Joy mixed with Sorrow

Burrough's makes an excellent point on page 248 concerning sorrow or joy over sin. It is very hard for me to come with both  emotions to Gods' throne. In many cases, my sin is overwhelming but I will overlook Gods' forgiveness. In other cases I overlook my sin very much ready for forgiveness but demonstrate true repentance. I feel like I often need reminders such as this to keep me on the right track!

Balance of Emotions

On page 369, Godfrey says: "An accomplished leader in the tradition of Finney can easily manipulate emotions in worship, particularly through preaching and music. An effective preacher can create emotions ranging from reverence to sorrow, from joy to a tangible sense of power."

While I understand the danger of manipulating emotions, I'm wondering how Godfrey would balance this out? Obviously good preaching should stir a response from the hearer, just as good worship should stir emotion based on what one is hearing.

Emotions in Worship

This is not necessarily a provocative question but after doing the reading I was curious as to what the author meant. In GPTG page 370 he talks about offering strange fire to God and worship offered to the golden calf as examples of allowing emotion to judge true religion and worship. Is he saying that contemporary music in the church is manipulating emotions? I was confused by the example and what the point he was trying to get across.

Catechismal Erosion

I remember several years ago learning the Westminster Shorter Catechism with my family.  It was a good cycle of family devotions; possibly the strongest we ever had.  My worry about teaching catechisms from birth comes from my few encounters with Latter Day Saints, who almost always subscribe to a faith that they can define, but do not understand.  They have memorized their confessions of faith.  How should Protestant catechism learning be different?  How do you teach truth without compromising the ability to reason?

Looking Back

  I think in many ways Duncan is spot-on. However, I don't know if I fully agree with his argument (on pg 328). We have progressed tremendously over the years.  He makes it sound like progress is a bad thing. How would we truly define progress other than what has been accomplished over the years?

Family Worship

On page 334 in GPTG it is speaking concerning family worship. The issue is the lack of time family's spend worshipping together and spiritually growing as a family. It is so true when it said that family worship has been replaced with small-group activities. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with small groups. There are actually many benefits, but I think there is something damaging with replacing family time in worship with other activities. Our society speaks of "family values" more now than it probably ever has, yet Christians value family worship and spiritual growth less now than ever before. What is wrong with this picture?

Transformation

GPTG pages 347-348. Transforming by the renewing of your minds is a continual process that the Christian has to do to be like Christ and not like the world. Then why does it seem so hard to do? We are living in the world, but we are not to be like it. We are to be perfect as Christ is perfect, but that is impossible for us to do. It is something only God can do in us, but being a transformed Christian seems elusive. I guess my question is how do we view real transformation as Christians living in a world that is constantly offering other satisfactions.

All of Life fitting into Corporate Worship

In talking about Romans 12:2, William Edgar writes: "The change is nothing less than radical. Again, the notion of worldview expresses the radicalness. But we should take care not to limit ourselves to merely outlook. The optic metaphor in the term worldview can be misleading. It fails fully to carry the dynamic aspect go our vision. We are not limited to having the right idea, even the right doctrine, in Paul's command. We are told to change, to be converted".

How can we incorporate this idea of worshiping in all of life into our corporate worship? How can we use corporate worship to reinforce it and get people to see that worship is more than just what is done corporately?

Worshiping in Spirit

In the book "Give Praise to God" on page 310 it says we should worship in spirit and that we can not do that unless we are indwelled with the Holy Spirit. How do we as Christians know that we are worshiping in Spirit? Are we constantly indwelt with the Holy Spirit or does He only indwell us at certain times?

Regulative and Normative

Before Monday's reading I had never heard of the regulative or normative principles. Whitney gives a very brief explanation of both on pages 297-298 and seems to say that the regulative principle applies to public workshop, but the normative principle applies to private worship. Doesn't the Bible have specific guidelines on the elements of private worship as well?

Which comes first? law or gospel?

On page 207 of Gospel Worship, Burroughs makes the argument that the gospel precedes the law. Isn't man's conscience a form of the law? We know right and wrong from birth. In what way would the gospel precede the law? Am I misunderstanding Burroughs or simply missing an important factor?