Final Thoughts (IV)

So what to do? I think that there are at least four areas of concern about the use of Jehovah in worship.

1) The importance of names. Throughout the Old Testament there is an emphasis on names and the meaning of names. E.g. Laughter (Isaac), He struggles with God (Israel), Abraham (Father of Nations) , The Glory has Departed (Ichabod), etc. God was very precise in how he revealed his name to Moses. We need to reflect that precision. Given all of the scriptures that emphasize the importance of calling on the name of God, we need to try to honor them.

2) Ignorance of the church. As an evangelical community, we latch onto fads and the success of others. A herd instinct develops and we tend to follow the lead of others rather uncritically. One of these is the uncritical acceptance of Hebrew words in our worship. We use words with which we are unfamiliar. As the great Inigo Montoya once said “I do not think it means what you think it means.” We should educate our congregations on the importance of worship.

3) Since it is a term most closely associated with a cult, I think that we should rethink our use of it in the context of worship. If we were using a term like “Latter Day Saints” in worship, I would recommend restricting its use as well. (The LDS has its own problems with the Old Testament). I am not sure that it is possible to use the term Jehovah without lending credibility to the Jehovah’s Witnesses group.

4) Jesus commands us to worship him “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). The use of Jehovah is inconsistent with worshipping God in truth. Jehovah is not nor has ever been a true name of God.

For these reasons, I believe that the church should eliminate references in choruses and on banners and certainly in sermons to Jehovah. We should know better.

Your Thoughts??

(I know what you're thinking: "The next thing he will tell us is that the Chinese character for crisis isn't really a combination of danger and opportunity.")