I don’t mean to bore you, but I hope you won’t mind if I reminisce a little. I don’t know how far back to begin. I suppose I could begin by saying that I was born at an early age!

Seriously, I am the eldest son of a minister’s family. We were four children. Dad was a Seventh-day Adventist minister, and during most of his ministry he pastored churches in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia. I don’t remember that we were poor. I think that this is because by today’s standard nearly everyone would be considered poor in those days. We basically had our school clothes and our Sabbath clothes. I had a first cousin who was a year or so older than I. His dad owned a car dealership, and every couple of years he would send me a big box of clothes that he had outgrown.

I remember how happy I was when one of those big boxes would arrive. One time a box arrived containing, among other things, thirty pairs of socks. I felt so rich! I remember getting jobs mowing lawns. Back in those days you could earn a quarter mowing a lawn. My sister, who is three years younger, and I earned our tuition at church school by cleaning the school every day. That wasn’t too difficult because it was only a two-room school.

As Seventh-day Adventists we had a unique lifestyle. Back in those days, if you asked a person on the street what a Seventh-day Adventist was, they would either tell you they never heard of them or that Adventists were the people who didn’t eat meat. I was raised a vegetarian. To me the smell of a barbeque doesn’t make me drool.

As Adventists we lived different than everyone else. People even used to say that you could tell an Adventist by the way they looked. We used to boast how wonderful it was to be an Adventist, because no matter where you traveled around the world, we would be all the same.

I was raised when radio was the thing. Dad wouldn’t let me listen to murder mysteries or science fiction programs. There was a comedy program called “Baby Snooks.” He wouldn’t let me listen to that either, because he said that Snooks was disobedient to her parents. He did let me listen to “Our Miss Brooks,” “Jack Benny,” and “Amos n’ Andy.” I remember when television came in. I used to go to the neighbors down the road and watch “Howdy Doody” and “The Lone Ranger.”

Dad told us we shouldn’t read the comics. I read them anyway. I remember reading “Dick Tracy,” “Li’l Abner” and “Alley Oop.” When the comics would come with the Sunday paper, Dad would tear them up and throw them in the trash. But I didn’t get mad or feel resentful, because that was just the way our family was. After all, we were Adventists.

In those days it was prohibited to go to shows. If you went to a movie you could be expelled from the academy. Dancing was out. But we weren’t the only ones who didn’t go to movies or believe in dancing. There were other Protestant denominations who believed the same thing as we did, and by the way, we weren’t the only Christians who didn’t believe in wearing jewelry either.

Of course, divorce was not an option. But that wasn’t too bad, because in those days about the only people who you heard of that got a divorce were the movie stars. Of course, there were others, but in the society as a whole divorce was not a common occurrence.

Although I am sure it was there, you never heard much about people having children without being married. It was not common, and of course, in those days abortion had not become a national issue.

Our church had what we called “church standards.” We knew them, we learned them, and when we went away to academy and college, we pledged to obey them.

I never had any real doubt in deciding what I was going to be when I grew up. I was going to be a minister like my dad. So when it came time to go to college, I signed up for the theology course. I was only sixteen and it was the year 1957. I turned seventeen just a few weeks after school began.

I am thankful that I never really went through a “sow your wild oats” stage. I did have my moments though. During my junior year in the academy I was suspended and put on free labor for putting a firecracker under a new guy’s door. Another time we were fined five dollars for being caught going down the fire escape one night. We were planning on camping out.

I think one of the things that helped a lot was that I went to work on a plastering crew when I was old enough to have a work permit, which was when I was sixteen. I worked ten hours a day carrying buckets of plaster, and when you do that you don’t have a lot of energy left to get into trouble.

I do remember going to the movies for the first time. I felt so guilty. I didn’t even sit down, but stood in the back and watched about fifteen minutes of “Ma and Pa Kettle Go To Hawaii.”

It was later when I was in college when I began to feel the call of the wild. I remember going to New York City my freshmen year and actually going to some big theaters on Times Square. I began to experiment eating meat. I started with flounder and finally worked up to eating a hamburger. I also began to feel restless, especially on Friday nights. I felt there was something out there in the world I was missing.

