biblical vocabulary: worship

Some of us love it, some of us hate it. We sometimes name our church gatherings or sanctuaries after it. We try to avoid directing it toward an unworthy subject in the form of idolatry. But do we even know what it is?

What is this thing we call “worship”? More importantly - how does the Bible define it?

In this third installment of the Biblical Vocabulary series, we’re going to try to understand a word that already has a lot of connotations for most of us - some positive, some not, depending on who we are and how we’ve experienced religion and the church. We’ve already covered the basics of faith and joy - now, it’s time to step into worship.

What is worship?

As always, we’ll begin with the dictionary definitions, just to make sure we’re all on the same page:

1. reverent honor and homage paid to God or a sacred personage, or to any object regarded as sacred.

2. formal or ceremonious rendering of such honor and homage: They attended worship this morning.

3. adoring reverence or regard: excessive worship of business success.

These definitions likely don’t fall too far from the ideas that come to our own minds when we think of worship. Having grown up in the church, one of the first things I think of when I hear the word “worship” is singing, because that’s what has always been called the worship portion of the church gathering. That’s how I tend to understand the idea of honoring or adoring God.

And considering the lengths our modern American churches go to create an “experience” around this time of song, with dimmed lights and catchy melodies and emotional lyrics, I don’t think I’m alone in my preconception. For many of us, the word worship brings a lot of feelings to our attention - either positive ones of feeling “spiritually high,” or negative ones like the guilt associated when our worship doesn’t feel genuine enough.

But are these definitions Biblical?

Yes and no.

Factually, yes, worship is the act of honoring and adoring God. I’ve heard worship defined as “ascribing worth” to something or someone - in other words, treating it as if it has value. And that, I think, is a pretty accurate way to think about worship.

It’s in the connotations, not the definitions, that we begin to veer off the Biblical course.

If our picture of worship is a group of Christians singing the latest Hillsong, then our idea of worship is not Biblical. What we are actually thinking of is praise.

There are seven words in Hebrew for praise:

• Tehillah: The pouring out and surrender through pain (lament-style)

• Hallal: Celebration or dance

• Shabach: Shouting out

• Yadah: Applause or praise with hand motions

• Todah: Thanksgiving

• Zamar: To praise using skilled musical talent and instruments

• Barak: A physical gesture, such as kneeling or bowing

As you can see, just about every praise style you can find in a church on Sunday morning is covered in the Hebrew terminology. The person who prefers to kneel, the person who can’t stop clapping with the beat (or off beat ;)), the person who plays the guitar - all of it is praise. Praise is what happens when we look upon God’s character and respond to Him properly - with delight, thanksgiving, surrender, song, and so forth. It’s a celebration of who God is that comes out of our hearts through music, words, dance, and gesture.

But, though closely related and vitally important, it’s too narrow a category to encompass worship.

So, having established what worship is not, let’s turn to the Bible to find out what it is:

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 spiritual service of worship.

Romans 12:1

And coming to Him as a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:4-5

These New Testament passages appear cryptic at first glance, but they are pointing back to a pattern that the original readers surely would have recognized: the long-standing pattern of Jewish worship beginning in the Old Testament. We can’t understand worship Biblically without understanding worship throughout the whole Bible.

When God took Israel into the Promised Land to be His people, He set highly specific guidelines for worship. A huge part of their worship was to consist of animal sacrifices, which had to be carefully prepared and offered where He commanded, when He commanded, and how He commanded. An entire tribe of Israel - the Levites - became the service staff on God’s worship team. It was an enormous job and a central part of Jewish life. It required an immense investment of time and resources.

Paul and Peter are pointing back to this system when they say that our worship involves sacrifice - not of animals, but of our own living bodies, and the time and resources associated with our entire lives.

And yet even sacrifice is not the full extent of worship, as Saul’s example shows us in 1 Samuel 15:

Samuel said [to Saul], “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.”

1 Samuel 15:22-23

There is an integral part of worship, then, that is obedience. Saul could not simply sacrifice a few animals and have his worship accepted by God, because he was walking in disobedience to God’s specific commands and purposes. His disobedient efforts at worship were so opposite true worship that Samuel likened them to idolatry!

