Question: “Worship, as far as I am concerned should bring spiritual refreshing and draw you closer to God. Also, we should worship God with dances like king David did in the Psalms. How can we get that spiritual refreshment in our worship if we are not allowed to dance?”

Answer: “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40, NKJV).

“By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established” (2 Corinthians 13:1).

“Let them praise His name with the dance; Let them sing praises to Him with the timbrel and harp” (Psalm 149:3, NKJV).

“Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!” (Psalm 150:4, NKJV).

“Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, ‘Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.’ So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. ‘O Baal, answer us!’ they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. At noon Elijah began to taunt them. ‘Shout louder!’ he said. ‘Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.’ So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention” (1 Kings 18:25-29, NIV).

“Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, ‘Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ And Aaron said to them, ‘Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.’ So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, ‘Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.’ Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses’ anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount” (Exodus 32:1-7, 19, NKJV, KJV).

“Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry [dance]’” (1 Corinthians 10:5-7, NIV)

“You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jesus, speaking in John 4:22-24, NKJV).

“And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5:32, NKJV).

According to Jesus, spirit and truth are both essential in the worship of God. In order to achieve proper worship of God, we need both the Spirit of God and the truth of God. The Spirit is not something we can conjure up or manufacture through our worship styles. Christianity is not like a heathen religion, trying to force God’s Spirit to respond by our actions. We cannot dance and leap as the Baal worshippers at Carmel in order to conjure up the Spirit of God. The Bible indicates that God’s Spirit is present in worship when we obey the truth of God’s Word.

Having said that I would like to answer this question in three ways:

1) What the Bible says about dance in worship

2) What the Bible says against dance in worship

3) What the Bible says about how to worship

First let’s examine the evidence for dance in worship. It is clear that there are some verses that seem to indicate that dance is acceptable in the worship of God. It should be noted however, that these verses are authored by David who also danced before the Lord. One of the principle methods of arriving at Christian practice is to allow “two or three witnesses” that is, biblical authors, to confirm doctrine. It has been difficult for any church to do this based on lack of clear evidence for dance in worship from more than one source. In addition, David danced before the Lord alone (see 2 Sam 6:16). There is no evidence that others joined him, making his dance even less of an example for a congregation in worship. (Yes, there are a couple other examples of dance among God’s people in the Bible, but these were in victory celebration, not worship and done by the women only; (see Exodus 15:20; 1 Sam 18:6;).

The evidence against dance in worship is more abundant. We find two witnesses in Moses and Elijah that indicate that dance was something used by those who worshipped God falsely. Both at Sinai and on Carmel the professed followers of God set a bad example of worship style by dancing. This brought severe consequences from God and a warning from Paul in the New Testament not to follow their example (see 1 Corinthians 10:5-7)

Finally, let’s consider the evidence for proper worship. If we take a biblical approach to this question we can see that God has given us abundant evidence of when to worship Him, that is, on the Sabbath day. Compare the small amount of biblical evidence we have for dance with the ample biblical evidence we have for worshipping God on the Sabbath day. We can see clearly that dance in worship is a distraction to the more important issue of the day God blessed and sanctified for worship (see Genesis 2:1-3; Revelation 14:7). God never says He blessed and sanctified dance for worship. In addition, God has promised His Spirit to those who obey Him. In the end, dance in worship is a side issue to distract us from worshipping God in spirit and truth. Dance in worship has led God’s people to idolatry, confusion, and apostasy. Let’s make sure we follow the clear teaching of God’s Word and we will then have the promise of His Spirit. And when we have the Spirit we have true spiritual refreshing.

                                                                                                                                                                      Question:  “Why do people close their eyes when praying, is it biblical?

Answer: “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until he has mercy upon us (Psalm 123: 1, 2, NRSV).

“And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13, KJV).

The first Scripture indicates that our eyes should look to God; the second verse, that we are not worthy to look to God. When we close our eyes in prayer we recognize our unworthiness, like the publican. We also free ourselves from any distractions so that our minds can be focused on looking to God as indicated in the first Scripture. 

                                                                                                                                                                   Question:  Some of my friends said that if we don’t praise God three times a day, that we are not real Christians and we will not be saved in the second coming. Is it true?

Answer:  We cannot limit our praise to God or try to make it fit a certain number of times per day and call this salvation. This is legalism. We are not saved or lost because of how many times a day we praise God. What we want is a relationship with Jesus Christ that brings us into a continual attitude of praise. Praise is a fruit of salvation, it is not the way we are saved. We are not saved by praising God, but rather we praise God because He is our Savior. Praise then is no longer a duty we perform three times a day in order to be saved. It is the continual response of thankfulness to God for His love to us.  

The Continual Sacrifice of Praise

“By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased” (Hebrews 13:15, 16).

In Christ God has given the ultimate sacrifice, the very best, which is to bring forth from us the sacrifice of praise. The more we dwell upon the love of God, the more we realize the gift of heaven, the more continual and spontaneous will be our praise to God. In saying this, Paul is again drawing us to the reality of faith in Jesus from the symbols/types of the earthly sanctuary.

In the Torah (the first five books of the Bible), specifically in Numbers and Leviticus the “daily” (Strong’s #8548) is identified with the earthly sanctuary service. The sacrifices for sin, incense, lamps of light, shewbread and ministration of the priests were all identified as “daily” or “continual” (#8548) aspects of the sanctuary service (Leviticus 6:13; 24:2; Exodus 28:29; 29:42; 30:8; Numbers 4:7).

The earthly sanctuary and its divine ordinances all pointed to Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice, incense, light, bread and priest (Hebrews 7:27; Ephesians 5:2; John 1:9; John 6:51; Hebrews 7:24). Therefore the earthly sanctuary was God’s method of pointing us to entire dependence in Him. This is why the same word, “daily,” which means the “continual,” is found throughout the Bible in verses that direct us into close relationship with God. Here are a few examples:

1)    In Psalm 40:16 we are to say “continually [#8548], the Lord be magnified”   

2)    In 1 Chronicles 16:11 God longs for us to “seek His face continually [#8548]” To give Him thanks; make know His deeds among the people; to sing unto him, to glory in God and remember His marvelous works (see 1 Chronicles 16:8-12). 

3)    When we look to God instead of man “His praise shall continually” [#8548] be in our “mouths” according to Psalm 34:1.

4)    God’s “loving-kindness” and “truth” is to “continually [#8548] preserve” us (Psalm 40:11).

5)    And God alone is to be our “strong habitation” where we “continually [#8548] resort” (Psalm 71:3).

The entire sanctuary service was designed to point us to a continual relationship with Jesus Christ as our Savior, spiritual lover and best friend.