The English word "worship" is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word weorthscipe, which is a compound of weorth, meaning "worth," plus scipe, meaning "ship". So, worship is courtesy and respect to a being of worth. To worship is "to adore, or pay divine honors to, as to a deity; to reverence with supreme respect and veneration" (Webster).

Normal people want to worship their Creator. Human beings did not receive that desire from animal ancestors, for animals do not worship. There is, however, a comparison between mankind and animals.

The deer’s thirst drives him to seek water, and a man’s spiritual thirst leads him to "draw water out of the wells of salvation." (Isaiah 12:3).

A second similarity displays itself between men and animals:

Look! The sparrows have found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your alter, O Jehovah of hosts, my King, and my God (Psalm 84:3).

The worshiper, away from the temple, was jealous of the birds who lived at the temple. He said he would like to live there too:

"Praising you" is worship. It is the outgoing of the human spirit toward the Divine Spirit. It is an adoration of him who created and has preserved the worshiper. It is appreciation. It is a way of saying, "I am yours, and I live you."

Worship, being respect and veneration and homage, is an emotion, a thought in the mind, and is wholly internal. External, physical actions often accompany worship. What a person feels in his heart he often tries to express outwardly, as knelling.

The most used Old Testament word for worship (shahah) has for its first meaning to "bow down." When Abraham was buying a burial site for Sarah, he "bowed [shahah] himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth" (Genesis 23:7). The same Hebrew word Moses used to describe Abraham’s inward bowing to Jehovah in worship, as he told his servants to wait at the campsite while he and Isaac would "go yonder; and we will worship [shahah], and come again to you" (Genesis 22:5).

As shahah of the Old Testament began with a non-religious meaning, so proskuneo of the New Testament began with a non-religious meaning: ancient Persians, bowing on their knees, reached out to kiss the hand or foot of the king or the hem of his robe. The Physical act of proskuneo was transferred to the mental act of worship, a bowing down in the heart in adoration for one’s Maker.

A learned gospel preacher errs in defining worship as "bodily expressions in acts as well as a heart condition." But the act of worship is wholly "a heart condition" with no "bodily expression." Bodily expressions (as the bowing of the soldiers before Jesus in Pilate’s court, Mark 15:19; as the kissing of Jesus by Judas, Matthew 26:48), in themselves show no respect or adoration. Unless there is an internal bowing of the heart in love, there is no worship.

As long as men can honor God "with their lips" while their "heart is far from" him (Matthew 15:8), "the quintessence of the essence" of worship is that it is something invisible, intangible, and inaudible. Its direction is always upward, never outward; always vertical, never horizontal.

Since worship is only a thought in the heart (cf. Genesis 6:5; Psalm 24:4; Acts 8:22; 2 Timothy 2:22), I made a mistake in earlier years to speak of "the five acts of worship": singing, praying, Scripture readings and teaching, the Lord’s supper, and the collection.

1. Singing. "Is any happy? Let him sing praise" (James 5:13). James refers not to congregational singing, nor to solo singing before a congregation, but simply to a person’s singing alone. He envisions a happy Christian worshiping in his heart with a song of praise on his lips. More than once you have heard a Christian lady rejoicing in her salvation as she sings to her Lord while she is alone in her kitchen. Of yesteryear, I saw a Christian lady doing her family laundry in a black pot over an outdoors fire, and I heard her singing all alone to her Maker.

Then, when Christians go to the meetinghouse, they all rejoice in congregational singing to their Creator, according to the exhortation: "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that confess his name" (Hebrews 13:15, NIV). Their appreciation rises heavenward as they sing "Hallelujah, Praise Jehovah," and "I Will Sing of My Redeemer," and "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded."

Songs of worship are always upward, but while Christians are together they also sing songs of exhortation to one another, as "Stand Up, Stand Up, For Jesus," and "Trust and Obey." The songs of exhortation are not worship, never upward.

2. Prayer. So important was private prayer to Jesus he at times sacrificed sleep to be alone. On one occasion, after "he dismissed the crowds, he went up into the mountain by himself to pray. At evening he was there alone" (Matthew 14:23). On another occasion, he "withdrew into the wilderness and prayed" (Luke 5:16). On another occasion,

On one occasion "he went into the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God" (Luke 6:12). So much he believed in being alone in prayer, he said to his disciples, "When you pray, go into a private room, shut the door, and pray to your Father in secret" (Matthew 6:6).

Since Christians receive their food "with thanksgiving" (1 Timothy 4:4), they do not forget family prayer at the table three times a day. Family worship should begin on wedding night. In the days when some honeymoons were spent on Pullman railroad cars, a mother received the following note:

The family altar is suggested by a placard in some homes: "Christ is the head of this house, the unseen guest at every meal, the silent listener to every conversation."

In addition to a Christian’s private prayer worship, and in addition to table thanks, and in addition to the family worship period, Christians go to the meetinghouse and join with others in congregational worship in prayer. They believe in the power of united prayer, believing that what was promised to the apostles is also true in today’s assemblies:

Some sincere Christians have thought that the position of the body is part of prayer. Various body positions are cited in the Scriptures: kneeling (Luke 22:41); face on the ground (Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:35); sitting (Matthew 14:19); standing (Mark 11:25); looking up (John 11:41); not looking up (Luke 18:13); beating one’s breast (Luke 18:13); lifting up hands (Luke 24:50); body on a cross (Matthew 27:46); feet in wooden stocks (Acts 16:24).