Worship is an act of obedience as much as an act of sacrifice; only obedient worship is acceptable worship. This means that, unlike praise, there aren’t seven passable ways to do it; we can’t just make it up as we go along or do what feels good to us. God decides how He wants to be worshiped, and then we obey. According to Paul and Peter, worshiping God on His terms requires not merely laying oneself across the altar in God’s temple, but becoming one with God’s temple - becoming a vessel for His presence and His plan, no longer serving one’s own needs or agenda.

Jesus may have summarized it best in His interaction with the Samaritan woman, who asked why the Jews were so attached to Jerusalem as the sole location of their worship - bringing to light, like Samuel, the tension and balance between obedience and sacrifice, between the letter of the law and the heart of the worshiper. Jesus replied,

“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.”

John 4:23-24

Worship is sacrifice and obedience, done in spirit and truth. It is giving God what He has asked for from a heart of reverence and adoration for Him rather than an obsession with the rules. Its manifestation is an action, its guide is the truth, its source is the heart.

Worship is work. Work is worship.

Perhaps the best way to tie this all together in a way that makes sense is to introduce you to the Hebrew word avodah. In its simplest definition, this means “labor, service.”

We can find this word all the way back in Genesis 2, before the fall of man:

Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

Genesis 2:15

The word cultivate is the word avodah. Labor and service. Well before God’s perfect creation was tainted by evil, He gave man a purpose: to labor and serve, and to guard what is good.

And it’s the same word used over and over again in the Old Testament to describe the work of the priesthood, the service of the Levitical singers, the builders of the temple, and other acts of obedience to God’s commands regarding the proper worship of Himself.

When we think of worship as singing or praise only, we are thinking far too small, far too passive, far too egocentric. Praise is almost always at least in part about us - about expressing ourselves and responding to our own experience. But worship is work. Worship is active. Worship is not about us - it’s entirely about God, and offering up to Him what He has asked for, no matter how we feel about it.

Worship is avodah. Labor and service.

And this is still our purpose - we were created for this. Worship is work, and work is worship. We are to revere and ascribe worth and bring glory to our God by so much more than just singing! We are called to labor and serve, at high personal cost, in the specific ways He has commanded us: by guarding what is good, by giving and stewarding our resources, by loving one another selflessly, by bearing one another’s burdens, by using our gifts to His glory.

This is worship.

Returning to Paul’s instruction in Romans 12:

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 spiritual service of worship.

Romans 12:1

“Spiritual service of worship” is a phrase that has always mystified me, but it makes so much more sense in light of avodah. The Greek words Paul uses reveal his meaning with a little more clarity: “Spiritual” actually relates to the Greek logikos, meaning reason, and “service of worship” is closely correlated with the idea of sacred, priestly service. In other words, the presentation of our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice is the divinely reasonable sacred service. There is an element of practicality and logic to this worship - it’s not all nebulous emotions and metaphysical experiences. There is labor and service, obedience and sacrifice, spirit and truth.

Worship is work, and our work can be our worship. Whether you work at a desk or in a field, whether you serve under a CEO in a corporation or serve your family in your own home, you have an equal opportunity to share in the spiritual service of worship. God doesn’t demand what you do not have, He only asks for all that you have.

biblical vocabulary: joy

“Count it all joy…”

“Rejoice in the Lord always…”

“The joy of the Lord is your strength.”

We look for it everywhere. We feel guilty when we don’t have enough of it. We wonder why it’s so difficult to come by. But do we know what it is?

What is this thing called “joy”? More importantly, what is it according to the Bible?

Remember, our goal is to approach the Bible not with our preconditioned perspective, but with heart and mind open to see what God Himself put there. Our own filters are usually built on whatever foundation other flawed human beings helped to lay for us, and they don’t always allow the whole truth to come through.

In the first part of this series, we looked at the word “faith.” If you haven’t read it, go back and read it now, because faith is joy’s parent - we’ll never achieve the latter without a solid standing in the former.

