Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? (ch. 2 – practice of worship)

In his second chapter on “Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?”, Dunn moves from studying the language of worship as applied (or not) to Jesus, and turns to exploring the act of worship in practice. The four categories Dunn explores are Prayer, Hymns and songs, devotion of sacred space/time, and sacrifice. Dunn explains that the actual practice of worship variously included these four, and goes on to check the evidence as to whether or not these were applied to Jesus.

Prayer – briefly, the word most used in the NT for prayer is proseuchesthai. It has the literal meaning of praying, as to God. It is used only of God. It is not used of Jesus. In fact, none of the words that are used exclusively for prayer are ever used to refer to praying to Jesus.

The words that are used in reference to Jesus are the words that mean asking. Many times we find persons in the new testament asking Jesus for things, or being told to.

While praying to Jesus in the strictest sense in not attested to, the scripture speaks much of praying through, or in the name of, Jesus.

Hymns/songs – While Christ is the focus and the subject of many hymns in the NT, he is not ever sung to. With a caveat, discussed in a moment. It is important to note that while Christ is celebrated in song, he is never addressed by them. They are thanking God for God’s work in Christ, not thanking Christ. The exception is in Revelation, where the Lamb is the receiver of the praise. This song alone, however, is dubious evidence, given the context to make a dent in the weight of evidence.

Sacred space/time – this is hard to address. First, the temple and the synagogues were the sacred spaces for YHWH. To what extent would worship of Jesus be differentiated from these? Well, according to Dunn, worship through Jesus, or worship of God in Jesus, transcended place, or rather, made every place the believer was, sacred. This sort of muddies the water of cultic worship, because this is unprecedented and innovative. No conclusive evidence.

Sacrifice – almost all cultic worship in antiquity involved sacrifice of some kind. It is important to note, even if not completely relevant for our discussion, that even animal sacrifice was not wanton killing. The meat was used to feed people, so while the meat was eaten, the spectacle was observed for religious effect.

at any rate, the early Christians had a love/hate relationship with sacrifice. On one hand, Dunn points out that the earliest Christians participated in cultic sacrifices, even after Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus himself, while on earth, did as well. Nevertheless, there was an understanding that, even early on, Jesus had somehow replaced and superseded any other sacrifice. In this respect, Jesus was the one sacrificed, not the one sacrificed to.
So what is the evidence in this chapter?

Jesus was not prayed to, but prayed through. Jesus was also entreated and asked.

Jesus was not sung to*, but he was the topic and occasion of hymns.

Jesus did not have a sacred space devoted to him, but he freed the worship of God from time and place.

Jesus did not have anyone sacrifice to him, but instead was the sacrifice to God.
Once again, Dunn, and I find his thought compelling, suggests that Jesus was not worshiped as we think of worship, but to leave it there does huge disservice to the NT evidence. There is more to this Jesus than, “he was not worshiped”. The Ebionites Got Jesus wrong, and it seems likely that Chalcedon might have as well…

Optimistic Chad

Chad really really hopes things are going to turn out ok. He loves his wife - with the passion of 1000 exploding suns, and is a diligent, but surely mediocre father to his brilliant and subversive children. He likes Chinese food.