Afresh we must remind ourselves that worship is non-physical, and consequently body posture only accompanies the worship within the heart. Eliezer, Abraham’s servant (Genesis 15:2; 24:2), standing by a well near the city of Nahor, was worshiping. No on-looker would have known what he was doing. He did not kneel; he did not raise a hand toward heaven; his eyes were not closed; no words came from his mouth; his lips did not move; but in his "heart" (Genesis 24:45) he was praying. Worship then is only thinking. It is a soul communing with the Father in heaven.

3. Scripture Readings and Teaching. A Christian finds time to be alone for his daily spiritual meal of inspired writings (cf. Psalm 1:2; Job 23:12; Matthew 4:4; 1 Peter 2:2). Figuratively, he comes "to the garden alone, While the dew is still on the roses." He opens his Bible and prays, "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law" (Psalm 119:18, NIV). Then, figuratively, he says:

The Christian then has coupled his daily Bible reading with private worship in prayer.

In addition to a Christian’s daily one-on-one rendezvous with God, and in addition to three daily table prayers, and in addition to a period of family worship, the Christian family goes to the meetinghouse where Scriptures are read orally, and maybe a sermon is delivered, that "spur one another on toward love and good deeds" (Hebrews 10:24, NIV). This holy exercise is enjoyed any day of the week.

Directly, such mutual edification is not worship. Mutual edification is horizontal, and, as we remember, worship is always vertical.

4. The Lord’s Supper. Whereas singing to one another (horizontal) and edifying one another (horizontal) are not worship, singing to the Lord (vertical) and praying (vertical) are worship, and so is the Lord’s supper (vertical).

However, the horizontal motions involved in partaking of the Lord’s supper are not worship. The worship is only in each Christian’s heart, visible only to the Lord, as the worshiper in loving appreciation sees afresh the bleeding body of Jesus (1 Corinthians 11:29).

Whereas singing and praying and teachings are edifying activities on any day, the only example of Christians’ observing the Lord’s supper is on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7). However, they do not observe the first day of week as a sacred day more than any other day of the week (Galatians 4:11). Yet they never forget that their Savior conquered death on the first day of the week, and on that day he brought "life and immortality to light through the gospel" (Mark 16:9; 2 Timothy 1:10; Hebrews 2:14).

And because Jesus arose from the tomb on the first day of the week, and because the apostle John spoke of one day of the week as being "the Lord’s day" (Revelation 1:10), Christians believe he was referring to the first day of the week. A Christian by the name of Ignatius, believed to have been a personal acquaintance of John, in 108 A.D. wrote that Christians were

The word "Lord’s" (kuriakos, "pertaining to the Lord") appears only twice in the New Testament, once referring to the Lord’s supper (1 Corinthians 11:20), and once to the "Lord’s day" (Revelation 1:10). Apparently these two, the supper and the day, belong together. Can we say that what God has joined, let no man put asunder?

Meaningful and beautiful do those two, the supper and the day, become to appreciative Christians, and they awake each Sunday morning with joyful anticipation of meeting with other Christians at the Lord’s table. John in exile did not have that privilege, but he knew when the day arrived, and was in the right spirit of mind as well as "in the Spirit on the Lord’s day."

Christians then and now do not forsake their "assembling together," and they exhort one another, "and so much the more as" they "see the day approaching" (Hebrews 10:25). What day? Not the "day of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 1:14), his second coming, for "of that day" no one knows (Matthew 24:36). Not the day of Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 A.D., for when Christians saw that day approaching they were not to assemble together, but they were to "flee into the mountains" (Matthew 24:16). But beginning on the second day of the week, day by day they could and still today can see the first day of the week approaching. Therefore, Christians are happy to say to each other all through the week, "See you Sunday."

Singing, praying, and teaching are just as important as the Lord’s supper, but the primary purpose of the Lord’s day assembly at Troas was to break bread (Acts 20:7). The Christians at Troas did not come together to hear Paul preach, but he was in the audience, and a scriptural sermon is good anytime. But considering what some highly paid preachers today deliver at the Lord’s day assembly, it would be better to have the Lord’s supper and go home.

5. The Collection. Since Christians everywhere apparently were taught to meet on the first day of the week to break bread, and since we know for sure that the Christians at Corinth came "together" to "eat the Lord’s supper" (1 Corinthians 11:20, 33), it is not surprising that they were commanded to "lay by a contribution, and put it in the treasury" on "the first day of every week," as the churches in Galatia (Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe) were already doing (1 Corinthians 16:1-2).

Putting money in a basket is a horizontal act, and is not worship. But since each Christian in his heart, as he contributes, expresses thanks to God for the privilege of helping the Lord’s work, such inward thinking is worship.

No one knows on what day of the week that many Christians voluntarily laid money "at the apostles’ feet," including Barnabas (Acts 4:34-37), nor on what day of the week the Christians at Antioch took up a special collection for emergency relief in Judea (Acts 11:27-30. What is certain though, regardless of the day, none of the money was given "grudgingly, or of necessity," but cheerfully (cf. 2 Corinthians 9:7). The givers laid out their money horizontally, which is not worship, but their appreciation of the One who had given more than money for them was ascending vertically to the Father, and that is worship.