The Egocentricity of God

I am reading Robert Webber's Common Roots and greatly enjoying it.  If you do not know him, Dr. Webber got fed up with the approach American Evangelicalism approached worship, so he set out to research how the early church gathered and worshiped.  In his section on the meaning of worship, he relates how a person objected strongly to the seeming egocentricity of God, that he should require everything to praise him.  Webber then quotes the response of an older, wiser brother's response.

God only wants us to speak the truth about him.  Even as in our own personal worth we appreciate people telling the truth about us and shy away from those who either overestimate or underestimate us, so God wants us to speak the truth about him.  The truth is that he is the Creator, that he is ultimate, that he is the highest, the holiest, the one most perfect in his being.  Now what would you think of God if he were to shuffle his feet in celestial dust and say, "Aw shucks," refusing to be honest about himself?¹

I believe that stands on its own.


¹ Robert E. Webber, Common Roots, (2d ed. Grand Rapids:Zondervan, 2009), 111.