Christian Worship: Its Theology and Practice, Third Edition

By Franklin M. Segler and Randall Bradley

Christian Worship (revised and expanded in this third edition) is the complete reference handbook on the meaning, expression, and conducting of worship, from its foundational elements to the very latest contemporary issues. Taking into account cultural and denominational differences, this broad resource clearly directs all church members in the number one priority of worshipping God.

Among the subjects addressed are: Banners and Symbolism (Do they have a place in worship?); Children in Worship; Copyright Laws (Does your church comply?); Drama; and Elements of Worship (What are the specific roles of music, prayer, Scripture reading, baptism, preaching, and the Lord’s Supper?).

• Language: English
• Publisher: BH Publishing Group
• Release date: Oct 1, 2006
• ISBN: 9781433669095

Book preview

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Preface

Since the first edition of this work in 1967, worship has experienced unprecedented interest; worship has certainly been an often-discussed topic for church leaders during recent decades. Worship conferences and hundreds of books and journals are devoted exclusively to the subject of worship. While Franklin Segler was well ahead of his time in recognizing the importance of worship, worship has undergone many changes since the first edition of this book in 1967. The first edition contained fifteen chapters; the second edition, nineteen; while the current edition contains twenty-three. The second edition retained all but one of the original chapters: Form and Freedom in Worship, which was incorporated into Planning the Order of Worship. The second edition included five new chapters: Children and Worship; Architecture, Acoustics, and Worship; The Christian Year and Other Special Days; Drama and Worship; and Rites of Passage.

The third edition has been further expanded by the addition of four new chapters: Managing and Leading Worship Change, Postmodernism and Worship, Community and Worship, Learning Styles and Worship, and The Arts in Worship (Drama in Worship in the second edition). The current edition includes some chapter title changes and numerous updates to existing chapters.

The original title Christian Worship: Its Theology and Practice was changed to Understanding, Preparing for and Practicing Christian Worship for the second edition. The current edition returns to the original title.

Any project of the magnitude of a full-length book is not a one-person endeavor; the assistance of many is always involved. This expanded third edition is no exception, for many have contributed. Since the acknowledgments for the second edition were never printed, I feel a sense of duty to express gratitude to the people who assisted with that edition as well as the current edition.

I am grateful to Franklin Segler, who laid the foundation for this work when he first published Christian Worship in 1967. Although the book continued to be a mainstay for some worship courses, by the 1990s the original text was badly in need of revision, and I began to explore the possibility of revising the original for use in my worship classes at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri. Through the cooperation of the Segler estate (Dr. Segler died in 1988), I revised the original manuscript, and the second edition was published in 1996. I continue to admire Dr. Segler's fine scholarship, and I am grateful for the opportunity to stand firmly on such broad shoulders.

Several recent students have contributed to the current revision. They include Kendra Wharton, who revised all the Scripture references; Conor Scholes and Alicia Eldred, who provided research assistance; and John Woods and James Kimmel, who managed much of the day-to-day office work while I wrote. I am also grateful to Richard Buerkle, Kyle Damron, and Chris Wood, whose research in a worship seminar informed parts of this edition. In addition I thank Donnie Morehouse, and Cheryl Johnston, who capably assisted with the second edition. A dept of gratitude is due Deb Treat who, since there were no computer files from the 1967 edition, typed the entire manuscript for the second edition.

Through the years, colleagues have assisted in evaluating my work and offering suggestions. Most recently Jeff Conkin, Sharyn Dowd, David Music, Mike Williams, Terry York, and Laurel Zeiss have given such assistance. A. L. Pete Butler, Paul Hammond, Mike Graves, Bill Stancil, and Mike Williams read the entire second edition manuscript. Vernon Davis, formerly dean of the faculty at Midwestern; Pat Taylor, formerly vice president for academic affairs at Oklahoma Baptist University; and Will May, dean of the School of Music at Baylor University, have shown their support in my various academic appointments.

