What is worship really?

In today's church we tend to think of singing a few songs with the band as worship. We also tend to call the person leading that time the worship leader or pastor. These things aren't necessarily bad, but its important to know what God's heart is.

Dwight A. Pryor is an all-star with Jewish roots and background, and I recommend listening or reading his works. 

The Hebrew people don't really have a word worship, so what we have to do is look at a few words and then put them together to see how they "worshipped" or gave worth to God. 

Exodus 8:1 God is speaking to Moshe (I love saying Moses' name in Hebrew, its fun) telling him what to tell Pharaoh in order to begin the exodus. God tells Moshe:

"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Go to Pharaoh and say to him, This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me'"

The word worship there is the Hebrew word avad and worshipers were called avadim. Avad means to serve and avadim means servant or slave. When God pulls them out of Egypt he has a very specific calling on the Israelites, and that is to worship Him through serving him. It is of no coincidence that the first place they stop is Mount Sinai where God then gives them the law and Torah so that they might properly avad him. 

This is why the Jews studied scripture so much, because they wanted to worship God and they knew Torah was the way to God. They studied not to have more knowledge but to know God in an intimate way through obedience to his word. 

Worship then is knowing God's will through studying his word and acting on it, or simply put serving God. 

Which by the way is also why Paul in Romans 12 says not to be conformed by this world but transformed by the renewing of your mind so that we can know and test God's will or purpose. and all of that is said in the same breath of offering yourself as a sacrifice which is all worship.

The next word I hear is worship is praise. So lets unpack that one. 

The word praise in Hebrew is the word halel. What some people may not realize is the word halel originally meant shining (Job 29:3) as in the North Star. The north star was a constant shine that people looked for to give direction so they would know where to go. So if you look at the ancient pictograph of the word halel you find a man with his hands raised with 2 shepherd's staff next to him.  Scholars translate this as meaning looking toward something great for direction or guidance. 

The question is then raised where to do you look for guidance? One might answer the Law and Torah. 

Looking for guidance and direction from God the Jews would look to the scripture for God's wisdom to act in obedience to his will. So here we find ourselves in the same situation as before, being searching out the scriptures for the purpose of being obedient to God's will. 

Halel or praise is looking toward God for the purpose of being obedient to his will which was found in the scriptures. Simply put its being obedient.

The last word I want to look at is the Hebrew word shehhah. Shehhah means laying yourself down face first in the dirt to show respect for someone. This wasn't specifically meant for God alone but for anyone you should great respect for (Moses bowed before his father in law in Exodus 18:7) and was a very common practice. 

Time and time again you can read in the scripture of when God's was interacting with his creation and someone fell prostrate heard his words and then got up to be obedient to what they were called to do. When they fell prostrate the word used is shehhah, worship. 

Here worship is falling prostrate to listen to the words of God so that you can be obedient to what he is calling you to do. Simply put worship is responding to God's word.

All 3 words are very similar in that the result is giving God worth by obeying his spoken word. 

If people are responding to God's word by being obedient and living it out, God is being worshipped.

If our worship leaders are leading people to dig into the word and respond by being living out what God has called them to do in the scriptures, God is being worshipped.

If our songs we sing cause us to fall prostrate in the presence of God and draw us to become obedient to the words of God, then God is being worshipped.

But if we are just coming and singing a few songs to get us in the mood to hear a message we don't plan on responding to by being obedient to the scriptures, then chances are God is not being worshipped.