One of the themes of this blog is that worship is not just a Sunday event; it’s a total life affair. On a suggestion by Bob Kauflin, I’m currently reading David Peterson’s Engaging With God: A Biblical Theology of Worship, an excellent treatment on the biblical theology of worship.

Here are a few important quotes from the early pages of the book.

Contemporary Christians obscure the breadth and depth of the Bible’s teaching on this subject when they persist in using the word ‘worship’ in the usual, limited fashion, applying it mainly to what goes on in Sunday services.

Worship in the New Testament is a comprehensive category describing the Christian’s total existence. (emphasis mine)

Consequently, ‘our traditional understanding of worship as restricted to the . . . gathering of the congregation at a designated time and place for the rite and proclamation will no longer do. This is not what the New Testament means by worship.’

Throughout the course of the book, Peterson tests the hypothesis that “the worship of the living and true God is essentially an engagement with him on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible” (emphasis in original).

Engaging With God is well-written and filled with scriptural notations, proving at the very least this is not merely a personal opinion on worship. Peterson includes paranthetical notations of scriptural support so often it occasionally disrupts the flow of the actual text. But, in an age when personal opinion seems to be all that matters, that’s not a bad thing.