Looking for Worship in All the Wrong Places. (What is worship/service?)

Lucas Necessary had a series of blog posts on this topic, which he then collated into one longer article. That article is reproduced here by permission.

Lucas Necessary·Sunday, October 18, 2015

Worship Overview

Shachah

I recently saw some people talking about whether or not it’s a sin to talk with someone visiting the assembly during “the worship.” For many, “coming to worship on Sunday” is important, but is it at all what is described in the New Testament? What, exactly, is “worship?” Does the New Testament even mention a “worship service?” Turns out, it doesn’t! What’s going on here?

As we’ll find out, our modern word for “worship” does a HORRIBLE job of filling in for the concepts that God was communicating in His Word. And no surprise, because the etymology has morphed beyond recognition from what “worship” originally meant.

Look how "worship" has come about—and changed—as a word.

But it’s not just the etymology that’s a mess. Check out the sheer number of definitions for “worship,” and how nebulous they are:

This will have to be a multi-part (though abbreviated) series, and we’ll just start off with the word “worship,” as found in the Old Testament. This word is predominantly from ancient Hebrew “shachah,” which means literally, “to bow down, to prostrate oneself.” So if you hear someone say that they’re “going to worship on Sunday,” do you imagine them going and planting their faces on the floor? Why do we use this word? What does it really mean?

Bow Down

Some people are concerned about doing anything that might interrupt “the worship” on Sundays, such as saying “hi” to someone new who walks in. But what IS worship? Do we really understand it? Yesterday we saw that, in the Old Testament Hebrew, it is almost always translated from “shachah,” which means to physically bow down, to prostrate oneself. Think of Muslims on prayer rugs. They are “shachah,” bowing down, worshiping.

What does the word “worship” look like in the Bible? We’ll have to start out with the Old Testament.

The first time is Genesis 18:2. 

When he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth. 

Can you spot the word “worship” in there? What is “worship,” as God defined it there? If you said, “bow down,” you’re right. Worship in the Old Testament, we will see, was a physical act of bowing down, of submission.

As God Defines It

What exactly is “worship?” Is it five or so acts that we do only on Sundays? In the old Testament, we see that it’s mostly from the word, “shachah,” which means to physically bow down, yet we certainly don’t do much of that on Sundays! The first time it was used was in Genesis 18, and it was where someone bowed down.

Let’s look at the next usage from Gen 22:5. 

Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”

Ok, so what acts was Abraham doing when he was worshiping? Well, if we let GOD define it, we can read Genesis 18 and every other place where it was mentioned and see that Abraham was bowing himself down, prostrate and in submission.

Although translators sometimes get inconsistent and sloppy, we have great minds which God has given us, and we can look at the original words and use them. In this case, Gen 22:5 actually says,

Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will bow down and return to you.

Inconsistently Translated

We’ve seen that worship in the OT was a physical act of bowing down, and that translators inconsistently translate it as the definition, “to bow down,” or otherwise “to worship,” though they meant the same. Let’s look at some more, surprising, verses on what worship was in the OT.

Genesis 23:7 So Abraham rose and worshiped (bowed down to) the people of the land, the sons of Heth. 

Genesis 23:12 And Abraham worshiped (bowed down) before the people of the land.

Genesis 42:6 Now Joseph was the ruler over the land; he was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down to him with their faces to the ground.

When someone says, “I’m going to go worship on Sunday,” do you imagine them going and bowing down physically as is the example all throughout the Old Testament? Probably not! We’ll discuss what it means in the New Testament coming up. As a hint, remember that the Old Testament was a physical foreshadowing of the spiritual to come. We often want to be physically minded instead of spiritually, but we need to overcome that urge.

Priest vs People

So we’ve now seen that “worship” in the Old Testament was always a bowing down to something. People bowed down because the object was worthy of being bowed to. The concept being conveyed is one of submission to a greater power. Consider that God gives us the option to submit now, but at the end, “every knee shall bow.” Bowing is SUBMITTING. Consider also when Joseph’s brothers visited him in Egypt…they had to bow down. They had to SUBMIT.

Throughout the Old Testament, the people would worship (submit, bow down), and the priests would provide service. We can see this in Ezekiel 46 (and plenty of other places) in verse 2:

The prince shall enter by way of the porch of the gate from outside and stand by the post of the gate. Then the priests shall provide his burnt offering and his peace offerings, and he shall worship at the threshold of the gate and then go out.

Notice that the prince presented an offering and worshiped, but the priests were the ones who did the service and offered it up. Why? Because a priest can do nothing with his face to the ground, bowed down. In the New Testament, all Christians are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood.” That changes things big time, and we’ll talk about it down the line.

