What this page is asking
The author of this site set down a thesis to be tested: “Much of modern church worship resembles the methods used by the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, not the methods used by Elijah (1 Kings 18).”
He was careful to say what the thesis is not. “I am not at all saying that the modern church worships Baal. The claim is about method, not about the object of worship.” The prophets of Baal tried to get a response from their god through repetition, bodily frenzy, rising volume and escalating effort. Elijah repaired the LORD’s altar, offered at the appointed time of sacrifice, prayed a short prayer grounded in God’s covenant and Word, and left the outcome to God. Many modern services, he suggests, look more like the first than the second.
He asked two questions, and the page takes them in order. First, when the two methods in 1 Kings 18 are set side by side, which does modern worship more closely resemble? Second, does the method of worship teach something about who God is, even when the name being called on is the LORD’s?
He also set the scope. The page stays with the comparison in 1 Kings 18. It is not a debate about musical style: hymns or contemporary songs, organs or guitars. It does not judge the sincerity or the salvation of anyone who worships. The question is what the methods assume about God, and whose methods they resemble.
Two methods, labelled so they can be told apart
The page compares two methods of worship all the way through. They are given letters so that it can refer to them briefly.
Method R · held by this page
The ResponseGod has spoken, promised and acted first. Worship receives what he gives and answers him: it gathers at the place and hour he has appointed, prays on the ground of his word, and leaves the outcome to him. The worshippers’ effort is real, but it is not what obtains God’s presence. God is the actor; the people respond.Method P · under test
The ProductionGod’s presence or answer has still to be obtained, and the worshippers’ intensity is what obtains it. When nothing seems to happen, the remedy is more: more repetition, more volume, more physical effort, more time. The worshippers are the actors; God is expected to respond.Nobody, so far as the author knows, teaches Method P as a doctrine. Most Christians who worship in ways the page examines would say at once that God is present by grace and cannot be manipulated. The page’s question is whether a method can assume what its users would deny. That is why it looks at methods, and not at statements of belief.
What both sides agree on
The thesis under test
That the prophets of Baal sought an answer by repetition, bodily frenzy, rising volume and costly effort (1 Kings 18:26–29), and that Elijah’s mockery names the theology behind it, a god who sleeps and must be awakened (18:27; contrast Psalm 121:4). That Elijah’s method was the reverse: he repaired the LORD’s altar with twelve stones (18:30–32; Exodus 24:4; Joshua 4), prayed at the hour of the evening sacrifice (18:36; Exodus 29:38–41), prayed briefly on the ground of God’s covenant and word (18:36–37), made the result impossible to attribute to himself (18:33–35), and left the outcome to God. That Jesus forbids prayer that expects to be heard for its much speaking (Matthew 6:7–8), and Paul requires that worship be done decently and in order (1 Corinthians 14:32–33, 40). That Scripture forbids borrowing the nations’ methods for the LORD’s worship (Deuteronomy 12:30–32), and records the LORD’s name used with a forbidden method (Exodus 32:5). That the difference between the two methods is not volume or emotion but purpose: responding to God’s promised presence, or trying to produce it. And that a method teaches what it assumes (lex orandi, lex credendi).
The scope of this page, stated narrowly
This page compares two methods described in 1 Kings 18 and asks which modern practice more closely resembles. It does not say any church worships Baal. It does not discuss musical style, instruments or the age of songs. It does not judge any worshipper’s sincerity, faith or salvation. It does not argue for one tradition’s liturgy against another’s, nor for the Puritan rule that only what Scripture commands may be done in worship. It draws no application from the execution of the prophets in 18:40, which belongs to the civil law of ancient Israel. Earlier dossiers on informal worship (20), the altar and the stage (36), the self as the subject of worship (50), the means of grace (52), proving dedication by effort (56) and the duty to test what is claimed in God’s name (03) are linked, not repeated.
What the page concludes, stated up front
- The two methods on Carmel are opposites at almost every point. One altar was made; the other was repaired. One prayer lasted hours; the other, sixty-three words. One side escalated; the other waited for the appointed hour. Part I.
- Repetition is not the problem; repetition as a technique is. Psalm 136 repeats its refrain twenty-six times, and Jesus prayed “the same words” three times. What Jesus forbids is the expectation of being heard “for their much speaking.” Part II.
- In Scripture, dance in worship follows what God has done. Miriam danced after the sea, David after the ark was blessed, the lame man after he was healed. The prophets of Baal danced to obtain an answer that never came. Part III.
- Escalation assumes a god who must be roused. Elijah says so in his mockery; Psalm 121 says the LORD never sleeps; and Jesus says the Father knows what we need before we ask. Part IV.
- Ecstasy is not pagan in itself, but it is not a sign of God either. Paul requires that the spirits of prophets be subject to the prophets; Edwards showed that high emotion proves nothing either way. Part V.
- Elijah repaired an inherited altar and kept the appointed hour. The apostles kept the hours of prayer, and the early Church kept fixed prayer and ordered worship. Part VI.
- Elijah’s prayer rests on God’s covenant, God’s word and God’s glory. Its only request for himself is to be known as God’s servant. Part VII.
- Elijah made a human explanation impossible. Much modern production makes an emotional experience easy to produce and hard to tell apart from God’s work. Part VIII.
- In the Baal method the worshippers act and the god must respond; in Elijah’s, God acts and the people respond. The historic Church built its service on the second. Part IX.
- Most of Scripture’s failures in worship used the right name. The calf, Jeroboam’s feast, Nadab’s fire, Uzzah’s cart, Saul’s sacrifice: five of six called on the LORD. Part X.
- The difference is purpose, not volume. Loud worship can be Elijah’s kind, and quiet, ordered worship can be the other. Part XI.
- The narrow point is narrow. It proves no idolatry and judges no heart. It gives readers a test they can apply to the worship they know. Part XII.
The prompt behind this page
Everything below was produced by giving the following brief to a frontier language model with web search, which assembled and checked the sources. It is published so you can run it yourself, change it, sharpen it, or reverse it and see what comes back. Three experiments are worth more than reading this page. First, reverse it: ask for the strongest case that intense, extended, physically expressive worship is the biblical norm, and see which texts it has to rely on and how it reads 1 Kings 18. Second, narrow it: describe one service you attended, in as much detail as you can, and ask only which of the two methods on Carmel each part of it more closely resembles, and why. Third, widen it: ask the same question of a traditional liturgy, and see whether a quiet, ordered service can also be used as a technique for obtaining something from God.
Write a detailed, source-first, interactive article, in British
English, for a general reader who is willing to work. Quote Scripture
from the Authorised Version. Date and attribute every other
quotation: give the work, the edition or translation, and the
section. Verify every quotation against a reliable published source;
where a quotation cannot be verified, cut it, or say that it is
given at second hand. Do not invent quotes. Do not take verses out
of context.
TITLE. Perhaps He Is Asleep
QUESTION. Whose methods are we using: Elijah's or Baal's
prophets'?
