The Biblically Mandated Use of Hands Corporate Worship

[Berserk]

Do people in your church argue about whether lifting your hands in worship is too demonstrative or too Charismatic?
"I desire that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands WITHOUT ARGUMENT (1 Timothy 2:8)."

Do you lift up your hands when you pray just as Paul wants you to do?

Do you recognize the biblical principle that lifting your hands in prayer can release your inhibitions and deepen your longing for God?
"I stretch out my hands to You; my soul thirsts for You like a parched land (Psalm 143:6).

To incite more passionate worship, does your church encourage people to clap for joy and SHOUT praises to God?
"Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout to God with loud songs of joy. For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome (Psalm 47:1-2)."

How does your church justify ignoring biblical precedent in its preference for more subdued and inhibited worship?

 

[Aaron112]

biblehub.com › james › 4-9.htm

James 4:9 Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and ...​

Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to gloom. Legacy Standard Bible. Be miserable and mourn and cry. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Amplified Bible. Be miserable and grieve and weep [over your sin].

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Do people in your church argue about whether lifting your hands in worship is too demonstrative or too Charismatic?
"I desire that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands WITHOUT ARGUMENT (1 Timothy 2:8)."

Do you lift up your hands when you pray just as Paul wants you to do?

Do you recognize the biblical principle that lifting your hands in prayer can release your inhibitions and deepen your longing for God?
"I stretch out my hands to You; my soul thirsts for You like a parched land (Psalm 143:6).

To incite more passionate worship, does your church encourage people to clap for joy and SHOUT praises to God?
"Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout to God with loud songs of joy. For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome (Psalm 47:1-2)."

How does your church justify ignoring biblical precedent in its preference for more subdued and inhibited worship?

I'm not so sure it is a command. That would be extreme. The passage in 1 Timothy 2:8 is concerned with the attitude of the heart when we pray. Paul tells us to pray "without anger or disputing" . Paul is more concerned with the inner heart than with the outward body. Blessings.

 

[sandman]

1Ti 2:8 I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.

The “lifting up holy hands” is the figure of speech…. Metonymy (of adjunct) is when that which pertains to anything is put for the thing itself.

(i.e.) A word or phrase used to amplify or modify the meaning of another word or words in a sentence.


In Timbo ….it’s referring to prayer without wrath and doubting.

If you want to hold up hands ...it’s fine ………. But it’s not a mandate

 

[Aaron112]

WE
So I want men in every place to talk to God. They must have clean lives when they lift up their hands to talk to God. They must not be angry. They must have faith in God.
<not praying for show, rote, acting before others>

VOICE
So here’s what you tell them; here’s what I want to see: Men, pray wherever you are. Reach your holy hands to heaven—without rage or conflict—completely open.
<not in fists, closed hands, anger>

ICB
I want men everywhere to pray. These men who lift up their hands in prayer must be holy. They must not be men who become angry and have arguments.

 

[ByTheSpirit]

I don't think it's a command, that would be counter to the point of worship which is genuineness before the Father.

But it absolutely can be demonstrative and an outward expression of our heart before him. It's no different than a child coming to their parents and raising their hands to be picked up or loved. It's the exact same thing

 

[Berserk]

You've all ignored the fact the Paul is building on Psalm 143:6, in which lifting hands in worship is standard and Pslam 47:1-2 in which clapping your hands for joy is a way of arousing emotion in worship. We are to love God with all our heart, which means with all our emotion.

 

[Aaron112]

"One thing my wife & I have noticed is that when a Modern Contemporary Worship song is played we see the hands lifting in the air. But when a Hymn is played/sung, we rarely ever see those same hands lifted up, if any and not usually til the chorus.
So it seems that the music of today along with perhaps the lyrics to a lesser degree seem to have a manipulative effect on those who want to raise their hands. There seems to be a lot more emotion involved and less meaningful thought.
If some wish to disagree that's fine, but we see what we see and the same pattern we have seen in multiple churches.
On the other hand when we've been to a Bible teaching conference that sing only the Hymns we rarely ever see a pair of hands go up in the air."

 

[Aaron112]

3 Answers (the previous post was 2nd) ​

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"It goes all the way back to Genesis 29:35 at least with Leah raising her hands in praise to YHWH in naming Judah. As a Biblical Hebrew professor thinking in Hebrew, I find the Old Testament full of hand raising. After the most frequent verb for spoken praise HaLeL (Strong's #1984 & 8416), the word most translated (53 times) as "praise" is the verb YaDaH (Strong's #3034) derived from the word for hand/forearm YaD (Strong's #3027). It's also translated (40 times) as "thank" and (18 times) as "confess".
Praise has always been demonstrated physically as well as verbally, even though often religiously repressed. I was worried of being branded as a heretic when I first tried it in my Baptist church, but it caught on like it was the most natural way to express praise. Once freed, the congregations I've been a part of haven't gone back to suppression. Good enough reason to get your hands up."

