Worship and prayer

In spirit and in truth

A Samaritan woman once asked Jesus which mountain was the right place to worship. His answer moved the question from where to whom, and how.

But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

John 4:23-24

The verb Jesus uses, proskuneō (προσκυνέω), pictures bowing down, falling on one's face before a king. Worship begins when we see who God is and bow. And notice who is searching: the Father is seeking worshippers. Augustine, picturing someone who longs for a high mountain where God might hear better, answers: "Would you pray in the temple? pray in yourself; but first do you become the temple of God" Augustine.

So worship cannot be shut inside one hour a week. Paul urges us "to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship" (Romans 12:1). Work, home, money and friendships all become places of worship. Yet Scripture never treats the gathering as optional: "Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit" (Hebrews 10:25).

The church gathered on the Lord's Day

The first Christians devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer (Acts 2:42). They were to "Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" (Ephesians 5:19), letting the word of Christ dwell in them richly (Colossians 3:16). And they met on a particular day: "On the first day of the week we came together to break bread" (Acts 20:7). Paul asked for gifts to be set aside on that day too (1 Corinthians 16:2), and when John writes "On the Lord's day I was in the Spirit" (Revelation 1:10), most readers take him to mean the day of the resurrection.

Around 155, Justin Martyr described Sunday worship for a pagan emperor: "on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits" Justin Martyr, First Apology 67. Then the one presiding urged the people to imitate what they had heard; all stood and prayed; bread and wine were brought, thanks were given, the people answered Amen and received them; and gifts were gathered for orphans, widows and the needy. They met on Sunday, Justin explains, because God began creation on the first day and Christ rose from the dead on it. Word, prayer and the Supper have been the frame of Christian worship from the start.

That worship holds two things together. We are to "worship God acceptably with reverence and awe" (Hebrews 12:28), and we are to "Serve the LORD with gladness; come into His presence with joyful songs" (Psalm 100:2). Awe and joy are not rivals.

Praying to the Father

Prayer is the breath of worship, and it has a shape given by the Trinity. "For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit" (Ephesians 2:18): we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. When we do not know what to ask, "the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words" (Romans 8:26). And Jesus gave us words to start with.

So then, this is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:9-10

The Lord's Prayer puts God's name, kingdom and will first, then asks for bread, forgiveness and protection. Cyprian saw in it a great confidence: we pray "in the prayer which the Son hath taught", and so "Let the Father recognize the Son's words when we offer up our prayer" Cyprian. Scripture teaches every kind of prayer: praise, confession of sin (1 John 1:9), "petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving" for everyone (1 Timothy 2:1), and requests laid before God "with thanksgiving" in place of anxiety (Philippians 4:6). Jesus told a parable to show "their need to pray at all times and not lose heart" (Luke 18:1).

The Westminster Shorter Catechism gathers this into one sentence: "Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies" Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 98. The Heidelberg Catechism adds why prayer is necessary: it is the chief part of the thankfulness God asks of us, and God gives his grace and Holy Spirit to those who ask him earnestly and without ceasing and thank him for them Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 116. For practical help, see How should I pray? and Does God answer prayer?.

Why worship looks different

Churches that share this faith still worship in different shapes, for three main reasons.

The first is liturgy. The Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches worship with set prayers, appointed readings and the church year, refined over centuries; to pray the church's prayers, they say, steadies and teaches faith when our own words fail. Many Baptist, Pentecostal and free churches hold their order more loosely and centre on heartfelt prayer, singing and preaching, recalling the Corinthian gathering where "everyone has a psalm or a teaching" (1 Corinthians 14:26). Many churches stand somewhere between, and all aim to do "everything … in a proper and orderly manner" (1 Corinthians 14:40).

The second is what may be included. Many Reformed and Presbyterian churches hold the regulative principle: "the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will" Westminster Confession, ch. 21, so that only what Scripture commands belongs in worship; they hear Jesus' warning against those who "teach as doctrine the precepts of men" (Matthew 15:9). Lutherans, Anglicans and others hold the normative principle: what Scripture does not forbid may be used if it builds up the church. As the Thirty-Nine Articles put it, the church may order rites and ceremonies, yet "it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written" Thirty-Nine Articles, Art. 20.

The third is the Sabbath. Pointing to God's blessing of the seventh day at creation (Genesis 2:3), the Reformed and Puritan tradition teaches that the fourth commandment still binds, and that since the resurrection the day has moved to the first day of the week, so that the Lord's Day is "the Christian Sabbath" Westminster Confession, ch. 21. Many other Christians see the Sabbath as fulfilled in Christ, "a shadow of the things to come" (Colossians 2:17), and keep Sunday as the day of resurrection and gathering rather than as the Sabbath carried over. Both sides take Paul's words to heart: "Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind" (Romans 14:5). On rest itself, see Why should we rest?.

Matthew Henry, writing on the woman's question about mountains, has a word for all such debates: "It should cool our contests, to think that the things we are striving about are passing away" Matthew Henry. Every tradition confesses the same God as the one who is worshipped, and Christ as the only way into his presence. Worship and prayer are an invitation before they are a duty: the Father is still seeking worshippers. For more, see What is worship?.

Practice