THESIS TO TEST. Much of modern church worship resembles the
methods used by the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, not the
methods used by Elijah (1 Kings 18).
CORE CLAIM. I am not at all saying that the modern church worships
Baal. The claim is about method, not about the object of worship.
The prophets of Baal tried to get a response from their god
through repetition, bodily frenzy, rising volume, and escalating
effort. Elijah repaired the LORD's altar, offered at the appointed
time of sacrifice, prayed a short prayer grounded in God's
covenant and Word, and left the outcome to God. Many modern
worship services seem to look more like the first than the
second.
QUESTIONS. When we set the two methods in 1 Kings 18 side by
side, which one does modern worship more closely resemble? Does
the method of worship teach something about who God is, even when
the name being called on is the LORD's?
SCOPE. Stay with the comparison in 1 Kings 18. Do not turn this
into a debate about musical style (hymns versus contemporary
songs, organs versus guitars). Do not judge the sincerity or
salvation of individual worshippers. The question is what the
methods assume about God, and whose methods they resemble.
THE TEXT. 1 Kings 18:20-39. The prophets of Baal call on Baal
from morning until noon (18:26); they leap or limp about the
altar they made (18:26); Elijah mocks them: perhaps their god is
musing, relieving himself, on a journey, or asleep and must be
awakened (18:27); they cry aloud and cut themselves after their
custom until the blood gushes out (18:28); they prophesy
ecstatically until the time of the evening offering, but there
is no voice, no answer, no one paying attention (18:29). Elijah
calls the people near, repairs the altar of the LORD that had
been thrown down, with twelve stones for the tribes (18:30-31);
drenches the sacrifice and wood with water three times
(18:33-35); at the time of the evening offering prays a short
prayer to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, "I have done all
these things at thy word," asking that the people may know the
LORD is God and that he has turned their hearts back (18:36-37).
The fire of the LORD falls (18:38).
POINTS TO TEST.
1. Repetition used as a technique: Matthew 6:7. Scripture
itself repeats (Psalm 136; Revelation 4:8), so the question
is the purpose of the repetition, not repetition itself.
2. Bodily frenzy to rouse a god, against David dancing before
the ark in response to God's presence (2 Samuel 6:14).
3. Escalation when nothing happens (18:28), against Psalm
121:4. Does modern worship repeat the song, swell the music
and urge the congregation to "press in" when "the Spirit
isn't moving"?
4. Costly effort to compel a response: cutting "after their
custom" (Leviticus 19:28; Deuteronomy 14:1). Do ideas such as
"contending," "breakthrough" and all-night worship to "bring
down the fire" rest on the same assumption, that the
worshipper's intensity obtains God's response?
5. Ecstasy and order: 1 Corinthians 14:32-33, 40.
6. Elijah restored the inherited altar: Exodus 24:4; Joshua 4.
Do historic, inherited forms play the role of the repaired
altar?
7. Elijah kept the appointed time: Exodus 29:38-41; Numbers
28:3-8; the daily office, the church year, liturgy built from
Scripture.
8. Elijah prayed briefly and rested on God's promises. Compare
length, tone and content with the hours-long cry.
9. Elijah made it harder, not easier. Do lighting, haze, volume
and musical dynamics make an emotional "encounter" easier to
produce and harder to tell apart from God's work?
10. Who is the actor in worship? The Lutheran Divine Service
(Gottesdienst): God serves his people through Word and
Sacrament (Matthew 18:20; 28:20). Is God's presence treated
as promised and given, or as something to be produced?
11. Scripture warns against borrowing the nations' methods:
Deuteronomy 12:30-31; the golden calf as "a feast to the
LORD" (Exodus 32:5).
12. The strongest case for the other side: Psalm 47:1; 149:3;
150:4-5; 33:3; 2 Samuel 6:14; Acts 2:13; the Kyrie, Agnus Dei
and Sanctus; emotion is not pagan; much modern worship is
reverent and Scripture-filled; the historic Church has had
its own excesses. Is the difference volume and emotion, or
purpose: responding to God's promised presence versus trying
to produce it?
13. What the narrow point does and does not prove. A resemblance
in method does not prove idolatry, and no one can read
hearts. But lex orandi, lex credendi: if a method assumes God
must be roused, persuaded or ushered in by human intensity,
it may teach a Baal-like picture of God even when the name
sung is the LORD's. Let readers decide.
OBJECTIONS. Answer objections inside the argument, where each one
arises, at full strength. No separate counter-case section. Where
the evidence corrects or qualifies the brief, say so in a marked
box.
NAMING. No living individual named as an example. Deceased writers
quoted from dated, published works. Every modern example of worship
language composed and labelled as composed.
INTERACTIVES. A priors quiz. The details of the contest sorted
between the two altars. Repetitions sorted by purpose. Dances
sorted by whether they came before or after God's act. A slider
through the day on Carmel. Worship-leader sentences sorted by what
they assume. Edwards's "no certain signs." The hours of prayer.
Elijah's prayer phrase by phrase. Effects sorted by who could
produce them. Verbs sorted by subject; parts of a service sorted by
who gives. Failures in Scripture sorted by whose name was used.
Scenes placed by volume and purpose. An objection drill the reader
answers first. Claims sorted by whether the argument proves them. A
test to take into church, and the reader's own verdict.
OUTPUT: a single self-contained interactive HTML page, professional
and readable, light theme by default with a dark switch, stating the
question at the top, publishing this prompt in full, repeating the
key points in prominent boxes for readers who skim, explaining every
technical term in a box where it is used, and giving the reader
something to do in every major section. Also produce a plain-English
quick version of about fifteen minutes with three short exercises,
and a Simple English version with no exercises.
The page you are reading is the output of that brief after the sources were checked. The brief quoted 1 Kings 18 from a modern version; the page gives it from the Authorised Version, as it does everywhere on this site. Eight things qualified the brief, and each is marked where it arises.
1. The Authorised Version says the prophets “leaped upon the altar,” and that they “prophesied.” Modern versions have “limped around” and “raved.” The Hebrew verb in 18:26 is the one Elijah used in 18:21, “How long halt ye between two opinions?”, which strengthens the brief: the people limp between two gods, and the prophets limp around one. Part I.
2. The word for the prophets’ frenzy is also used of the Spirit of God. The same reflexive form of “prophesy” describes Saul under an evil spirit (1 Samuel 18:10), but also Saul when “the Spirit of God came upon him” (1 Samuel 10:10). Ecstasy is not pagan in itself. Part V.
3. Elijah’s altar was on Carmel, not at the temple. It was an altar “of the LORD that was broken down” (18:30; compare 19:10), not the Jerusalem altar the Law appointed. The point about an inherited altar stands, but Elijah’s act was extraordinary, and the page says so. Part VI.
4. Elijah also repeated himself, and persisted. His prayer says “Hear me, O LORD, hear me,” and in the same chapter he sends his servant to look for rain seven times (18:43–44). Repetition and persistence are not, by themselves, the prophets’ method. Parts II and IV.
