Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Book Blogging: Recalling the Hope of Glory - Part 1
I’m in a small group reading through Allen Ross’ recent book Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship from the Garden to New Creation. I’m especially interested in the garden-to-New-Jerusalem narrative, which I explored in my book Bringing Heaven Down To Earth—and its implications for worship, which I explored in this essay, based on Gregory Beale’s book The Temple and the Church’s Mission. Some notes from my reading and our discussion:
Key Statements By the Author in This Section
- “The greater our appreciation and apprehension of the majestic God whom we say we worship, the greater will be our reverence, adoration, and service” (p. 41).
True worship is
the celebration of being in covenant fellowship with the
sovereign and holy triune God,
by means of
the reverent adoration and spontaneous praise
of God’s nature and works,
the expressed commitment of trust and
obedience to the covenant responsibilities,
and
the memorial reenactment of entering into a covenant through ritual acts,
all with the confident anticipation of the fulfillment
of the covenant promises in glory.
- “Worship is not a choice, but a divine imperative.God has been calling his people to worship from the beginning” (73).
- “The biblical material is not so much concerned with particular styles and methods but with proper attitudes and expressions” (74).
Key Questions I Had After Reading This Section
- The last sentence on page 40 implies that this book is a critique of contemporary worship—how overt or implicit will that critique be in this book?
- The elaboration on the “worship” definition (page 67 and following) centers on God, but doesn’t the definition itself describe human-centered actions (celebration, adoration, etc.), blurring the fact that worship is in fact the work of God?
Key Questions Brought Up In Group Discussion
- The author’s view of worship in this section seems to share much with the Orthodox view of worship as transcendence—yet the author doesn’t cite any Orthodox sources. Is this overlap evident or intentional on the part of the author?
- The emphasis on transcendent glory is not (yet, in this section) balanced by a John 1 sense of glory—God’s glory incarnate in human flesh, and suffering flesh, at that. How will the author treat the idea of cruciform glory?
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