The attitude and acts of reverence to a deity. Aspects of worship included sacrificial rites, prayer, song, and fasting. Worship was always closely connected to humility and obedience. For example, God did not need sacrifices for food (Ps 50:12-13), but the offering of sacrifices honored God as ruler and maker of all that is. And yet to appear before God with sacrifices while flouting God’s demands would be insulting (Isa 1:11-17; Amos 5:21-22). Actual worship practices in Israel developed over time. The worship practiced by the patriarchs was simple and informal; they had no priests or temples (Gen 8:20; Gen 12:7-8; Gen 13:18; Gen 22:13; Gen 26:25). During the time of the judges this type of worship continued, but priests and temples were also known (e.g., at Shiloh). Even after Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem and installed the Ark there, the people continued to offer sacrifices at local outdoor altars (“high places”); it was only under Josiah that these “high places” were finally eradicated, and worship was centralized at the Jerusalem Temple (2Kgs 23:5-9). A completely new institution of worship was added in the Second Temple period: the synagogue. People at a distance from the Temple could gather at the synagogue on the Sabbath to pray and hear the scriptures expounded in a short sermon (Luke 4:16-29). In the NT, the entire institution of Temple, priesthood, and sacrifice becomes obsolete, and Christian worship is more emphatically internal than external. Three rituals known from the NT, however, are baptism, Communion (Eucharist), and the laying on of hands.
