Question: David may have danced "before the LORD" but what does this imply for dancing in worship services today - even in indecent clothing?
Answer: Good question. I don't know what to think about this one, exactly. I don't want to be a gnostic, who denigrates the physical and spritualizes everything. I tend to think that dancing is good as an expression of worship, but to do so in an audience/performative worship context is not beneficial. Much as CS Lewis talks of posture in worship being whatever the worshipper is led to, without regard to how it looks or what others will think. That's hard to do when it's done as it is these days. Although you'd assume all eyes were on David the king as he danced before the Lord...
The assumption of Michal his wife, but I wonder if that is making an assumption that David was the only one who was dancing. It could be the case that it was only him, or it could be that everyone was involved in worshiping some dancing, some singing, some shouting or blowing the horn, or whatever. What we do know is that Michal saw David and despised him. There is no comment in detail on what everyone else was doing. Reading the passage, I am not so sure it was just the way David danced that made Michal so angry, but also the company in which he did it.
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