What is joy?

The top three dictionary definitions for joy are as follows:

1. the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation: She felt the joy of seeing her son’s success.

2. a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated: Her prose style is a pure joy.

3. the expression or display of glad feeling; festive gaiety.

Unfortunately, these definitions miss the mark of the Biblical understanding of joy by a rather wide margin, and when we bring them to our study of the Bible, we enter into the dangerous territory of thinking one’s “quality” as a disciple of Jesus can in some way be measured by one’s ability to be happy, look on the bright side, and walk into church with a smiling face every week. It’s not long before that attitude turns followers into fakers.

So, as always, we turn to the Bible for the truth. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of verses regarding joy in the Bible, but here are a few helpful ones:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!
Philippians 4:4

If the whole concept of joy really were wrapped up in those three dictionary.com definitions above, not a single one of these passages could be true. Maybe they never would have been written at all.

There’s no room for “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying” in the kind of trials that test our faith, or in the long road to the Cross. Most of us, in our right minds, grieve and weep and agonize when we are suffering - and Jesus did the same. If even Jesus couldn’t “rejoice always,” according to the dictionary definition, how could Paul possibly command us to do so?

That’s why we need a new and biblical definition of joy if we ever hope to interpret the Bible correctly.

Joy is a choice.

Once we have put on God’s perspective (faith), He opens our eyes to the choice before us: We can let our emotions rule us, or we can let the truth rule our emotions. This isn’t simply about being a happier person or doing gratitude meditations; it is the resolute assurance that God knows and cares about what I’m going through, and has the power to overcome it. It is the choice - the resolve - to believe that God is who He says He is: utterly sovereign and utterly good.

This has been a very hard year for me and my family. There’s been a lot of grief and suffering that has rocked my world and forced me to reckon with how I really understand faith and joy - even how I really view God’s character. Do I really believe that if I jump, He’ll catch me? That He sees my pain and cares about it and reigns over it? Do I really believe that He loves me as much as I love myself?

Notice, again, that joy is not a feeling - contrary to our English dictionary. Biblically, you don’t need to be happy to have joy. In fact, you can be angry or brokenhearted, and still have joy. Your joy isn’t in your feelings or your circumstances, but “in the Lord.”

The Bible is full of beautiful laments that capture the essence of true joy. I recommend the book of Job, Jeremiah’s Lamentations, and Habakkuk in particular. These three men, plus David in the Psalms, may be the most joyful writers in Scripture, even though their words often sound the saddest. They suffered, but they knew that God knew, and God cared. They were not afraid to walk into church without a smile on their face, or into the throneroom without a song of thanksgiving; in fact, they fearlessly entered His Presence carrying their heart’s deepest woes, trusting that He would receive them and love them anyway.

That is joy.

Though He slay me,
I will hope in Him.
Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.
This also will be my salvation,
For a godless man may not come before His presence.
Job 13:15-16

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.
Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.
This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
Lamentations 3:19-25

Though the fig tree should not blossom
And there be no fruit on the vines,
Though the yield of the olive should fail
And the fields produce no food,
Though the flock should be cut off from the fold
And there be no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I will exult in the Lord,
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength,
And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet,
And makes me walk on my high places.
Habakkuk 3:17-19

Rejoice in the Lord always - not as a faker, but as a follower. Not because you feel it, but because you choose it. Not because it’s all good, but because He is.

biblical vocabulary: faith

We have it. We preach it. We pray for more of it. But do we know what it is?

What is this thing we call “faith”? More importantly, what is it according to the Bible?

A common struggle I see (and have experienced myself) in personal Bible study is the temptation to bring our own definitions and preconceptions to the Bible, interpreting it through the lenses of our own backgrounds and experiences. This can often be subconscious, even automatic, because the reality is, few of us have had occasion to practice and perfect interpreting ancient texts that are surrounded by a context decidedly different from our own. (More on how to study the Bible here!)

This problem is widespread and certainly understandable, but it can also be deadly to a right understanding of Scripture and an obstacle to knowing God, so we must do all we can to eradicate it.