One day I went to the dean of men and told him I was restless and wanted to see how the rest of the world lived. He told me to go ahead and find out. I don’t know why he didn’t plead with me not to. But it was just what I needed to hear, because when he told me I could go ahead and check it out, I decided that it just wasn’t me and that I really didn’t want to.

It was about that time that I was about to try my first cup of coffee! It dawned on me that drinking a cup of coffee would not make me rich or famous. In fact, I figured that if I bragged to my friends that I had drunk a cup of coffee, they would probably think I was some kind of an idiot. I figured that if you want to be special, which is what teenagers want to be, I would probably be more special being able to say that I had never drunk coffee than if I was just like everyone else.

I told you at the beginning that we were four children. Three have stayed in the truth, which isn’t too bad being that some people would make you think that having standards was what made you leave the church.

My dad was one of six children. One passed away when he was about twenty-two. Of the other five, four stayed in the church. On my mom’s side there were three of them and they all stayed in the church. My wife is one of four girls. They have all stayed in the church and, for that matter, have all stayed married to their original husbands. On her dad’s side all four of the children stayed in the church. On her mother’s side only two out of six did.

Though there are some who try to make you think otherwise, I really don’t think that having standards was what made people leave the church. They left when we had standards, and since we haven’t made much out of standards in the past few years, the young people have continued to leave the church. I don’t believe that having standards makes people leave the church.

We, as parents and grandparents, are concerned about our children and grandchildren. I have written a book that will soon be published entitled, “Lord, Keep Your Mansions: Just Save Our Children.” Our children are the most important things that we have in this life or at least they should be. We want them to be saved and are going crazy trying to figure out either what we did to go wrong or what we can do to keep them coming to church.

I mentioned the matter of not having church standards anymore. I suppose it is wrong to say that we don’t have any standards. We do, but I am sure that it is safe to say that whether a person lives up to the standards of the church or not now is pretty much up to them.

When I think about how much things have changed, I can hardly imagine what has happened. When we were young and used to hear about how things were going to be in the last days, it seemed so cut and dried. We figured that there would be a Sunday Law, a Time of Trouble after the Close of Probation and that we would have to flee for our lives, and that the Seven Last Plagues would be poured out just before Jesus would come.

We understood that it would be a rather clear-cut case of what you might call the bad guys against the good guys, but that Jesus would come and save the good guys before it was too late, and we all wanted in our hearts to be the good guys who would be saved.

We read in the Spirit of Prophecy that before the close of probation the church would appear to fall. We really didn’t know what that meant and just kind of skipped over that part and went on to the time of trouble and all the rest.

What has been going on in the past twenty-five years, in this country at least, has been almost a complete surprise. We thought just before Jesus would come that there would be a lot of people who would come into the church, but although the church has grown to more than ten million, they tell us that in this country (USA) only about fifty percent of the people are coming to church on a particular Sabbath, and anybody can see that of those who do, many fewer are coming to Sabbath School anymore. Speaking of Sabbath School, I can remember when more people came to Sabbath School than came to church.

In more and more places the church services are being changed. Because people don’t seem to be coming the way they ought to, some have figured that we need to spice up the worship services. I can remember when what we called the “Holy Rollers”--they were the Pentecostals--were just little churches on the other side of the tracks. But now they are big, and many of them have more than five thousand members. We thought that we would be the ones who would be growing in the last days, but the Pentecostals seem to be the ones who are growing and we seem to be the ones who are shrinking.

The Pentecostals say the reason that they grow so much is because they are giving the people what they want. They call it “meeting peoples’ needs.” This is a new concept for us, because our church was founded on what we called “The Truth.” We felt that our task was to preach the message. Because the Pentecostals seem to be doing so well and growing so much, we have begun to ask their leaders what is the secret of their success. We have their church growth experts come and talk to our seminary students and workers’ meetings. We are also using the music that they write and are trying to make our worship services like theirs. As they say, “Nothing succeeds like success.” As a result, there have been some big changes in worship services in some Adventist churches.

