How should we worship God?

The word ‘worship’ is related to the word ‘worthiness’. Worship is a display of someone’s worthiness. Worship is not necessarily about tradition and rituals, it is rather more about the individual heart of the worshipper towards God. For example we see that:

‘For I desire mercy, no sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings,”– Hosea 6:6 NIV

Therefore, for us to worship properly, we need to mean it. God can see if we mean something or not. What we do not want to be guilty of is what is mentioned in Isaiah:

‘These people come near to me with their mouth, and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.” – Isaiah 29:13 NIV

Worship is connecting with God and enjoying being with him, it is not necessarily the performance of ritual, rather it is often a more fluid practice. This was a problem for the Jews in the Old Testament, the Christian in the New Testament, and even sometimes for the Christians of today. How often in churches are there practices which it would be very easy to take part in, and yet not really allow it to touch us or to challenge us? For example, the practice of ‘communion’ or the ‘Lord’s Supper’ was initially designed as a way of Christians coming together, to talk, to eat, and to worship God together – but today this has been condensed in to a tiny drop of red liquid (either wine or fruit juice) and a morsel of bread. Although the communion remains symbolic, in this downward shift, some of the meaning has been lost. It is now possible to take ‘communion’ entirely on your own! Hardly the way God intended! By making such practices into official rituals we divorce some of the meaning from them, and it is sometimes harder to retain that connection with God and with our fellow believers.

In short, the Jews had it right, there is no divide between the sacred and the secular – why should you not have a meal celebrating Jesus? Why should you not worship God in the small things as well as the superspiritual things? Worship can be something as simple as dedicating an act of generosity or kindness to God, or something as large as saying ‘God, all I have is yours. Take it all – and take my life, I am no longer my own but yours.’

Worship is not simply knowing all the words to the hymns, nor is it turning up at church every Sunday. Rather it is a lifestyle choice, dedicating ourselves, our bodies and our lives back to him. It is recognizing that everything we have comes from him, and not holding anything back from him. Worship is behaving as though God can see everything we seem do and think (because he can!) and making our Sunday worship last throughout the week, at home, at school, at work – as well as when we’re out with friends, or anywhere else. God requires nothing less.

How can the God of the Bible be good if He commands worship?

We are conceited when we pretend that we are more than we really are. This is never a wise thing to do. Does God do that?

Yes, God commands worship, but has he done anything to warrant it?

According to the Bible, he created the heavens and the earth (the universe) and everything that exists. He has given us a code of absolute morality. He is able to do this because he is the epitome of ‘good’, he is perfect. He created us, he loves us and wants to be with us. He sent his own son to die in our place so that we could choose to be with him forever. He is soon to return and to make all things new.

Does this warrant our worship? What else could God do that would?

It seems that God is entirely reasonable in calling for us to worship him, because this shows the true order of his creation. We are not to get above ourselves, and we are to hold him in an appropriate place for his goodness, mercy and love. If we are not worshipping him, then the chances are we are going to end up worshipping something else – whether it is following a false religion, or putting something else first in our lives (perhaps money, lifestyle, family, sex, addictions, anything that takes our eyes off God, and puts something else in our life in his place). If we are worshipping something else, then we are going to hurt ourselves. God loves us and doesn’t want us to be hurt or lost. To be fulfilled we need to be in a proper relationship with him.

However, if we are developing our relationship with God, we will want to spend time with him and want to worship him, it is for this that we have been created, and therefore by doing this that we feel most fulfilled.

Are holy books from other religions the Word of God too?

Other holy books can teach about morals, but the inspired, infallible word of God is found only in the Bible. Christianity is not a religion. Religion is man’s striving to reach God; Christianity is a relationship with God because God came down to human level to meet with us. Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). There is no other way to achieve that close loving relationship with God, and no other book containing any further revelation of God’s nature or purposes.

Isn’t the Bible full of contradictions?

There is a common, if misplaced assumption that the Bible is a book of such poor integrity that there really is no point in reading it. This belief persists because those who accept it do not read the Bible to check the claim, and therefore are never challenged to change their minds.

