Comments on: Weird worship in the Bible

By: Weird Worship | Kouya Chronicle

Weird Worship | Kouya Chronicle — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:32:13 +0000

[...] Peter has tagged me with a meme started by David Ker and challenged me to mention examples of weird worship either from the Bible or from personal experience. [...]

By: Larry J. Hooge

Larry J. Hooge — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:28:28 +0000

True enough.

By: Peter Kirk

Peter Kirk — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:48:07 +0000

Larry, thanks for this interesting analysis. The centrality of dancing is interesting, especially to those of us for whom dance in worship is thought weird. It wasn’t so in Old Testament times.

By: Larry J. Hooge

Larry J. Hooge — Mon, 19 May 2008 03:27:59 +0000

Psalm 150. Weird? Perhaps. But it’s also quite beautiful. Here it is as a chiasmus:

A Praise the LORD!
B Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty expanse.
C Praise Him for His mighty deeds; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
D Praise Him with trumpet sound;
E Praise Him with harp and lyre.
F Praise Him with timbrel and dancing;
E’ Praise Him with stringed instruments
D’ and pipe.
C’ Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with resounding cymbals.
B’ Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
A’ Praise the LORD!

A few notes:

B/B’: Praise Him everywhere (B), everything (B’).
C/C’: God’s deeds and greatness are matched with the sound of crashing cymbals.
C’ to D/D’ and E/E’: Starting with cymbals, other instruments are brought in. From the loudest (cymbals) to quietest (strings).
F: The very physical act of dancing takes center stage.

The dancer(s) are surrounded by increasing bands of volume (E/E’ to D/D’ to C’), greatness (C), numbers (B’) and space (B). Working from outside-in, the ‘volume’ decreases until it is focused on the act of personal worship – involving the whole person.

Nice!

Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! (A/A’)

By: David Ker

David Ker — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:14:17 +0000

Peter, I like your follow-up analysis. Of course Roger’s post ties into the BBB series by Suzanne and my Cyber-Psalm today is tied to yours and Doug’s mention of Psalm 137. Truly a world-wide web! But are we the spider or the fly?

I felt both Eddie and Jim were engaging with the topic in their own way while not taking up the meme per se. And you know how I hate memes!

By: Gentle Wisdom » Weird children’s worship

Gentle Wisdom » Weird children’s worship — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:36:39 +0000

[...] Weird Worship meme seems to have taken off. See David Ker’s latest roundup, also this one I wrote earlier [...]

By: Peter Kirk

Peter Kirk — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:50:53 +0000

Indeed, Roger, there are profound issues here.

By: rogermugs

rogermugs — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:07:24 +0000

peter… to me this brings up some of the questions about how some of the psalms are to be sung/prayed. As for that song I listed, keith green was able to do it to music, I am only able to do it uncomfortably…

i’m still learning to wrap my head around some of these psalms that don’t handle my AD theology…

By: Weird worship meme « He is Sufficient

Weird worship meme « He is Sufficient — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:51:13 +0000

[...] In addition to David’s original post, there have been a number of great replies, including this from Peter and this from Eclexia. I’m not sure that I’ll come up with five, but I’ll [...]

By: Kill the children (and other weird worship songs) » MetaCatholic

Kill the children (and other weird worship songs) » MetaCatholic — Thu, 15 May 2008 14:20:13 +0000

[...] but I should note that weirdness has been with us for a long time. I am not remotely sure why Peter Kirk thinks Psalm 150 is weird, but I quite agree with him that Psalm 137: 9 is weird. What an [...]