Why worship?

[ViaCrucis]

Love is fine. But why worship?

If one's mother is worthy of love; then God, being God, ought to be likewise regarded as worthy of love, high esteem, praise (etc). That is the etymology of the English "worship", worth+ship (from Old English worðscip). Worship, as a noun, states the condition or the state of worthiness (hence the archaic use as an honorific); as a verb it is the act of acknowledging that worth. That the object of praise, honor, etc is--indeed--worthy of it.

The act of loving one's own mother, or of acts of filial devotion, are indeed a sort of "motherly worship"; to acknowledge that one's mother is worthy of being loved, of being honored, of being treated a certain way.

If one is able to understand why a mother would be worth being loved by her own son or daughter; then it shouldn't be terribly difficult to understand the idea that God--as Creator of all things, as Sovereign of the universe, as He who is absolute Love and all Good (etc)--is worthy of being lauded, adored, to receive praise and honor from the lips and lives of His people.

If God is who Christ and the Scriptures have revealed Him to be--the good and heavenly Father from whom are all blessings, the good Creator God, One who willingly invests Himself into the suffering of the world through the sending of the Son, etc--then it's kind of a "well, duh" in my mind. Why would I not, how could I not speak thanks and praise to and of this God? Acknowledge that this One is worthy of it, exceedingly so.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Because there is nothing and no one as valuable as He.

OK. So why does that make him worthy of worship? As VC points out, this is almost tautologous - if something is of worth, that literally means it ought to be the object of worship. But the question is, is God worthy?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Then let me rephrase.

Should one love their good, loving mother?

-CryptoLutheran

Same answer - not necessarily, and in some cases, absolutely not .

If she spent 18 years loving, teaching, nurturing, caring, and otherwise rearing an individual in an altruistic way, yes, I would say she has earned the child's love and gratitude.

But what if she was absent, aloof, contrarian, capricious, and horrifically wicked? What if she drowned almost every one of her children in a flood? Or who ordered one child to slay the other to prove their love for her? Or slew entire batches of her children for the disobedience of one*? Or enforced senseless laws under pain of death**? Surely, if any mortal woman did this, she would not be worthy of love.

Bearing a child does not ipso facto make a woman worthy of the child's love. Rearing the child in a nurturing, teaching, caring, and loving way, that makes her worthy of the child's love. After all, if a child's adopted from birth, who do you think they love more: the woman who raised them all their life, or the woman they've never known?

*Here I'm referring to God slaying the first borns of Egypt for Pharaoh's disobedience.
** Why was Lev 18:22 ever a good idea?

 

[Steeno7]

OK. So why does that make him worthy of worship? As VC points out, this is almost tautologous - if something is of worth, that literally means it ought to be the object of worship. But the question is, is God worthy?

You worship what you value most. God is most valuable, therefore God is worthy.

 

[ForJesusChrist]

He created you.
He offered you eternal life.
He gave you His only Son, Jesus Christ, so you may be forgiven of sin.
He gave you life in general, and a great place to live.
He gave you a family.
He keeps you healthy.
He keeps you strong.
He gives you more than you can ask or imagine.
He will guide you.
He knows everything you will ever do, so he will show you what to do.


Praise the Lord!!!

 

[Wiccan_Child]

You worship what you value most. God is most valuable, therefore God is worthy.

You seem to have tied yourself into semantic knots. If we worship what we value most, then value is subjective. If God is most valuable, then value is objective. But that's a paradox - is value objective or subjective? As well, why is God objectively most valuable at all? And why is "worship" defined to mean "holding something as most valuable"?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

He created you.

That does not ipso facto make him deserving of worship.

He will guide you.
He knows everything you will ever do, so he will show you what to do.

Yet, why does that make him deserving of worship?

He offered you eternal life.
He gave you His only Son, Jesus Christ, so you may be forgiven of sin.

A generous gift with a host of fine print. But that doesn't make him worthy of worship - gratitude, maybe, but not worship.

He gave you life in general, and a great place to live.

I think "a great place to live" is entirely relative to the individual. It is not "a great place to live" if a child is be born into poverty, slavery, disease, famine, or drought. We can hardly thank him for life, when he so horrifically rips it away with disease and natural disasters. It takes the collective efforts of the human race to stave off what the Earth is throwing at us - I'd rather thank science and modern medicine for my enjoyable Western life, than a God who deigned not to put me in impoverished Africa.

He gave you a family.

I'm sure Elisabeth Fritzl is less than pleased.

He keeps you healthy.

Then he therefore allows people to suffer horrific and agonising long-term illnesses. After all, if he keeps us healthy, we can only get sick if he decides to stay his hand. Instead of deserving worship, he surely deserves to be condemned in the highest.

He gives you more than you can ask or imagine.

I have asked for much and received nothing. I've yet to be convinced he has done anything at all, for me or for anyone else. But even assuming he does intervene in human affairs, some the things you've listed have a most sinister implication: if God gives us family, he must also be the one who gave Elisabeth Fritzl her father. If God keeps us healthy, disease must only occur when he decides to stay his hand, making him culpable for every agonising disease. If God gave you a great place to live, he must also have given impoverished Africans and Indians a horrific place to live.