My writing would not have been possible without having a place to retreat. I thank the staff at Cedarbrake Retreat Center in Belton, Texas, for their warm hospitality during many writing retreats.

I have been fortunate to work with John Landers for both editions. John has allowed me great freedom to shape the content of this book, and he has provided much-needed editorial assistance along the way. Other publishers with whom I have published have been gracious in allowing me to use sections of my writing in this book. Gratitude goes to Morningstar Music Publishers for sections of the chapter Managing and Leading Worship Change and to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, with whom I first published the chapter Learning Styles and Worship.

My ministry calling has allowed me to be both a scholar and a practitioner. As seminary and a university professor, I have also served in churches throughout my teaching career. These churches have served as a laboratory for my ideas and have provided a reality check for my scholarship. I am grateful to each of these churches for what they have taught me and for allowing me to explore worship with them. I express particular gratitude to Calvary Baptist Church, Waco, Texas, for setting such a high learning curve for a mid-career minister of music and for being fellow worshippers all along the way.

I am blessed that my wife, Brenda, is an instructor of English and has graciously read and critiqued my writing throughout the years. Because of her, I am a better writer. Also, I am grateful to Brenda for taking on extra responsibilities in managing our home while I was away on many writing retreats and to our children, Hannah and Isaac, for their patience during these periods. Their support, encouragement, and understanding are gifts to my life.

Worship is experiencing renewal in our day. This is evidenced by the number of worship conferences, the great number of recent books and periodicals discussing worship, the growing numbers of Web sites, and the experiences we each share in seeking to sort through many new and innovative resources in our attempt to make worship more meaningful for the congregations to which we minister.

In the 1980s much time was spent contemplating how long this era of contemporary Christian music, praise choruses, and electronic media would last; today we accept each of these phenomena as here to stay in at least some form. We must now ask ourselves the pragmatic question: How will we use this broad repertoire of elements to enhance our worship? The world is open for us. We no longer have to shop for our worship service elements in a mom and pop grocery. We can literally choose musical and artistic expression from the global market. This can be intimidating because choices are sometimes threatening. We often make excuses such as The people in my church wouldn't respond to that, or, I'd get kicked out of my church for that, when we are actually excusing our lack of knowledge and openness. While I advise anyone to approach change carefully, change is positive, and our ability to lead in change can be a true measure of our leadership ability. Balance and innovation are difficult.

I am learning to avoid saying, I won't. If I am truly open to God's leadership, God may lead me to do what I once resisted. God can change my desires if I am open to his leadership. However, when in doubt, we must remember: don't rush to abandon your historical roots just to try something new. Experiment carefully, giving a new trend time to prove its enduring worth or ephemerality. If the worship practice is worthy, the new element will be around long enough for you to use it. If an innovation is truly great, you won't miss it even if you wait. If you fail to implement some new fad because it passes too quickly, you may simply consider yourself blessed!

Worship must, by its nature, be an inclusive act. It must provide genuine worship opportunities for all of God's gathered people. We as God's servants must do all within our powers to plan for genuine worship opportunities for children, youth, young adults, median adults, and older adults. While we recognize our limitations and our never being able to please all persons, we must keep their faces—the people in our church's pews—in front of us each time we plan our church's worship.

Change is all around us, and sometimes I am so overwhelmed with my struggle to keep up that I am tempted to give up. However, my calling is to continue ministry, to spend a lifetime giving my best! I am continually learning that to be a minister is to feel constantly tugged, and sometimes torn, in many directions. However, when I am totally honest, I recognize God's using movements and individuals who seem to tug and break me to make me a more usable servant of God. My prayer for you and for myself is that we may see our ministries in the larger focus of God's plan as we present [ourselves] a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] spiritual worship (Rom. 12:1).

—Randall Bradley

Part One

The Meaning of Worship

Chapter One

What Is Worship?

Worship is an end in itself, not a means to something else. Karl Barth has appropriately declared that the "church's worship is the opus Dei, the work of God, which is carried out for its own sake." When we try to worship for the sake of certain benefits that we may receive, the act ceases to be worship; for then it attempts to use God as a means to something else. We worship God purely for the sake of worshipping God.

