reaching out, they experienced the salvation of God and were able to offer praise, glory and worship because of God’s wonderful Grace. If they had not been busy about reaching out, where are the praise, glory and honor? God manifest his hands in our lives when we GO. Therefore, the foundation is outreach, going, preaching, and that’s for the glory of God.

Psa 29:2 - Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

Glory is DUE his name because of his actions in salvation of his people -- physically or spiritually. Worship in holiness, why? We are a holy people, called by his name. We’ve been called, we’ve been reached, we’ve been preached too, and so we INTURN give thanks by giving the glory due his name and to worship HIM.

Worship is important – by to put outreach last, I just can’t do that. Does that mean Dr. Piper is teaching bad Theology? I wouldn’t say that, since he intertwines them nicely, but I would have to be more dogmatic on outreach being the foundation with “worship/glory” and “disciple” those reach as the other side of the triangle.

 

I resepctfully disagree, below are my reasons.

1. 1Co 6:20 - For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

We are bought with a price by Christ so that we might glorify God (worship Him) for ever. Since God's chief desire is to be worshiped by His creation, He "buys" worshipers through salvation. Its not our work- outreach is His work, God is redeeming worshipers so that He will be worshiped for eternity.

2. Col 1:27 - To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Notice again it is God who makes know the riches of His glory, why? So that He might be glorified. Again it all comes back to God, and what He wants most- to be worshiped. Because He wants to be worshiped, we have evangelism: so that other worshipers will be gathered into His fold.

3. Eph. 1:11-12 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.

God has a purpose that He will always fulfill, and that purpose is that He would be glorified in all things. Therefore salvation is not for the sake of the one being saved, but to the "praise of His glory"- to glorify Him. Again God's desire to be worshiped is primary.

You are missing the point people. Piper is speaking of the lack of worship by humaninty in general. Since this is what God wants most, He devised a plan to get it, and part of that plan involves the prclomation of the Gospel. In that sense, Proclaiming the Gospel is worship because it is glorifying God even when there are seemingly little or no "results".

My ministry purpose as a missionary to Argentina is this:

"To spread a passion for the Glory of God amongest the peoples of Argentina through the proclamation of the Gospel and the establisment of churches."
Its all about God's glory- about Him being worshiped by peoples from every part of the world.

When we make man's need of salvation rather than God's desire to be worshiped the driving motivation for our outreach, we loose our God-centeredness and begin to focus on the "results" rather than the ultimate purpose.

 

No, I am saying that Piper is defining worship as giving glory to God. I happen to think that he is right but we are talking about his ideas, not mine.

Check out number 4 in your definitions of "glory". Piper's use is not careless, it is legitimate. Besides, lots of different words mean the same thing. Do you glorify God, or do you priase Him, or do you laud Him? Or maybe you exalt Him, or magnify Him. Roget's says that those different words all mean the same thing.

If it is not worship then what do you suppose it is? Let's look at a longer section from Rev. 4 then:

So the first passage that I quoted is worship, according to Scripture. The other passages are not expressly called worship, but they are so similar I don't see how you could argue otherwise. So, surprise me. What is this in Revelation 5 if it is not worship?

(But please finish your pizza first.) </font>[/QUOTE]Okay, whatever, a loooong weekend is over, including some great pizza and great fellowship with some great pastors, and I'm ready to interact with you some more.

First of all, concerning Piper's use of "worship" and "give glory," what you (and Piper!) are missing is the linguistic concept of semantic domains. Each word has a range of meanings that may or may not intersect with the range of meanings of other words. If there is a close correspondence in the range of meanings of two words, they are synonyms. The words "worship" and "glory" are not synonyms, though they intersect in meaning at one place, as you have noticed. "Book" and "tome" are synonyms. "Worship" and "give glory" are not.

You mentioned Roget's. Go back and look under "worship" in Roget's. It does not give "give glory" as a synonym. My MS Bookshelf version of The Original Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (Copyright © 1994 by Longman Group UK Limited) does not give "give glory" as a synonym of "worship." It has:

"worship, honor, reverence, homage, respect
holy fear, awe, fear
veneration, adoration, prostration of the soul
humbling oneself, humbleness, humility
devotion, devotedness, bhakti, piety
prayer, one's devotions, one's prayers
retreat, quiet time, meditation, contemplation, communion, communion with God."

Now concerning the passage you quote from Revelation 4, please note. The Greek word for "worship" in Rev. 4:10 is not latreuo, which might prove your point, but proskuneo, which almost always means the physical act of bowing down in the NT. Here is the BADG primary definition of this word: "Used to designate the custom of prostrating oneself before a person and kissing his feet, the hem of his garment, the ground, etc.; the Persians did this in the presence of their deified king, and the Greeks before a divinity or something holy; (fall down and) worship, do obeisance to, prostrate oneself before, do reverence to, welcome respectfully."

After the word "worship" in that verse is the word "saying," which is in this case a present active participle. The grammar here indicates then that first they will worship (present active indicative, to bow before) and then they will also say the wonderful praises in v. 11, but you can't get from the grammar or vocabulary of this passage that the worship and the praise are the same thing.

 

This was an interesting discussion. I think it got lost when the software change took place. I wouldn't mind seeing it pick up again.

I will start by giving another quote from Piper's book Let the Nations be Glad!

"Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It's the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God's glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God."

I agree. As a missionary my purpose is to spread a passion for the glory of God. I want the people to which I minister to taste the joy that can only be found in a deep satisfaction of God.

 

You know, this sounds spiritual and dynamic and idealistic and all, but my only question is, where is it in the Great Commission? I believe in exegesis, and Piper is just not exegeting, he is imagining.

I can just imagine myself going up to a Japanese on evangelism tomorrow and saying, "Hey, buddy, I want to teach you about the 'white-hot enjoyment of God's glory.'" He'll go, "Huh?" (Or the Japanese equivalent.) But when I tell him he is a sinner who needs Jesus, now that makes sense.

God gets glory as we win souls and plant churches, true. But in our missiology statements, why not stick to how He put it: "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel!"

 

4his_Glory writes
"When we make man's need of salvation rather than God's desire to be worshiped the driving motivation for our outreach, we loose our God-centeredness and begin to focus on the "results" rather than the ultimate purpose."

So true. And we can also lose our joy.