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Worshipping Jesus

I’ve just finished Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?: The New Testament Evidence by James Dunn. To be honest, it’s not a book that would have been top of my reading list, but I was in a bookshop (this one) and I had some book tokens… Well, you know how it is!

There are a number of books that I would probably recommend before this one, but if you want to think biblically about church worship or just grapple with an interesting New Testament conundrum, this book is well worth a read. Obviously, the answer to the central question doesn’t just boil down to a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, otherwise it would be a very short book! This quote gives a quick idea of the point at which Dunn arrives by the end of the book:

If he was worshipped it was worship offered to God in and thorugh him, worship of Jesus-in-God and God-in-Jesus.

Dunn very helpfully points out that we need to maintain a full and trinitarian view of God. There is a temptation to think of Jesus in purely human terms which comes across in some modern worship songs and which ultimately robs God of his transcendence.  If you want to read more on this theme, Worshipping Trinity: Coming Back to the Heart of Worship by Parry is very worthwhile.