To worship is:

to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God.

to feed the mind with the truth of God.

to purge the imagination by the beauty of God.

to open the heart to the love of God.

to devote the will to the purpose of God.¹

Why do we worship? Because we cannot help worshipping. Worship is not a human invention; rather, it is a divine offering. God offers himself in a personal relationship, and we respond. God's offer of love elicits our response in worship. A vision of God demands a worship response because God is worthy of worship. We discover that when we seek God, God has already found us.

Defining worship is difficult; however, a study of historic words closely related to our term worship can assist in the interpretation of worship.

Preliminary Terminology

The English word worship is derived from the Anglo-Saxon weorthscipe—worth and ship—meaning one worthy of reverence and honor. When we worship, we are declaring God's worth. The angels sang, ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered,’ and every creature answered, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’ And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ and the elders fell down and worshipped (Rev. 5:12–14).

The biblical term glory is often attributed to God as God is worshipped. The Hebrew term kabod, translated glory, means the honor or weight of God. When Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, he declared, the whole earth is full of his glory (Isa. 6:3). The New Testament term doxa, translated glory, expresses that God is worthy of praise and honor. At the birth of Jesus, the angels sang, Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors! (Luke 2:14).

The principle Old Testament term translated worship is shachah, which means to bow down or to prostrate oneself. When the people of Israel heard that God had spoken to Moses, they believed and bowed down and worshiped (Exod. 4:31).

The Greek term most often indicating worship in the New Testament is proskuneo, meaning literally to kiss the hand towards one or to prostrate oneself before another in reverence. Jesus used this word when he said to the woman of Sychar, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24).

The term liturgy is derived from the Greek leitourgia, translated ministry or service. In the New Testament, liturgy does not occur in connection with ceremonial affairs. Liturgy denoted the work of the priestly office under the old covenant (cf. Luke 1:23; Heb. 9:21), the ministry of Christ (Heb. 8:6), and the worship of the church (Acts 13:2). Literally, leitourgia means an action of the people and more particularly the service which the Christian renders to God in faith and obedience.

For Paul the true leitourgia of God is a life of faith that shows forth fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). Worship is meant in Paul's exhortation, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship [leitourgia]" (Rom. 12:1). In later centuries the term liturgy came to mean the order of worship in the churches.

Without a clear concept of the meaning of service, worship is difficult to understand. Although the term cult in English often has a negative meaning, its meaning in Latin and Romance languages such as French and Italian is much more positive. According to James F. White:

Its origin is the Latin colere, an agriculture term meaning to cultivate. Both the French le culte, and the Italian il culto, preserve this Latin word as the usual term for worship. It is a rich term, far richer than the English word worship, for it catches the mutuality of responsibility between the farmer and his land or animals. If I do not feed and water my chickens, I know there will be no eggs; unless I weed my garden, there will be no vegetables. It is a relationship of mutual dependence. … It is a measure of giving and receiving, certainly not in equal measure, but by being bound to each other. Unfortunately, the English language does not readily make the obvious connection between cultivate and worship that we find in the Romance languages.²

Describing Worship

Christian worship defies definition; worship can only be experienced. For the Christian, theology is an attempt to describe the experience of God's grace applied in a redemptive relationship. A living experience may be analyzed, but it can never be completely contained in formulas, creeds, and liturgies.

Worshippers may identify with Paul: I had such an experience that it cannot be told; in fact, it does not seem appropriate to speak about it (see 2 Cor. 12:3–4). Certain experiences in worship are so intimate that the worshipper cannot share them. Although the majesty and holiness of God cannot be comprehended and the feeling of awe cannot be strictly defined, worshippers cannot help reflecting on the meaning of worship; therefore, the clearer our understanding of worship, the more meaningful will be our experience of worship.

