Heart of Worship
Pixabay When did the organized, communal worship of God begin? I don’t think I have ever asked that question before. But this morning my curiosity “bone” was tickled when I read this interesting phrase at the end of Genesis 4: “ At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord ” (vs. 26). The context tells us that this happened around the time Adam and Eve’s third son, Seth, had a son of his own called Enosh. Experts calculate that this was some two hundred and forty years after the creation of Adam. It’s an odd phrase that seems to imply that before this people didn’t communicate with God. But we know that some did. The general consensus seems to agree with Matthew Poole’s comments: “ to call upon the name of the Lord; to pray unto God, to worship God in a more public and solemn manner; praying being here put for the whole worship of God, as Genesis 12:8, Genesis 26:25, and in many other places. According to the marginal version, the sense is this: Then when the world w...