5. Scripture itself cries “Awake” to God. “Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord?” (Psalm 44:23). The page reads it in its setting, as the lament of a covenant people, not a technique. Part IV.
6. The laws cited have narrower settings. Leviticus 19:28 and Deuteronomy 14:1 forbid cutting “for the dead.” The abomination named in Deuteronomy 12:31 is the burning of children. The page applies their principle with that stated. Parts IV and X.
7. Jesus did not forbid repetition as such. The Authorised Version’s “vain repetitions” in Matthew 6:7 translates a rare Greek verb, battalogeō, which means to babble or heap up words. In Gethsemane Jesus prayed a third time, “saying the same words” (Matthew 26:44). Part II.
8. Lex orandi, lex credendi is a later shortening. The original sentence, from Prosper of Aquitaine in the fifth century, says “that the law of praying should establish the law of believing,” and was written about prayers asking God to give faith to unbelievers. It argues that the Church’s prayers show God to be the giver. Part XII.
What do you currently think?
Ten questions. Each has a determinate answer, and you can check every one yourself in 1 Kings 18 and the texts in Part XIV. Answer them before reading and lock them in. They come back in Part XIII with the sources beside them.
What follows
Two altars on Carmel
The setting is the northern kingdom of Israel, in the reign of Ahab, after three years without rain. Ahab’s queen, Jezebel, had brought the worship of Baal from Sidon, and her table fed “the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred” (18:19). Elijah proposed a test that both sides accepted. Each would prepare a bullock, lay it on wood, and put no fire under it. “And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken” (18:24).
Notice what the test assumes. Both sides wanted the same thing: fire from heaven. Both called on a name. The contest was not between people who sought an answer and people who did not. It was between two ways of seeking one, and the narrator describes each in detail. Here is the first.
And they took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded.
1 Kings 18:26–29.
And here is the second.
And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me. And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the LORD that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the LORD came, saying, Israel shall be thy name: And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD … And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. And he said, Do it the second time. And they did it the second time. And he said, Do it the third time. And they did it the third time … And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the LORD fell … And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.
1 Kings 18:30–39. Verse 32 adds that he dug a trench round the altar, and verse 35 that the water filled it.
Try it: which altar?
Twelve details from the chapter. For each, decide whether it describes the prophets of Baal or Elijah. Then see the verse.
0 of 12 sorted
The two methods, side by side
| The prophets of Baal | Elijah | |
|---|---|---|
| The altar | “The altar which was made” (18:26) | “The altar of the LORD that was broken down,” repaired with twelve stones (18:30–31) |
| How long | “From morning even until noon,” then on “until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” (18:26, 29) | One prayer, “at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” (18:36) |
| The words | “O Baal, hear us” (18:26): three words, for hours | Sixty-three words in the Authorised Version (18:36–37) |
| The body | Leaping or limping at the altar; cutting “till the blood gushed out” (18:26, 28) | “Came near” (18:36). Nothing else is recorded |
| When nothing happened | “They cried aloud,” cut themselves, and prophesied (18:28–29) | Elijah made it less likely to happen: twelve barrels of water (18:33–35) |
| The grounds | Their own effort, and their god’s attention | God’s covenant name, God’s word, God’s glory: “I have done all these things at thy word” (18:36) |
| The purpose | “Hear us” | “That this people may know that thou art the LORD God” (18:37) |
| The outcome | “Neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded” (18:29) | “The fire of the LORD fell” (18:38) |
Both sides sought the same answer and called on a name. The prophets made an altar, worked on their god for hours, and escalated. Elijah repaired the LORD’s altar, waited for the appointed hour, prayed briefly on God’s word, and left the outcome to God. The narrator sets the two methods side by side on purpose.
Repetition as a technique
The prophets of Baal had one prayer, “O Baal, hear us,” and they said it “from morning even until noon” (18:26). The narrator gives no other words. Six hours of three words is not prayer that happens to repeat itself. The repetition is the method.
Jesus names the method and the belief behind it in the Sermon on the Mount, and then gives the reason his disciples need not use it.
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven …
Matthew 6:7–9. The prayer Jesus gives in the next breath runs to sixty-six words in the Authorised Version, doxology included. Elijah’s, in Part VII, runs to sixty-three.
The logic of the passage is worth following slowly. The heathen pile up words because they think volume of speech obtains a hearing. The disciples are not to be “like unto them,” and the reason given is not a rule about length but a fact about God: he already knows. The cure for the Baal method is not a shorter prayer as such. It is a different God.
“Vain repetitions” translates a rare Greek verb, battalogeō, which means to babble or to heap up empty words. It is the purpose, “they think that they shall be heard,” that Jesus forbids. He himself, in Gethsemane, “went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words” (Matthew 26:44). And Elijah’s own prayer repeats: “Hear me, O LORD, hear me” (18:37).
Scripture repeats a great deal. Psalm 136 has the same refrain in every one of its twenty-six verses: “for his mercy endureth for ever.” The living creatures of the Revelation “rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty” (Revelation 4:8). The historic liturgy repeats as well: the Kyrie, “Lord, have mercy,” is said or sung three or nine times; the Agnus Dei three times; the Sanctus takes up the threefold “Holy” of Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4. So the author was right to say that the question is the purpose of the repetition, not repetition itself.
What, then, distinguishes the repetition of Psalm 136 from the repetition on Carmel? Read the psalm and the answer is plain. Each repeated line is attached to a different act of God: he made the heavens, he struck Egypt’s firstborn, he divided the Red Sea, he led his people through the wilderness, he “remembered us in our low estate” (136:23). The refrain answers what God has done. On Carmel, nothing had been done, and the refrain was an attempt to make something happen. The creatures of Revelation 4 repeat “Holy” because they are before the throne and see; they are not trying to reach it. And Jesus’ “same words” in Gethsemane end in submission, not pressure: “nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (26:39).
The New Testament gives one more example of the Carmel kind, and it is instructive because it is a crowd. At Ephesus, when the craftsmen of Diana’s shrines rioted against Paul, the crowd “all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians” (Acts 19:34). Two hours of one phrase did not reach a goddess. It built a crowd, and the town clerk had to quiet it.
Try it: what is the repetition for?
Nine repetitions, from Scripture, from the historic liturgy, and two composed by this page. For each, does the repetition answer who God is and what he has done, or is it a technique to produce an effect?
0 of 9 sorted
The same chorus, introduced two ways. “We’re going to keep singing this line until we feel him come into the room.” Or: “We’ll sing this again, because it is what the psalm says every time it remembers what God has done: his mercy endures for ever.” The words sung afterwards may be identical. What the congregation is taught about God is not.
Scripture repeats, and so does the historic liturgy. What Jesus forbids is repetition that expects to be heard for its much speaking, and his reason is that the Father already knows. Repetition that answers what God has done is Psalm 136. Repetition used to make something happen is Carmel.