Although the innate desire to worship is universal, the meaning and nature of worship is often confusing. While efforts at defining worship seem inadequate, certain aspects of worship need to be described. The following descriptions may help to clarify worship's meaning.

Mystery. Worship is both revelation and mystery. A worshipper experiences the presence of God in revelation and stands in awe of God in the face of mystery. God both reveals and withholds at the same time. While we can be conscious of God in our lives, we can never comprehend the ultimate meaning of God. In worship we experience both mystery (God's transcendence) and revelation (God's immanence).

Communion with God is a miracle, just as the revelation of Jesus Christ and the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in the church are miracles. According to Samuel Miller, the miracle of worship is the sight of God seen through earthly circumstance; it is the glory of God shining through darkness; it is the power of God felt when all other strength fails; it is the eternal manifested in time. Worship becomes more meaningful when churches approach worship with a sense of mystery, awe, and wonder. Worshippers can know God in worship, but they can never fully comprehend his nature or fathom the mystery of his ways.

Celebration. Worship is essentially the celebration of the acts of God in history—God's creation; God's providence; God's covenant of redemption; God's redemptive revelation through Jesus Christ in the incarnation, the cross, and the resurrection; and the manifestation of God's power through the coming of the Holy Spirit. Worship is indeed a celebration of the gospel.

Worshippers worship in appreciation for what God has done. We worship for sheer delight. A worship service is a celebration. Martin Luther said, To have a God is to worship him.

Life. Worship is not limited to acts of devotion, rites, and ceremonies. For the Christian, worship is synonymous with life. In its broadest aspect worship is related to all aspects of life. As a part of God's creation, humankind responds in gratitude to the Creator. Every area of life belongs to the kingdom of God; therefore, worship is practicing the presence of God in every experience of life.

We may think of the whole life of the universe, seen and unseen, as an act of worship, glorifying God as its Creator, Sustainer, and End.³ Paul claimed the whole universe for Christ—the world of things, the world of persons in time, and the world of the eternal (1 Cor. 3:21–23). Because Christ is the Lord of all life, he is to be worshipped in every sphere of life. Acts of worship are more meaningful if the whole of life is devoted to God.

Dialogue. Worshippers experience God in a conscious dialogue. Worship is both revelation and response. God takes the initiative in revelation, and humankind responds in worship. God is revealed to the worshipper's spirit through the Bible, through persons in the fellowship of believers, through music, through symbols, through human actions, and through God's Spirit. Humankind responds to God through words and music and acts of celebration and dedication.

Worship is more than conversation: it is also encounter. In this encounter God confronts and makes demands upon the worshipper. In his dream Jacob was conscious of God's coming to him in the presence of angel messengers who were ascending and descending on the ladder. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, Surely the LORD is in this place—and I did not know it!' And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven’ (Gen. 28:16–17). For the apostle Paul it was important to know God, but it was more important to be known by God (Gal. 4:9). Meaningful worship leads to decisive experiences with God.

Offering. The purpose of worship is not primarily to receive blessings from God but to make offerings to God. Ancient peoples presented offerings in the form of sacrifices. In the Bible the Hebrews made offerings in various ways. The psalmist exhorted, Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts (Ps. 96:8).

The New Testament also emphasizes giving as central in worship. Worshippers are to offer their gifts in sincere faith and total obedience, as in the days of Abel and Cain (Heb. 11:4). The holy priesthood, the congregation of believers, is to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 2:5). Worship is more than speech: it is action. Worship is acting on the Word of God in faith. As God has acted toward believers, so believers are to act toward God.

Worship is primarily the offering of our total selves to God—our intellects, our feelings, our attitudes, and our possessions. Our outward gifts are the result of our inward dedication. Paul saw the gifts of money from the Philippian church as a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God (Phil. 4:18). The highest expression of giving is offering yourself, presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (Rom. 12:1). What God wants is ourselves.

