Internet Monk - Big Worship Goof

The Internet Monk has posted regarding the attitude of evangelical Christians regarding worship in the churches of today. Led by the Christian music industry, churches now have dropped the "old ways" in favour of the new. The Monk writes,

"Worship has now become a musical term. Praise and worship means music. Let’s worship means the band will play. We need to give more time to worship doesn’t mean silent prayer or public scripture reading or any kind of participatory liturgy. It means music."

Christians used to know the meaning of "worship". Look carefully at the following definitions:

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Homage rendered to God which it is sinful (idolatry) to render to any created being (Exodus 34:14; Isaiah 2:8). Such worship was refused by Peter (Acts 10:25, 26) and by an angel (Revelation 22:8, 9).

Noah Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language

1. (a.) Excellence of character; dignity; worth; worthiness.

2. (a.) Honor; respect; civil deference.

3. (a.) Hence, a title of honor, used in addresses to certain magistrates and others of rank or station.

4. (n.) The act of paying divine honors to the Supreme Being; religious reverence and homage; adoration, or acts of reverence, paid to God, or a being viewed as God.

5. (a.) Obsequious or submissive respect; extravagant admiration; adoration.

6. (n.) An object of worship.

7. (v. t.) To respect; to honor; to treat with civil reverence.

8. (v. t.) To pay divine honors to; to reverence with supreme respect and veneration; to perform religious exercises in honor of; to adore; to venerate.

9. (v. t.) To honor with extravagant love and extreme submission, as a lover; to adore; to idolize.

10. (v. i.) To perform acts of homage or adoration; esp., to perform religious service.

Worship is simply ascribing the worth of Someone. True worship is reverencing and honouring and venerating and adoring the God who deserves all praise.

True worship happens at a funeral service, when a bereaved Dad acknowledges that God is good, no matter what, even in the loss of his beautiful daughter.

True worship happens when a young man plays soccer with a poverty-stricken boy in a third world country, because he knows that skin colour matters not...but that God made us all in His image.

True worship happens when a missionary travels to the far reaches of the world, spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and exulting in the Holy Spirit's work in the lives of indigenous people.

True worship is a morning cup of coffee on the patio, rejoicing in the singing birds, the rustling leaves, the whispy clouds, the knickering of a horse - and acknowledging the Creator who designed it all.

True worship includes music. But it is not only music. Go back and click on the cartoon, and read what internet Monk has to say. What do you think?