Worship teaching
When the alarm went off this morning, the last thing I wanted to do was get out of my nice warm bed. I knew that I needed to get up and review my notes, but it was cold and dark.
Suddenly I was overcome with the sense of how very fortunate I am. You see I have been studying Exodus 2-12 this week, the life of Moses.
In Chapter 5:1 Moses says to Pharaoh, Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ “
OK, I can relate to that, It takes me about 45 minutes to get to church. Sort of like going into the wilderness, but I never quite regarded church as a feast. Have you?
Verse 5: Please, let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God, otherwise He will fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”
3 days journey – or else? Wait a minute, there’s a whole lot more required in worshipping God than getting out of the nice warm bed, getting dressed and hopping in a car to come to church.
Ex 7:16 Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the wilderness.
Serve Me in the wilderness. Now that’s an added dimension. Do you feel like you serve God when you come to church? Sure Pastor Wanda does, and Lyle and Joe set up the sound and shovel the snow, but is anyone else serving the Lord?
8:1 Let My people go, that they may serve Me. Here it is again. 8:20
Now look at verses
25 Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.”
26 But Moses said, “It is not right to do so, for we will sacrifice to the Lord our God what is an abomination to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice what is an abomination to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not then stone us?
27 “We must go a three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord our God as He commands us.”
Interesting: Pharaoh equated service with sacrifice.
And notice Moses said the Hebrew form of worship would be an abomination to the Egyptians. (Gen 47)
In the ot the Hebrew word for worship means ‘to bow down, prostrate oneself,’ a posture indicating reverence and homage. It is often translated as ‘serve.’
Originally the worship given to God was modeled after the service given to human sovereigns. Remember all the reference to pagan gods before we get to Moses? Abraham’s father Terah served the gods of Ur or the Caldees, Rachel stole her father’s household gods.
We need to remember that many of these people did not know our God. They worshipped nature. In Egypt there was a god of the earth, god of the nile, a frog god, a beetle god, a cattle god, a god of the wind and sky, the god of intelligence, a grain god and one that protected the grain, the son god and they also worshipped pharaoh.
Each god had its own likeness and temple. It had servants (priests) who supplied food (offered sacrifices), washed and anointed and clothed it, scented the air with incenses, lit lamps at night, and guarded the doors to the house.
Worshipers brought offerings and tithes to the deity, said prayers and bowed down, as one might bring tribute and present petitions to a king.
The early patriarchs worship was simple and informal; they had no priests or temples. Rather, the patriarchs themselves offered burnt offerings at temporary altars they built themselves. Jacob also worshiped by pouring a drink offering on a pillar he set up and by anointing it with oil.
In Leviticus, Moses spells out the type of worship to be observed.
READ this section:
In Israelite worship, Sacrifices were brought as gifts to God – Now you can understand why Able’s gift was more pleasing than Cain’s. It was the quality of the sacrifice, AND the thought behind it. We use the idiom, “it’s the thought that counts” today.
Cattle, sheep, goats, doves, and pigeons were the only kinds of animals that could be offered, and vegetable offerings used wheat, barley, olive oil, wine, and frankincense. All offerings were salted. Sacrificial animals had to be unblemished.
the oldest kind of sacrifice (mentioned throughout the Bible) is The burnt offering for atonement or thanksgiving, its purpose, basically, was to win God’s favor. (Lev. 1)
The peace offering was brought when one wished to eat meat. It could be a bull or a cow, or a sheep or a goat (male or female). The officiating priest received the right thigh, and the person bringing the sacrifice received the rest of the animal, which had to be eaten within one or two days (Lev. 7:15; 19:6-8).
The peace offering was for successful passage through the desert, release from prison, recovery from a serious illness, or surviving a storm at sea, to repay a vow or for no special reason. These were accompanied with breads and could be eaten that day or left over one night and finished on the following day.
The sin offering was used to cleanse the sanctuary of impurity. This could result from someone entering the temple who had not ceremoniously cleansed himself. (bathed and washed his clothes) The animals used for sin offering varied with the status of the offender. The high priest or community as a whole offered a bull; a ruler offered a male goat, while a lay person brought a female goat or a ewe.