To be clear, notice the distinction between serving and worshiping. The priests served; the people worshiped.

Serve What You Worship

We have seen in the Old Testament that priests served, that the people worshiped (bowed down, prostrate) or submitted themselves to a higher power, and that it was all very physical. Today we’re going to look at what happens when we bow down (worship) false gods.

Deut 11:16 Beware that your hearts are not deceived, and that you do not turn away and serve other gods and worship them.

Josh 23:7 so that you will not associate with these nations, these which remain among you, or mention the name of their gods, or make anyone swear by them, or serve them, or bow down to them.

There are a plethora of other verses which have the same terminology. As we can see, those things we worship end up being the things that we also serve. There are some who worship, say, politics, being in submission to a political mission, forgetting to submit to God’s mission and His plan. Others submit to alcohol. We need to carefully watch that which we are worshiping.

All the Time

Before we move on to mentions of “worship” in the New Testament, we need to look at some prophecies about it, and how it was going to change from the OT. Although much of Isaiah is concerned with this, I’m going to take a snippet from Is 66:19-23. Read it all if you get time.

"So your offspring and your name will endure. And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from Sabbath to Sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down [worship] before Me,” says the Lord.

Prophesied here is a huge change in worship. Notice that God said that He planned to change worship (bowing down) to something that occurred from new moon until new moon. In Genesis, we saw that Abraham was able to “go yonder and worship [bow down],” and then come back no longer worshiping. In this prophecy, God asserted that He was removing that type of worship for a perpetual state of bowing down. How can that be?

Perpetual

Isaiah says that we shall worship God all the time, which is highly at odds with what some places do, declaring worship to be certain physical acts that happen on Sunday. Those who believe that worship stops and ends at certain times often rely on Genesis 22:5, where Abraham went, bowed down (worshiped), and then got up again. “See,” they’ll say, “worship has a beginning and an end!”

The problem is that the Old Testament is very different than the New, and that God declared even in the Old Covenant that He would make a people who perpetually worshiped/bowed down to Him

Here’s a question: how many times does the Bible say that we assemble on Sundays “to worship?” The answer is 0. So what’s happened? We’ll see coming up!

Jesus Said

In the New Testament, we are said to assemble on Sundays to worship (OT Hebrew=shachah, NT Greek=proskuneo) exactly zero times, which fits in with the Old Testament prophecy that we would instead be worshiping God from “new moon until new moon,” which is 100% of our lives. What does the New Testament say about worship? First, let’s see where and when Jesus had to say, using John 4:20-24 where a woman wants to know where and when worship would take place:

"Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father… But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Pay close attention. Notice that the pattern is, “location, location, location.” “Mountain, Jerusalem, SPIRIT!” Jesus specifically said that there is no longer a “physical place” to worship, nor a limited time-frame, but rather that it is simply done in spirit and in truth.

Being in Spirit

We now know that God replaced a time and place that we needed to worship physically (bowing down) with a continual, persistent state of submission in “spirit and in truth.” Some say that there are five acts of worship that we can do on Sunday, but this is found nowhere in the entire Bible. Instead, we are to spiritually bow down from new moon until new moon, all the time.

As a Christian, when are you NOT in Spirit? Let’s look at the following verses:  

Rom 8:9, However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.

1 Cor 6:19, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

Just as we are in the Spirit at all times, we SHOULD be submitting to God at all times. Be careful, though, because worshiping is submitting. We cannot claim to be “getting drunk for Christ” as worship, because we are then not submitting to God’s will, and worship in the New Testament is about complete, utter, spiritual submission to our Lord. But again, NOT EVERYTHING WE DO IS WORSHIP—I can’t stress that enough. Rebellion against God is NOT submission to Him

Your Service

We have now seen that worship, in the New Testament, is a 24/7 spiritual submission to God. We’ve seen before that God says that humans end up serving that which they worship (submit to), so what is the overall service that He appreciates from us?

We can see the answer in Romans 12:1:

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your rational service.

God is ultimately seeking a people who give everything to Him, who submit to Him utterly out of love and awe. He has no place for “five authorized acts of “worship,” or “Sunday-only worship,” which is an attempt to replace the spiritual aspect of the New Testament with an earthly form of Old Testament, physical thinking. Let's submit to our Lord in Spirit and in truth! 

Service Overview

Abad

Now that we’ve looked at what “worship,” is, we’ve seen that it is not limited to “five authorized acts” or to a certain day of the week, or to a specific place. It’s a spiritual submission to our Lord from new moon until new moon, so saying that one “worships” from 11-noon on Sunday should be inaccurate…hopefully!