 

[Berserk]

"One thing my wife & I have noticed is that when a Modern Contemporary Worship song is played we see the hands lifting in the air. But when a Hymn is played/sung, we rarely ever see those same hands lifted up, if any and not usually til the chorus.
So it seems that the music of today along with perhaps the lyrics to a lesser degree seem to have a manipulative effect on those who want to raise their hands. There seems to be a lot more emotion involved and less meaningful thought.
If some wish to disagree that's fine, but we see what we see and the same pattern we have seen in multiple churches.
On the other hand when we've been to a Bible teaching conference that sing only the Hymns we rarely ever see a pair of hands go up in the air."

So does Jesus have people like your head-tripping hymn singers in mind when he warns:

"This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me (Marl 7:6)."

On a lighter note, I'm reminded of an evangelist who bellowed something like this from the pulpit:
"I like my religion the way I like my tea--hot! 'Cause it's easier to put out a fire than to warm up a corpse--and I'd rather be a fool on fire than a scholar on ice! Honestly, when I drive by dem hymn-singing churches, I take my hat off out of respect for the dead!"

 

[Aaron112]

... put in context: any who
".....BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, FOR THEY TEACH AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN."

 

[Diamond7]

Do people in your church argue about whether lifting your hands in worship is too demonstrative or too Charismatic?

Maybe they should find a dead church somewhere if they do not want to get excited about worship. For me there is nothing better than to worship God. Yes, we lift our hands to show we are open to receiving Him into our hearts.

 

[Berserk]

... put in context: any who
".....BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, FOR THEY TEACH AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN."

But that's my point: maybe the concept of stoic hymn singing is a "precept of men." I can see this is touchy subject here because posters have all ducked my verses from the Psalms advocating clapping and the lifting up of hands to aid uninhibited worship.

The pastor of my youth had no sense of humor. But one Sunday, when he was preaching on John the Baptist, he suddenly bellowed, "Then Jordan baptized Jesus in the John!" and then continued his sermon, oblivious to what he had just accidentally said. I quietly giggled to myself. But when I looked around, the whole congregation of 1,500 people just sat there stone-faced! I was 12 at the time and found that absolutely hysterical. I thought to myself, "Isn't anybody here listening?" That image is my stereotype of the mindset of a typical hymn-singing church.

About a year later, this same pastor was preaching on King David. At one point he declared, "And there David stood at the gate of the sanctuary, breathless and panting!" Then he just continued obvious to what he had just said. I immediately looked around and, again, everyone just sat there, stone-faced! But after about a minute, a guy sitting about 30 rows in front of me looked back with a wicked grin on his face. I sighed and thought, to myself, "Well, at least one other guy is listening carefully.

When I think of lifting up hands in worship, I picture the thousands of young adults at a Hillsong songfest with their hands raised, lost in praise some with tears streaming down their faces. I think evangelicals need to rethink what constitutes authentic worship in song because young adults are jumping out of church windows to escape what they view as dreary worship. And I say this as an older adult who naturally prefers hymns to modern gtr zvpraise choruses just because that's what I'm used to from my childhood.

 

[Berserk]

yosef_daniel:
" I have a question about proper behavior during Divine Liturgy. I came from a Pentecostal background where worship was very animated. At home, I pray using a variety of postures. Usually I pray on my knees and I lift my hands towards heaven, either fully extended with the palms facing forward or at my sides with my palms facing up. It would seem weird to me to simply be on my knees and have my arms laying at my side, specifically because the book of Psalms commends the use of worship using the hands and doing other things that would be considered bizarre if done during Sunday liturgy.

Without going into details, there are seven Hebrew words used for praising God, and one is called "yadah" which comes from the word for hand, which is "yad" (even in modern Hebrew). It means to praise God with extended hands, either in praise or surrender. In fact all seven words for praising God involve pretty animated behavior, from banging cymbals, dancing, prostrating and more. The link below contains a very concise overview of the seven different words for praise.

Seven ways (in Hebrew) to praise God

Now, how this relates to Sunday liturgy is something that I find particularly fascinating. The DL is a fascinating, otherworldly, and highly enriching worship service, and one I want to follow. However, it's not the sort of worship service that you would see the psalmist participating in.

As someone who was raised to praise God in church with extended hands, I often wonder what I should be doing with my hands during DL. Obviously, to lift my hands in an extended way would be rather odd, though I suspect it would not get me escorted out of the church. If I started verbally praising God while doing it, I probably would be asked to leave."