Theology of the Church, Mentor's Guide, MG03

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T H E O L O G Y O F T H E C H U R C H

segment. Make certain that you watch the clock here, covering the questions below and those posed by your students, and watch for any tangents which may lead you from rehearsing the critical facts and main points.

Worship of God is a central concept, and to adequately understand the Church at worship, you may refer the students to the general concepts associated with the term. Our word “worship” is taken from an English term, “worthship,” which referred to the worthiness of someone to be given honor or recognition consistent with the value of their worth or place. There are a number of words used in the Scriptures in association with the idea of worship, with perhaps the most critical terms being the Hebrew term saha and the Greek proskyneo . These ideas are closely identified with the physical motion and action of being prostrate, of prostrating oneself before another, the act of doing great reverence or obeisance to another or something out of an act of deep respect, reverence, and acknowledgment. This understanding of worship in conjunction to prostrating oneself, of doing obeisance to another might have been in association with social mores or habits to provide one acknowledged as worthy their proper respect (Gen. 18.2), the exalted station someone might have in their life position (1 Kings 1.31), or the rank and/or place an individual had in the overall family situation (Gen. 49.8). This act of obeisance, whether a physical act or a inward submission and acknowledgment, can also be applied to divine beings, whether the idols of a people or nation (e.g., Exod. 20.5) or to Yahweh God (Ps. 2; Exod. 24.1). The God of Scripture makes plain that the glory and honor due to him will never be shared or given to any other god, those which were not in fact gods at all but either the figments of the worshipers minds or demons seeking to steal the glory that belongs to God alone (Exod. 20.1-3; Isa. 14; Deut. 8.19; Isa. 42.8). To offer to false deities the glory, reverence, and obedience that God alone is worthy of is the height of pride and sinfulness; God, because of his infinite worth and their incomparable worthiness, will never stand for this kind of act, however innocently or harshly given. Above all else, God’s infinite glory guarantees that he is a jealous God (Exod. 20.5), not in the sense of a small-minded, petty God who is selfish in demanding all recognition be given to him. On the contrary, God is jealous in the sense that there

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