Man has a tendency to create religion. What I am trying to do in this series is to remove every man-made element so that we can see Christianity based on God's original intentions rather than man-made idelogies and beliefs. It is only that which is purely God that can be as glorious as the true bride of Christ. We must remove everything that is of man so that what we have is purely God. Here in Christianity, man has infuse their ideologies about religion rather than fulfilling God's intention. Many of these things may be done unintentionally, but they are there and need to be removed.
We would have to dig deep to discover them and eliminate them. So man's religion is an effort to get right with God by appeasing him. It is always about trying to appease God. Yes, look at every religion in the world that believe in the existence of a god. They are all about trying to appease god(s) so that he would allow (or cause) them to live a happy life on earth. This is religion as produced from man's interpretation of the world and God. Man thinks God need to be appease. They think if God is not appease terrible thing will before them.
They would make sacrifices to appease god. These sacrifices is what is called worship. You should read my post on worship in order to understand what worship means to ancient men, especially to those people in the times of the Bible. They interpret every natural disaster as the wrath of God. And then they carry out several ceremonies to appease God. That is such a terrible understanding of God. God is not Mr Angry. He is not constantly in need of people appeasing his uncontrollable temper. Neither is God an egoistic maniac that constantly need to be petted and pampered with praises and worship.
Thank God for science today. Man now has another paradigm for interpreting things. Ancient man developed religion to interpret the world around them. They developed all sorts of ideologies that has now been proven wrong today. One of their many wrong ideology is that God constantly need to be appease. However, tradition has a way of transmitting from one generation to another so subtly even when it has been proven wrong and no longer makes sense.
This ideology that God constantly need to be appease (because of his anger and egoistic issues, and because it is required otherwise he would make your life on earth unbearable) has somehow been passed down to us. Yes, there are some things that we inherit. We don't know where they come from but they continue to pattern the way we think. It has even brought us to the point where we think we were created solely to worship (appease) God. Many preachers preach this. You would often hear it on the pulpit. But there is no where in Scripture where it state that we were created for the sole purpose of worshipping God.
It is absurd to make such conclusions. God already had angels which were specifically designed to worship him none stop. No matter how powerful you are vocally, no matter how much you can dance and sing, you can never worship as well as those angels. God had specifically designed beings whose job is to worship him. These beings are in large numbers. They never get tired, they can worship all day long, and you can never compete with them.
How can you say God created man to worship him when he already has billions of angels doing that? Is that how great his ego is that he is not satisfied with the billions of angels already worshipping him? We saw God and man together in the garden of Eden, and God never said to man, "Bow down and worship me, for that is the reason I created you". Again, we saw God (as Jesus) and man, together in the first century. Yet, not once did God say to man, "bow down and worship me, for that is your job". So how did we arrive at the conclusion that God created man to worship him? Where did that conclusion come from? We really need to ask questions.
“Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” (Gen 1:18).
If He had created man for the sole purpose of worshipping him then this would not be the firth statement he made to man just after creating him. Imagine, you employ someone to cut your house compound grasses. And when you brought the person to your house the first thing you say to him is, "relax, eat, drink and take charge of the whole house". You didn't bother to show him what he was employed for until the day was almost over. The Bible didn't say Adam was worshiping God in the garden. In fact, the word "worship" didn't appear in the Bible until the time of Abraham.
I don't know why we insist on the idea that God created man to worship him. Right from man's creation, before the fall, before everything went wrong and needed fixing, what was God doing with man? We really need to rethink our ideologies. Was Adam holding worship services, singing and dancing every day in the garden? Or was he just bowing down and worshipping God day and night? Was he killing animals and offering sacrifices? Yes we can ascertain why God created man by looking at the very beginning. And what did we see in the beginning? Did we see a worship service in the garden of Eden?
It's sad we are still very much influenced by the religion of man and the ideologies passed down to us. And we follow this pattern of thinking without questioning. Yes God created man for a reason, and it was clearly stated in the first statement he made to man, "reign, govern, rule, have dominion". Another thing we see at the beginning was that God would often come down from heaven and spend time with Adam. Because of this we can safely assert that God created man for relationship. We were designed to be his friend, his sons, and his bride.
As for singing, dancing and praises, that is not the sole purpose we were created. I am not saying we ought not to do it at all. In fact, we are supposed to do it. One of the thing a bride does is adore and honour her husband. But how would you feel if you married a wife and all she does is follow you around, singing and dancing to your praises. Surely you will think something is mentally wrong with this woman. Let's get our priority straight and be the Christians God has called us to be.
What Is Christianity (Part 1): From The First
What Is Christianity (Part 2): Kingdom, City and a Bride
What Is Christianity (Part 4): The People Of Israel
What Is Christianity (Part 5): The Origin Of Worship Service
What Is Christianity (Part 6): Towards A New Structure
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