The dance: before the answer, or after?
The prophets “leaped upon the altar which was made” (18:26). Most commentators take the verb to describe a ritual dance, a hopping or limping step around the altar. Whatever its exact form, its place in the story is clear. It came after “there was no voice, nor any that answered,” and it was part of the effort to obtain one.
The brief rightly contrasts David. When the ark of the LORD was brought up to Jerusalem, “David danced before the LORD with all his might” (2 Samuel 6:14), and when his wife Michal despised him for it he replied, “It was before the LORD … therefore will I play before the LORD. And I will yet be more vile than thus” (6:21–22). Scripture does not side with Michal. Bodily, unrestrained joy in worship has David behind it, and Psalm 149 commands it: “Let them praise his name in the dance” (149:3).
But look at the order of events. David’s dance follows two things. The first is a blessing already given: “it was told king David, saying, The LORD hath blessed the house of Obededom … because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark” (6:12). The second is a failure corrected. David’s first attempt to bring up the ark, with music “on all manner of instruments” (6:5), had ended with Uzzah dead beside a new cart. The Chronicler records David’s own diagnosis: “the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order” (1 Chronicles 15:13). The second time, “the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of the LORD” (15:15), and sacrifices were offered every six paces (2 Samuel 6:13). David danced “with all his might” inside an order God had given, in response to a presence God had given.
“David is the proof that intense, physical, even undignified worship pleases God. Michal was the one judged. Psalm 149 and Psalm 150 command dancing. You are calling David’s worship Baal’s.”
The answer. The page calls nothing of David’s Baal’s, and grants every word of the objection about the body. What separates the two dances is not intensity, since David was at least as intense, but direction. David danced because the LORD had blessed and the ark was coming up by the due order. The prophets danced because nothing had come. Psalm 149 gives its own reason in the next verse: “For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation” (149:4).
Try it: before the answer, or after?
Six dances in Scripture. For each, was it a response to something God had already done, an effort to obtain an answer, or a celebration before a god the people had made?
Scripture commands dancing and defends David’s. In every case it approves, the dance follows what God has done. The prophets of Baal danced to obtain an answer that never came. The question for any worship that uses the body is the same: is it answering God, or working on him?
Louder, when nothing happens
At noon, after six hours of “O Baal, hear us,” Elijah spoke. His mockery is one of the most savage passages in the Old Testament, and it is precise.
Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
1 Kings 18:27. “He is talking” is usually taken to mean musing or occupied; “pursuing” is a Hebrew phrase many commentators take as a euphemism for relieving himself, which is how the brief renders it.
Every one of Elijah’s suggestions describes a god who is not attending. He is busy, or away, or asleep, and so the worshippers must get his attention. Elijah does not mock their sincerity. He mocks the theology their method assumes, and he tells them to do exactly what that theology requires: “Cry aloud.” They did. “And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them” (18:28).
Scripture answers Elijah’s question directly. The God of Israel “shall neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4). “The everlasting God, the LORD … fainteth not, neither is weary” (Isaiah 40:28). “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24). Habakkuk turns Elijah’s mockery into a woe: “Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise … But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him” (Habakkuk 2:19–20). The idol must be woken; the LORD must be listened to.
Try it: the day on Carmel
Move the slider through the hours of the contest. Watch the two lines: how hard the worshippers are working, and what comes back.
The modern vocabulary of escalation
The author asked whether some modern worship does the same thing when “the Spirit isn’t moving”: the song is repeated, the music swells, the leader urges the congregation to “press in.” The page cannot measure how common this is, and quotes no one. But the vocabulary is familiar, and it is fair to ask what each word assumes. To press in suggests a presence that is near but not yet reached. A breakthrough is something that resists until enough force is applied. To contend for the fire, or to worship all night until it falls, places the worshippers’ endurance between the congregation and God’s answer. None of these words is wrong in every use; Christians have meant good things by all of them. But each, used as a method, carries the assumption Elijah mocked: that the answer depends on how hard the worshippers try.
Costly effort
The prophets did not only shout. They cut themselves, “after their manner,” until the blood gushed out (18:28). The Law forbade the practice to Israel: “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead” (Leviticus 19:28); “Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves” (Deuteronomy 14:1).
Both laws concern mourning “for the dead,” not the rite on Carmel. What they share with it is the principle that the LORD’s people do not use self-inflicted pain as an offering. Deuteronomy 14:1 gives the reason before the rule: “Ye are the children of the LORD your God.” Children do not need to bleed to be heard by their father.
Nobody suggests that modern worshippers draw blood. The question the author asked is whether some modern practices rest on the same assumption: that the worshipper’s cost obtains God’s response. A night without sleep, a fast, a long vigil are all known to the historic Church and to Scripture. The difference lies in what they are understood to do. A vigil kept because the Church keeps watch before Easter, or a fast kept because Christ said “when ye fast” (Matthew 6:16), is a response. A vigil kept because God will not come unless he is outlasted is the Carmel method, whatever is sung during it.
“Scripture commands persistence. Jesus told the parable of the widow ‘to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint’ (Luke 18:1), and of the friend at midnight who received ‘because of his importunity’ (Luke 11:8). Jacob wrestled all night and would not let go ‘except thou bless me’ (Genesis 32:26). Elijah himself, in this very chapter, prayed seven times for rain. The psalmist even cries, ‘Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord?’ (Psalm 44:23). Pressing in is biblical.”
The answer. Every one of these texts is real, and the page has to read each in its place. The parables argue from the lesser to the greater, not from likeness. The judge “feared not God, neither regarded man”; “shall not God avenge his own elect …? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily” (Luke 18:2, 7–8). The friend is reluctant; “how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13). Jesus’ point is that God is not like the reluctant judge or the sleeping friend. Persistence is commended because God is faithful, not because he must be worn down. Jacob’s struggle was begun by God, not by Jacob: “there wrestled a man with him” (Genesis 32:24), and it ended with Jacob lamed. Elijah’s seven prayers for rain asked for what God had already promised (“I will send rain upon the earth,” 18:1); he prayed bowed down, “his face between his knees” (18:42), and sent his servant to look. Nothing in the account escalates. Psalm 44 is the lament of a covenant people: “yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant” (44:17), ending “redeem us for thy mercies’ sake” (44:26). Its “Awake” is honest complaint, grounded in God’s mercy. It is a cry, not a technique, and it is not accompanied by blood.
Try it: what does this sentence assume?
Eight sentences a worship leader might say. All are composed by the page, or taken from the ancient liturgy, and quoted from no one living. For each, what does it assume about God’s presence?
0 of 8 sorted
Psalm 44:23 and similar cries (Psalm 7:6; 35:23; 59:4) show that the language of waking can be used of the LORD in prayer. They are the language of lament, addressed to a God whose covenant is appealed to, and they are not paired with techniques for obtaining an answer. Psalm 78:65 uses the image of the LORD awaking “as one out of sleep” to describe a turn in Israel’s history, not a result of worship.
