Psalm 47:1: “Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! / Shout to God with the voice of triumph!”

February 22nd, 2024 by Pastor Ed in devotional

This psalm could have been written about the victories won under any number of leaders, including Moses, Joshua, Samson, Gideon, the sweeping military successes of King David, or his son Solomon. In our American culture, clapping our hands and shouting are considered appropriate at almost any public event except a church service. But according to this inspired text, a church service is perhaps the most likely place where clapping should be heard. We applaud a well-executed move in sports and excellence in music, but as we see from this verse, it is appropriate and Scriptural to applaud and shout to God.

Perhaps modern day believers are too “sophisticated” about the things of God, and our worship services have become too safe. Christian writer Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk said:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.

“LORD, we want to live in agreement with Your word. May everything we do this day, in accordance with Your call, be acceptable to You as a form of worship.”