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“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24)
I did some poking around and was really discouraged by the process. I wanted to find something that shed light on what it means to worship in spirit and truth. I didn't find anything. I found some stuff that talked about "God is spirit" was a way to refer to the Triune nature of God, but nothing to elaborate on, what to me is the more important part of the verse, which is how we are supposed to worship Him.
I just wanted to avoid my post being about Christian cliches by saying things about how we are to transcend our own sinful natures and worship should come from a place of purity and how if we truly want to be worshipers we cannot do this apart from the truth - the Word, but I don't really trust this take on this verse. Mainly because I don't think the text supports this interpretation. If John had meant truth as it refers to the Word of God, I think it would have been stated "the Truth."
So, for now, I am stuck wondering what this verse really means and am still sick enough to not have the mental capacity for figuring it out.
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2 comments:
I'm not going to pretend to be the final authority on this, but here's my take:
Jesus is talking here to the Samaritan woman. She had brought up how the Jew insist that worship must be performed at the temple. Jesus tells her that the Jew are right, or rather they WERE right, for a time was coming, and indeed had now come when . . . His worshipers will worship him in spirit and in truth.
Up to that point worship was physical. God's people had to bring a specific physical offering to a specific physical place in order to properly worship him. But for many people, these actions had become meaningless, rote rituals, which were of no interest to God. He want us to worship him truly with our spirit. That is, he is not really interested in receiving a few material offerings from us, he want us to offer our very spirit over to him (which will result in us being willing to trust him with all of our our material possessions as well).
I really think Jesus is referring to the shift from the old ritual worship to the intimate personal worship which we can share with God today no matter where we are (or who we are).
Thanks for the insight, Ti. This makes me think of my husbands issues with Catholic mass. He definitely struggled with feeling the rote, ritual of the service was meaningless. Interesting though, I find mass moving and beautiful. So, I think it really is a heart matter - maybe animal sacrifice would be a really moving, humbling, worshipful experience today! (Just kidding)
Thanks again. I appreciate getting some clarity on what this verse meant.
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