Elijah’s mockery names the theology behind escalation: a god who is busy, away or asleep. Scripture says the LORD never sleeps and knows before we ask. Persistence is commended because God is faithful, not because he must be outlasted. Rising effort when nothing happens is the method Elijah mocked, whatever words go with it.
Ecstasy and order
After noon, the prophets of Baal “prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” (18:29). Modern versions render it “raved on” or “continued their frantic prophesying.” The Hebrew is a reflexive form of the ordinary verb “to prophesy,” wayyitnabbeʾû. In this setting it describes an ecstatic state, words and movements beyond the worshipper’s control, kept up for hours.
The reflexive form of “prophesy” describes Saul when “the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house” (1 Samuel 18:10), with a javelin in his hand. But it also describes Saul when “the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them” (1 Samuel 10:10), and again at Naioth, where he “stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel” (19:23–24). Scripture does not treat every ecstatic state as pagan. The page’s point must therefore be narrower than the brief’s.
That narrower point is the one Paul makes. The Corinthian church was not worshipping Baal. It was worshipping Christ, with real gifts of the Spirit, and Paul still regulated what it did. Uncontrolled speech in the assembly would make outsiders “say that ye are mad” (1 Corinthians 14:23). Two or three were to speak “by course,” one at a time (14:27). And the spirits of prophets “are subject to the prophets” (14:32): a true gift of God does not take control of the person. The reason is a fact about God: “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.” The chapter ends with the rule: “Let all things be done decently and in order” (14:40). Paul also gives the test: “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also” (14:15); “Let all things be done unto edifying” (14:26).
So the difference between Carmel and Corinth is not that one was emotional and the other calm. It is that at Carmel the frenzy was the method: an altered state was how the worshippers hoped to reach their god. At Corinth Paul refuses to let any state, however genuinely given, govern the assembly. In his account the Spirit’s gifts serve understanding and order. They are not a means of getting through to God.
“Pentecost was loud and looked like drunkenness. ‘Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine’ (Acts 2:13). If the outsiders thought the apostles were drunk, they were not decent and orderly by your standard. Your rule would have stopped Pentecost.”
The answer. Read the next verse. “But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea … hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose” (2:14–15). What follows is a clear, ordered sermon from Joel and the Psalms, which three thousand people understood. Pentecost also did not begin with the disciples working anything up. They “were all with one accord in one place,” and “suddenly there came a sound from heaven” (2:1–2). God acted first, without warning; what looked like drunkenness was immediately explained; and the result was intelligible preaching and baptism. That is Elijah’s order, not the prophets’.
What high emotion proves
The most careful treatment of this question in English was written by a man who saw intense revival at first hand and defended it. Jonathan Edwards, in A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746), spent the whole of his Part II on things that are “no certain signs” either way.
It is no sign one way or the other, that religious affections are very great, or raised very high.
Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections (1746), Part II, section I. Section II deals in the same way with great effects on the body: “All affections whatsoever, have in some respect or degree, an effect on the body.”
Edwards’s point cuts in both directions, and that is why it is useful here. High emotion does not prove that God is at work; it does not prove that he is not. What it cannot be is the test, or the goal. A method that aims at a state and takes the state as the sign that God has come has, on Edwards’s showing, mistaken something that proves nothing for something that proves everything.
Try it: is this a sign?
Five things a worshipper might take as evidence that God has come. For each, what does it show? The answers come from Edwards’s Part II.
Ecstasy is not pagan in itself: the same word is used of the Spirit of God. But on Carmel it was the method, and Paul refuses to let any state govern the assembly, because God is not the author of confusion. Edwards showed that high emotion and bodily effects prove nothing either way. They cannot be the goal of worship, or its test.
The repaired altar and the appointed hour
The first thing Elijah did was not to pray. He called the people near, and then he rebuilt something. “He repaired the altar of the LORD that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the LORD came, saying, Israel shall be thy name” (18:30–31).
Both details look backward. The altar was not new; it had stood before and been thrown down, as Elijah later complains: “the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars” (19:10). And the twelve stones were not a design of Elijah’s own. Moses at Sinai “builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel” (Exodus 24:4). Joshua at the Jordan set up twelve stones taken from the riverbed, so that “when your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones?” the fathers could tell them what the LORD had done (Joshua 4:21–23). Elijah was standing in the northern kingdom, where only ten tribes were ruled by Ahab. He used twelve stones anyway. The altar told the people who they were, by recalling the covenant God had made with all of them.
The Law appointed one place for sacrifice, “the place which the LORD your God shall choose” (Deuteronomy 12:5–14), and by Elijah’s day that was Jerusalem. An altar on Carmel was irregular by that standard, and commentators have long discussed how Elijah’s act fits the Law; most treat it as an extraordinary, prophetic act at a time when the northern tribes were cut off from the temple. The page does not claim that Elijah followed the temple’s order in every respect. Its claim is narrower: he did not invent a method. He repaired what had been the LORD’s, built with the covenant’s twelve stones, “in the name of the LORD” (18:32).
The second thing Elijah did was wait. The prophets of Baal had worked all day; Elijah did nothing visible until “the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” (18:36). That was not a convenient moment. It was the hour the Law had fixed for the second of the two daily offerings: “The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even … This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations … where I will meet you” (Exodus 29:39, 42; compare Numbers 28:3–8). Far from the temple, Elijah prayed at the hour when the lawful sacrifice was being offered in Jerusalem. The prophets of Baal, the narrator notes, had kept going until that hour (18:29). Elijah prayed at it.
Try it: the hours of prayer
The appointed hours did not end with the Old Testament. Choose a time of day to see who prayed then, in Scripture and in the early Church.
The apostles kept these hours after Pentecost. “Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour” (Acts 3:1). Cornelius saw his vision “about the ninth hour of the day” (Acts 10:3); Peter “went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour” (10:9). The earliest Christian manual outside the New Testament gave the Lord’s Prayer as a fixed form for fixed times: “Neither pray as the hypocrites; but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel, thus pray … Thrice in the day thus pray” (Didache 8, late first or early second century). And Clement of Rome, writing to Corinth in about AD 96, drew the lesson from the Law’s order directly.
It behooves us to do all things in [their proper] order, which the Lord has commanded us to perform at stated times. He has enjoined offerings [to be presented] and service to be performed [to Him], and that not thoughtlessly or irregularly, but at the appointed times and hours.
Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians 40, c. 96; in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (brackets in the translation).
From these roots the historic Church built the daily office of morning and evening prayer, the Sunday liturgy and the church year: forms built largely from Scripture’s own words and handed on. The brief asked whether these inherited forms play the role of Elijah’s repaired altar. The parallel is close at one point and must not be pressed at another. It is close in this: like the twelve stones, they are not the worshippers’ invention, they recall what God has done for the whole people, and they tell children “what mean these stones.” It must not be pressed so far as to make any form a guarantee. Part XI shows that inherited forms can be turned into a technique too.
