Not A Matter of Talk

By Amy Hartmann

August 20, 2012

 

For many years now, I have been eager to understand the true meaning of the word worship.  Churches have their designated worship programs and worship leaders.  Television has its idol reviews.  Football team mania, movie star adulation, body builder obsession and people addicted to tanning are all examples of this word in action around us.  Worship, as a word, has been strewn about in the public arena to mean many different things.

In my grandparents days, worship was a more simpler ideology and it generally referred to man’s direct response to God as Creator and Sustainer of all living things.  Awesome was a biblical word and it pointed out a unique characteristic or action that belonged to God alone.

Now days awesome and worship refer to everything from shoes to the latest reality TV persona.  Something deep inside has called me to bypass all of this superficial marketing excess and examine the origin of worship.  Looking past the seen examples in everyday life, I began studying the biblical words for praise.  Ray Hughes and numerous other worship leaders have laid foundational principals in my understanding.  However, Don Potter’s book, “Facing the Wall”[1] brought me up to the next level.  He wrote this book specifically for “praise leaders and those who love to worship”.[2]

Don Potter’s writings opened my understanding of praise to be so much more than mere sound and emotion.  Don taught me that praise was a elemental tool for opening up the human heart to the manifest presence of God.  He also introduced a key aspect of the responsibility of praise and worship leaders: teaching the people to differentiate between the holy and the profane – causing them to discern between the unclean and the clean (Ezekiel 44:23).[3]

Don’s work also revealed some of the significant Hebrew words for praise and their unique and often extreme differences.  I looked up all the words for praise in Strong’s Concordance.[4]  Raising our hands in praise as a way of saying thanks to God, or in supplication for deliverance from our problems are directions found in the words yadah (Strong’s Old Testament Reference 3034) and towdah (Strong’s OT 8426).  Kneeling in praise and prayer comes from the word barak (Strongs’s OT 1288).  The word zamar (Strong’s OT 2167) shows praise through music and the plucking of strings.  Tphillah praise (Strong’s OT 8605) is prayer sung as a hymn.  Taqa praise (Strong’s OT 8628) comes through loud trumpet blasts or the clapping of hands.  Shabach praise (Strong’s OT 7623) is rather noisy too; it involves shouting with a loud voice, cheering and celebrating with great joy.

Perhaps the most important word for praise is tehillah (Strong’s OT 8416).  This form of praise involves spontaneous, new songs offered in the moment of live worship.  Psalm 22:3 says that the manifest presence of God is enthroned in our midst when we praise Him this way.

I think that it is more than just a coincidence that one of the main words, barak, which instructs us to kneel before God and praise Him, happens to be the name of the current president of our nation.  I believe this is a prophetic clue from God showing us what it will take to heal our land.  Proverbs 25:2 tells us that “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.”  I still felt there was more to understand about worship.

It occurred to me that I should look up worship too, and I was quite surprised by the results.  There are four main words for worship in the Old Testament writings, the most important and frequently used word being shachah (Strong’s  OT 7812).  It is used about 100 times in the Old Testament and it represents the primary response by the majority of the OT patriarchs.  It means to bow down, crouch, fall down, be flat, humbly beseech, make obeisance, do reverence, to make to stoop down, to worship. We see this expression of worship begin with Abraham.  Moses worshiped this way when he was with God on Mount Sinai.[5]

The New Testament equivalent of this word is the Greek word proskuneo (Strong’s NT 4352).  Jesus bowed to God in worship in this way throughout the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  The word is used about 60 times throughout the New Testament.

Proskuneo is the form of worship the devil wanted Jesus to offer to him in exchange for all the worldly kingdom authority and dominion which the devil had taken from Adam in the Garden of Eden.  This was a valid offer of trade, and the foundational understanding of why there is evil in the world today.

We see accounts of people being groomed and prepared to meet with the Queen of England; and it is unheard of NOT to obey the royal protocol spelled out prior to such a privilege.  These references revealed my need for a deeper level of respect in my response to God, especially in personal prayer times.  I have reconsidered the awesome privilege of entering God’s presence, and respecting Him all the more in my obedience to His word.

Finally, this research delivered up a much misunderstood principal of worship which I was lacking.  The Old Testament word atsab (Strong’s 6087) found in Jeremiah 44, verse 19 reveals a fearful form of worship being offered to placate an angry and judgmental deity known as the queen of heaven.  Worry and fretting about not appeasing her correctly was the point of the text.

In Acts 7:42 we see God giving over unrepentant mankind (who refused to recognize Him as Sovereign, holy and worthy of complete devotion) to this form of self degradation.  The correlating Greek word used here is latreuo, with its root coming from the concept of being a hired menial laborer or a lowly slave.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave this imperative command in His most recognized appeal to the mass of humanity at His feet, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear…who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”[6]  It was also the heart behind His response when one of the teachers of the law questioned His opinion of the greatest commandment.

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’.  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these.”[7]

God does not want us to worry and be afraid.  He does not want us to worship our problems and exalt them over His love and care for our lives.  Over the past few years, God has been planting this understanding deep in my heart through the life events that we have faced in the turbulent economic times which have shaken our finances repeatedly.  Over and over again I hear His quiet, still voice…”Amy, do you trust Me?”

“Yes, Lord,” my heart cries out even through my tears, “I trust You and I refuse to lean on my own understanding of each trying issue on my path.  In all my ways I am going to acknowledge You and seek Your direction because You are my Shepherd.  I will bow down and I will worship.