The sanctuary was cleansed by sprinkling some of the bull’s blood in front of the sanctuary veil and smearing it on the horns of the incense altar. Since the bull’s meat could not be eaten, so it was burned outside the camp. With the other animals mentioned, the priest got the meat.
The guilt offering was brought when one had desecrated some holy thing or perjured oneself. The sacrifice consisted of a ram, AND the necessary addition of the offerer’s confession of guilt, and the repayment of damages, plus a twenty percent fine. The priest who offered it received the meat. However, this sacrifice could even be paid for in money.
The cereral offering was a poor person’s substitute for the animal sin offering. Only a handful of the cereal offering was burned on the altar; the remainder went to the priest.
During the time of the Judges this type of worship continued to be practiced, but priests and temples were also known. Levites were considered the proper people to act as priests, but individual Israelites continued to offer their own sacrifices on simple outdoor altars. Gideon/Samson
Families such as Samuel’s might go to the temple for a yearly feast, where they would offer sacrifice like a peace offering and perhaps pray, as Hannah did.
Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem and installed the Ark there, and the people continued to offer sacrifices at local outdoor altars (‘high places’). Remember Solomon’s many wives had gods of their own.
After Solomon’s death (924 b.c.), Jeroboam, king of Israel, built two shrines of his own at Bethel and Dan, for fear that the people, by worshiping in Jerusalem Israel/Judah period – divided kingdom. Disunity and people began bringing pagan images into these temples
Under Josiah these ‘high places’ were finally eradicated, and worship was centralized at the Jerusalem Temple (2 Kings 23:5-9), as prescribed in Deuteronomy. However, the people continued to offer cereal offerings and incense privately.
Other elements
Music was important element of Israelite worship hardly mentioned at all in the Pentateuch is that of prayer and song. The author of Chronicles records the establishment of levitical singers in the Temple (1 Chron. 16:4-6), and many of the Psalms were probably composed for use in Temple worship.
Individuals would naturally resort to the Temple to pray, but prayer was a private matter and could be done anywhere.
Fasting, too, was a private matter, except on the Day of Atonement or when a special day of fasting was proclaimed.
During the exiles: since they were too far from the Temple. The people gathered at the synagogue on the Sabbath to pray and read the Bible, and the Scripture reading was interpreted and expounded in a short sermon
What did JESUS say about Worship ?
Matt 4 Temptation in the wilderness Read 1-10
Definition for us — homage rendered to God which it is sinful (idolatry) to render to any created being.
Early Christian Worship: In the nt ‘worship’ still means primarily ‘bow down’ but the word also translates Greek terms signifying service or piety.
Since the death of Christ constituted the perfect sacrifice, no more sacrifices were needed (Heb. 9:11-12, 24-26). The entire institution of Temple, priesthood, sacrifice, and cleansing ritual became obsolete. Today, the church itself, that is, all the believers, was at once temple and priesthood, inhabited by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19; Eph. 2:21-22; 1 Pet. 2:9).
Early Christians met in house-groups, in meetings that were primarily for themselves but were not closed to outsiders.
In the synagogue The Scriptures and Christian documents (such as Paul’s letters) were read and expounded (1 Thes. 5:27). Instruction and prophecy were given by persons gifted by the Spirit, and prayer was offered.
Only three rituals are known from the nt: baptism, communion, and the laying on of hands. The first day of the week was a favorite day for Christian assembly (Acts 20:7; cf. 1 Cor. 16:2), though early Christians might also have met daily (Acts 2:46). At these meetings, there would be teaching, exhortation, singing, praying, prophesying, reading letters, and the ‘breaking of bread’ Above all, Christian worship was characterized by great joy and thanksgiving
Conclusion:
WORSHIP. ‘Worship’ (Old English ‘weorthscipe’=‘worth-ship’) originally referred to the action of human beings in expressing homage to God because he is worthy of it.
It covers such activities as adoration, thanksgiving, prayers of all kinds, the offering of sacrifice and the making of vows.
Such activity is the formal expression of spiritual attitudes which should characterize God’s people at all times
Go to Rom. 12.
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ot Old Testament
nt New Testament