I must admit that in some places many things about the church seems to have gotten pretty boring. I don’t remember as a child that church was particularly boring; it was just the way it was. We had Missionary Volunteer meetings for the young people. They would give us parts to memorize, and we would spend a month getting ready for our part, and were so nervous when we were up front that we would sometimes have to have someone on the front row prompt us on what to say next.

In those days our social life was what happened at church and at the Young Peoples’ meetings. Of course, life is about change. In my lifetime there have been three big wars, not counting Desert Storm. I may be wrong, but I think it was the Vietnam War that was the watershed as far as our society in this country is concerned. It seems to me that it was during the Vietnam War years that what we call the Hippy Movement was born, and with them drugs began to be the scourge of society. During this time Rock n’ Roll with all of its variations began to be the official theme music of the rebellion.

Life began to be really adrenalized after that. I think this was what contributed to the perception that church was boring. Life from Sunday to Friday became so stimulating that Sabbath became a kind of anti-climax. When you have been watching productions on television or in the theater that have a cast of thousands and a budget of millions, it becomes a hard act for the programs of the church to follow. It becomes hard to sit still for a sermon if you have been playing a “blow your brains out” computer game or watching “Terminator 2."

The Charismatic churches were quick to figure that they either had to fish or cut bait. They figured that if the people were used to going to the theater and watching TV all week, there was a lot to be said for bringing the theater to church. And so drama teams were organized in the churches. People had been raised on watching “Sesame Street,” so somebody figured out that if the church was going to be viable we needed to have puppet ministries for the kids, and while they were at it many churches organized what they called “clown ministries.” Of course, “Sesame Street” never called itself a ministry and neither did the circus clowns. But someone must have decided that whatever we do in church is a ministry, or that if you call whatever you do a ministry it will be all right to do. I am sure there are lots of ministries, but I can’t see how just because we do something in church automatically makes it a ministry.

As the years have gone by our society has become more and more materialistic. Madison Avenue has nearly taken over our lives. The media now tells us how to live, it tells us how to eat, how to dress, what car to drive, and even has determined how we should think. It calls this political correctness. All of this has increased the pressure on us until we have almost forgotten what it was like to think for ourselves. Our standard of right and wrong used to be, well, right and wrong, and the standard was based on Bible principles. Now many feel that there is really no such thing as right or wrong, and if there is, it is what is right for you is right and what is wrong for you is wrong, or if there is such a thing as right and wrong, we will take a Gallup Poll and see how it turns out.

It may sound strange, but this mentality has gotten into the church. We used to be proud of the fact that our church was based on the truth of the Bible. We called it “The Message.” As the years have passed and the consumer mentality has gotten into our heads, we are not so much concerned anymore with what is right or wrong as we are if the church is meeting our needs.

We like the churches that are, what they call these days, “user-friendly.” The Charismatic churches discovered this first. They found that it would increase attendance if you had a band. This is because Rock n’ Roll, and later Heavy Metal and then Rap, became the basis of the youth culture. Someone must have figured out that if we wanted to keep our youth we could take Rock n’ Roll, Heavy Metal and Rap, and put Christian words to the music, and that way we would attract the youth. Of course, we wouldn’t be able to just come out and say that we were playing rock music in church, and so it occurred to someone to call it Christian Rock. Since then what is called Christian Rock has become a billion dollar business and it is common to find churches with rock bands now as a part of the regular worship service.

In the early days we went to church to discover how the Lord wanted us to live the rest of the week. This seems now to be turned on its head. I say that because now we are bringing the way we live the rest of the week to church. It seems almost impossible to believe that there was a time when we didn’t listen to Rock n’ Roll, because we knew that what it stood for was just the opposite of what the Christian life is supposed to be about, and that now in many places Rock n’ Roll is actually part of the worship services.

Some people believe that it makes no difference what methods you use as long as your goal is right. They believe that the end justifies the means. Nowhere does the Bible teach this. The devil will used any means, good or bad, for his goal of causing us to be lost, but God won’t use that which is not consistent with His holiness to bring us to salvation.

The packaging of a product either represents the product or misrepresents it. What something is packaged in either protects its purity or it can allow it to be contaminated. Packaging the pure gospel of Jesus in rock music, rap, clowns and puppets is mixing the sacred with the profane, the holy with the unholy. If we can learn something from the worship in the sanctuary service in the Old Testament, it is that true worship requires purity and preparation.

