Ambiguous definitions

For some, the word “worship” evokes ambivalent feelings. Negative feelings are associated with it – feelings that are not infrequently transferred to God, to the church, and to faith in general.

The word does not always have a positive connotation. For example, someone told me the other day that he had gone to a Catholic school, and church attendance was compulsory there several times a week. During all the school years, he refused the Host every time. This compulsion, and perhaps quite healthy rejectionist attitude, can haunt someone for a lifetime.

There would be other examples. They always remind me of the people who, as a child, were forced to go to the mountains and hike every weekend. Some have maintained an abhorrence of hiking for decades afterward. Such experiences can go deep. Only when one is able to come to one’s own assessment at some point will the strength be found to detach oneself from the old negative impressions. The same might be true for going to church, for faith, and the like.

Worship. It is rarely clear what is actually meant by this. We go to church or to the community on Sunday to “worship.” The service will be held in the church. Worship in this sense is gathering, praise, prayer, a sermon, and the like. It is a liturgy, a sequence of common activities and religious acts. But is this a service that God wants to see from us? Is this a proper worship service? Or in other words:

Do we have to go to church to serve God?
Or:
Can you serve God only in church?

The question may be unusual, but it has relevance. What does God want from us? Do we have to make an effort, do we have to move to church every Sunday to be pleasing to Him? And what about when, even in free churches, parishioners are expected to participate in worship? Now, is this religious compulsion, or something that God requires? Or maybe neither applies? The New Testament is more versatile in its consideration. In this article we would like to look into this a little bit. Worship can be a lot of things. It can mean, among other things, a cultic action. But there is more associated with it. This much, however, should be anticipated: A Sunday service as we know it today is not found in the Bible.

Service in Israel

If we read the term “worship” (Gr. latreia) in the New Testament, it actually refers to cultic acts:

“Now the first covenant also had divineordinances and the secular sanctuary; for the first tent was pitched, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shewbread, which is called the holy things.”
Heb 9:1 cf. Ex 40:22-24

“Since this was thus established, though the priests enter the first tent at all times to perform the services, into the second the high priest alone enters once a year, not without blood, which he offers for himself and for the failings of the people.”
Heb 9:6-7

“…my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption and the glory, the covenants and the legislation, the worship and the promises…”
Rom 9:4-5

The service, we read here, concerned the statutes and temple service as God gave them to Israel. The service itself was not performed by all the people, but only by very few from Israel, namely only by the priests. They were the mediators between God and people and they lived service to God in this sense.

Worship practice

The word also exists as the verb “to offer worship” (Gr. latreuo). It is the service that people in general render to God. That would be something like “practicing worship.” This is about an attitude toward God that is revealed in action. Of the prophetess Hannah, for example, we read:

“The prophetess Hannah was also there, a daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher. This one, far advanced in days, had lived only seven years with her husband since her virginity. She was now a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the consecration place, offering worship night and day under fasting and supplication. “
Lk 2:36-37

What she did as “worship” we read in the words “night and day under fasting and supplication …”. So this was not a priestly service, as the Levites did (with sacrifices, ablutions, and the like), but she did her service with prayer and fasting. She could not perform priestly service because, first, she was a woman and, second, she was born in a different tribe from the Levites. Only Levites could be priests. Nevertheless, she personally “offered worship,” namely through prayer and fasting. At about 84 years of age, she was a “prophetess,” speaking in God’s place – as it says immediately afterward: “At the same hour she also came and paid homage to God, and spoke of Him [Jesus] to all who were looking for salvation in Jerusalem.” (Luk 2:38). The service with her was in prayer and fasting. This took place between her and God alone. It was their personal journey of faith and worship. The prophetic ministry, however, was characterized as service to others.

Paul writes later:

“This, however, I confess to you, that according to the way of God, which they call a sect, I have been so Worship that I believe in all that is written in the Law and the Prophets, and have the same expectation of God that those also look for, namely, that there will be a resurrection of the righteous as well as of the unrighteous in the future. In all this, I also strive to have a good conscience at all times, unoffending with God and man.”
Acts 24:14-16

The worship that Paul describes here he sees as his faith and trust in God’s Word. “Honoring God” is what we do when we believe Him, when we trust His Word and Himself. These are not cultic acts, but this is about the core, this is about a personal God with whom Paul is in a personal relationship. Just as it was the case in the Tenach (the Old Testament) with all the men of God. They all trusted God, they believed His word(Heb 11). So does the apostle, who thereby also receives an expectation. Or in other words, trust in God affects his thinking and his life in such a way that he gains outlook and confidence – through God’s Word.

Worship as a visual language

A literal worship service modeled after Israel and the temple service, that does not exist today. First, the limitation to the people of Israel should be taken seriously, and second, the temple no longer stands. This kind of worship is not possible today. It is also very much a question of whether a congregation from all nations (the “body of Christ,” the church today) would ever be called upon to provide this service. Was this not the privilege and duty of Israel (Rom 9:4 Acts 26:7)?