You can't just pick the good things in this world and say "Isn't God wonderful!", because this world is filled with horrible things too. If God is to take credit for everything, he must take credit for everything.

 

[ForJesusChrist]

Not going to argue with a non-believer it does no good.

I hope you realize God's grace one day.

God Bless

 

[Steeno7]

You seem to have tied yourself into semantic knots. If we worship what we value most, then value is subjective. If God is most valuable, then value is objective. But that's a paradox - is value objective or subjective? As well, why is God objectively most valuable at all? And why is "worship" defined to mean "holding something as most valuable"?

Funny, I don't feel tied up. But, you did finally ask the question you really want answered. Why is God most valuable? That's the million dollar question, eh? I would say because He is your Creator and Sustainer.

Of course, if you do not recognize Him as such, you will find something or some one else to value above all else, and that you will worship instead.

 

[ForJesusChrist]

No one or nothing is even remotely close to being worthy enough to be worshiped. Only God.

 

[Lukaris]

Because to do what is right in the most basic things & to love one 's neighbor ( see Romans 13:8-10) is from God and we must try to do this to live for each other. Those who do not know Jesus Christ & do this have a natural capacity to do his will in their actions. Our conscience & its virtues are from God & our misdeeds are of the devil. We need to worship our creator to do what is right.

 

[jmcorn]

We were created to Worship and to bring him Glory.

 

[ForJesusChrist]

We were created to Worship and to bring him Glory.

 

[bling]

So, would going to a church, singing hymns, speaking in tongues, handling snakes, etc, not be considered worship?

Motive and attitude is everything, God looks at the heart of people. Whatever you do it is out of Love?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Because to do what is right in the most basic things & to love one 's neighbor ( see Romans 13:8-10) is from God and we must try to do this to live for each other. Those who do not know Jesus Christ & do this have a natural capacity to do his will in their actions.

So here you're saying that non-believers have the natural capacity to do and know right from wrong. Great. But later on you contradict yourself...

We need to worship our creator to do what is right.

And here's the contradiction. First you say non-believers have the natural capacity to know right from wrong, but now you're saying that we need to worship God (i.e., be a believer) if we are to do what is right.

So... which is it? Is the capacity to know right from wrong only held by worshippers, or is it a natural capacity held by all people?

Our conscience & its virtues are from God & our misdeeds are of the devil.

In Isaiah 45:7, God says differently.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

We were created to Worship and to bring him Glory.

OK. So why does that make him worthy of our worship?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Not going to argue with a non-believer it does no good.

And yet you keep posting in my thread. If you're not going to contribute to the discussion, kindly leave.

No one or nothing is even remotely close to being worthy enough to be worshiped. Only God.

Yet you won't explain why.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Funny, I don't feel tied up. But, you did finally ask the question you really want answered. Why is God most valuable? That's the million dollar question, eh? I would say because He is your Creator and Sustainer.

Which was your original answer, so we've come full circle. God is worthy of worship because he created and sustains us, which makes his most valuable; if we hold something as most valuable, we are 'worshipping' it; therefore, as God is the most objectively valuable thing, he should be worshipped. So if you define 'worship' to mean 'hold as most valuable', then ipso facto God is worthy of worship.

The problem is, this seems like a very clumsy and unnecessary redefinition of the word 'worship', and is not at all what I meant in the OP. But that seems like a very peculiar definition of 'worship', a definition perhaps chosen to make the Bible make sense, or to satisfy the OP.

For instance, I probably value a great many things - my family, my mind, intellectual freedom, science and mathematics, etc. But I don't worship any of them, not in the sense I understand it.

Of course, if you do not recognize Him as such, you will find something or some one else to value above all else, and that you will worship instead.

I disagree that holding something valuable above all else constitutes 'worship'.

 

[Steeno7]

Which was your original answer, so we've come full circle. God is worthy of worship because he created and sustains us, which makes his most valuable; if we hold something as most valuable, we are 'worshipping' it; therefore, as God is the most objectively valuable thing, he should be worshipped. So if you define 'worship' to mean 'hold as most valuable', then ipso facto God is worthy of worship.

The problem is, this seems like a very clumsy and unnecessary redefinition of the word 'worship', and is not at all what I meant in the OP. But that seems like a very peculiar definition of 'worship', a definition perhaps chosen to make the Bible make sense, or to satisfy the OP.

For instance, I probably value a great many things - my family, my mind, intellectual freedom, science and mathematics, etc. But I don't worship any of them, not in the sense I understand it.


I disagree that holding something valuable above all else constitutes 'worship'.

Well, thats what worship is. It is acknowledging the worth of the object of your worship. Worth-ship.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Well, thats what worship is. It is acknowledging the worth of the object of your worship. Worth-ship.

Which again seems semantically tortuous. "Worshipping something is the act of acknowledging its maximal worth/value" - well, do we know that God is maximally worthy/valuable? You say it's because he's our creator and sustainer, but why does that make him maximally worthy/valuable?