“Jesus condemned ‘teaching for doctrines the commandments of men’ (Mark 7:7). Your liturgies and church years are exactly that: human traditions. And Elijah himself broke with the established order by sacrificing on Carmel. If anything, he proves that God honours the bold prophet who steps outside the system.”
The answer. Mark 7 condemns traditions that set aside God’s commandment, the example being Corban, which let a man evade the duty to support his parents (7:10–13). It does not condemn praying at the ninth hour, which the apostles did, or praying the Lord’s Prayer at fixed times, which the earliest Church did. As for Elijah, the page grants that Carmel was extraordinary (Correction 3). But look at what he did with his freedom. He did not build a new kind of altar or invent a new rite. He rebuilt the old one, with the covenant’s stones, and waited for the Law’s hour. If Elijah is the model of the bold prophet, his boldness took the form of restoring what had been thrown down.
Elijah did not invent a method. He repaired the LORD’s altar with stones that recalled the covenant, and prayed at the hour the Law appointed. The apostles kept the hours of prayer, and the early Church prayed fixed words at fixed times. Inherited forms are not a guarantee, but they are the opposite of an altar made for the occasion.
A prayer of sixty-three words
The prophets of Baal had one line, said for six hours, and then a frenzy for three more. Elijah’s prayer, in the Authorised Version, has sixty-three words. Read aloud at an unhurried pace it takes about twenty-five seconds. Its brevity is not the whole point, but it is part of it. A long prayer is not wrong; Jesus “continued all night in prayer to God” (Luke 6:12). What the shortness shows is that Elijah did not think the answer depended on how much he said.
How many words
How long
Word counts are from the Authorised Version; the Lord’s Prayer includes the doxology. The prophets’ hours are the narrator’s: “from morning even until noon,” then “until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice.” The bars are not to scale with each other: on one bar, Elijah’s twenty-five seconds would not be visible.
The content of the prayer matters more than its length. Every clause rests on something God has done or said, and the only thing Elijah asks for himself is to be known as God’s servant. Its form is close to a prayer of Jesus. At the tomb of Lazarus, before he called the dead man out, Jesus prayed: “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 11:41–42). Both prayers are spoken aloud for the sake of the people standing by. Both ask that the people may know. Neither tries to persuade God.
Try it: read the prayer phrase by phrase
Tap each underlined phrase to see what it rests on.
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Elijah’s prayer is short because he did not think the answer depended on how much he said. It names God by his covenant, appeals to God’s word, asks for God’s glory and the people’s knowledge, and credits God with turning their hearts. It asks nothing for Elijah except to be known as God’s servant.
Twelve barrels of water
Before he prayed, Elijah made his own success less likely. “Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. And he said, Do it the second time … Do it the third time” (18:33–34). Twelve barrels, in a country three years without rain, soaked the bullock, the wood, the altar and the trench. Whatever happened next could not be put down to a spark, a hidden ember or the heat of the afternoon.
This is the reverse of a technique. A technique is designed to make an outcome more likely. Elijah designed the conditions to rule out every outcome except one that only God could bring about, and then the fire “consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench” (18:38). The people were left in no doubt who had acted. “The LORD, he is the God” (18:39).
The author asked readers to compare some modern worship, which tends the other way. Lighting is lowered. Haze catches a single beam. The band holds a chord and builds over several minutes to a key change. The effect on a room can be powerful, and it is meant to be. None of this is wicked, and the page draws no conclusion about any musical style. The question is narrower. Every one of these tools is known to work on people whether or not God is doing anything. They make an emotional experience easier to produce and, for the same reason, harder to tell apart from God’s work. Elijah removed every possibility that the result could be manufactured; much modern production adds to it.
“God uses means. The tabernacle had garments made ‘for glory and for beauty’ (Exodus 28:2), incense, gold and embroidered colour. David appointed singers with instruments, ‘sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy’ (1 Chronicles 15:16). If beauty and music move people, that is God’s design, not manipulation. Your argument would condemn stained glass and the organ.”
The answer. The page grants that God uses means, and that beauty in worship is commanded. The tabernacle’s beauty was prescribed by God and pointed beyond itself, to the mercy seat where he had promised to meet his people (Exodus 25:22). Stained glass and the organ can be used either way, which is why the page says nothing about style. The question is not whether worship uses means. It is whether the effect the means produce is taken as the evidence that God has come. Elijah’s water exists in the story to make that confusion impossible. Edwards’s Part II (Part V above) explains why an effect on the feelings cannot settle the question either way.
Elijah himself learned the same lesson a few days later, in a different form. Fleeing Jezebel, he stood on Horeb while “a great and strong wind rent the mountains … but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:11–12). The God who had answered by fire on Carmel was not to be found in the spectacle as such. He spoke.
Try it: who could have produced this?
Eight effects or acts in worship, some from Scripture and some composed. For each: could people have produced it without God, could only God account for it, or does it rest on a promise rather than on an effect at all?
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Elijah made a human explanation impossible, so that the people would know who had acted. Production that makes an emotional encounter easy to produce makes it harder to tell what God has done. Word and Sacrament need no effect to be trusted: they rest on Christ’s promise.
Who is the actor?
Read the two halves of the chapter again and watch the grammar. In the first half the prophets are the subject of nearly every verb: they took, they dressed, they called, they leaped, they cried, they cut themselves, they prophesied. The only verbs left for Baal are negative: “there was no voice, nor any that answered” (18:26). In the second half Elijah prepares, and then the subject changes. “The fire of the LORD fell, and consumed … and licked up” (18:38). The people’s part is to see, to fall on their faces, and to confess (18:39). And in his prayer Elijah has already credited God with the deepest act of all: “thou hast turned their heart back again” (18:37).
Try it: whose verb is it?
Ten verbs from 1 Kings 18:26–39. Who is the subject of each?
That shift of subject is the difference between the two methods. In the Baal method the worshippers act and the god is expected to respond. In Elijah’s method God acts, and the people respond. The Lutheran tradition, which the author asked the page to draw on, built its whole account of worship on the second pattern. It calls the Sunday liturgy the Divine Service, Gottesdienst, and reads the phrase first as God’s service to his people. Luther put it plainly when he dedicated the castle church at Torgau in 1544.
… that nothing else may ever happen in it except that our dear Lord himself may speak to us through his holy Word and we, in turn, may speak to him through prayer and praise.
Martin Luther, sermon at the dedication of the castle church in Torgau, 5 October 1544; Luther’s Works, American Edition, vol. 51, p. 333.
The order is God first, then the people. The Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531) gives the same order a precise form by distinguishing two kinds of act in worship.
A Sacrament is a ceremony or work in which God presents to us that which the promise annexed to the ceremony offers … A sacrifice, on the contrary, is a ceremony or work which we render God in order to afford Him honor.
Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XXIV, paragraph 18 (1531); trans. Triglot Concordia (1921).