It must be remembered that the Bible is not one book, but a library of 66 books written by different people in different styles for different purposes. It contains poetry, prophecy, history and biography, and more. So we need to be sure of the context of the piece as well as the purpose for which it was written. Generally this doesn’t involve in-depth scholarship, but just an open mind and common sense.

A true contradiction only occurs when there are two accounts of the same subject and the details are completely incompatible; for example ‘There were clouds in the sky’ and: ‘It was completely cloudless all day’. If both accounts are referring to the same day, and the same place, there is a definite contradiction. If however, one text said: ‘It was sunny’ and the other said: ‘There were lots of puffy white clouds,’ this is not contradictory because it is possible to have both at the same time. It’s just that each writer considered different facts to be worth writing about.

It is important to look at both passages at the same time – look at what they really say. Contradictions tend to disappear when we realise what assumptions we have made of the passages.

There have been instances where Bible passages have contradicted what we know of the biblical period from archaeology, but these are gradually cleared up as more discoveries are made. For example the veracity of the Bible was doubted because of its mention of a Hittite empire. Nothing was known of the Hittites, and nothing had been dug up, it seemed that they had never existed. However, later Bible critics had to prepare to eat their hats after relics of a Hittite empire were dug up and once again the Bible’s integrity was restored.

When examining a potential contradiction we need to be absolutely sure we are being fair. Are both statements referring to exactly the same thing? Are they completely incompatible, or could different details be mentioned in each account?

If you find a contradiction, or something in the Bible that doesn’t seem to make sense, perhaps you would like to contact us:

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What about some of the discrepancies in the Bible?

Let’s be honest, there are some discrepancies in the Bible – but is this enough to throw the whole Bible into doubt? A lot of these episodes involve differences in numbers. Let’s have a look at some of these disputed passages.

First, let’s have a look at I Kings 4:26 and II Chronicles 9:25:

‘Solomon had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen,’ (I Kings 4:26NASB).

‘Now Solomon had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots and 12,000 horsemen, and he stationed them in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem,’ (II Chronicles 9:25NASB).

Bear in mind both these passages are accounts of the same time and events. There is a problem because the numbers are different; there is the possibility that this is an error from the scribe who was copying the manuscript, or it could be a difference in the time that each writer calculated the number of chariots and troops. It is however, most likely that this is a copyist error, as there are a few other discrepancies in the books of Chronicles when compared to the corresponding passages in Kings and Samuel.

We have another incidence below:

‘besides Solomon’s 3,300 chief deputies who were over the project and who ruled over the people who were doing the work,’ (I Kings 5:16 NASB).

‘ So Solomon assigned 70,000 men to carry loads and 80,000 men to quarry stone in the mountains and 3,600 to supervise them,’ (II Chronicles 2:2 NASB).

Again there’s another apparent miscalculation; or it might be that there was some discrepancy with how the people were counted. Again, it could be a copyist’s error, or it could be that it was a difference in calculation – it is important to look at the surrounding context, and when we take the whole passage together, as well as its counterpart in II Chronicles we can see something interesting. If we add together the chief deputies of I Kings 5:16 with the chief officers in I Kings 9:23 we get 3850 men who were overseeing the project. Let’s look then at II Chronicles 2:2. Here are 3600 overseers, let’s add that to the chief officers we see in II Chronicles 8:10 – and what do we get? Interestingly we get 3850 men overseeing the project, just like in I Kings. The fact that there is a convergence here suggests that rather than a copyist error, it is rather a difference in calculating the numbers of men in authority.

Some errors in the Bible however, are purely copyist errors. For example, II Kings 8:26 tells us that King Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began to reign, whereas II Chronicles 22:1tells us he was 42. (Be aware here that some Bible versions have automatically corrected this latter number to 22 because from the context it seems conclusive this is a copyist error). From the context of the II Kings passage we can tell that Ahaziah cannot have been 42 because he was made king after his father died at the age of 40.

