Called to Worship by Vernon M. Whaley

Called to Worship examines what the Bible says about worship. Dr. Vernon Whaley takes the reader on a tour of the scriptures with respect to our worship of God. What can we learn about worship in Genesis, the Psalms, and the Prophetic Books? How about the Gospels and the Epistles? Whaley offers answers to these questions and more in this easy to understand volume.

When I requested this book to review from Thomas Nelson, I expected the book to be about worship in the church. But I quickly realized this book was about much more. Though corporate worship is discussed, it is just one of the ways that we as Christians worship, and is not the focus of the book. The book discusses all facets of worship. What is worship? Why should we worship? How and where should we worship? I appreciated the book’s focus on God as the object of our worship.

Dr. Whaley, though a professor, does not write in a highly technical, difficult to understand style. He summarized many of the "stories" of the Bible and included scripture passages from various translations of the Bible.  I can appreciate the author’s desire to ensure that all readers know the scripture well enough to understand the principles of worship that he expounded upon; however, the re-hashing of these familiar Bible stories made the book longer than necessary in my opinion. I think I could have solely read the chapter summaries and saved myself a lot of time. I also personally did not care for his frequent use of quotations from The Message and The New Century Versions of the Bible. I think these "translations" stray too far from the original Greek and Hebrew texts and I hesitate to draw any binding conclusions from these versions.

For more information about Called to Worship, visit the Thomas Nelson website.