It seems that many of the problems that are going on in the church these days revolve around worship. Some churches have even designed their worship services for non-believers. Designing a worship service for people who are not converted is an oxymoron, because people who haven’t received Jesus into their hearts can’t worship Him.

I am sure that many would disagree, but not only do I not believe we should have Rock n’ Roll in our worship services, but I don’t believe we should have drama either. You notice I said in our worship services. Back in the early days we would have little plays in which we would enact a mission story or something, but we didn’t do it in the hour of worship. I am convinced that drama has no place in the worship service, because worship is supposed to be real and drama is make-believe.

When I come to worship God, I don’t believe I should be dressed up like Julius Caesar or Peter or John the Baptist. I believe that I should come to worship God as me and that you should come to worship God as you. The worship service is the one time we must be real. When we stand before the Judge of all the earth, it will be everyone for himself and we had better get used to it.

While we are on the subject of worship, let me share some other concepts. I don’t need to tell you there is private worship and there is what we call corporate worship. Private worship is about me and God. Corporate worship is not about me and God--it is about us and God. So much of the new praise music is “I” this or “I” that. I think a lot of the new music is beautiful and it touches my emotions, yet it would be better if instead of using the word “I” so much it would use the word “we.” I am not trying to be nit-picky. It is just that the society we live in is so much about me, myself, I, and mine.

The Bible refers to the church as the body of Christ. Strictly speaking, the church is not about me--it is about us. Though it is I who go to church, when I get there I must understand that my worship is about God, not about me, and that it is not just me who is worshipping, but us. You will understand where I am coming from when you think about it. “I” is separateness; “we” is togetherness. The gospel meets us in separateness and brings us to togetherness.

Earlier I mentioned my concern with what they call Clown Ministries and Puppet Ministries. Children like make-believe and so do adults. The problem is, the gospel is not to be make-believe. Too many people believe that the gospel is not real anyway, and using puppets and clowns to propagate it or to teach it perpetuates the myth that it is all make-believe. Although we like to be entertained, a victorious Christian life is not the result of entertainment. The Scripture is clear in Revelation 12:11. It says that...“they overcame the dragon through the blood of the Lamb and through the word of their testimony.”

What we need in the 21st century is real people giving real testimonies of what the power of the gospel is doing in their hearts and lives and in their families. We have pretended long enough. It is time that our worship and our daily lives be a living testimony. It is time that we present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service, and whether we eat and drink or whatever we do, that we do to the glory of God, and we can’t do that proxy through make-believe skits, clowns or puppets.

Speaking of clowns and puppets…a clown may be funny, but if a clown was a real person we would say that he was terribly disadvantaged and disabled. I don’t know how we, if we were serious, would want to be clowns when we were originally created in the image of God. If there is a place for clowns--and the fact of the matter is there probably isn’t--it definitely isn’t in representing the gospel of Jesus. The same could be said of using puppets and Sesame Street characters to deal with the holy.

Friend, the gospel of Jesus Christ is holy. We must be intentional not to profane it, to misrepresent it, or otherwise disgrace it. That which is holy must be handled by clean hands and clean hearts. It must break the heart of God to see the way that we are, in some places, representing Him.

Of course, there are those out there who say that Jesus was into drama. They use the parables as an example. Telling stories may be dramatic, but it is not the same as drama. I am not going to go into detail on this subject at this time. I have a sermon entitled “Setting the Stage for Worship.” You can get it from American Cassette Ministries and even download the sermon from my Web page at www.revivalsermons.org.

There are many who say that the contemporary music and drama that is being brought into worship in some places is biblical. Speaking of music I have another sermon entitled, “Stop the Music.” It is also at American Cassette and on the Web page. It shows that in the days of the temple, only certain instruments could be used in certain services and the musicians were priests. You see, the purpose of music was to be a medium to teach the Word. The Psalms of David are rich in doctrine. Although we are doing Scripture songs these days, they tend to repeat one verse of a Psalm over and over again.

