"Praise & Worship"

Recent post on a church music email list followed by my response ...

From: Frank
Subject: Praise & Worship?

Hi there,

We are having a bible study on worship. The relationship of "Praise" to worship and "Worship" as in a service? From a musical standpoint, can someone explain?

Thanks for sharing, look forward to your feedback.

Frank



From: Angelo
Subject: Re: Praise & Worship?

Hi Frank,

First to the words "praise" and "worship".

"Praise", when directed towards Almighty God, (as opposed to praise of our poodle, children, coworkers and astronauts) is a form of prayer. We praise God simply because HE IS. HE IS the great I AM. To differentiate from other forms of prayer like confession or supplication, the prayer of praise is "disinterested", it gives God glory for His own sake.

We use the English word "worship" as the translation of what really means "to bow" and "to give obeisance" or homage. Check out Young's Literal Translation of Psalm 95: 6 "Come in, we bow ourselves, and we bend, We kneel before Jehovah our Maker." The NIV reads, "Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker."

I read a book by the late Ruth Ward Heflin called "Glory" where she talks about moving from "praise to worship to glory". I understand and have experienced what she is talking about but think her choice of words is confusing. She is describing a movement from exuberant celebration, to reverent adoration to a keen sense of God's manifest presence/glory.

Now to the music part of your question.

In some circles the worship leader says, "OK, we'll start with some praise songs and then move into some worship songs". But songs of praise, songs of adoration, songs of confession ... they are *all* expressions of worship ... they all give voice to our bowing before the Lord. Staying on track with music here, if we want to categorize songs, look to the lyric, not the tempo and instrumentation. "Lord Have Mercy" by Steve Merkel is a confession song. "King Forever/Oh Our Lord and King" is a praise song but so is "These Things Are True of You" by Tommy Walker.

When we say, "Man, that song is worshipful" I think we mean, "That song is reverent and ushers in a sense of wonder towards God."

Peace,
Angelo Natalie