Eschatological fulfillment. Worship is the eschatological function of the church. According to Delling, It is, in its very essence, the continuing decisive working out of salvation in history, which ends in the eternal adoration of God.⁴ The church is charged to continue its worship. Paul said, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes (1 Cor. 11:26). In worship we anticipate that coming time when we shall be gathered together around God's throne in heaven.

Reality in Worship

The church has no possibility of being Christian without worship. The essence of worship is the self-portrayal of the congregation, whom God has called to be his people in the world. In fact, worship is the power from God that enables the church to be the church. The most important function of the church is not evangelism or nurture but worship. Worship forms the center from which all other priorities of the church revolve. If God is to be the priority of our lives, individual and corporate, then the activity that acknowledges God's supremacy, worship, must be at the core of all the church does.

People too often attend church with the mistaken idea that when they worship they leave the real world behind. However, in no place are we more real; for when we relate to God, we are our most real selves. God's truth shines in our lives, illuminating the realities of our true selves.

The term reality, to be intelligible, must have certain points of reference. Religious experience is a real experience. There are at least three essential points of reference: (1) To Christian philosophy the ultimate reality is personal, and to Christian theology and experience the ultimate expression of the personal is God's manifestation of himself. Worship is in the realm of the personal. (2) Another point of reference is historical manifestation. Christian worship is related to the acts of God in history. These acts are observable in time and place. The experience of God in history verifies the reality of divine revelation, especially in the person of Jesus Christ. (3) Worship may also be judged by the reality of its dynamic effects. Serious dialogue with God produces transforming results. A clear vision of God brings a realistic picture of a person's needs and a desire for God's cleansing and forgiveness. Life is most real when a person finds his or her true self in Christ.

Summary

To reiterate, definitions and descriptions cannot adequately delineate the experience of worship, for worship is an act of faith. Worship is the lifting up of the heart in willing response.

Worship is not a mere preparation for action. It is the opus Dei, the adoration of God as humankind's highest privilege. God will be served for God's glory alone, not as a means to an end.

Such a utilitarian approach is not valid even if the end is as admirable as service to the community; building the morale of a nation; or the making of individuals with greater integrity, health, or sensitivity. While genuine worship may cause persons to be drawn into a church's fellowship, worship—not church growth—must be the church's priority. At all costs churches must resist the temptation to embrace cultural norms and innovative worship forms without first considering how God will be honored. Worship used for any purpose other than God's glory is not true worship. God must be worshipped for God's own glory, or worship is idolatry, however worthy its motivations.

¹ William Temple, The Hope of a New World (New York: Macmillan, 1942), 30.

² James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship, rev. ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 32.

³ Evelyn Underhill, Worship (New York: Harper & Bros., 1937), 3.

⁴ Gerhard Delling, Worship in the New Testament, trans. Percy Scott (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 182.

Chapter Two

Biblical Foundations

Christians generally consult the Bible for the norms of worship. Most churches believe that the Bible provides the basic principles for worship; however, churches tend to develop their patterns of worship partly from biblical principles and partly from tradition. Worship practice should be continually viewed in light of biblical teachings.

Ancient Backgrounds

Humankind is by nature religious and must have some object of worship. Therefore, worship in some form is universal, ranging from superstitious fear or fetishism in paganism to the highest spiritual exercise in Christianity. Primitive history indicates that all people have worshipped some object. The oldest monuments of civilization contain evidences of religious convictions, inspirations, and worship.

Primitive practices often took the form of nature worship. This was usually polytheistic, making a god of every object; or pantheistic, considering everything in nature of divine essence. For example, the Egyptians worshipped Ra, the sun god, and Osiris, the god of the Nile and of fertility.

Primitive worship usually took the form of sacrifices and superstitious rites intended to ward off evil spirits or to placate angry gods. Primitive worship was prompted by the innate needs of humankind. People created gods as objects of worship in order to fulfill their needs. For example, Baal was imagined to be the god of the crops who provided for material needs. The worship of this god of materialism was often encountered by Old Testament peoples (see Judges 2:11–14; 1 Sam. 7:3–4; 1 Kings 18:17–19).

