The following are notes from a study I did about Personal Worship. We were looking at the tree analogy of roots, trunk and branches (study, affections, and fruits). More specifically, I was looking at how within each of these are three aspects; personal, social (small/intimate group) and corporate (church). Many of my notes come from Directory for Worship with some additional notes from Experiencing God Through Private Worship
Worship
William Temple defined worship this way, “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God.” (Psalm 29:2, 1 Chronicles 16:29) The word worship comes from the old Anglo-Saxon word “worthship”. It literally means to attribute or ascribe worth to some one. It carries the idea of declaring the object of worship as being worthy of honor. The Greek word in the New Testament that is most often translated “worship” is the word “proskuneo.” This word means to “kiss the hand of one in a token of reverence, also by kneeling or prostration to pay homage.” The second most common word is “sebomai”, this word means “to revere”. Other words are used, but these are sufficient to teach us that the Bible sees worship as an act of honoring God because of His great worthiness to be honored. Read the rest of this entry »