glorify? huh?
i've often been confused about the word "glorify". to say, "they glorified God." what does that mean? what does it mean to glorify God? can we humans really give God more glory than He already has? can we actually take some glory away from God? that would give us an awful lot of power, don't you think? does God need us to glorify Him at all? to me, the word "glorify" carries with it the connotation that we are adding a quantifiable substance (here, glory) to a pool of glory that God is in possession of. so that, when we praise Him, we put more glory in that pool, and when we are sinful we take some glory out of that pool.
after checking out the greek, i think this might just be where english has failed me. perhaps a better word to use is "acknowledge". i looked up the word glorify in the greek...it's "doxazo" (Strong's 1392) . one of the meanings is "to cause the dignity and worth of some person or thing to become manifest and acknowledged." i replaced it with "acknowledge" (or one of it's derivatives...acknowledged, etc) in each verse where the word "doxazo" is used. the verses made more sense to me than they ever had before. here's an example:
John 8:54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say , that he is your God: (KJV)
in this case, the word honour is actually the same word in the greek, "doxazo". now replace it with the word "acknowledge":
John 8:54 Jesus answered, If I acknowledge myself, my acknowledgement is nothing: it is my Father that acknowledges me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: (Robby's translation, I guess)
to me, it makes way more sense!
based on these thoughts, my point is this: i don't think we can add to or take away any glory from God's pool...regardless of what we do, think, say, or believe. i think when we "glorify God", as it says in our english translations, we are actually acknowledging the glory God already has. "WOW God! you have more glory in that pool than i can possibly comprehend!"
think about it and consider how this line of thinking might affect things.
posted by Robby @ 1:47 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Robby, I think you are dead on. For me, my perception of adding and subtracting glory from God's pool comes from the common Christian phrase "give God the glory". To me it implies that we are giving God, as you said, some quantity of glory.
Rephrase it as you suggest, and we give God acknowledgement for the great things that He has done.
yeah, lets recognize His glory that is around...is this a recycled post?? haven't i read this before?
yeah, Robby sent this thought to us in an email before he got his blog. I was wondering when he was going to pull this out for blog material...
your mom
"think about it and consider how this line of thinking might affect things."
This line of thinking, as sound as it is, would affect countless hymns and praise & worship songs in major ways. Substituting "acknowledge" (or one of its derivatives) for "glorify" (or one of its derivatives) would possibly mess up the meter and even the tune depending on which derivatives were used. Even though you may be swapping three syllables for three syllables, the emphasis is somewhat different. Fortunately in many cases the rhyme will not be affected seeing as how "glorify" is not a word that is often used in a rhyming scheme. This is furthermore fortunate seeing as how "acknowledge" is also a challenging word to rhyme very often without that rhyme seeming forced. I would encourage you to followup your line of thinking by making appropriate alterations to as many songs as possible (beginning with the most popular) thus putting your expensive Furman education and cheaper musical ability to good use. I wish you well and hope that you receive the appropriate glory (or acknowledgement) for your efforts.
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