Posted by: Nick Norelli | May 15, 2008

Who or What?

Often times I’ll hear preachers in my church say something along the lines that we are to worship God because of who He is, and not because of what He does.  Many times, comments like this will preface our singing of the song “Because of Who You Are.”  But when I listen to the song and sing along, I notice a glaring contradiction. 

Here are the lyrics:

Because of who you are, I give you glory
Because of who you are, I give you praise
Because of who you are, I will lift my voice and say
Lord I worship you, because of who you are

Jehovah Jireh, My provider
Jehovah Nissi, Lord you reign in victory
Jehovah Shalom, My prince of peace
And I worship you, because of who you are

Jehovah Rapha, You’re my healer
Jehovah Shammah, Always with me
Jehovah Sabaoth, Strong deliverer
And I worship you, because of who you are

The song itself (one of my favorites in fact), defines who God is according to what God does.  Of course I am of the belief that God’s actions flow properly from his nature and character, so I see no problem with identifying God according to what he does.  It just makes me wonder if we could ever properly seprate the who from the what.  Is such a directive (i.e., worshipping God for who he is, not what he does) sensible?

B”H

Posted in Theology

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Responses

You know, I completely agree and I first thought about that issue with this same song. Funny.

Bryan

By: Bryan L on May 15, 2008
at 7:12 am

Is it because the people who say this have some kind of disconnect about God? They see things which God does, or they think he does, which are apparently not good, just and loving. But they believe, as I do, that he is good, just and loving. So in their worship they ignore the uncomfortable things that they think he does and worship him for what he is, or what they think he is.

This is of course a cop-out. They need to get their theology in order, to understand that there are bad things that happen which God does not do, and also that some things which he does do are not in fact on conflict with his character as properly understood.

By: Peter Kirk on May 15, 2008
at 9:12 am

Bryan: Great minds…

Peter:

Is it because the people who say this have some kind of disconnect about God?

It very well could be, but I honestly think it’s just an attempt to not look at God like he’s some sort of cash-cow. I think the issues you’re brining up are important, but a bit different from the context in which I usually hear the comments.

I think what you’re talking about is the very real tendency that people have to fashion idols in their minds. Any view of God that can’t truly account for all that he is, says, or does, is simply not a proper view, and sadly, many times people form gods that more closely resemble them, than resemble the God of Scripture.

By: Nick Norelli on May 15, 2008
at 11:25 am

Well yes, of course, we mustn’t praise God for being a cash cow, mainly because he isn’t!

By: Peter Kirk on May 15, 2008
at 6:33 pm

You know what else bothers me about this song. The insertion of Hebrew (sort of) into it. I don’t know why I just get irked by all the “Jehovah” names. This sort of pseudo Hebrew (or partial Hebrew) always makes me cringe especially when people say it like it provides so much insight into God or if it were some sort of magical name. I wrote up a post about it once but decided not to publish it because I didn’t want to get into it with anyone or sound like I might be taking shots at someone. Oh well. My bad if you actually do that too ; ) I know that stuff is kind of big in our church traditions.

Bryan

By: Bryan L on May 16, 2008
at 8:21 pm

Bryan: I don’t know how much you use the KJV (if at all), but I’m fairly sure that whoever wrote the song used it regularly. The first half (which is generally the only half that gets sung), comes straight from the KJV:

And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen. (Gen. 22:14)

And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi: (Ex. 17:15)

Then Gideon built an altar there unto the LORD, and called it Jehovah-shalom: unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites. (Jdg. 6:24)

The second half the song with ‘Rapha,’ ‘Shammah,’ and ‘Sabaoth,’ often isn’t sang. So I don’t know that I’d chalk it up to trying to be deep or pseudo-Hebrew, so much as to familiarity with the KJV and probably little else.

By: Nick Norelli on May 16, 2008
at 8:41 pm

Nick I’m sure you are right that it has it’s origins in the KJV (which I never read! ; )
Yet it has sort of moved beyond and is it’s own thing. I hear it quite often even from people who don’t read the KJV. And often it’s in this context where the Hebrew names of God, the Biblical names are being rattled off and we need to pray these names. Or it might come up in a conversation and someone will say I Jehovah Jireh will provide or something. People have teachings on the names of God and what they mean to us. Heck I heard it in a souther Christians Rap song once and was kind of baffled.

Also psedo Hebrew was probably the wrong term for me to use. Anglicanized Hebrew is probably more accurate.
Anyway…

Bryan

By: Bryan L on May 16, 2008
at 8:59 pm

Bryan: Oh how I wish you’d jump on the KJV bandwagon!!! I don’t really encounter people using the names in conversation too often. But I do know that there’s a whole gang of books and posters about the ‘names of God’ and other such stuff. I can see how you’d get annoyed with it. I get annoyed when people constantly refer to Jesus as Yeshua but don’t use any other Hebrew name for any other character in Scripture.

By: Nick Norelli on May 16, 2008
at 9:03 pm

“I get annoyed when people constantly refer to Jesus as Yeshua but don’t use any other Hebrew name for any other character in Scripture.”

Exactly!!! That’s probably one of the main things that annoys me. Or sometimes they’ll say Christ or Messiah as Meshiahk and nothing else in Hebrew. Why not just say it in regular English.

Anyway I better get off my soap box now. : )

Bryan

By: Bryan L on May 16, 2008
at 9:32 pm

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