I hope that you have been enjoying our series on worship. I remember the first time I took a course just on worship and I wondered how we could have a whole course just on the theology of worship, then another class to follow on style and forms of worship. With each new word I began to understand just how much more there is to worship than I ever realized before. Today we look closely at the Greek word aineo.
In modern church pop-culture we talk a lot about praise and worship, to which almost everyone asks me, what is the difference between them? Well, let me help answer that by saying the word for praise is also translated as worship. Aineo, sometimes translated as praise, is always used to denote worship that is loud and joyful. Think to yourself, make a joyful noise unto the Lord. That is the kind of worship we are talking about when we express ourselves loudly and joyfully. This word occurs 8 times in the New Testament. In Romans 15.11 and Revelation 19.5 it is a command to give praise to God because he is worthy. In the gospels and Acts the word tells us about moments of loud, joyful, spontaneous worship in response to healing, salvation, or deliverance. Each spontaneous act tells us about normal responses to God’s action in the life of believers, while Romans and Revelation speak of the expectation that God deserves our loud, joyful praise for who he is and what he has done. We see this in times when we cheer God, or the words on the screen provoke our emotional response to shout out loud and give praise to God for who he is and what he has done in our lives. This kind of worship is not Charismatic or modern, this is biblical worship that overflows from a heart that wants to express the worthiness of God.
So let me invite you to step outside of your comfort zone, be loud and joyful, in your praise to God this next week. He is worthy!
Next week we will talk about doxa.
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