{UAH} How Some NonCatholics Misunderstand the Term "Worship" - Attention Richard Mukasa:

The word worship has  undergone a change in meaning in English.  It comes from the Old English weorthscipe, which means the condition of being worthy of honor, respect, or dignity.  To worship in the older, larger sense is to ascribe honor, worth, or excellence to someone, whether a sage, a magistrate, or God.

 

For many centuries, the term worship simply meant showing respect or honor, and an example of this usage survives in contemporary English.  British subjects refer to their magistrates as "Your Worship," although Americans would say "Your Honor."  This doesn't mean that the Britons worship their magistrates as gods.  (In fact, they may even despise a particular magistrate they are addressing.)  It means that they are giving them the honor appropriete to their office, not the honor appropriete to God.  The same problem can be found with the way the term love is used in contemporary English.  One has to explain further when he says, "I love my wife, I love my dog, I love my children, I love my country and so on..."  In Greek, the term love has varying degrees in meaning and terminologies are given to mark the distnctions.  For instanse, agape, felio, elos, and storga/storgie.

 

Outside of this example, however, the English term worship has been narrowed in scope to indicate only that supreme form of honor, reverence, and respect that is due only to God.  This change in usage is quite recent.  As one can still find books that use worship in the older, broader sense.  This can lead to cinfussion when people who are familiar with only the use of words in their own day and their own circles encounter material written in other times and other places.

 

Similarly, in Scripture too, the term worship was broad in meaning as I will demonstrate, but in the early Christian centuries, theologians began to differentiate between types of honor in order to make clearer which is due to God and which is not.  As the terminology of Christian theology developed, the Greek term "latria" came to be used to refer to the honor that is due to God alone, and the term "dulia" came to refer to the honor that is due to human beings, especially those who lived and died in God's friendship - That is, the holy saints.  Scripture indicates that honor is due to these individuals (Matthew 10:41).  A special term was coined to refer to the special honor given to the Virgin Mary, who bore Jesus - God in flesh - in her womb.  This term, "hyperdulia" (huper > more than + dulia = "beyond dulia"), indicates that the honor due to her as Christ's own Mother is more than dulia given to any other saints.  It is greater in degree, but still of the same kind.  However, since Mary is a finine creature, the honor due to her is fundamentally different in kind from the latria owed to the infinite Creator.

 

All of these terms; latria, dulia, and hyperdulia used to be lumped under the one English word worship.  Sometimes when one reads old books discussing how particular persons are to be honored, they will qualify the worship by referring to "the worship of latria" or "the worship of dulia."  To contempories and those not familia with the history of these terms, however, this is too confusing.

 

Another attempt to make clear the difference between the honor due to God alone and that due to humans has been to use the words adore and adoration to describe the total, consuming reverence due to God, and the terms venerate, veneration, and honor to refer to the respect due to humans.  Thus Catholics sometimes say, "We adore God but we honor his saints."  Unfortunately, many non-Catholics have been so schooled in hostility toward the Church that they appear unable or unwilling to recognize these distinctions.  They confidently and very often arrogantly assert that Catholics "worship" Mary and the saints, and in so doing, commit idolartry.  This is patently false, of course, but the education in anti-Catholic prejudice is so strong that one must patiently explain that Catholics DO NOT worship anyone one but God - at least given the contemporary use of the term.  The Church is very clear about the fact that latria, adoration - what the contemporary English speakers call "worship" - is to be given only to God.

 

Many non-Catholics might be more perplexed than enlightened by hearing the history of the term worship.  Familia only with their group's or denomination's use of the word, they may misperceive a history lesson as rationalization and end up even more adamant in their declarations that the term is applicable only to God.  They may even go further; Wanting to attack the veneration of the saints, they may declare that only God should be honored.  Just as they do with other fundamental theological issues and doctrines like "faith alone,"  "once saved always saved," and "Bible/Scripture alone is the sole rule of faith."  Both of these declations are in direct contradiction to the language and precepts of the Bible.  The term worship was used in the same way in the Bible that it used to be used in English.  It could cover both the adoration given to God alone and the honor that is to be shown to certain human beings.  In Hebrew, the term for worship is shakhah.  It is appropriately used for humans in a large number of passages:  In Genesis 37:7-9, Joseph relates two dreams that God gave him concerning how his family would honor him in coming years.  Translated literally, the passage states; " Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose and stood upright; and behold, your sheaves gathered round it, and worshed (shakhah) my sheaf.'...  Then he dreamed another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, 'Behold, I have dreamed another dream; and behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were worshiping (shakhah) me."

 

In Genesis 49:8, Jacob pronounces a prophetic blessing on his sons, and concerning Judah he states: "Judah, your brothers shall praise you, your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father's sons shall worship (shakhah) you."

And in Exodus 18:7, Moses honored his father-in-law, Jethro:  "Moses went out to meet his father-in law, and worshed (shakhah) him and kissed him; and they asked each other of their welfare, and went into the tent."  Notice, none of these passages were discussing the worship of adoration, the kind of worship given to God. 

 

Consider how honor is given.  We regularly give it to public officials.  In the marriage ceremony it is still used to be said that the wife would "love, honor, and obey" her husband.  Letters to legislators are addressed to " the Honorable So and So...  Just recently, I was watching the funeral respects of Sam Njuba (RIP) on YouTube, and the dignitaries were all bowing to his body as they lay the wreths.  Should we conclude that they were worship the dead Sam Njuba?  In Ganda culture, it is customary to greet Kabaka by kneeling and prostrating before him (except Nkima clan who don't do so); should we conclude that the Baganda worship their Kabaka as god?  The Japans show respect by bowing in greeting (the equivalent of the Western handshake).  And just about anyone, living or dead, who bears an exalted rank is said to be worthy of honor, and this is particularly true of historical figures, as when children are instructed to honor the elders and leaders of their society.

 

These practises are entirely biblical.  We are explicitly commanded at numerous points in the Bible to honor certain people.  One of the most impotant commands on this subject is the command to honor one's parents:  "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you" (Exodus 20:12).  God considered this command so important that He repeated it multiple times in the Bible (Lev. 19:3; Deut. 5:16; Matt.15:4; Luke 18:20; Eph. 6:2).  It was also important to give honor to one's elders in general: "You shall rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God:  I am the Lord" (Lev. 19:32).  It was also important to especially honor religious leaders: "And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother (the high priest), for glory and for beauty" (Exodus 28:2).

 

The New Testament also stresses the importance of honoring others.  The apostle Paul commands: "Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to who revenue is due, respect to who respect is due, honor to whom honor is due" (Romans 13:7).  He also stated this as a principle regarding one's employers: "Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singlrness of heart, as to Christ' (Eph. 6:5).  "Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed" (1 Tim. 6:1).  Perhaps the broadest command to honor others is found in 1 Peter: "Honor all men.  Love the brotherhood.  Fear God.  Honor the emperor" (1 Peter 2:17).

 

The New Testament also stresses the importance of honoring religious figures.  Paul spoke of the need to give them special honor: "Let the presbyters (priests) who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching" (1 Tim. 5:17).  Christ himself promised special blessings to those who honor religious figures: "He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward, and he who receives a righteous man (a saint) because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous mn's reward" (Matt. 10:41).

 

Therefore, if there can be nothing wrong with honoring the living, who still have an opportunity to ruin their lives through sin, there certainly can be no argument against giving honor to saints whose lives are done and who ended them in sanctity.  If people should be honored in general, God's special friends certainly should be honored.  And when Catholics do so, they are not worshiping them.

 

Paul Mugerwa