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I had a conversation with Jennifer of Getting Down With Jesus awhile back, and it’s stuck with me. We were thinking about worship. That’s a phrase that has been woefully corrupted by our institutional churches in my mind.
Don’t get me wrong. I love singing. But worship pastors are a lot more than singers or song leaders or choir leaders.
In fact, it’s amazing how much our 21st century understand of worship differs from the Hebrew concept of worship in the Old Testament. I’m not a scholar of Hebrew, but I’ve done a little bit of word study on the word avodah or abad [Strong's 5647]. It means to work, and by implication to serve and worship.
Did you get that? In Hebrew, the same word could mean either work or worship. It sheds a new light on the ten commandments.
Ex 20:5, 8-9
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve [abad, 5647] them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6 And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments…
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days shalt thou labour [abad, 5647], and do all thy work…
None of us worry much these days about worshipping false idols–except metaphorically. But it’s not just a matter of bowing down to statues. The Hebrews were told not to bow down or work for them. Instead, the word may imply that they were to dedicate their work to God. Certainly, other verses support this idea that our work is devoted to God.
The commandment about the Sabbath is quite a bit different too. We are called to work for six days. Then rest on the seventh. Many Christians have used verses like this to justify a kind of new Sabbath system where Sunday worship is the New Testament replacement for Jewish Sabbath.
But abad doesn’t occur on the sabbath according to this commandment. It occurs during the week.
Again, I’m no Hebrew scholar, so I’m willing to be corrected on this. I’m not making this all up on my own, though. I first learned the idea from David Miller of The Avodah Institute. (He’s at Princeton Theological now, I believe.) Ann Voskamp reminded me of the idea again in a recent article she wrote for me at TheHighCalling.org: Do You Feel Broken and Fragmented? (Sometimes I really do, Ann.)
I’m curious what other people think.
- If worship is more than just singing and raising hands, what is it?
- More importantly, what are the dangers and pitfalls of thinking about work as a form of worship?
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{ 17 comments }
good question.
Nancy, are you interested in what worship is–or how we might pervert the idea of work as worship?
My worship pastor has talked about this quite a bit, in fact …
We are supposed to commit everything that we do to the glory of God — working, playing, etc.. One of the mistakes that we make is trying to segment our lives into our part and God’s part. Another is, as you note, treating life as if we’re only worshiping while we’re singing.
My life is supposed to be a constant act of worship. I’m not there yet, to be sure … but I pray that God brings me closer.
Great post.
I’m a little confused by your question (thinking about work as a form of worship). Can you clarify? Also, I’m wondering how you’re defining work.
I wrote a post about those two concepts not too long ago. I need to finish that little series. But I was coming from a slightly different point of view.
And I can’t tell if we agree or disagree . . .
To equate worship with work could lead to the spiritual justification of workaholics.
We are to worship God in all things — not just work, not just singing, not just prayer — in all things, all that we do. Worship is not an action; it’s a mindset.
You are right that “work” and “worship/serve” are the same words in Hebrew. For example, in the Old Testament, King James translation, in the chapter about Elijah and the prophets of Baal, if you “serve Baal”, it means to worship Baal, but in Hebrew it is to “work” for Baal. This puts a whole new meaning on lots of New testament passages. By being a “servant” of God, we are actually a “worshipper” of God. We either “work” in the world (i.e. serve the world) or we work/serve God.
Wickle, thanks for dropping by. “Life is supposed to be a constant act of worship.” I like that.
spaghettipie, we’re definitely in agreement. When I talk about work, I mean both the 21st century idea of vocation and profession, but also what you describe in your post. Daily work is whatever a person does daily. Like Gerard Manley Hopkins says, “What I DO is me. For that I came.”
Tanya, that’s pretty much what I was thinking. Not only could it be a justification for idolizing work, it could be a way for bosses to spiritualize the way they motivate employees. Do good work for me because that honors God. While technically true, that could get real messy and manipulative quick.
Hebrew Student, thanks for the insights! I always like it when people tell me that I’m right. : ) Your last point raises some more questions for me, though. The dichotomy of working in the world vs. working for God gives me pause. Personally, I’m in trouble unless I can work in the world, earning a paycheck, developing products and services and also somehow serve God at the same time.
Marcus,
What a help your post is to me. I have sort of swept the whole Sabbath vs. Sunday question under my little rug, because a)I feel I have to get work done on Saturday, and b)what difference does it make what day we take our Sabbath rest? But the idea that worship doesn’t happen on the Sabbath might change things.
Then again, isn’t resting to honor God a form of worship, and isn’t that what I do after church on Sunday?
