WORSHIP--1

The NT uses five words and a phrase to describe worship in specific ways.  These take us from vain worship to spiritual worship as they are the journey into God.

  Our first word is sebomai.  It gives the meaning of an outsider, looking toward God.  In Acts 16.14 Lydia--a worshiper of God was listening and the Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying.  In Matthew 15.9 it describes the Pharisees and scribes who--in vain do they worship Me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.  In Acts 18.7 Paul--went to the house of a certain man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synogogue.

  Our second word is threskia, outward ceremony.  It is used in this way in Colossians 2.18--delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflating without cause by his fleshly mind.  In James 1.26 threskia is used to mean being self-religious--If anyone thinks himself to be religious...

  Our third word is not so negative, it is latreuw, to be religious for hire.  It means to be in the paid service of religious worship, as the priests and scribes were.  In Acts 7.42 God--turned away and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven (meaning stars and planets and pagan worship of objects).  The concept of being paid to assist worship is in Hebrews 10.2--they would not have ceased to be offered because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins.  This refers ot the priests who had to keep offering sacrifices unto the one final sacrifice--Jesus--came.

  Our fourth word is eusebiaw, based on the first word, sebomai.  This word, eusebiaw, means to carry out one's religious duties or obligations.  In 1 Timothy 5.4--if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to practice piety in regard to their own families.  It is also used of God in Acts 17.25 when Paul says to the Athenians--neither is He served by human hands as though He needed anything...
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  Now with our final word, preskunew, we come to true spiritual worship.  Most of the time when 'worship' is in the NT, it is this word preskunew.  It originally meant to bow to kiss the hand of a lord or superior.  The act of bowing low is frequently implied or performed in NT passages.  In Matt. 2.2 the Wise Men come--to worship Him.  They bow low in giving Him gifts.  In Matt. 8.2--a leper came to Him and bowed down to Him saying, Lord if you are willing you can make me clean.  This word is used in 1 Corinthians 14.25--the secrets of the heart are disclosed and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you...

  Finally we have the phrase, worship in Spirit.  This is in John 4.23 when Jesus tells a Samaritan woman--the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth.  Paul uses the phrase in Philippians 3.3--for we are the true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and the glory of Jesus Christ.
 
  This final phrase is our standing in Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit which we were given at Pentecost.  It is not our human hands which Paul says that God does not need, it is God the Spirit dwelling in us and through us communing with the Father.  This is spiritual worship.  We see this first in Exodus 29.43--And there I will meet the children of Israel, and the tabernacle will be filled with My glory.  So in the NT Peter says--you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, 1 Peter 2.4.

  Did you notice the four persons of spiritual worship--ourselves as a priesthood, God, the Spirit, and Jesus Christ.  What company to keep!