×

Yesterday, I provided a brief overview of David Peterson’s book on worship, Engaging With God. Today, I want to follow up with some personal reflections.

Engaging With God is a treasure chest of biblical teaching on the subject of worship. Peterson leaves no stone unturned as he travels through the biblical text hunting for a solid, biblical expression of the meaning of worship. Peterson is at his best when he is eagerly describing the ways in which Jesus fulfills the Old Testament symbols.

  • Jesus replaces the temple as the mediator of God’s presence (80).
  • Jesus’ perfect obedience to the Father makes available the blessings of the new covenant (109).
  • Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross is the ultimate reality to which the Old Testament sacrifices were pointing (235).

Though Peterson’s survey of biblical teaching on worship is extensive, he does not pass over its relation to the realm of contemporary practice. Nearly every chapter contains practical advice on how to incorporate the Bible’s teaching on worship into our current worship services.

For example, while discussing the hymns found in Revelation, Peterson not only points out their teaching about worship, he uses their lyrics to recommend we take serious note of the hymns we sing and write. We must always be expressing the truths of the Gospel by what we sing (278).

Peterson also avoids the simplistic approach to the New Testament teaching on worship that would have us mimicking the early church gatherings in their formality or informality (160). Instead, Peterson takes the biblical testimony and, without divorcing it from its context, manages to distill the important truths and principles that span cultural divides.

My only quibble with this book is that I wonder if Peterson at times overemphasizes the worship that occurs in everyday life. By putting the accent on how we worship every day with all of our lives, he inevitably diminishes the importance of corporate gathering for worship. Since worship is an all-encompassing “lifestyle,” the church service’s purpose is relegated to the edification of other believers (206).

To be fair, Peterson never denies the crucial role of the church in redemptive history. Neither does he assume that belonging to a church is merely optional for the believer. Yet his emphasis on the individual’s worship before God in all of life could have the effect of overshadowing the corporate sense of worship that is made possible only when the church gathers. Certainly, edification is a large part of our worship gatherings, and Peterson is right to insist that we must be worshipping individually through all our actions. But he does not address the ways in which the church may be able to worship (in service, community, and edification) in a way that an individual cannot, thus making the church’s role necessary in offering true worship to the living God.

Engaging With God deserves to be read by a wide audience. Peterson’s insights into the nature of biblical worship are right on target. He does justice to the biblical testimony and offers sound, practical advice for all who are involved in corporate worship. He challenges us to see how worship must encompass all of our lives, and then he moves us on to obedience to the Savior who enables us to offer our lives as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.

LOAD MORE
Loading