On Clapping, "In Worship"

 

There is no New Testament authority to greet one another with a holy handshake or a holy hug, but only with a holy kiss.

 

Yet we allow cultural differences to permit us to substitute a handshake for a kiss.

 

How is that any different from allowing cultural differences to permit us to substitute applause for an amen?

 

The whole premise is flawed when you approach the assembly as a formal bowing-session toward God. That's what the word "worship" means in John 4:24 when Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well about "worship" -- bowing submissively before God.

 

This bowing is what one would do when entering the presence of royalty or diety - you come before God, get on your knees and touch the ground with your face, and then give him your offering.

 

The woman at the well asked Jesus: "Are we to bow in our Samaritan temple or your Jewish temple?"

 

Jesus answered that it's not a matter of bowing in this holy place or that holy place; that's the old way. But the time has now come that the bowing is to be done in spirit, truthfully. That's what God wants; he wants bowers who bow in their spirits before him, in a truthful manner.

 

When we think of "meeting God" in his holy temple on the corner of 5th and Main Streets, we think in Old Testament ways. God left the temple at Jesus' death, tearing the curtain as he left, and destroying that temple forty years later as an exclamation point to the fact that he does not dwell in a temple made with hands.

 

God now dwells in you. You are no longer expected to go to a physical building to bow before him, to "worship" "in church". You are expected to bow before him in your spirit, when giving honest change back to your customer, when lovingly mowing the aged neighbor's yard, when brushing your teeth, as well as when assembled with other believers and praising God. This bowing in spirit is not a part-time thing - if you're not consistently bowed in spirit before the God who is dwelling in his new temple of your body, you're not truthfully bowed before him, are you? You're not the type of bower he wants.

 

There is no New Testament call to assemble as a group before God to bow to him. There is a New Testament call to assemble as a group to prod one another to love and good works, and to encourage and build up one another. And no matter what we do in that assembly, it is to be geared toward building up one another. That, building up one another, and not bowing before God part-time for an hour in a temple where he no longer dwells, is the "explicitly-stated in the New Testament" purpose of assembling.

 

And there are no specific rules for how this assembly is to be conducted. We have invented rules based on human reasoning, and reading between the lines, and converting this event or that one into "approved apostolic rules", but there seldom is any direct "thus saith the Lord" for these commandments of men other than the simple, "When you assemble, let everything be geared toward building up the congregants (1 Cor 14:26).

 

If applause while gathered together contributes to that goal of building up those who are bowing submissively before God in spirit and truth throughout their life, then applaud in the assembly. If applause detracts from that goal, then do not applaud. If a certain singing, or a certain prayer, or a certain message contributes to the goal of building up the assembled bowers, then incorporate that singing or praying or message into the assembly. If a prayer is a great prayer of Thanksgiving, completely honoring God, but that prayer does not benefit those who are assembled, it has no place in the assembly. (So says Paul explicitly in 1 Cor 14).

 

By making the assembly the "required" time for bowing before God (aka a "worship service", with all of its "not-written but rather reasoned-out" rules), we destroy Jesus' message about truthfully bowing in spirit, not just in a church building, but in life ("do all, even brushing your teeth, as an authorized agent of the Lord"), and we substitute God's purpose for the assembly (building up one another) for our own more pious purpose ("worshiping God" for an hour or two).

 

If you clap in the assembly, as an authorized stand-in for Jesus, to build-up the congregants, you do well. If your clapping does not build up the congregants, it has no place in the assembly.