Worship in the NT

October 21st, 2006

Spent a few hours today getting together a list of all the words translated as worship or praise in the Bible, as research for a seminar myself and Crouchy are doing at houseparty. Was pretty shocked at the result concerning worship; since charismatics tend to emphasise worship as meaning praise almost to the exclusion of any idea of whole-life worship, while conservatives tend to say that the new testament only uses it to mean the kind of worshipping with our whole lives, I assumed that as so often in controversies of this kind, the truth is somewhere in the middle - one side corrupts a truth, so the other side decide it would be a good idea to corrupt a truth in the opposite way. I think that’s possibly what’s happened in this case, but definitely not in this respect - it seems to me that the charismatics, in this *specific* issue, are almost entirely right.

There are two key word groups translated as worship in the NT - latrevo (or that’s how I’d pronounce it - I was taught a rare way of pronouncing and then didn’t remember much of how to correctly pronounce greek anyway after about the second week of greek, 3 years ago) and proskyneo. (The Seboo word group and the word theskeia are also used, but are both rare enough to be discounted, and don’t have anything that contradicts what I’m about to say, anyway.)

Latrevo (the word group has strongs numbers 2999, 3000, 3008, 3009 - and never translated as worship but still related are 3010 and 3011) has the primary meaning of ‘I serve’, and only secondarily means worship. It sometimes seems to mean worship in terms of whole life worship, and sometimes in terms of individual or corporate praise (if I can use that as an alternative term for “non-whole-life worship” and ignore what the greek words mean.) It can mean praise or service, or a grey area between the two, but I think it is erroneous to suggest that that ambivalence can at all support the suggestion that the new testament reinterprets worship in terms of the accomplished work of Christ to say that - and I think that simply because “I serve” is the primary meaning, and “I worship” the secondary - in other words, it seems the origins of the word would indicate that the idea of it being worship is a reinterpretation of what serving means, rather than vice versa. That’s based upon my general ideas and remembrances about what I know about the word and what scholars have said about it, though - I have to state that I haven’t looked into the usage of the word outside of the NT and whether that would support that.

The other word group often translated as worship in the NT is proskyneo, “I worship” (strongs numbers 4352, 4353). From a quick glance at the various texts it quotes (not all of them (but a hefty chunk), and few of which I’ve looked into in depth in the past, none specifically now but those which I did in the past I can remember), it seems pretty clear to me that it doesn’t ever really carry the idea of “worshipping God in your whole life”, ie in all your actions or whatever (in any of the ones I’ve looked at, so likely in them all). It seems to be a lot closer to personal or communal devotions and the like.

Where on earth did this idea of worship in the NT not really meaning praise come from? The only idea I can think of is it’s a response the commonly implied charismatic notion that God is especially close when we worship (or even sometimes when we worship, ie those occaisions which involve strong emotions). That’s plainly contrary to the NT but closer to the OT from my perception (but I’ve not looked into it) - not because (like many liberals seem to assume) the NT reveals that contrary to the OT God was after all the God of the philosophers all along, but rather because of the greatness of Christ that is revealed in the NT - we are spiritually “in Christ” all the time!

(Note: There are passages in the NT which make it clear that OT patterns of worship are fulfilled in the work of Christ, and consequently in us offering ourselves as whole units in Christ, but they don’t really dominate the meaning of the term at all, and IIRC I think they’re all latrevo anyway. Also IIRC they’re all related to specific OT patterns of worship through sacrifice being fulfilled in Christ, not all specific kinds of worship.)

Expect further comments from me on this in the future, since I’m doing a seminar on it, will want to check my results more carefully, and will hopefully be challenged on my conclusions by other people, in that I really hope there is more of a case for the common conservative POV than there seems to be.



Other interesting news: My dad has taken up reading my blog. Hi Dad! It’s brilliant, isn’t it?

Also: I’ve been ill the past few days, so my housemate gave me today a card, some tissues, and some of the dairy milk bubbly chocolate bars that I love but haven’t really been able to find recently. I was well touched - I’m living with some lovely people this year. I’m glad I worked out at word alive that I liked them, because otherwise who knows which losers I’d be with right now!

And: This whole relay lark is getting better and better, apart from my illness and thus inability to really do anything past few days. Melinda is great, theology students are great, people I’m working with are great, and studying and teaching the scriptures pointing to Jesus is… well, what’s a word for great that’s even better than great?