We know that the Old Testament had a system where the people prostrated themselves (worshiped) while the priests (Levites) provided service, such as offering up the sacrifices of the people. Since it was impossible to slaughter a ram with one’s face planted on the ground, this made a lot of sense.

Our next question to consider is, “What is service?”

So many times people say, “That concludes the worship service,” though the term worship service is never found in the Bible.

What is service? Who does it? When?

To get us started off, the word primarily used for service in Hebrew is “abad,” and in Greek it’s, “latreuo.” We’ll discuss more on what it means coming up!

Made to Serve

Looking at service, in the OT Hebrew it’s “abad,” and in NT Greek it’s “latreuo.” They are translated as “service,” and would more literally mean something like, “to work, to slave, to enslave.” Let’s take a look at various places where the word usually translated as “serve/served/service” is used.

The first place is in Genesis 2:5:

Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LordGod had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.

If you guessed that “serve” here was “cultivate, you’re right. It carries the meaning of “to work.”

We’ll look at some more verses just to prove what it means. Gen 15:13 says:

God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.” 

Here the meaning expressed is “made to serve,” but it’s listed as “enslaved.”

We could look at a lot more, but for the sake of brevity, we’re going to move on into places where translators in some versions get “worship” confused with “service,” either through being sloppy or just having a bias because of tradition.

Poor Translations

We’ve seen how the word for “service” is used, and it’s not at all like the word for “worship,” but many people get these confused. Using the NASB translation, today I’m going to look at some places where the word was mis-translated

Exodus 12:31 Then he called for Moses and Aaron at night and said, “Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel; and go, worship the Lord, as you have said.” 

The word “serve” is mistranslated as “worship,” which is strange, as right before we found out that God wanted His people to be let go so that they could serve Him:

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and speak to him, 'Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me.”'” (Ex 9:1)

Why do people get these terms confused when they’re nothing alike? I think that it is greatly due to tradition (a clergy-laity split) and some spiritual laziness. It’s much nicer when your preacher serves you, and you worship for only 1/168th of the week.

Sacrifices of Priests

We’re looking at the word “service/serve” and letting God define what it means. In Isaiah 19, there is a prophecy of many nations becoming a spiritual Israel, and in verse 21 it says:

They will even SERVE with sacrifice and offering, and will make a vow to the Lord and perform it.

If you were a Jew reading that prophecy, and being told to serve with sacrifice and offering, you’d be thinking, “Man, this is NUTS! How can I offer a sacrifice if I’m not a priest? How can I sacrifice something if I have my head bowed to the ground, worshiping?”

Next: do we worship, as the people did, or do we serve, as the priests did?

We Are Priests

Often these days, a “pastor” or preacher “serves his flock,” and his flock “worships on Sunday.” In the Old Testament, the people who weren’t priests worshiped, and the priests did the serving. Are modern congregations which have the same style system correct?

First off, we know that God requires that we always be in spiritual submission to Him (worship), but we also know that now every Christian is a priest in God’s eyes:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. (1 Pet 2:9)

As priests, we know that we also must serve as well:

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” (Rom 7:6)

Using a system where one “attends a worship service” on Sunday and is served by the reverend/pastor/priest isn’t an example of New Testament Christianity, but rather is an “easy” tradition made up by men. We need to all keep in mind that we’re priests and, as such, we should have some form of contribution to building up and serving.

For the Work of Service

When you’re assembled on Sunday, we know that the Bible never says it’s for the purpose of “worshiping", so then, what is it for?

When we assemble together, the specific purpose is to help us as priests in serving God!

Eph 4:11-12 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.

We also know that EACH of us, and not just the preacher, should have a contribution to that edification, and that we should be stimulating one another to love and good works (1 Cor 14:26; Heb 10:24). Put another way, the more subtle misunderstanding of this is that it sees God as requiring a "worship service," to appease Him, when God has mentioned our assembly as being for our own edification. In 1 Cor 14:26, He says:

What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.

Jesus had to correct a Jewish misconception that was very similar and He chided them saying, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:23-3:6). Likewise, the assembly is for the saints, not the saints for assembly. Edification and equipping of the saints for the work of service is the goal—making ourselves strong, spiritual warriors for Christ, not just rule-keepers of technicalities.

All of the above is summed up in an often-mistranslated verse which says:

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service.”

(Note: translator bias shows up in the NASB translation of this verse, which ends it with “spiritual service of worship,” though it never says spiritual nor worship.)