Both belong in worship. The Apology goes on to call prayer, thanksgiving and confession “sacrifices of praise,” and the New Testament agrees: “let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips” (Hebrews 13:15). But the sacrifice answers the sacrament. Christ’s presence is not something the congregation produces by its offering. It is promised before anyone sings: “there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20); “lo, I am with you alway” (28:20). Zephaniah even pictures the LORD as the one who sings: “he will joy over thee with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).
Try it: who is giving?
Nine parts of a traditional Sunday service. Using the Apology’s distinction, is God giving, or are the people offering?
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“Worship is something we do. Paul says ‘present your bodies a living sacrifice’ (Romans 12:1). The word ‘liturgy’ itself means ‘the work of the people.’ Making God the only actor turns the congregation into an audience.”
The answer. Paul’s sentence begins “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God”: the offering of the body answers mercies already received in Romans 1–11. The page does not make God the only actor; the Apology names the people’s sacrifice of praise as real worship. The question is the order, and what the people’s work is for. A congregation that offers praise because God has served it is Elijah’s. A congregation that offers effort in order that God may come is the prophets’, whatever it calls its service.
Where the other idea came from
The idea that the right human method produces the work of God has a history, and one of its clearest statements is in the lectures of the American revivalist Charles Finney, published in 1835.
A revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means …
Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835), Lecture I, “What a Revival of Religion Is.” He continues that the connection “is as clear in religion as it is when the farmer sows his grain.”
Fairness requires two qualifications. Finney did not think God was asleep; he held that God had connected means with ends and that the means worked under God’s government. And his “means” were mainly preaching and persuasion aimed at sinners, not techniques aimed at God. But the sentence moves the weight decisively from God’s act to the worshippers’ method, and it is hard to read the modern expectation that the right sequence will bring the Spirit without hearing an echo of it.
On Carmel the prophets were the subject of every verb and their god of none. In Elijah’s half, God acts and the people respond. The historic Divine Service is built on the second pattern: God gives in Word and Sacrament, and the people answer with praise. A method in which the people must act first so that God may come has the order of Carmel’s first half.
The right name, the wrong method
The author’s core claim is that the question is method, not object. Scripture had already drawn that distinction, long before Carmel. Moses warned Israel not to ask how the nations of Canaan served their gods in order to serve the LORD the same way.
Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.
Deuteronomy 12:30–32.
The warning is not “do not worship their gods”; that was given elsewhere. It is “do not worship the LORD their way.” The example Moses gives is the worst one, child sacrifice, and the page does not compare anything in modern worship with it. But the principle is general, and Israel’s history shows how often it was broken with the right name on the lips. At Sinai, Aaron made the calf and then “built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD” (Exodus 32:5). When Moses came down, Joshua heard “the noise of them that sing,” and Moses “saw the calf, and the dancing” (32:18–19). The name was right. The festival was to the LORD. The method was Egypt’s.
Carmel itself sits inside this history. Two generations before Ahab, Jeroboam set up golden calves at Bethel and Dan, saying, “behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,” and ordained a feast “like unto the feast that is in Judah,” in “the month which he had devised of his own heart” (1 Kings 12:28, 32–33). The northern kingdom had first changed the LORD’s method, and only later, under Ahab, changed the god. Elijah’s repaired altar stood against both.
Try it: whose name was used?
Six failures in worship recorded in Scripture. In each, whose name was the worship offered in?
Deuteronomy 12 concerns the cult of ancient Israel: one place of sacrifice, and none of the Canaanites’ rites. Christians have disagreed for centuries about how far 12:32 (“thou shalt not add thereto”) governs the Church’s worship, and Dossier 20 deliberately left the Puritan answer aside. This page leaves it aside too. It needs only the narrower principle the passage plainly teaches: that the LORD is not to be worshipped by methods built on a different picture of God.
“The golden calf was idolatry, an image. Jeroboam’s calves were idolatry. Modern worship has no image and calls on Christ. You are borrowing the language of idolatry to criticise Christians.”
The answer. The page grants that the calves were images, and that modern worship has none. But two of the six failures above had no image at all. Nadab and Abihu “offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not” (Leviticus 10:1). Saul offered a burnt offering because “the people were scattered from me … I forced myself therefore” (1 Samuel 13:11–12). Neither made an idol. Both called on the LORD. Both chose a method because of pressure or impulse rather than God’s word. Saul’s case is worth pausing on: his reason was that the people were drifting away and nothing was happening. That is the pressure that drives escalation in Part IV.
Jesus himself summed up what the LORD seeks: “the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him” (John 4:23). Worship in truth includes the truth about God that a method assumes.
Scripture forbids worshipping the LORD by the nations’ methods, and records the LORD’s name used with the wrong method again and again: the calf, Jeroboam’s feast, Nadab’s fire, Uzzah’s cart, Saul’s sacrifice. Calling on the right name does not make the method right.
Volume, or purpose?
The author asked that the strongest case for the other side be weighed fairly, and it is a strong case. Scripture commands loud, exuberant, bodily praise. “O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph” (Psalm 47:1). “Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise” (33:3). “Praise him with the timbrel and dance … upon the loud cymbals” (150:4–5). David danced with all his might. Pentecost was loud enough to draw a crowd and strange enough to be mistaken for drunkenness. The historic liturgy repeats the Kyrie, the Agnus Dei and the Sanctus every week. Emotion in worship is not pagan. And much modern worship is reverent, Scripture-filled and Christ-centred.
The page grants all of it. If the difference between Elijah and the prophets of Baal were volume or emotion, the thesis would fail: Psalm 150 would be on the prophets’ side, and a silent congregation on Elijah’s. But that is not what the text of 1 Kings 18 contrasts. It contrasts a method that works on a god who has not answered with a method that rests on a God who has spoken.
The test cuts the other way too, and it would be dishonest to leave that out. The historic Church has had its own Carmel moments. In 1349, as the Black Death spread, bands of flagellants processed through the towns of Europe whipping themselves in public penance; Pope Clement VI condemned the movement in a bull of 20 October 1349. And the late medieval Church multiplied private Masses as works offered to obtain grace for the living and the dead, which is exactly what the Apology of 1531 attacks in the article quoted in Part IX. Neither was loud in the way a band is loud. Both treated an act of worship as a means of obtaining something from God. An ordered liturgy, said quietly, can be Method P.
Try it: place the scene
Eight scenes. For each, decide whether it is loud or quiet, and whether it is responding to what God has given or trying to produce a response. Each scene then takes its place in the grid below.
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Every corner of the grid is occupied. Psalm 150 is loud and Elijah’s kind; a quiet Mass said to earn merit is the prophets’ kind. Volume does not decide which method a service uses. Purpose does: responding to God’s promised presence, or trying to produce it.
Answer it before you read the answer
Write your own answer first, using what you have read so far. Then compare it with the page’s. Nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere.
