Worship
Worship is the honour, reverence, and wholehearted devotion that creatures render to God — an honour that is his alone, so that to direct it to any creature is idolatry. The principal Hebrew word is shachah ("to bow down, prostrate oneself"), and the principal Greek word is proskyneo ("to bow in homage, do obeisance"); both root worship in the bodily posture of submission before divine greatness. A second Hebrew term, abad ("to serve"), and the Greek latreia ("sacred service") show that worship is not only adoration but the offering of one's whole life. The English word itself ("worth-ship") names the act of ascribing supreme worth, as the heavenly throng cries, "Worthy are you... to receive glory and honour and power" (Revelation 4:11).
Worship's biblical arc begins with the patriarchs building altars and calling on the name of the LORD (Genesis 12:7–8; Genesis 22:5). At Sinai the LORD claims exclusive devotion: the Shema commands love of God with all the heart (Deuteronomy 6:4–5), and the first two commandments forbid other gods and graven images (Exodus 20:3–6). The tabernacle and later the temple gave worship an ordered, sacrificial form — priesthood, festivals, and the daily offerings — while the Psalms became Israel's enduring hymnbook, summoning the nations to "worship the LORD in the splendour of holiness" (Psalm 96:9; Psalm 95:6). Yet the prophets exposed worship that was merely external: God desires obedience and justice, not ritual divorced from the heart (1 Samuel 15:22; Isaiah 1:11–17; Amos 5:21–24), and they mocked idolatry as both spiritual adultery and rational absurdity (Isaiah 44:9–20; Jeremiah 10:1–16).
Jesus brings worship to its fulfillment. To the Samaritan woman he announces that the hour has come when true worshippers will worship the Father "in spirit and truth" (John 4:23–24) — no longer bound to Gerizim or Jerusalem but flowing from the Spirit and centred on the truth revealed in himself. He repels Satan's demand for homage by quoting, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve" (Matthew 4:10), yet he himself rightly receives worship (Matthew 28:9; John 20:28) — a tacit claim to deity. The apostolic church gathered for teaching, prayer, the breaking of bread, and praise (Acts 2:42; Colossians 3:16), and Paul reframes the whole of life as worship: to present the body as "a living sacrifice" is our "spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1).
The exclusiveness of worship is guarded throughout the New Testament: Peter lifts up Cornelius who falls at his feet (Acts 10:25–26), and an angel twice forbids John to worship him, directing him to "worship God" (Revelation 22:8–9). Scripture's storyline culminates in the unceasing worship of heaven, where every creature ascribes blessing and honour to the One on the throne and to the Lamb (Revelation 5:13–14; Revelation 7:9–12). Worship is thus the creature's right response to God's worth, the chief end for which humanity was made, Trinitarian in shape — addressed to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit — and the eternal occupation of the redeemed.