Let Every Knee Bow
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!
Ps 150:6
Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.
Rev 4:11
And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
Rev 14:7
Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q1
The Bible is clear that God made us for His glory. That is to say, he created us to reflect and magnify his character, his beauty, his power, and his majesty. He made us to worship him.
In his commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel, Eugene Peterson writes, “If God is the central reality of existence in general and human life in particular, worship is our ‘real work.’ Nothing we do is more basic; nothing we do is an advance beyond it” (p.164). So, as Christians it is vitally important we understand worship.
In this series of blog posts, we will be thinking through the worship of God from a biblical perspective. We will be exploring questions such as
- What does it mean to worship?
- Is God concerned with how he is worshiped?
- Is there a distinction between corporate worship (when God’s people gather) and private worship (when as individuals we seek to engage with God on our own)?
- If all of life is an act of worship, then what are the implications?
Worship is a broad topic indeed!
What is Worship?
Perhaps the best place to start is by defining our terms. The English word worship means “to honor or show reverence.” Our modern word “worship” is from the old English term that means to acknowledge someone’s worth or worthiness of praise.
The Bible, however, uses several words for the concept of worship. The first time we read about an act of worship is actually in Genesis 4:
In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.
Gen 4:3-5
To bring an offering is an act of worship because it is an acknowledgement, in this particular case (because there are many other types of offerings in the Bible, as we will see in due course), that God is the source of all good gifts, of life, of breath and blessing. To return to the Lord something of what He has provided is to say thank you in a profoundly simply, yet important act.
This act of “giving back” to the Lord requires genuine humility because the offering is a demonstration of dependence. The offering acknowledges in principle what is celebrated in song in Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof.”
Everything belongs to the LORD, therefore we cannot really give Him anything!
Is God Concerned with How He is Worshiped?
This first act of worship by Cain and Abel follows the great fall of humanity into bondage to sin. East of Eden, humanity lives with an inherently rebellious heart. In our rebellion the struggle of worship rages in our divided and sinful hearts. Who or what will we worship?
We can choose to worship created things, we can choose to worship ourselves, or we can choose to worship the Creator of all things. In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve in a very real sense chose to worship themselves by seeking to supplant God’s place as ruler in garden. One could argue that false worship is, therefore, the “genesis” of the fall.
In the narrative of Genesis, prior to the offering of Cain and Abel, there are no instructions concerning the “right” worship of God. Perhaps God had made his will clear to Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, but it is simply not recorded in Scripture at this point. The text hints as much when God responds to the downcast Cain, “if you do what is right will you not be accepted” (Gen 4:7). It is as if God expects Cain to know what a “right” offering is. Nonetheless, Moses contrasts for us the two offerings of the two the brothers. Let us revisit the text from above:
In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.
Gen 4:3-5
Cain brought “the fruit of the ground,” while Abel brought the “firstborn” of his flocks and their “fat” (read “best”) portions. The respective offerings of the two brothers revealed something about their hearts.
Abel’s offering was “more acceptable” (to use the term in Heb 11:4) to God because it was offered by faith. In other words, Abel’s offering demonstrated his belief that God was the creator of all things (Heb 11:3); therefore, the first and best of what God had provided ought to be given back to God.
Abel’s heart reverberated with faith in God, trust in Him and a humble acknowledgement that God should be honored as the creator and sustainer of life. Cain’s offering, on the other hand, revealed perhaps that he believed he was responsible for his harvest, so God ought to be satisfied with whatever Cain was willing to give him.
So the answer to the question, “Is God concerned with how he is worshiped?” is an emphatic yes! God has not left worship to our imaginations, nor will He simply accept any act of acknowledging His worth, no matter how sincere.
Right worship requires both a right heart and a right action. The Bible, which is God’s definitive word on worship, must be the source that defines, regulates and informs our worship of God, if we expect God to be glorified by it. We will continue to explore this idea in subsequent posts.
— David Camera