Another likely copyist error is that in I Chronicles 19:18 which says there were 7000 charioteers killed. In the corresponding passage in II Samuel 10:18 there were 700 killed. This is more than likely a simple copyist error as the mistake is a simple addition of a zero. Remember that in the Hebrew text the addition of a dot can multiply a number by ten; also consider that a piece of dust or a defect in the material the text was written on could make a 700 look like a 7000.

There is a situation in II Samuel 6:23 that says that Michal had no children, but then later in the same book, it says that she had five sons (see II Samuel 21:8). So what’s going on?

It is likely that somewhere along the line there is a copyist error and that one wife’s name was substituted for another, Merab and Michael were both daughters of Saul. It is easy to see that their names could become confused.

In II Chronicles 4:2 we are told the diameter of a bowl known as the ‘sea’ which was used in the temple. However, taken with the other measurements given in the same passage, we can see that if we apply them altogether, they don’t calculate. What we need to remember is that the diameter of the bowl might be measured from the inside of one side to the other, however the circumference of the bowl might be more easily measured around the outside. It is also possible that numbers were rounded up; decimal points not being strictly necessary here. In fact, when dealing with many numbers, the Bible writers used whole numbers rounded up to the nearest 10, 100 or 1000.

We’ve looked at a few discrepancies in the Bible here, and many of these are due to copyist errors. However, it is important to understand that although there may be some minor errors in the way the manuscripts have been copied, this is not to detract from the fact that the original text was inspired by God. Scripture retains the authority, even if some small errors have crept in. it’s also important to remember that although there are a few mistakes, these are significantly very few – especially when considering the overall error rate – so much care was taken with copying holy manuscripts that any error that was spotted resulted in the whole scroll being rejected, and the work was begun again. The writers of the Bible were inspired, but the copyists were not. It is also significant that these errors that remain in the text do not affect the doctrines in the Bible – for the most part they are numerical discrepancies, and frankly it is of little or no importance to the average Christian whether Solomon had 4,000 stalls of horses or 40,000. The fact is, he had a lot, and 4,000 or 40,000 has no bearing on who Jesus is or what he came to do. Therefore the Scriptures can still be trusted.

Can anything more be added to the Bible?

John is clear in the book of Revelation that: ‘I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book,’ (Revelation 22:18-19 NIV). Now, clearly this comment is referring to the book of Revelation itself, however does it refer to the rest of the Bible? This question arises because although Revelation is the last book in our Bibles today, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it was the last one to be written. Despite this we need to look at the context; Revelation is mainly prophecy about what is to come during the time of the end. John was clear that what was going to be revealed before time had been revealed – and there was therefore nothing more to add. It therefore implies that this was the last revelation to humanity before Jesus would come for the final time.

This command echoes one given in the Old Testament: ‘Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you,’ (Deuteronomy 4:2) which made clear that tampering with God’s word was a serious thing, and would not go unpunished as it could lead others astray.

Can anything be added to the Bible? No. God’s message to us is comprehensive and complete. We have everything we need in order to enter into an eternal relationship with him. Those cults which have added to the Bible, such as Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witness movement have changed God’s message by added new supposed ‘revelations’ to it. The Bible is complete, there is no need for addition to it or subtraction from it, those who have attempted to do so have changed God’s message; something which clearly is very seriously wrong.

How did people decide what to include in the Bible?

The Latin word ‘biblia’ (from where we get our word Bible) means “book”. Our Bible is made of a collection of books, letters, poetry and all sorts of stuff. We also call the collection of books in the Bible, a ‘canon’. The word ‘canon’ is from the Greek ‘kanon’ which means ‘reed’, a measuring rod used as a standard of measurement. Therefore demonstrating the Bible’s reliability and authority. The chief criteria used to decide what to include in the canon was:

• The veracity: what evidence there was for to back up the Bible’s claims – miracles, fulfilled prophecy etc
• Who wrote it: prophets, disciples etc
• Consistency with other books already accepted into the canon. Although the Bible was written over millennia, it does not contradict itself. Many writings failed to make the grade because they didn’t meet the criteria; they were left out as they were considered to be fallible and therefore not the Word of God.