The objection (composed, in the words of a worship leader who loves his church): “This is liturgical snobbery dressed up as Bible study. You’ve taken a story about idolatry and used it to insult Christians who love Jesus and worship him with everything they have, as David did. The Psalms command shouting and dancing. Pentecost was loud. And the Spirit does move when people are hungry for him. Your own liturgy says ‘Lord, have mercy’ over and over every Sunday. Is that Baal too?”
- The page accuses no one of idolatry. Its claim is about method, and it says from the start that the God being worshipped is the LORD.
- David’s dance, the Psalms and Pentecost are all granted. Each followed what God had done: the ark blessed and brought up by the due order, the mighty acts the psalms recount, the sound from heaven that came “suddenly.” That is Elijah’s order. Part III and Part XI.
- Hunger for God is good; the question is what is thought to satisfy it. If the Spirit is believed to come because the congregation has pressed in hard enough, the method assumes what Psalm 121:4 and Matthew 6:8 deny. Part IV.
- The Kyrie repeats, and so does Psalm 136. Repetition is not the test. The Kyrie is said once in its place, as a plea to a God whose mercy is promised, and the service moves on to his Word. If it were repeated louder until something was felt, it would become the Carmel kind. Part II.
- The historic Church is not exempt. The flagellants of 1349 and the multiplied private Masses were its own forms of Method P, and the page names them. Part XI.
- “Snobbery” would be about style, and the page sets style aside. The question would be the same of a cathedral choir and a worship band: is the service answering a God who has come, or working on one who has not?
What the narrow point proves
The author asked that the page be exact about what the argument proves. A resemblance in method does not prove idolatry. Nobody outside can read the hearts of worshippers, and most who use the methods the page examines would deny the assumption it has traced. The page has said that from the beginning.
But the Church has long held that the way it worships shapes what it believes. The principle is usually quoted in a later shortening, lex orandi, lex credendi, “the law of praying is the law of believing.”
… ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi.
Prosper of Aquitaine, in the collection known as the Indiculus or Capitula Caelestini, chapter 8 (fifth century): “that the law of praying should establish the law of believing.”
Prosper was arguing that the Church’s prayers, handed down from the apostles and used everywhere, ask God to give faith to unbelievers and repentance to sinners, and therefore show that faith is God’s gift and not a human achievement. His principle is not only that worship teaches. It is that the Church’s ancient prayers teach precisely what Elijah prayed: “thou hast turned their heart back again.”
Psalm 115 states the same principle about idols: “They that make them are like unto them.” Worshippers become like what they worship, and are taught by how they worship. If a method assumes that God must be roused, persuaded or brought in by human intensity, it may teach that picture of God to everyone who uses it, however sincerely they sing the LORD’s name. That is the most the narrow point can establish, and the page claims no more.
What it does not show
- That any church worships Baal, or that any worshipper is an idolater.
- That loud, emotional or physical worship is wrong.
- That repetition in worship is wrong.
- That any particular style of music belongs to either method.
- That a traditional liturgy guarantees Elijah’s method.
What it does show
- That 1 Kings 18 contrasts two methods, one working on a god who has not answered and one resting on a God who has spoken.
- That escalation assumes a god who must be roused, which Scripture denies.
- That Scripture forbids worshipping the LORD by the nations’ methods, and records the right name used with the wrong method.
- That a method teaches what it assumes.
Try it: does the argument prove this?
Eight claims. Does the argument of this page establish each one, or not?
0 of 8 sorted
A test to take into church
The author asked that readers decide for themselves which method their own worship more closely resembles. Here are seven questions. Think of a service you attended recently and answer each. There is no score to share; the page records nothing.
Your verdict
Two questions. Nothing is recorded.
A resemblance in method proves no idolatry and reads no hearts. But the way a church prays shapes what it believes. A method that assumes God must be woken may teach a sleeping god, whatever name is sung.
Your answers, revisited
Here are the ten questions you answered before reading, with what the sources say. If you skipped them, go back to the quiz, lock in your answers, and return.
Answer the questions at the top of the page and lock them in; your results appear here.
Check it yourself
Fifteen items. Nearly everything here is free and online. If you read only three, read the first three. If you do only one thing, do the last.
- 1. 1 Kings 17–19. Read this first. Twenty minutes. The drought, Carmel, and Horeb. On a sheet of paper, list in two columns everything the prophets of Baal do and everything Elijah does.
- 2. Matthew 6:1–18. Read this first. Ten minutes. Note the reason Jesus gives for not praying like the heathen, and what he gives instead.
- 3. 1 Corinthians 14. Read this first. Fifteen minutes. Note every reason Paul gives for order in the assembly.
- 4. On repetition: Psalm 136; Revelation 4; Isaiah 6:1–8; Matthew 26:36–46; Acts 19:23–41.
- 5. On the body in worship: Exodus 15:1–21; 2 Samuel 6; 1 Chronicles 13 and 15; Psalms 149–150; Acts 3:1–10.
- 6. On a god who sleeps: Psalm 121; Isaiah 40:27–31; 44:9–20; 46:1–7; Habakkuk 2:18–20; and the laments Psalm 44 and 35.
- 7. On persistence: Luke 11:1–13; 18:1–8; Genesis 32:22–32; 1 Kings 18:41–46; James 5:16–18.
- 8. On the appointed altar and hour: Exodus 24:1–8; 29:38–46; Numbers 28:1–8; Deuteronomy 12; Joshua 4; Acts 3:1; 10:1–9.
- 9. On the right name with the wrong method: Exodus 32; Leviticus 10:1–3; 1 Samuel 13:5–14; 1 Kings 12:25–33; Mark 7:1–13; John 4:19–26.
- 10. The Didache, chapters 7–10, and Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapters 40–44, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vols. 7 and 1. Free at New Advent and CCEL.
- 11. Augustine, Letter 130, to Proba (c. 412), sections 18–20, on long prayer and “much speaking”: “Multiplied words are one thing, long-continued warmth of desire is another.” Trans. J. G. Cunningham, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1st series, vol. 1. Free at New Advent.
- 12. Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (1746), Part II, “no certain signs.” Free at CCEL.
- 13. The Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531), Article XXIV, on sacrament and sacrifice; and Luther’s Torgau sermon (1544), Luther’s Works 51:333. The Apology is free at bookofconcord.org.
- 14. Earlier dossiers: 20 (worship without an inherited order), 36 (the altar and the stage), 50 (the self as subject), 52 (the means of grace), 56 (proving dedication by effort), 03 (testing what is said in God’s name), 18 (reason in worship).
- 15. One service. Do this one. Next Sunday, wherever you worship, notice every moment when something is repeated, intensified or prolonged. For each, ask: is this answering what God has said and done, or trying to make something happen? Then ask the seven questions in Part XII.
Every modern example of worship language on this page is composed for illustration and quoted from no person, church or recording. No living individual is named on this page as an example of anything. Every individual quoted is biblical or deceased, and is quoted from a dated, published source. This page judges no person’s sincerity, faith or salvation, makes no claim about any particular congregation, and takes no view on musical style.
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