The biblical foundation of the church has always been rooted in and best understood as a movement. Implied in the term 'movement' is action. As history shows terms begin to take on other meanings and tradition sets in re-defining the word.
For example the word 'worship' has taken on the idea of meeting in a building with a steeple to congregate and follow a liturgy. While each of these words and actions are not bad in themselves, nor should they necessarily be eliminated, they have defined how a follower of Jesus is to worship Him. Get up on Sunday morning, meet in a building, follow an order of service (another word that has historically been re-defined) and leave complete! Even the most feeble attempt to 'mess' with this concept is met with resistance, opposition, anger, and either a church battle or exodus of parishioners.
As someone has said, "Christians are like cement...thoroughly mixed and permanently set".
The danger of course is that for efficiency sake we pick up definitions, traditions, and habits 'on the fly'. There is just too much information coming our way to really explore 'high ideals'. This is especially true in our 21st century information explosion. In a sense we trust those who have dedicated their lives to areas of specialization to be accurate and competent in that specialized area. Every time I drive my car out of the shop after paying good money for it to be fixed I'm counting on the mechanic to have done the job right with the right parts. The principle applies across the board!
As we gloss over the Bible and read the word 'worship', hear the preaching on Sunday and hear the word 'worship', or are encouraged to 'worship' in a Sunday service (no matter the style of liturgy we enjoy) a picture and definition is summoned. The unfortunate thing about the word 'worship' is that it doesn't exactly fill out the total meaning what the Bible says.
Context matters! This goes equally true for the Bible. A Greek word that the New Testament uses is 'latreia' and is translated as 'worship' as are other Greek words that in their context have a broader meaning than what we understand as 'worship'.
'latreia' is better understood as service, submission, and work done for God. As Evangelicals we are married to the term 'worship'. As long as we are there must be a fleshing out of the term so that we can biblically worship God. In context we discover that worship is either private or corporate, is a matter of the heart not location, worship involves unity of believers, requires a profession of our faith, the self sacrificing of self to serve others, the giving of monetary means to others and causes.
The movement that Jesus initiated was a movement of service to others in all practical ways that would validate and affirm the value of each one of His creations. When the serving of others is replaced by the tradition of worship the movement ceases to be anything other than a religious expression of doctrine. From a biblical contextual perspective 'worship' is intentionally setting out to make ourselves available to the needs of others.
Mark 10:45 "The son of man did not come to be served but to serve and give himself up as a ransom."
Romans 12: 1-3 "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship."
"Worship is the response of grateful and humble people to the living God where submission, sacrificial service, praise, profession, testimony and gratitude are freely expressed in innumerable ways. This is a much richer concept than mere corporate singing and praise once each week for 20 minutes - an event that could occur without any actual worship going on at all." Elmer Towns
Do you 'latreia'? Have you lately? READ; Worship God by Getting Up....Getting Out....Getting Going.
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