Worshipping Jesus

 Thirteenth Wednesday after Pentecost

Once when I was in Grad school I went to an Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship small group meeting. Toward the end of the meeting there is an extensive prayer time. Everyone in the group prays out loud. I was struck that several people in the group addressed their prayers directly to Jesus, rather than to God, or Lord, Lord God, Heavenly Father, Father, etc. I hadn't heard that before in my worship -sheltered Methodist life. I always prayed in the name of Jesus, but never directly to Jesus. Somewhat later I went to a prayer meeting of the Duke Charismatic Fellowship. There was much praying out loud, often just the single phrases, "Praise you Jesus," or "Thank you Jesus." I suppose this had an effect on me, because sometime later I noticed that in my own personal prayers I was often praying directly to Jesus. Don't worry. I would within a couple of years get over my conservative-evangelical and charismatic phases. I liked the prayer life, but I couldn't deal with the theology.

Several decades later (is it scary that I'm now thinking of time in terms of decades rather than years?) I was in a conversation with another pastor and a layperson. The Pastor made a comment to the effect that he didn't talk about Jesus much anymore, because the name of Jesus has become not so popular in our increasingly secularized society. Both the layperson and I said we would be very happy for the pastor to talk all he wanted about Jesus. Though he seemed a little surprised by our quick and strong disagreement with him, he also seemed appreciative of our old-fashioned ways.

 

Perhaps talking about Jesus is another issue, but today and tomorrow I do want to talk about praying to Jesus and worshipping Jesus. Specifically I want to deal with two questions: Did the early Christians worship Jesus? Should we worship Jesus? I know I have recently talked a lot about Mary and about the Trinity. We could just say that when we worship God, we're worshipping Jesus at the same time, and the Holy Spirit as well.

 

I have often been accused of bringing up problems that you didn't know were problems, until I brought them up. Perhaps this is the case today.

About 2002 the renowned Scottish Biblical scholar, James D.G. Dunn, wrote a short book entitled Did the Early Christians Worship Jesus? After examining the NT evidence and the Apostolic Fathers (whose writings go from about 80 AD to 160 AD), he concluded that they did not. They understood Jesus as their Lord and they prayed in his name,but they worshipped and prayed directly only to God.

About 2006 the American scholar who teaches at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Larry Hurtado, prulished a much lengthier and more thorough book entitled, Lord Jesus Christ, which refutes Dunn. The way NT scholarship sometimes seems to work is that the scholar who can produce the largest book with the most thorough arguments wins the debate. 

 

Hurtado in my estimation won this one. I've now read just about all of his books. I've read a lot of Dunn's too, but he's written so many I can't keep up. About two weeks ago I just got one of his newest, on Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians in the first century. It's about 900 pages. It will take me a while. 

 

As we continue our Acts Bible Study one of the questions I want us to be thinking about is whether the earliest Christians in Acts worshipped Jesus, and more broadly, how did they understand Jesus.

 

Tomorrow is Prayer and Worship day on the blog. I'll be examining our second question. Should we worship Jesus--and what would that mean. Would it make any difference? I may come up with a couple of  things we haven't thought of before.

 

Now, I'm going to the beach with Marianne, sit under our umbrella, and start reading the newest John Grisham novel.

 

Faithfully,

Christian