That’s the foundation behind this post, and the ones that will follow it, in a series called “Biblical Vocabulary.” The words we study will be familiar, even basic, but sometimes it’s the most familiar and basic words that are the easiest to misread.

We’ll begin with faith.

What is faith?

The top three definitions of faith on dictionary.com are as follows:

1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.

2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.

Each of these definitions makes up at least a piece of our typical understanding of the word “faith.” When we come across it in Scripture, one of these - or bits of each - likely informs our understanding of the text surrounding it.

And each of these definitions has a place in the Biblical understanding of faith as well. There is an element of faith that requires trust, and belief in that which is not necessarily concrete; and, of course, it is associated for our purposes with God and religion. But none of these captures fully the spirit of the word “faith” as it’s used in the Bible, so we go to the Bible next.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.

By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. . . . And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

Hebrews 11:1-3, 6

These are the most famous “Faith is” verses in the Bible, especially verse 1. The trouble with this verse is that the language is about as clear as a theological dictionary - it sounds good on paper, but what does it even mean? “The assurance of things hoped for” and “the conviction of things not seen” just sounds like a fancier way of restating the definitions from dictionary.com.

But we miss some key information if we don’t dive into the subsequent verses and allow the author of Hebrews to expand on his words. Verse one is merely his thesis statement; the rest of the chapter shows us what this thesis statement means - what faith is as a reality in the life of a believer.

By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. . . . By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.

Hebrews 11:7-8, 11

Faith is a new perspective.

We could call it supernatural vision, or God-glasses, or God’s eyes - whichever phrasing we use, the culminating point of Hebrews 11 (corroborated by the rest of Scripture) is that faith is not simply having confidence in a thing; it’s not simply believing something you can’t prove; it’s not simply believing in God or the teachings of Christianity; it is seeing things the way God says they are, and not the way my eyes see them.

When I look out the window, I see solid ground and a world made up of physical things - trees, people, buildings, rocks. But God says that there’s more to this world than that, and that “what is seen was not made out of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3). Elsewhere in the Bible I can read of principalities and powers that are invisible to the human eye, and spiritual realms outside of my vision. When I put on faith, the whole world gets a thousand times bigger, and the need to put on my spiritual armor becomes a thousand times more necessary.

Likewise, when Noah began to build the ark, he saw solid ground. He had never seen water fall out of the sky or press up from the fount of the deep to cover the face of the earth. But God said that He was going to cleanse the world with a flood, and Noah made the choice to order his life around what God could see, and not what his own eyes could see. In doing so, he “became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Hebrews 11:7) - along with Abraham, Sarah, and the dozens of other named and unnamed witnesses whose testimonies make up the remainder of Hebrews 11.

Notice that faith is not a feeling. It is not feeling certain or feeling confident. Faith can exist outside of certainty and confidence, and even outside of belief, because faith is an action (see James 2).

One of my pastors uses a helpful illustration for this concept: He fully believes that parachutes work, and that when someone jumps out of a plane and deploys their parachute, they will survive the descent to the ground. But you’ll never find him jumping out of an airplane, because he won’t put his faith in a parachute.

Faith jumps. Not because of any extra-special feelings of confidence, but because of a supernaturally-broadened perspective that relies on God to be who He says He is and to do what He says He will do, even without a clear view of the outcome.

The next time you read a Bible passage that uses the word “faith,” don’t just insert your own definition of the word - use the Biblical definition. When Paul charges Timothy to “[hold] onto faith and a good conscience” (1 Timothy 1:19), how does your understanding change if you read “hold onto God’s perspective and a good conscience”?

For me, using the Biblical definition of faith completely changed how I understood large portions of the Bible and Christianity. I no longer feel guilty when I don’t “believe hard enough,” or wonder if I’m not really saved when I don’t feel fully confident in the tenets of Christian doctrine. I can see the examples of what saving faith looks and acts like in the testimonies of Hebrews 11, and I can look back on my own life and see the times when God said “Jump!” and I jumped.

Incidentally, He’s never failed to catch me. And every time I let Him, my faith is a little stronger the next time.

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