Worship Attitude and Choosing a Church

Q. What is the attitude to go to Sunday service? How do I pick a church to attend?

A. Regarding our attitude in worship, the following is representative:

• Wholly devoted, no half-hearted
1 Kings 8:61 Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the LORD our God, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments, as at this day.”
• Joyful and thankful
Ps 100:1-2, 4 Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth. Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing. … Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
• Not in vain by neglecting the commandment of God to hold on the tradition of men
Mt 15:9 ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.’” (also Mk 7:7)
• In spirit and truth
Jn 4:23-24 But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
• Sacrificially
Rom 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
• Glory in Christ only, not self
Php 3:3 for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh,
• With faith
Heb 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
• With gratitude, reverence and awe
Heb 12:28 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe;
• Be humble
Jas 4:6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.” (also 1 Pet 5:5)

To choose a church to attend or join, consider the following:
1) If you already have a home church but are thinking of leaving due to some disagreement or dissatisfaction, it is better to resolve your differences than to carry your grievances elsewhere. What’s wrong may be with you, or your church, or both. God does not want us to walk away from problems, but solve them. Only when you are sure the fault is not with you but with the church, and they are not willing to correct what’s wrong, should you consider switching to another one.

2) Assuming 1) is settled and you need to change, examine what do the churches you are considering believe. Do they hold to the fundamentals of the faith? e.g. the authority of Scripture; the deity of Christ; salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone; the trinity etc. How does their statement of faith compare to the historic creeds e.g. Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed. If their beliefs are not in line with the Bible and historic Christianity, find another one.

3) Assuming their beliefs are consistent with conservative evangelical Christianity, what do they do? It’s one thing to believe the right things, but is theirs a living faith or dead orthodoxy? Do they preach the gospel? Are they zealous in evangelism and making disciples? Are they mission-minded? Do they serve the community in outreach and social action?

4) Assuming their practice is right with good programs serving different groups, do they have the right attitude? Right beliefs and behavior is good, but some churches have a toxic environment as their attitude is wrong. Do they love brothers and sisters and their neighbors? Are they accepting of newcomers? Do they encourage their people to grow, to serve, to be World Christians, or are they narrowly focused on their worship, their fellowship, and their programs?

Those are a few things to consider. Take your time to pray and ask God to lead you. He will guide you to one that’s right for you and your family.

Testing Faith

Recently we had occasion to evaluate a potential coworker’s beliefs to see whether they are compatible to ours. Since he had not written out his “statement of faith” or “philosophy of ministry“, we had to ask his position on various “fundamentals of the faith” and what his practice would be under different scenarios. Some tools we had found useful in situations like these are the five fundamentals, plus the three main historical creeds:

1. Apostles’ Creed – AD 390, based on the Roman Symbol (Creed) of the first to second century. It was not written by the apostles but contained a summary of their teachings.

2. Nicene Creed – AD 325, which emphasized the divinity of Jesus.

3. Chalcedonian Creed – AD 451, which stressed the two natures (divine and human) of Christ unified in one person.

There are others, such as Athanasian Creed (AD 500) which defended the Trinity, and subsequent confessions of faith during the Reformation, but these were the main one we referred to as a checklist to quickly assess whether a person’s beliefs are orthodox.

Did Jesus descend into Hell?

Q. The Apostles’ Creed said, “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; He descended to hell.” Did Jesus descend into hell? Or is the creed wrong?

A. No, I don’t think He did, as I think the problem is with the old English usage, not the creed itself. This misunderstanding is reinforced by Acts 2:31 in KJV:

• Acts 2:31 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that His soul was not left in hell, neither His flesh did see corruption.

However, if you use the NASB, you will read:

• Acts 2:31 he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY.

Quoting from Vines Expository Dictionary of NT Words, Hades is “the region of departed spirits of the lost, including the blessed dead in periods preceding the ascension of Christ. It corresponds to “Sheol” in the OT. In the AV of the OT and NT; it has been unhappily rendered “hell”.

Many scholars believe the creed comes from the Roman Symbol (or Creed) written in the first or second century. The phrase “He descended to hell” was not in the Roman Symbol, but added later. The English word “hell” in the creed translates the Greek word κατώτατα, which literally means “lower” i.e. He descended to the “lower parts”, or the “underworld”. As such, the original simply meant He went to the “world of the dead”, with no implications of suffering in “hell” as we understand the word today.

But the positive reason why I believe Jesus did not go to literal hell (Greek Gehenna or Tartarus) is:

• Lk 23:42-43 And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”

The criminal crucified beside Jesus repented and was forgiven, so he went to be with Jesus in Paradise. So if Jesus was in Paradise, He was not in hell. Even if you interpret Paradise to be “that part of Hades which was thought by the Jews to be the abode of the souls of pious until the resurrection”, it is still not hell as understood today.