The natural extension of this is the need for Christians to be taught. We’re not just going to understand the realities of true worship simply by walking into a sanctuary. Infants learn their native language by hearing words spoken over and over again. However, they don’t understand what these words mean until they are taught to understand which word belongs to which object or action.
Words must be given meaning so as to be properly used, and the same is true for actions and ideas.
The one who claims that “worship isn’t just singing” is correct—we should be very clear on that. Similarly, not everyone will worship God in exactly the same way: For some, raising hands or dancing in the aisles may legitimately seem wrong to them, whereas for another to not raise their hands and dance in song is wrong—one cannot rebuke the other, for we cannot know what is in another’s heart.
But we must ask the question: Why don’t you raise your hands, dance for joy and shout to the Lord? For these are not modern ideas, introduced from a secular society into God’s church—as many have long-suggested. Rather, we see repeatedly throughout the Old Testament God’s chosen people responding to God’s presence with unrefined and unconstrained joy.
THE ARK OF THE COVENANT
For over 400 years, the Ark of the Covenant had traveled with God’s people, symbolizing God’s presence with them. In 2 Samuel, David begins the long process of moving the Ark of Covenant to Jerusalem, and “David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord with all kinds of fir wood instruments, lyres, harps, tambourines, sistrums, and cymbals” (2 Samuel 6:5).