Paul now, as an apostle to the nations (Rom 11:13), sees his own worship quite differently:

“For my witness is God (to whom I offer worship in my spirit in the gospel of His Son). in the gospel of His Son ), how continually I remember you.”
Rom 1:9, cf. Acts 27:23

The service that Paul provides is spiritual. Worship here is a visual language. This is quite extraordinary, since at the time he wrote this, the temple in Jerusalem was still being used by the Jews. So there was very well still a service according to the Mosaic pattern. However, things have changed since the days of Paul: reality has changed, the temple is gone, a good news of grace has been revealed to all nations, and service to God has been adjusted. No outward rituals, but worship is offered in the spirit. Elsewhere the apostle writes:

“…Beware of cutting yourselves in pieces; for we are the [wahre] circumcision, who worship in God’s Spirit, and boast in Christ Jesus, and trust not in flesh…”
Phil 3:3

The reality of God

Worship, then, is not just ritual; it is primarily the personal attitude of faith toward God that shapes one’s life. In this personal worship service, the reality of God is assumed. Paul describes of his own development in faith: “Gratitude I have toward God, to whom I worship from my ancestors with a clear conscience …” (2Tim 1,3). From his ancestors! Here he also seems to incorporate his Jewish roots and the faith in God’s promises that he learned there.

Faith is by far not only Christian. Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian – but he is the father of all believers (Rom 4:11). Worship is likewise not limited to a particular denomination, or to Christianity. Worship is service to God, starting from what is known about Him. Knowledge is limited, but the reality of God is recognized by many. Think also, for example, of Apollos, who was once allowed to learn more about the way of the Lord (Acts 18:24-26). Those who experience and recognize the reality of God will act accordingly and will also be willing to learn. Worship service is held daily.

The logical service

Already we have looked at some points that are different today than they were in ancient Israel. The world has turned a few times and new realities have become visible, of which Paul – as an apostle to the nations – is the best-known herald. Christ stands centrally, as mediator between God and man. There is a good news: God has reconciled with the world and so with you. Now be reconciled with God! (2 Cor. 5:14-21). Whoever responds to this message, whoever trusts in it, stands on new ground. Now reconciled, you see the world from a different perspective. This has consequences as described by Paul:

“I now pronounce upon you, brethren (in view of God’s compassions), to provide your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (as a your consistent worship) and not to adjust yourselves to this eon, but to be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may be able to test what is the will of God – the good, pleasing and perfect one.”
Rom 12:1-2

Here is the consequential (gr. logikon) service, as a summary of the above verses:

1. First there were the compassion teachings of God (the gospel of grace and reconciliation in Romans)
2. This was believed by the “brethren”, which is why Paul can call them on it
3. Worship (figurative language) now consists in providing ourselves for God, as living sacrifices (figurative language)
4. This happens now in that we allow ourselves to be transformed by the renewal of our thinking
5. The renewal of thinking manifests itself in an improved sense of testing the will of God
6. There is a progressive recognition of God’s will (good, pleasing, perfect) in this process.

Worship in the Spirit is both “logical” (gr. logikon) and “literal,” according to the Word (gr. logos, from the same root). This worship wants to be lived in the body, that is, in everyday life. Or in other words, for the believer, everything that can be lived in this world is sacred. Making ourselves available to Him is done with our whole humanity. It is not an aloof belief, but a realistic approach to being involved in this world. The believer trusts that God is preparing good works for us to walk in (Eph 2:8-10).

How is this now with our worship services?

At all times believers came together. They shared their trust in God, they helped each other, they also let the Bible speak to them. This is the core of Jewish and Christian gatherings. But what we call worship today is not worship in the biblical sense. The worship service, as we read about it earlier from the Bible, does not begin until we leave the church. Biblical worship is not inside the church, but outside in everyday life.

So what goes on in the church is gathering. In the best case it is a mutual (!) encouragement. Also, the image of a workshop could apply, where you learn some things for the real worship outside. It can be shared thanksgiving and shared praise. All this, however, is not a service to God, but primarily a service to one another.

There are movements that expose all the features of today’s worship services as pagan customs (e.g., Frank Viola/George Barna in “Pagan Christianity? – Exploring the roots of our church practices“). To put rusty traditions into perspective, this is not even that bad. However, the fact that Christians come together should not be questioned by this. What Viola intended by deconstructing Christian traditions was a sober reflection on what is still going on in many churches today. The dubious backgrounds of some cherished traditions are questioned, so that one is only thereby shaken up to think about the true core of the faith and the service. Why does it really work?

The idea that Christianity can only be lived within the church, only with church services, and only with rusty traditions is long outdated.

The idea that Christianity can only be lived within the church, only with church services, and only with rusty traditions is long outdated. God calls and calls. Whoever responds with faith and trust is in living fellowship and – with all other believers – has free access to the Father in one Spirit (Eph 2:18). Free access!

Those who want to rethink church and community with this understanding do so because they are alive, and want to shape a vibrant current faith. Everyone is invited to reflect anew on the texts from the New Testament and make them understandable for today. There is also more and more literature on this, such as the well-known “The cry of the wild geese. Setting out for a free life in Christ beyond religion and tradition” by Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Colman. Books like this, of course, also experience criticism and backlash. The power of such books lies in the fact that they outline other possibilities of community, detached from traditions. They are signposts for many people who are looking for something and help them to come to terms with it.

Paul invites us, sustained by the promises and salvation of God, to make ourselves available to Him. That would be our personal and logical worship.

Is this a good start?