Archaeologists and anthropologists have discovered artifacts and other indications of the types of worship practiced by ancient peoples. Many primitive peoples did not distinguish between spiritual deities and natural phenomena. There were gods of the fields, of rivers, of the sun and moon, of fertility and barrenness, and of birth and death. Certain groups even believed in the hope of reincarnation. Humankind has always had a sense of the supernatural in its struggle with the problem of good and evil.¹

In some ancient cultures human beings were offered as sacrifices, slain upon altars, burned, or buried alive. For example, some Canaanite people worshipped the god Moloch by offering their own children as sacrifices to him on an altar of fire. Although the facts are too meager to give definite conclusions about many of these rituals, clearly humans worshipped from ancient times. People have always sought to understand themselves and the complex world in which they live. However paganistic or polytheistic their attitudes, people have always searched for the unknown god.

Worship in the Old Testament

Old Testament worship was distinguished from ancient cults as follows: (1) Israel's God was the only God; (2) God was a personal God who intervened in history; (3) Israel had no image in its worship.²

Worship for the Israelites was distinctive from polytheistic religions. Although there are no strict lines of demarcation, the Old Testament story reveals that Israel's worship developed over time. From an original cultus, various practices of worship developed throughout the history of Israel.

The ancient story always assumes that God desires to commune with humankind. In the garden of Eden, God asked Adam, Where are you? (Gen. 3:9). The sons of Adam, Cain and Abel, worshipped God. Cain was a tiller of the soil, and Abel was a keeper of sheep. Cain brought the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord, and Abel brought the firstlings of the flock as an offering. The Lord accepted Abel's offering but rejected Cain's, evidently because of their differing motivations (Gen. 4:2–5; see Heb. 11:4).

Enoch lived in constant fellowship with God. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him (Gen. 5:24). The Hebrew word walked suggests an intimate fellowship between Enoch and God. The literal translation is they walked back and forth together. Enoch not only worshipped God at stated times, but he lived in continuous relationship with his Creator.

Several generations later we find Noah worshipping God. God again took the initiative and called Noah to serve and represent God before the people. Noah obeyed God and built an ark of safety into which he took his family. After the flood, at God's command, Noah left the ark and built an altar to the LORD … and offered burnt offerings on the altar (Gen. 8:20) in celebration of his deliverance. This episode of communion between God and Noah was sealed with the rainbow of promise (Gen. 9:11–12).

The Patriarchial Period—Private and Family Altars

The atmosphere of worship pervades the whole Pentateuch. Its design and religious symbolism, hallowed by centuries of worship, produce a solemn sense of the holiness and majesty of God. God created humanity to commune with him and took the initiative in seeking them. Their worship responses included building altars and dedicating places and objects.

God appeared to Abraham and called him to leave his own country and go to a land of promise. He promised to bless Abraham, to make of him a great nation, and to make his name great (Gen. 12:1–30). Abraham responded with faith and obedience and built an altar unto the Lord and worshipped him (Gen. 12:7). Later Abraham worshipped God when he indicated his willingness to sacrifice his own son Isaac to the Lord (Gen. 22:9–10).

Abraham taught his son Isaac to worship God. Isaac built an altar and called on the name of the Lord (Gen. 26:24–25). Jacob's experiences in worship were as numerous as they were glorious. He dreamed that God appeared to him through angels descending and ascending a ladder that reached up into heaven. In the morning he declared, Surely the LORD is in this place—and I did not know it. … How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God (Gen. 28:16–17). He set up a stone for an altar which he dedicated to the Lord and called it Bethel, house of God.

Thus, even before the ritual law of Leviticus was given, the Old Testament stresses the necessity of worship.

