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08 July 2014 - 14:05 - Book Review: Doxology & Theology
Doxology and Theology: How the Gospel Forms the Worship Leader by Matt Boswell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I�ve had the challenging & humbling honor of leading the music ministry at my local church for the past two years (as of July 6th, 2014), so I�m very grateful for this book! Not only do I believe this book will benefit �worship leaders,� but I also believe it will benefit every Christian in many ways, such as by instructing them on the relation between doxology and theology (this truly is an important relationship for Christians to understand).
I love that many authors/worship leaders have contributed to this book. Because of this, some chapters are a bit more technical than others, yet each is full of biblical truth and guidance that I believe every worship leader will do well to heed (although I'm not fully convinced of the argumentation in chapter 2. I need to search the Scriptures more in that regard).
As one who majored in the Biblical Languages in college, I noticed two minor errors regarding references to the Hebrew language:
1) In chapter 3, page 49 (kindle location 638 of 2502), Michael Bleecker claims that the word Hallelujah �is a word that translates to a joyous praise of boasting in the Lord.� I�m very curious where he�s getting this idea from. Truly, modern day people often use it this way, but is this how it was used in Scripture? If what Bleecker says is true, I believe he should have also explained the way Hallelujah is used all throughout Scripture. Hallelujah is literally a *command* to praise Yahweh; it is a command that one person gives to one's own self or to another. This is vastly different than a "joyous praise of boasting." Hallelu is the command praise(!), and Jah (or better yet Yah) is an abbreviated form of Yahweh. In the Psalms, the Psalmist (the �worship leader�) says Hallelujah as a command for others to join him in praising Yahweh (cf. Ps. 104:35; 106:1; 113:1; 150), or a command to himself to praise Yahweh (cf. Ps. 104:35b; 146:1). The book of Revelation also uses it as a command to praise Yahweh. You can even see this command and response of praise in the Apocryphal books Tobit 13:18 and 3 Maccabees 7:13. Thus, when I say Hallelujah at our church gatherings, I say it as a command either to myself, or to the gathered church. In response to this command, we praise the Lord!
2) On page 53 (kindle location 678 of 2502), the same author identifies the Hebrew word for worship as histahawah, and he breaks the word down as �HISt-a-ha-wah.� The beginning of this Hebrew word, however, is �hisht�, not �hist.�
All in all, this is an excellent book that I highly recommend.
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