Biblical worship involves two essential elements: First, worship must be done with reverence. This is a reverence-based approach toward God. Worship is inward God-directed Expressions of the Heart. When God encounters people, the first human worship response one sees Scripture reveal is that people bow in reverence in some way. This type of deep, inward God-directed expressions of the heart worship is demonstrated:
- By Joshua before the Angel of the Lord (Josh. 5:13ff);
- With Gideon as he encounters the Angel of the Lord (Judges 6:20-23);
- As David sings love to the Lord (e.g. Psalm 27:4);
- When Isaiah bows in God’s Throne Room (Isaiah. 6:1-8);
- As Ezekiel stands before the Heavenly Being (Ezekiel. 1:28);
- With the Disciples after Peter walked on the water (Mt. 14:25-33); and,
- When the woman washes the feet of Jesus at Simon the Pharisee’s house (Luke 7:44-48).
Second, as one encounters God, their worship translates into their own daily actions, activities and life experiences. This is encounter-motivated-actions for God. When God initiates real encounter with humans they get up and obey. They not only acknowledge God, but they then move into some sort of responsive action or actions.
Four biblical examples of this reality are:
1) Zacchaeus, who after his encounter with Christ, immediately began to make restitution to people he had cheated (Lk 19:8-9);
2) The woman who washed Jesus’ feet at Simon the Pharisee’s home (Lk. 7:44-48). Having apparently met Jesus early and experienced his healing worship, she worshipped Jesus from the depths of her heart, and through outward, God-motivated action.
3) The Apostle Paul declaring his desire that “Christ be exalted (worshiped) in (through the actions of) my body,” Phil. 1:20;
4) Paul’s declaration that God is glorified in all the ‘actions we do,’ 1 Cor. 10:31. This “doing all for the glory of God” is in fact outward God-motivated actions of worship—not something separate from worship.
These two fundamental dynamics of worship seem always manifested when people actually do worship. And these dynamics are repeatedly and consistently expressed by two key worship terms.
The Old Testament terms are Shachah and Sharat (or Sharet). Shachah means to bow low, to bend at the waist, to fall down to the ground, or to express a deep reverence from the heart that involves honoring the object of one’s worship. As believers grow more deeply in the worship life with God, this reverence seems to draw the maturing believers toward a ‘delighted desire’ to approach God. As they approach God, they grow in their reverence, awe, and gratitude for God’s benevolence and care toward them.
Sharat or Sharet implies ministry, service, and obedience. In the Old Testament, it is historically the administrations of the gathered religious activities of the worshiping community. It especially applies to the people designated to carry out worship responsibilities in public.
Deuteronomy 10:8 uses this term when it states that the Levites were appointed, “. . . to stand before Yahweh and minister to and serve Him.“
In the New Testament one finds that Greek translation of Shachah and Sharat are Proskuneo and Latreuo. Proskuneo literally means to kiss toward. It holds the picture of bowing at the waist expressing honor to another. Proskuneo keeps the same meaning held by shachah; one of bowing low, kneeling or falling to the ground out of deep homage for another.
Latreuo literally means service to or for another. This service is motivated by deep worship, reverence, love and gratitude for the one being served. It is frequently rendered serve or minister; holds the sense that the service or ministry for or in response to the one served is motivated by that worship, reverence, love and thanks for the one served.
By the time latreuo is being used in the New Testament, the meaning of the term had widened to mean a worship-way-of-living. The Apostle Paul uses the term in Romans 12:1 when he urges believers to “. . . present their bodies as living sacrifices”—note the allusion to the Levites serving at the Jerusalem Temple—“. . . which is their only logical (understandable—logikon in Greek) worship-way-of-living.”
First, the Greek term proskuneo and the Hebrew term shachah both mean the same—adoration, bow, honor or reverence. And, the Greek term latreuo and the Hebrew term sharat both these terms mean the same – service, sacrifice unto the Lord. The point here is that in both the Old Testament, true worship manifests both responses—a heart connection with God, and lived-out actions in obedience to God. [1]
Second, wherever one sees true worship in the Bible one always sees both of these expressions wrapped together into one “integrated worship response.” Two classic New Testament passages illustrating this point are: Jesus confronting the devil at the beginning of His public ministry (e.g. Mt. 4:10), where Jesus invokes the double worship dynamic when He uses both terms here mentioned by telling the devil, “’Worship (proskuneéseis) the Lord your God, and serve (latreúseis) him only.” (Matt 4:10). Jesus is basically saying, ‘Both adoringly and service-fully: worship God only!’
Jesus expresses the essence of worship as he articulates greatest command. Here, worship is a both-and: love God, and you’ll love self and others well: 29 ‘The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, Yahweh is God, Yahweh alone. 30 Love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 31 The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31, author’s rendering).