Forty years ago we could not have imagined that in the 21st century we would be debating as to whether it was appropriate to do theater and Rock n’ Roll in the worship services on Sabbath morning. Forty years ago we could not have imagined that what I am going to talk about now would ever be an issue, and that is, shall we or shall we not dance in the worship service?

It is not yet widespread, but it is a growing phenomena that an increasing number of churches are using liturgical dance as part of their worship services. The argument is given that the Bible refers to dance at least twenty or more times, and that inasmuch as dance was a part of worship for the people in the Old Testament, so should it be for us today.

The best hunting ground for dance in the Old Testament is usually the passage in 2 Samuel 6 when David and Israel accompanied the ark of the covenant on its journey to Jerusalem. The key verses are 5, 14, and 16.

2 Samuel 6:5,14,16: “And David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals...And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod...And as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she despised him in her heart.”

One word is used in verse 5; in Hebrew it is sahek (also in 1 Chron. 13:8). The word sahek means “to laugh” or “make sport;” it has no necessary reference to dance at all. The same word is employed a few chapters earlier in 2 Samuel 2:14, and there it refers to single combat, in that verse it must have been some kind of dance, because when it was over, 24 young men lay dead. The New International Version translates the word in these verses “fight hand to hand.” Back in 2 Samuel 6:5 the NIV translates sahek as “celebrating,” and in Jeremiah 31:4, where the same word is used, the word is translated “dance.” In Judges 16:25, where the Philistine crowds called for Samson “to entertain us,” it is also the word sahek. It is hardly likely that Samson, blind and in chains, danced before the pagan audience; they simply wanted to laugh at him and make sport of his tragedy. In fact, the word sahek is never used in the Old Testament plainly meaning dance, and generally the meaning is “celebrate.” The word itself gives us no clue as to what form the celebration takes. The accompaniment of the musical instruments in 2 Samuel 6 and Jeremiah 31 does not necessarily involve dancing; in fact the orchestral playing itself might well be the celebration.

After Uzziah dropped dead, the Ark of the Covenant was left at the home of Obed-Edom for three months before David decided to bring it into Jerusalem. This time three new words are introduced to describe David’s activity.

In 2 Samuel 6:14 the word karar is used. It can mean “rotate” (Jewish Encyclopedia), “advance or spring” (Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge) “whirl about” (Oesterley) or simply “move around” (Young). One thing is clear. The idea behind the word is swift action--David obviously gyrated with joy.

In 2 Samuel 6:16, the word pazaz is introduced and karar is repeated. Pazaz means simply “to jump.” In other words David gyrated and jumped with joy.

In 1 Chronicles 15:29, a fourth word describes David’s physical activity before the ark--rakad. The word means “to skip.” It is used in Isaiah 13:21 of wild goats leaping about, in Psalm 29:6 of a calf skipping, and in Job 21:11 of little children playing and skipping with delight.

The fact is that David was celebrating (sakek, 2 Sam. 6:5) with the orchestra as the ark made its first journey to Jerusalem. After three months at the home of Obed-Edom, the ark continued on its journey, and David, ecstatic with joy, sprang about (karar, 2 Sam. 6:14) like an excited child; he jumped (pazaz, v. 16) and skipped (rakad, 1 Chron. 15:29). None of this necessarily means dancing.

Clearly what David did was exceptional; it was not his customary way to worship. This is why Scripture draws attention to it and Michal, his wife, was offended by it. It was the spontaneous overflow of an excited worshiper, and it was unusual enough to be recorded in Scripture. Never again are these words used of David’s worship and none of them refers to a formal dance.

If we are honest with ourselves, we cannot say that every hop, skip and jump of excitement and exuberant joy is dance. Let me illustrate this. In Acts 3:8, the lame man healed at the word of Peter by the gate Beautiful “jumped to his feet…” Similarly, in Acts 14:10, the man healed at Lystra “jumped up…” The same root word is used in both cases and it means “to leap or spring up.” The men did not stagger to their feet; they leapt up with joy. The man healed by the gate Beautiful was found in the temple, “walking and jumping and praising God.” To my knowledge no one has tried to suggest the man was dancing. There is another word in Greek for the formal dance--it is orcheomai, from which our word “orchestra” is derived. If we insist upon calling a hop, skip or jump “dance,” then we have devalued the word.