The Mosaic Period—the Covenant of Revelation and Response

Israel's worship consisted in the celebration and proclamation of the covenant that God ordained. God revealed himself to Israel as Jehovah, the covenant God. The covenant was delivered to Moses on Sinai as God's claim upon Israel (Exod. 20:1–18). God demanded sincere worship: You shall not bow down to them [idols] or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God (Exod. 20:5). Jehovah, who delivered the tablets to Moses, is the God who acts in history. From that time forth the tablets of stone became for Israel the revealed Word of God. Perhaps the matrix of the meaning and purpose of worship in the Old Testament is best summed up in Deuteronomy 6:4, The LORD our God is one LORD (KJV).

The people of Israel observed public worship in the wilderness under Moses' direction. The primitive sanctuary or tent of meeting probably resembled an ordinary shepherd's tent, having both outer and inner compartments. The tent of meeting seems to have been pitched outside the camp (Exod. 31:7; Num. 11:26).

Ultimately God directed Moses to build a sanctuary for worship and an ark in which the Ten Commandments should be kept (Exod. 25:26). With the building of the tabernacle, congregational worship was established as an institution. God then commanded Moses to consecrate Aaron and his sons to the office of priesthood (Exod. 28:2–3). The duties of the priests were set forth in detail. The people were to bring offerings to God continually as an act of worship (Exod. 29:30).

The Period of the Judges

As Israel proceeded with the conquest of Canaan, they encountered the worship of nature deities known as the Baalim. In this environment God's people were influenced by the tribes who worshipped false gods, and Jehovah worship was corrupted. Some of the people forsook the God of their forbearers. Many of them transferred the rituals and ceremonies of the popular shrines, where false gods were worshipped, to the worship of Jehovah. Doubtless Hannah's prayers were genuine (1 Sam. 1), but the corrupt acts of priests (1 Sam. 2:12–17, 22–25) and the fetish value placed upon the ark (1 Sam. 4:3) indicate false acts of worship.

Some of the people remembered Jehovah, and Jehovah worship continued at numerous shrines during the period of the judges. Gilgal was likely the first place established for the worship of Jehovah in the new land of Canaan. Saul was crowned in the Gilgal sanctuary, and annual celebrations of Israel's crossing into Canaan may have taken place there. Altars at Gilgal (Judg. 2:1), Ophrah (Judg. 6:24), Shiloh and Dan (Judg. 18:29–31), Hebron (2 Sam. 5:3), and Gideon (1 Kings 3:4) indicate that Israel's conquest of the land for Jehovah was constantly going forward.

Temple and Cults

In the historical books the king appears several times as the leader in worship, for he was a holy person, sanctified by his anointing and adopted by Yahweh. David set up the first altar for Yahweh in Jerusalem (2 Sam. 24:25) and also conceived the plans for building Yahweh a temple (2 Sam. 7:2–3).

In Solomon's temple at Jerusalem, Old Testament worship reached its climax. Of Israel's holy places dedicated to the worship of God, the temple was the most magnificent and elaborate. The temple was erected in Jerusalem where God had previously appeared (2 Sam. 24:16–25); thus, the temple became the central sanctuary of Israel. King David desired to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord and for the footstool of God (1 Chron. 28:2). Although David made elaborate preparations for the building of the temple, God would not allow him to build the temple. God informed David that his son Solomon, who would succeed him as king, had been chosen to build the house of God. When David delivered elaborate plans for the building of the temple to Solomon, David said, Be strong and of good courage, and act. Do not be afraid or dismayed; for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of the LORD is finished (1 Chron. 28:20).

The temple was elaborately furnished with dedicated vessels: the golden altar, the tables for the bread of the Presence, the lampstands and their lamps of pure gold … the flowers, the lamps, and the tongs, of purest gold; the snuffers, basins, ladles, and firepans, of pure gold. As for the entrance to the temple: the inner doors to the most holy place and the doors of the nave of the temple were of gold (2 Chron. 4:19–22). When the building was complete, Solomon commanded the elders and the Levites to bring up the ark to the temple.

Second Chronicles gives an account of the dedication of the temple. The priests and the Levitical singers—arrayed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps, lyres, and trumpets, together with many singers—offered praise and thanksgiving to the Lord. They sang, "For