In all the time I have spent in church, I have always associated “worship” with music because that is the only context in which I heard the word mentioned. I remember when it hit me for the first time about a year ago that worship isn’t about the music. I was reading casually (not studying) in Genesis 22 where Abraham was taking Isaac to sacrifec him, and stopped when I read:

22:4 Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. 5 And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.”

I couldn’t get past that passage. They went to worship? It sounds funny now, but I thought “It didn’t say anything about musicians going along on the trek”, and that is when I realized that there was something I had not been told in church about worship. I was really curious after that and set out to find what worshiping is apart from music.

It was interesting what Mr. Yancy said at the end of his article: “In the Hebrew Old Testament, the primary word for worship means “to bow down in reverence and submission.” And in the New Testament, the most common Greek word for worship means “to come forward to kiss.” Between those two—or combining both—lies our best approach to God.“