Hands up!

If th Bible were silent then we could be silent, but if the bible speaks then we need to speak! And we are told that we should let God speak!

"God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few." Ecclesistes 5:2

"I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands." Ps. 63:4

"I call to you, O Lord, everyday; I spread out my hands to you." Ps. 88:9

"Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord." Ps. 134:2

"Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, ’Amen! Amen!’" Neh. 8:6

"Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens." Lam. 3:41 KJV

"Lift up your hands to Him." Lam 2:19

"I fell on my knees with my hands spread out to the Lord my God and prayed." Ezra 9:5-6

"Solomon knelt down before the whole assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven." 2 Chron. 6:13

"As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up – one on one side, one on the other – so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword ... Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner. He said, ’For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord.’" Ex. 17:11-16

"I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer." 1Tim. 2:8 (New Testament)

Now, a person may not find it within his or her feeling, thinking or experience to want to raise their hands in prayer and worship, bu I believe it is scriptural! It may not be part of our "biblical tradition" but it is part of the bible. If it is wrong to steal or commit murder because the bible says so, then surely if the bile tells us to raise our hands as Paul does in Timothy, then we have no excuse not to!

Don't forget that God made man, "Male and female", in Christ their is no "Male or female."

If I were to add my own words to this, I would say that we can liken it to a marriage. How does it feel if one partner is holding back? God doesn't want us to be bound within the constraints of modest reservation! He wants us to be free indeed. What does that loom like. Not "free" to and "free" not to, but free to express the love and joy of being intimate with God. How can we be intimate if we are physically reserved! That isn't true intimacy.

Tradition has taught us to pray with bound hands. We don't pray like that, but we don't pray with raised hands as we should. And notice it is plural, "Hands" not the one sided hand raised! This is unashamed and unreserved.

Does it matter? Well, it obviously matters enough to God to put it in His word and more than once. We are shown that those who were considered great worshippers raised their hands. It is interesting that God says He lifts up His hands!

"Thus says the Lord GOD,
"Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations
And set up My standard to the peoples;
And they will bring your sons in their bosom,
And your daughters will be carried on their shoulders." Is 49:22

Is a posture important? So, is this just cultural, descriptive rather than prescriptive? The problem is that Paul gives it as an instruction. I have heard the argument several times that it doesn't matter to follow the letter as long as you follow the spirit. Well, Jesus makes the point that you tell what is going on on the inside of a person by what you see on the outside. The only time you see different on the outside to what is happening on the inside is called hypocrisy! Like when the Pharisees where white washed on the outside, and dead means bones on the inside.

This comes into the question of whether our attitude to God is more important than our posture.

Let me give you some other scenarios:

Is it ok to get drunk every night as long as you have a good attitude towards God?
Is it ok to swear and curse as long as you have a good attitude towards God?
Is it ok to be bad tempered as long as you have a good attitude towards God?
Is it ok to beat up on you partner as long as your attitude towards God is ok?

Surely the answer to these is that if you are doing any of these on the outside then there is room for improvement in your attitude towards God! You may feel that you are "good spiritually" but the outside behaviours reveal something amiss somewhere.

If we really want to work on being good spiritually then we need to get the the spiritual manual and find out what the spiritual man (woman) looks like. Scripture is referred to as the cannon, the cannon was a tool that was held up against a wall to see whether it was vertical (Upright) and straight. Today we have a spirit level! We use scripture to see how well we are doing. It is too easy to try and test scripture against us. To say, "Well, I don't believe that!" and expect scripture to line up!

Personally I think it is just as "missing the mark" to put your hands up and feel self conscious as it is to not put them up. However, we will never not feel self conscious if we don't start. Like having a new hair cut or new glasses or new outfit, we feel self conscious at first but after a while it is second nature. Maybe, this comes into the same area as fasting, "why?" I mean "Why fasting?" There is something about making a sacrifice in praise. I also feel that actually we are battling with the Spirit by keeping our hands down. We can easily desensitise our conscience, searing it, by constantly refusing to submit.

I can remember once when I was a fairly new Christian and in a large conference marquee. I had a few kind of spiritual visions. One of them was as I closed my eyes I could still see everyone in the meeting. Everyone had their hands down, but I could see that the spirit man in everyone of them had his, her hands raised! Now, if the spirit is raising his hands then are we in step with the spirit? If it is important enough for the spirit to raise his hands then why do we get and exemption?

I have found a couple of arguments that I didn't cover. One I thought of but didn't put and the other a new one to me.

1, "It says prayer!" (Apart from the verses in Psalm 63:4, 134:2 and Neh 8:6 where hand raising is connected with praise!) Yep, but worship is part of our prayer life. Prayer is part of our worship life. So, the question goes further, "Does that mean we should raise our hands whenever we are communicating with God? For example when we are reading the Bible? If we are praying while driving?" It is a serious point to test anything thing to the ludicrous extreme, if when you get there it is ludicrous then one two things has happened. Either the starting point was ludicrous or the logic was ludicrous!

The point here isn't that we should legalistically raise our hands and be stoned to death if we don't! You can see how this would get like the traditions of the elders. The point is it is an option to worship. One commentator said that hand gestures are something we do all the time while we are communicating. I would put it to you that there are or have been times in worship when you have felt like raising your hands and either have or haven't. Who says I have to raise my hands when I want to hug someone? Who says I have to raise my hands when I want to get someone's attention? Who says the Olympic Gold runner has to raise his or her hands as they cross the finish line? The point is it isn't law, it's gesture. and worship is a gesture.

The second issue is one that I never thought of and this came from a woman who had been a choir member for years. She said she felt very self conscious about raising her hands. The point she made was that she loved singing, choirs, small groups, along with the radio, and sometimes she caught herself "just singing" in church. Raising her hands helped her to remind herself that this singing was far more important than just singing along with the radio. Which is another slant on the "Surely it is more important to have a good attitude than to just raise your hands?" The point here is, the same can be said for singing! It is easy for it to become meaningless. Especially I find when the you don't know the words so are concentrating more on getting that right, or know them too well, so you sing them without thinking! Or there they are short so you never really get into the zone before you are hearing people again. Or they are too long so you are thinking how much longer is this going on for? Or you just have too much else on you mind and the pastor hasn't reminded everyone to lay it all down and get into the worship!

This is a quote from someone called AV. I like it because it leaves behind all of the theological argument that so often gets in the way of simple human response to a great God!:

"I grew up in a Presbyterian church in the South… very traditional and conservative. I studied abroad in Australia and ended up going to a Pentecostal/Assemblies of God church. I fell in love with this church and the openness and genuineness of the people and the worship. God felt real here, not just a tradition…. and yes, they raised their hands in worship.. which was very new to me at the time. How can we talk about God being worthy to be praised and not lift our hands? When we go to concerts and sports games, we throw our hands in the air with no second-thoughts… I think it is a great combined act of surrender, celebration, praise, and acknowledgement of God’s presence in our lives and with us every step of the way. I also think of it much like singing. When we are willing to sing God’s praises, we are willing to open up to Him; when we are willing to lift our hands to our Creator, we let Him in still."

Quoting another argument, this time a pro argument: why is it that the same people who argue, "Surely it is the heart that counts and not the externals," also argue about externals where it matters to them? For example, length of women's hair, tithing, decorating the church with banners, the pastor being smartly dressed (Which definitely isn't in the bible!), Christians wearing suits (again not scriptural!) (From this argument I can only conclude that some Christians would rather non scriptural externals as important rather than scriptural ones!)

Now show me, from the bible, why we should pray and worship with our hands down!