David, the king, was doing no more than the men healed in Jerusalem and Lystra nearly a thousand years later. He was jumping with joy. It may be hard to accept the conclusion, but to use David as an example of dance in worship is to force far too much into the words employed by the Holy Spirit to describe his activity.

There is only one Hebrew word that clearly refers to dancing, and that word is never used with reference to David! If someone still insists, in spite of the evidence, that David’s activity before the ark was dance, then they must concede that it was his first and last recorded excursion into dance in worship, and that none of the later kings copied him, nor the priests, nor the prophets.

There are other words that are translated “dance” in the Old Testament. One of these is the word pasah, which means to “pass over,” “pass by,” or “spare,” but it can also carry the meaning of “to leap.” The word is used in just this way in 1 Kings 18:26 to describe the frantic antics of the prophets of Baal.

The word pasah also lies at the root of the word for the Passover, and this fact has led many to assume that dancing accompanied the Passover, which, they claim, was a festival of dancing. This is ridiculous. The Passover feast commemorated the night in which the angel of death “passed over” or spared the first-born of the Israelites (Exodus 12:27). It was a terrible night of death and sorrow in Egypt. The angel of death was hardly dancing through the land. There is absolutely no association of the Passover with dancing any more than a “leap year” in our calendar implies a year of national festivity and dancing!

Another word that is translated dance in the Old Testament is hagag, which basically means to move in a circle. It happens also to be the common Old Testament word for a religious festival. It is used of the Passover festival in Exodus 12:14 and in many other places in the Old Testament (e.g. Psalm 118:27). Certainly the word originally carried the meaning of some form of procession or celebration. It is used to describe a drunken orgy in 1 Samuel 30:16 (“reveling”). The problem is that we have no evidence that when the Jews used the word hagag to refer to their religious festivals, they had any association with dancing in their mind. At the most the word can refer to the Jewish procession, led by the priests to the tabernacle and later to the temple. But a procession is not a dance unless we can prove that it involved a specified choreography. And on this, the Scriptures are totally silent.

There is nevertheless a word that unquestionably refers to dance in the Old Testament and it is the word hul. At its root the word means “to writhe” or “whirl,” or “twist.” It is used of the labor pains of a woman giving birth (Isaiah 54:1), the whirlwind “swirling down” (Jeremiah 23:19), and even to be in great distress (Esther 4:4). Other words from the same root refer to strength, might, valor, soldiers, armies and fear. But the noun mahol, without question, means “dance.” In this sense, it is used in Scripture. Miriam danced with the women after the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 15:20), Jepthah’s daughter met her father with dancing (Judges 11:34), the girls of Shiloh were dancing when the men of Bethlehem chose wives from among them (Judges 21:21, 23); Saul and David were met by dancing women as they returned victoriously from battle with the Philistines (1 Samuel 18:6 cf. 21:11; 29:5). Jeremiah spoke of Israel “dancing with the joyful” (Jeremiah 31:4, 13) and of “dancing turned to mourning” (Lamentations 5:15).

Only in three places in the Old Testament is the word mahol used in association with worship. The dancing of the maidens in Judges 21 was possibly at the autumn festival and probably had associations with marriage and fertility, both in the family and the field. But this is hardly a model for worship.

The other two references where mahol is understood to be in the context of worship are found in Psalms 149:3 and 150:4. They refer to the joy of God’s people overflowing into music-making and dancing. However, these two verses alone provide no evidence that dancing did form or that it should form, an essential part of worship. The context of both psalms is that everything that has breath should praise the Lord (150:6). The psalmist is saying that everything the people of God do should honor God; this includes their worship in the assembly (149:1, 150:1), their dancing (149:3, 150:4), their music (149:4, 150: 3,4), and even their wars (149:6-9)! These two psalms do not say that we should dance in church; they simply say that everything in the life of God’s people, from dancing to war, should be to the honor of God.

