RussHutto.com

I opened my reader this morning to find a great discussion going on about “worship” and whether or not we should use it to teach theology.

The first post = Worship is not Meant to Teach (milestoneworship.com)

The second post = Worship Is Meant To Teach (billychia.com)

My thoughts, which have actually been posted on both sites:

1) Worship isn’t worship without something to worship, an object of worship, if you will.

2) God, who is alive and powerful, is more than just an inanimate object, but is the focus of our worship.

3) We worship, in any capacity, because God is God. Whether it’s study, prayer, song, fellowship, etc. we worship because He moved towards us first. Worship is our response to Him. He gave us Scripture. He initiated the conversation for prayer. He created creativity so we could sing and dance to Him. He birthed the Church so we could gather corporately.

4) Since, God IS the focus of our worship, and since He is such a great, immeasurable, unfathomable being, we can’t help but learn when we worship. Teaching moments happen during worship because of the very nature of worship: focusing on God.

5) Focusing on God, or the study of God is called theology. Worship is all about God (He’s the object of our worship), so worship has within it’s very nature an element of theology. We can’t help but learn about God when we truly worship Him.

Worship is worship. Nothing more, nothing less. But, worship facilitates learning moments. We should “use” times of worship to focus on God, a by product of this God-focusing is learning about God. Responding to God is worship. He does, we respond. He moves, we respond. He talks, we respond. He leads, we follow. We respond to God in and through worship. All the while, His Spirit is teaching us more and more about Him.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370588,00.html

So there’s a new poll out that basically states that Americans are saying that their faith isn’t the only way to heaven. A line from this article jumped out at me this morning as I was reading.

The findings, revealed Monday in a survey of 35,000 adults, can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don’t know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.

Religous tolerance does not mean accepting the tenets of other faiths as true. It just means that I acknowledge every human beings right to make their own choice when it comes to what they do or do not believe. I think a better wording for this is religious freedom.

In America, we are supposed to be free to choose whichever religion we want and not be persecuted for it. Sadly, in this climate of “tolerance” we’ve bent over backwards to create and nurture and environment that is geared towards pushing minority religions to the forefront and villianizing the religion of the majority.

As a follower of Christ, I’ve been labeled as intolerant, old fashioned, and unfeeling by those who strive to keep American Christians from freely practicing their religious faith in the open.

And just to be sure you know my stance, I’ll repeat it. If you want to be a Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Atheist, Satanist, whatever, that is your choice and you can choose it freely. In fact, if you’re one of those or any other religion, I’d gladly meet you for lunch to discuss what you find so fascinating about your choice, and I won’t even try to convert you!

The very nature of the tolerance movement is exclusion. Exclusion of the majority for the sake of the minority. I’m not opposed to minority religions being practiced. I’m not opposed to ANY religion being practiced (so long as it keeps the basic human rights of all people at the forefront). Like I said, it’s up to you to believe what you want.

What is sad is that their are organizations that are actively seeking avenues in which to pour out their own intolerance and hate towards Christ followers in this country. And they actually have the nerve to call it “tolerance.”

Bottom line: Do what ever you want. Choose your own religion. You can in this country. At least you’re supposed to be able to. If you’re a Christian, please don’t embarrass the rest of us who actually believe that Jesus is THE ONLY way to Heaven, by stating your opinions that there are other ways. If that is part of your belief structure than, technically, you shouldn’t be calling yourself a “Christian.”

I was perusing my reader a few minutes ago and saw this video via Worship Trench.

Isn’t it amazing how similar the tunes are?

My takeway: when you’re writing music, try as you may to be original, there’s always another song out there that sounds like what you’ve come up with. The challenge then, is to try and make something fresh with what’s been done before. Because, inevitably, a song I write will sound like something from some point in history. The killer is if anyone else notices the similarities.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. -Solomon (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

(ht: worshiptrench.com)

Homer’sIliad was written around 800 B.C. The earliest surviving copies date to about 400 B.C. There are 643 manuscript copies of the Iliad. That means that there is a gap of about 400 years from when it was written and when the first surviving copy shows up. Yet, despite not having the original, we still accept that the manuscripts we have are authentic.

The New Testament is a collection of accounts and letters dating from about 50 to 100 A.D. The earliest surviving copies date to about 114 A.D. and range up to 325 A.D. (Complete copies). There are 5,366 surviving manuscript copies of the New Testament. That means there is a gap of only 50 to 225 years from when it was written to when the earliest surviving manuscripts show up. Yet, many people doubt the integrity of the Gospel accounts and the New Testament as a whole.

If we use the logic employed by the world of academia, we have to assume that the New Testament is indeed currently in the state that it was when it was originally written. Ancient works such as the Iliad, Herodotus’ History, Plato, Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Tacitus’ Annals, and Pliny Secundus’ Natural History are to be taken as authentic and in tact, even though they all have gaps of 400 years or more from original writing to earliest surviving copy. In fact some, such as History and Plato have a discrepancy of over one thousand years.

This comparison brings to light the New Testament’s accuracy. Taking into consideration the thousands of manuscripts available, one can only conclude that the New Testament is indeed a viable document. It has survived the millenia intact.

There is no body of ancient literature in te world that enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament. – F.F. Bruce

In real terms, the New Testament is easily the best attested to ancient writing in terms of the sheer number of documents, the time span between the events and the document, and the variety of documents available to sustain or contradict it. There is nothing in ancient manuscript evidence to match such textual availability and integrity. – Ravi Zacharias

Definitely something to ponder.

I just jumped on to begin my 2 weeks of testing. I’m interested in the concept of lifestreaming. I’ve been doing a bunch of it by blogging/twittering, but I’ve just recently come across friendfeed (for myself). We’ll see if it’s worth keeping up with.

Do you FriendFeed? If so, share your insights (and your feed!)…

If you don’t, why not?

Subscribe to mine: http://friendfeed.com/russhutto