The connection between God's praise and God's presence a biblical study

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to provide an answer to the question whether there is a connection between God’s people’s praise and God’s presence. The central argument of this thesis is that Scripture in both Testaments testifies to a reciprocal correlation between human praise and divine presence. This hypothesis will be investigated in the light of contemporary Christian worship culture and the corresponding need for biblical studies, which represent the background for this study. The study achieves the above aim by employing the discipline of biblical theology and a canonical and intertextual method to meet five specific objectives. First, the study verifies the need for further biblical studies by testing existing approaches to a biblical theology of worship with regard to an interaction between human praise and divine presence. Second, the study establishes that biblical theology as a distinct discipline, and a canonical approach combined with an intertextual model, serve the purpose of this thesis, which is to investigate texts from both Testaments regarding a correlation of human praise and divine presence. Third, narratives from the Old Testament corroborate the study’s central argument: God’s glory filling his new temple prompts his people’s praise, and vice versa (1 Kgs 8 and 2 Chr 5 – 7), and God’s people’s praise instigates manifestations of divine presence (Josh 6 and 2 Chr 20; 1 Sam 16 and 2 Kgs 2). Fourth, texts from the New Testament verify the argument: God’s Holy Spirit filling his new people prompts their praise (Acts 2 and Acts 10/11), and God’s people’s praise instigates their refilling with Holy Spirit and/or other manifestations of divine presence (Acts 4 and Acts 16; Eph 5). Fifth, support is offered for these results from a biblical theology perspective, which reveals three intertextual themes: the connection between divine presence and human praise, the divine indwelling, and the divine-human covenant relationship.