So the Bible never says that we assemble “to worship,” but it does say that we worship (submit) spiritually, and in doing that, we naturally come to serve God, and in the assembly of the saints, that’s expressed as all things which further build us up to go out and work for our Lord.

Levite to Christian

Today is one final point about service of priests (us) that is often unnoticed. Let’s read Acts 4:32-37:

And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them. And with great power the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need.

Now Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, who was also called Barnabas by the apostles (which translated means Son of Encouragement), and who owned a tract of land, sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

This is important because it illustrates the shift away from the Old Testament system, where the Levites (Levitical priests) received the offerings from the worshipers and then provided service by sacrificing the offerings. One of the priests (a Levite) suddenly got it! The people used to be laying their offerings at the feet of the Levites, and now that’s changed. Suddenly a Levite is laying out his offering at the feet of the “uneducated and untrained.” We really need to avoid going back to that Old Testament system where we, the "laity", “worship”, while our “priest” serves!

There’s a lot more depth to be had from studying these words, and I don’t have time to cover it all, so I encourage you to check them out for yourself!

A Summary:

Would you say that singing is an act of worship? Most would. But before I get to that, I have to say that it's very easy to experience cognitive dissonance in such topics. Cognitive Dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values. I've experienced it. You have. We probably all have.

But the truth doesn't fear examination, and as those who seek the truth, we should also not fear finding our own beliefs to be incorrect, or perhaps simply misdirected, though the intent is good. In fact, the worst that can happen is that we learn and grow.

We've tended to think that "we come together to worship, you know, like to praise God, maybe to sing."

Check out 2 Chron 29:28-29 and how it explains worship:

WHILE the whole assembly worshiped, the singers also sang and the trumpets sounded; all this continued until the burnt offering was finished. Now at the completion of the burnt offerings, the king and all who were present with him bowed down and worshiped.

Notice that the singing wasn't worship. The trumpeting wasn't worship. The offering wasn't worship. Why is that? How can those things be?

Worship is the physical act of prostration and bowing down—it is the only physical act of "worship," and that's why "singing" and our five acts just aren't worship. If you see some Jews on the floor bowing down, they are worshiping. Arabs on a prayer mat? Worshiping. Us singing? We're singing. That's what it is. Not worship. We are not assembling to worship, because we're not assembling to bow down in reverence to God—not physically. In fact, we're just assembling.

1 Cor 14:26 would explain it like this, saying,

What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.

Not "when you assemble to worship." Not, "for the worship service." Just, "when you assemble."

But why? Why do we no longer bow down physically as the Jews did? Jesus said in John 4:21-24:

Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship (bow down/prostrate to) the Father. [...] But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship [prostrate before Him] in spirit and truth.

Notice that the lady asked for the location to worship (bow down) and she got her answer—the location is in the spirit. Not at a church's building. Why? Because GOD IS SPIRIT. That's where He wants our reverence. Not for 1/168th of the week in some brick building.

In fact God wants our submission and reverence 24/7. Does He ever mention having a time or place for you to worship? Nope, that was for the Jews. Bowing down is worshiping, and it's the only worship. Some do it physically, but God wants it spiritually.

And that is why Isaiah 66 has a fantastic prophecy of the New Covenant saying,

“For just as the new heavens and the new earth Which I make will endure before Me,” declares the Lord, “So your offspring and your name will endure. “And it shall be from new moon to new moon. And from sabbath to sabbath, all mankind will come to bow down (worship) before Me,” says the Lord.

New moon to new moon. That's ALL the time. Not just on Sunday. This is our Old Testament key, or one of them, to understanding the difference. We can submit to God spiritually—that is, worship Him, bowing our very spirits in reverence—from new moon to new moon. Now when we're busy sinning, we're kind of lifting our heads up and being that stiff-necked people who won't bow down, so not "everything we do is worship." 

By the way, this is not to discount our assembly. We very much NEED to assemble and have the Lord's Supper, we need to edify one another and be joyous praising God. But when we start calling one hour "Bible study," and 25% of the congregation shows up, and then at "worship" the other 75% shows up—well, we have a problem at our very core.

Suggested Additional Study:

The above may not be fully convincing. In the New Testament, the Greek word for “faith,” pistis, primarily means “firm persuasion.” One good way to have more faith in what Jesus said about worship is to let God define the terms. To that end, I have complied a list of every time “worship/proskuneo” is used in the New Testament. This semi-inductive study will let you see the context in which “worship” is usually used, and in doing so, let’s God define the word the way He wishes. It’s just like at a spelling bee. “Could you use it in a sentence?” Check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/luca...