BOOK COMMENTARY
by Bruce L. Shelley
January 1, 1983
The Worship of God, by Ralph P. Martin, Eerdmans, $7.95; Worship Old S New, by Robert E. Webber, Zondervan, $12.95; Worship: Rediscovering the Missing Jewel, by Ronald Allen and Gordon Borror, Multnomah, $9.95.
Reviewed by Bruce L. Shelley, professor of church history, Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary, Denver, Colorado
The prelude, skillfully played, wafted from the organ. But no one heard it. Too much chatter. The psalm that followed set the stage for worship, but the mood shifted abruptly. A lay leader made an impromptu appeal for Sunday school teachers and tacked on an immediate request for two or three adults to corral a class of junior boys loose in the parking lot.
A recently returned missionary was next. It was obvious he was doing a great work, but he needed, and took, too long to tell about it. Twenty minutes into the service the congregation sang the opening hymn, which had nothing to do with teaching Sunday school or foreign missions. After the hymn the "order of service" called for Scripture reading, but in the interest of time, the worship leader eliminated it. And so went the parade of unrelated events.
The scene, described by Gordon Borror, is all too familiar. But must such comic tragedy continue? That is the question these three books raise.
Conservative evangelicals have grown increasingly sophisticated. After World War II they moved into mass communications, then during the fifties and sixties they invaded higher education, and during the seventies they became politically active. Now in the eighties it seems worship is emerging as a primary concern.
You could hardly muster more representative voices than the authors of these three books: Ralph P. Martin is professor of New Testament at Fuller Seminary. ...
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