Worship is a Two-in-One response to God. That two-in-one response pattern can be expressed many ways, for example; approach-and-availability; adoration-and-action; love-and-obedience; surrender-and-service; and, awe-and-availability.[2] But the “two” kinds of responses still make up the “one” worship transaction.
This two-in-one worship response is important because it is always observable.
First, people bow, or cower, or are deeply moved (often frightened); and they “revere” the presence of God in one way or another, even if they do not completely understand what is happening. Examples of this principle are seen by: the Bethlehem shepherds at Christ’s birth (Lk 2:8-9); the men with Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road (Acts 9:3-8); Isaiah when called into the Heavenly Throne Room (Is. 6:1-8); Moses and the Israelis at Mt. Horeb (Ex 3:1-6).
All those who sensed God’s encounter demonstrated some sort of reverence. However, not all of them technically worshiped. The only ones who worshiped in the biblical sense were those who responded in some sort God-motivated action. Some might say, “they all worshiped to some degree because they all ‘reverenced’ the reality of the God-encounter.” Not so. Those who did not “respond” to the encounter with some sort of God-motivated action, simply did not manifest “true” worship.
Second, this two-in-one response pattern is “one” worship transaction, not two ‘kinds’ of worship. Religious practice without heart-connect to God is not worship. Throughout the Bible one repeatedly sees people identifying religious rituals and learning as worship. Sometimes they substitute moral and ethical consistency for worship. But God does not always recognize them as true worshipers. Consider the following Old and New Testament examples:
1. Cain with his inadequate offering (Genesis 4:3-7);
2. The delinquent priestly son’s of Eli (1 Samuel 4:22ff);
3. The disobedient worship activities of Saul (1 Samuel 13:9ff);
4. Those Israelis the prophet Isaiah indicted for heartless worship ( e.g. Is 29:13); or,
5. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day he confronted for their false worship (John 8). It is clear that the Bible requires both responses inner Godward expression of the heart (John 4:23-24) and an outward action of worship (James 4:8).
[1] This translation practice was not simply a New Testament practice. The exact same translation practice occurred in the translation of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures by Jewish religious Hebrew-Greek scholars prior to 285BC, for the sake of getting the Hebrew Scriptures into the hands of Greek-speaking Jewish communities spread around (what at that time was) the Roman Empire. See The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament and Apocrypha: With an English Translation and with Various Readings and Critical Notes. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub. House, 1975, i-ii.
[2] Many Hebrew and Greek terms in Scripture express the various dynamics of worship as a way-of-life. Some of the Hebrew terms are: b’rach—to bless (Dan 2: 19-20); berech—to kneel (Dan. 6:10); giyl—to rejoice excessively, even by spinning around (Ps 32:11; Ps ; gahbad—to serve as a bond-servant, loving service (Ps 102:23; Ex 3:12); halal—to boast foolishly (praise) (Ps 22:4, Ps 44:8); nagan—to play a stringed instrument skillfully (Is 38:20; Ps 33:3); qadash—to consecrate or make ceremonially clear (Ex 30:30; qarab—to approach or draw near to serve the Yahweh (Lev 7:35); rahnan—to joyfully shout (Ps 33:1); ruah—to shout (Ps 47:1, 66:1); sahgad / s’geed—fall down in worship, but does not seem to be used for worshiping Yahweh (Dan 2:46; Dan 3:5; Is 44:19) samach—to rejoice brightly (1 Sam 2:1, Ps 66:6); saphar—to celebrate intensely; shabach—to address in loud tones (Ps 63:3); shachah—to bow at the waste or bow down in reverence (Joshua 5:14); sheer—to sing while strolling like a minstrel (Ps 13:6); yadah—to give thanks by holding out the hands (Ps 9:1-2); yahreh—to fear (the Yahweh), great reverence and humility (Gen 22:12; Ps 33:8).
Greek terms related to the broader biblical worship-way-of-life are: doxa—glory (Lk 14:10; latreuo / litergeia—the worship administrations, and the worship-motivated actions coming out of encountering God, often translated poorly by the term serve (Rm 12:1; Rev. 22: Dt 10:8); neokoros–temple-sweeper or temple-keeper but “worshipper” is needed to complete the idea, in our modern idiom (Acts 19:35); proskuneo—literally this term means to kiss toward, to bend at the waste and bow low in reverence (Jn 4:23); sebazomai—to venerate (Rm 1:25); sebomai—reverence, often used re false worship (Mt 15:7); therapeuo—to serve or tend, but in NT it has a close connection with ‘temples made with hands’ therefore not seen used with the worship of the True Yahweh God; threskeia—a ritual or ceremonial observance – with a root idea of fear (Col 2:18).
[Note: All these definitions were researched from Bible Soft PC Study Bible 5.0 software, Topics, International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Electronic Database, Biblesoft, Inc; Copyright, 1996, 2003, 2006; “Worship,” article, written by Philip Wendell Crannell.]