For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website.

Introduction to the series: important questions

• Worshippers enjoy healthier, more dynamic lives than non-worshippers. Why is that?
• What (if anything) does the Old Testament have to offer Christians?
• What disqualifies worship?
• How does true worship fortify lame spiritual lives?
• How does New Testament worship differ from the Old Testament variety?
• How has the church approached worship through the ages (and will it every learn from its own history)?
• Have our (mis)conceptions about heavenly worship demotivated us?

The essence of worship

• Reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power; an act of expressing such reverence
• A form of religious practice with its creed and ritual
• Extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem
• “It is a delusion to think that because we suddenly feel expansive and poetic in the presence of the storm or stars or space that we are spiritual. I need only remind you that drunkards or tyrants or criminals can have those ‘sublime’ feelings, too. Let’s not image that they constitute worship.” – A. W. Tozer, Whatever Happened to Worship? 124

Worship in ancient (pagan) world

• Energetic
• Weather deities
• Noise, instruments
• Immoral: ritual prostitution
• Sacrifice: infants
• Mutual manipulation
• Stark contrast to ethical monotheism (readings from Isaiah 1)

7 Sanctuaries

• Eden as primal Temple (Genesis)
• Tabernacle (Exodus)
• Temple (1 Kings)
• [In exile: Babylon / Egypt / Samaria]
• 2nd Temple / Herod's Temple
• Christ’s body (John 2, 1)
• The Church (1 Cor 3)
• New Jerusalem (Rev 21)

Next podcast in this series: Seven grand passages on worship