The modern, formal, well-planned and rehearsed dancing movements that are being done in many places these days were unknown to the religious life of the Jew, and there is no evidence in the Old Testament that they were known to his social life either. The complete absence of choreographers in the Old Testament is surely significant. We read of choir leaders and orchestral conductors (e.g. Nehemiah 12:42-45), but never of choreographers. We never read of specialists in temple dancing. Dance, as it is generally understood and defined today, is nowhere found in the Old Testament directly in the context of worship.

We cannot allow a formal religious procession to be called dance, neither can we allow every hop, skip and jump of holy joy to be called dance. It would be absurd to suggest that the worshiper who raised his hands in prayer leaping with joy demonstrated an artistic form of religious dance. The only Hebrew word that refers clearly to dance (mahol) is not used of David’s joy before the ark or of any activity in worship. The two psalms that are so frequently quoted do not obviously refer to dance in the service of worship, but as an expression of holy joy in God.

Dancing among the Jews was an entirely single-sex activity. As a matter of fact, we never read in the Old Testament of men dancing. It was always only the women with women, not men with men, least of all men with women. Similarly dancing was never a spectator entertainment; it was never a performance. It was always a spontaneous response to a particular situation. Rehearsal and planned movements seem to be unknown in the Old Testament. At the most, dance was an unusual, spontaneous and enthusiastic response to the goodness and kindness of God. The Old Testament worship was a restrained and awesome approach towards a holy God. The high priest did not dance through the temple into the Holy of Holies; he approached with fear and trembling. Isaiah was not dancing in the sanctuary when he saw the Lord “high and lifted up.”

In the New Testament there no reference to dance in the context of worship. For the Christian this ought to imply, at the very least, that dance formed no part of the worshiping activity of first-century Christians. There are only three occasions of dancing mentioned in the entire New Testament. The Greek word orcheomai (“orchestra”) refers to Herodias’ daughter (Matthew 14:6; Mark 6:22) and to children playing in the street (Matthew 11:17; Luke 7:32). A different word is used in Luke 15:25 for the celebration over the returned prodigal; it is choros (“chorus”), and can refer to singing or dancing or both. None of these instances forms a model for Christian worship!

I don’t mean to be disrespectful to our Charismatic brothers and sisters, but some are quick to go to the Old Testament looking for models that would justify Rock n’ Roll, theater or dance in the worship service. Some even insist that we must raise our hands when we worship. Yet this same mind-set rejects the Sabbath of the Old Testament and insists that they are New Testament Christians.

Please don’t misunderstand me, but I don’t believe that David is our model for the holy life. What if he did the jitterbug in church, which, of course, we have just learned he didn’t. He was the best God had for that time, though all things that were written aforetime were written for our learning. Our role model is not David nor is it Joseph or even Daniel. When I get to heaven I don’t particularly want to go over the David and Goliath story again. I just want to see Jesus.

Who would have thought that we would live in times like these. Contrary to what some are teaching, this is not the time to mix it up with the world. God is calling his church to come out and be separate from the world. Those whom He would sanctify He must separate.

If you have been confused as to whether we should have Rock n’ Roll, theater and dancing in the worship service on Sabbath, I would appeal to you to get it out of your life during the rest of the week. Our worship of our Holy God on Sabbath is to sanctify our lives during the rest of the week. We must resist the trend to corrupt our worship by imposing on it our unholy, worldly lifestyles.

Well, excuse me if I have reminisced a bit. Times have changed, of that there can be no doubt. It is not 1950, ‘60, ‘80 or ‘90. We are in the 21st century now. Times have changed, but there can be no doubt that there are certain principles for all time and they have not changed.

Though the grace of God is new every day, the gospel is not new. It is an everlasting gospel. The gospel is predicated on certain truth, and those who would tinker with the truth are not making history, they are only repeating it. And unless we repent of the direction that we seem to be heading, we will live one day to regret it.

As we look to the future we must not forget to look back. We cannot go backwards; we must go forward. But our future is anchored in the past, which is revealed to us in the sacred Word of God, which is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, wherein we do well to take heed in these darkening days as unto a light that shines in a dark place.

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(Documentation for the subject of dancing is from the book Pop Goes the Gospel by John Blanchard. Published by the Evangelical Press, Durham, England.)