Maybe you just opened up more questions for me, after all. But it’s all good.
All the best,
Diane
Oh, good. I thought we agreed but was just a little confused.
Then my thoughts align with Wickle. To me, the danger in viewing work as a form of worship is that it is a subtle compartmentalization of our “spiritual” lives and the rest of our lives. Work IS worship (however we define it). I like how Mark Driscoll says it (check out this sermon) – that worship is the act of putting something/someone in the place of honor, the place that we center our lives. Since we have limited time, resources, attention, etc, something has to drive our decisions on how we spend those things. And that “something” is what is in the place of worship. Worship involves our whole lives; everything boils down to a worship matter.
To continue the ancient language thread, the Greek word we translate “liturgy” means service or work.
A quick look at my good ol’ NASB exhaustive concordance shows that ‘worship’ is translated from ‘avodah’ far less frequently than from ’sachah’ which is more like “bow down.”
So perhaps it’s something like…our work is an act of worship in that we are His servants. I mean, perhaps “work is worship” would be more accurate than “worship is work.”
Anyway…thanks for initiating the discussion. Fun!
Diane, I have not thought much about Sabbath either to be honest. This post came out of a study I led, that started in part with ideas I gleaned from working with writers like Marlo Schalesky on TheHighCalling.org. Though as I said in the post, I first learned about avodah/abad from David Miller back when he was at Yale. As you say, “resting” would seem to be a form of worship. But then, I think the way we use that word is pretty wishy-washy. Avodah/abad at least seems to be more active. Again, though, I’m not a scholar about this stuff.
Tina, that’s pretty challenging to say “work IS worship.” at first, I wanted to disagree or qualify it to be “work SHOULD BE worship.” But you’re right. Work is always worship. It should be a way of worshipping God, but sometimes it is a way of worshipping money, or our own egos, or our desire for power, or any number of things.
John, great to see you here! I looked up the word in question and found this: leitourgia (li-toorg-ee’-ah); from NT:3008. It’s interesting that the idea of liturgy often gets reduced to robes and candles and scheduled Bible readings. Princeton defines it as “a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship.” That catches the idea of Zechariah serving the temple in Luke 1, but not the larger idea of serving our neighbors. I guess our understanding of the word service needs work too.
This is a really long comment.
i would like to take some time to look into the meaning of worship. what exactly are we talking about when we speak of worship?
Tanya, this was a brilliant observation:
“Worship is not an action; it’s a mindset.” I agree completely. Not only do I agree, I wish I’d said it.
(But trust me, I will in the future!)
Monica, that is an excellent point. Whatever form worship takes, it always has an attitude of submission and reverence and bowing.
Work can be a kind of worship if we approach it with the right attitude. But really, everything in our lives should be worship–we are living sacrifices. Grocery shopping can be worship. Commenting on a blog post. Feeding the dogs. Brewing coffee. Waking my daughter for music camp (it’s time). Enjoying the quiet morning. Getting the mail. Paying the bills. Mowing the lawn. Editing articles.
When I am most like God wants me to be, all of these things are acts of worship.
Much more often, I use all of these things to worship myself and carve out little kingdoms for myself.
Wickle, that pretty much sums it up for me too. And it goes with Monica’s comment. We are to have the attitude of Christ, who being the very nature of God humbled himself.
I’m not the very nature of God, so it should technically be easier for me to humble myself. Technically.
Nancy, to do word studies like this, I start with a simple concordance search on worship. Then I use an interlinear bible to identify the Hebrew and Greek words in question. Then I use an Englishman’s Concordance to do a reverse search for each appearance of those particular words (which often get translated in multiple ways). This sounds complicated but it is pretty easy with bible software. I use PC Study Bible.
I’m late to the discussion. I’ve been on vacation.
During my time away, I could have skipped church, and just as easily worshipped God away from the Sunday morning crowd while sitting on a fishing lake somewhere. In fact, I DIDN’T skip church. But I’m just saying, I can easily be transported to the heart of worship while sitting on a fishing boat — sometimes more easily than in a church pew.
Somewhere earlier in this thread, someone remarked that she was confused by the question presented. You know, I think a lot of people are confused about worship entirely and this question: What is worship?
We make worship about the music, the sanctuary, the five-piece band, the vocalists, the hands raised, the hands NOT raised. We get so busy looking for the right worship STYLES that we can forget that worship is not about us at all.
It’s about God.
And if I’m not careful, I might miss the song of worship being sung all around me, even now, on a Tuesday morning with rain beating against my kitchen window.
pc study bible… ok, thanks.
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