Types of Worship

Robert Meredith

    There are basically four different kinds of worship of which one can read in the Bible.  Three of these are condemned and will lead one to eternal damnation.  The other is the only one which is pleasing and acceptable to God.

  Ignorant worship is pictured by the Apostle Paul in Acts 17:23-30.  Paul was in the cultural center of the first century, Athens.  The Grecians were known for their philosophers and their many temples and altars to many pagan gods.  Upon seeing an altar with an inscription, “To the unknown God,” Paul used it as an opportunity to preach to them about the one true God with which they were not familiar.  The Athenians had erected this altar just in case they had missed a god (They believed in many gods.).  The Apostle said they were worshipping ignorantly.  They simply did not know better.  But this ignorant worship did them no good.  They were told they had to repent (v. 30).  Some today worship ignorantly; they simply do not know better.  Just as then, today, ignorant worship is not pleasing to God.

  A second type of worship is Will worship, as pictured in Colossians 2:8, 20-23.  In this text Paul portrays some who worshipped after their will and not God’s (v. 20-22).  Some believe that they can worship God as they please and dictate, and that God will accept it.  However, Isaiah wrote, “For My thought are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).  When one worships God it must be as He wills, not as man chooses.

  Vain worship is another false type of worship.  Jesus spoke of this type in Matthew 15:8-9).  Vain worship is any worship that follows the commandments and doctrines of men.  The Lord would declare in Matthew 15:13 that all who followed such would be rooted up.  If one’s worship is not based on a “thus saith the Lord,” but in man’s false teachings, then his worship is empty, useless, or vain.

  The only kind of worship which is acceptable to God is described in John 4:24.  The Worship that is in spirit (having the proper attitude and being mentally involved in) and in truth (as directed by God; John 17:17).

  All worship is not pleasing to God.  He tells us this in His word.  The only way one’s worship is acceptable is if he worships as set forth in the New Testament.  See also:  John 4:24; Acts 2:42; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2; Acts 20:7; Colossians 3:16-17; 1 Timothy 2:8; 2 Timothy 4:2.

“God is a Spirit:  and they that worship Him must

worship Him in spirit and in truth”  (John 4:24)