I wish to run a small poll here. Hope no one minds. Boyd, you have my permission to remove this poll if you deem it so.

I am sure that many of you have heard that the only true way to worship God is in "Spirit" and in "Truth".

Here is my question.......

Can anyone define what Jesus meant by in "Spirit" and in "Truth", when he told this to the woman at the well in Samaria, in the fourth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John?

Later on I will put in my two cents to this question.

Schuyler

I understand "spirit" to be heart knowledge of Jesus, taking up His cross daily and following Him. There is a difference between heart knowledge(identification with Jesus) and head knowledge (information overload, often disbursed by evangelical cemetaries). Let me give an example. Kevin and Myra's pastor - "I will love you conditionally if you do what pleases me (put clothes on) and if you don't I won't." Take that versus Jesus unconditonal love and acceptance. The pastor has head knowledge and no heart knowledge. To me, it's impossible to worship God in "spirit" if you don't have a heart for God.

I understand truth to be conformity to the word of God. We are to worship God with heart, mind and body - I think a Christian naturist can have the best integrated view of this. The temple prostitutes in Corinth "worshippped" a god with their bodies via sexual immorality - that's not truth according to the revealed word of God.

And that's my 2 cents worth. (worthless in the eyes of most pastors I've known because I don't have a cemetary education THANK GOD ! ! !)

Spirit can only come from deep within. It is not surface, that is where the holy spirit and our human spirit connect to become one with God. Everything else is outward appearances. (The spirit does manifest itself through you to the outside world, but it comes from deep within, not something you wear like a tee shirt)

Truth can only come from that, nothing else. You speak from the abundance of your heart. If all you have is physical and material, then you have nothing real to speak of unless you want to help others succeed in this physical world.

But to worship God, you need more than just your physical trappings of candles, encence, robes, stained glass, crosses and beads. Even our naturism is of no good to anyone if all we do is live our lives physically and leave out the spirit of truth.

We cannot confess our sins to God if truth is not in us. And how can we say we love God if we do not love our neighbor? Love is love. If you have love in you for God, then you should have love in you for your neighbor, otherwise you have no love for either one and truth is not in you and your worship is in vain.

You must have both.

Boyd

I think Boyd pretty much hit on how I feel. I would like to add a few thoughts, though.
(When have I refrained from adding my two cents lately, eh? )

The contemporary song, "Come, Now is the Time to Worship," was written by a praise
and worship leader (music director?) who for several weeks had been silenced in
services because the ministerial staff had realized that the congregation was not truly
worshipping. The deep devotion and adoration we should all have when we "worship"
God had been replaced by almost a sense of entertainment and wanting to "feel
good" after the service was over. (Sounds like some of the so-called mega churches,
these days. All fluff and no substance.) So this church went into a "Service of the Word."
They included Bible readings, the sermon and prayer. Finally, music came back.

But this time, with this song, the people were given an idea of how to worship. The spirit
of the Lord must be within you and must move you. It's certainly hard to have a deep
devotion if the passion and spirit to give that devotion -- totally -- is not there. And to worship
Him in "Truth," is actually several-fold. First of all, do you realize that the dictionary defines
"Truth" with a capital "T" as God. Isn't that interesting? We worship the Son, by having the
spirit present within us, and the "Truth," God also present. The "TRIUNE GOD." But I think more
than that, our devotion and adoration is such that the truth is such that we believe so honestly
and sincerely in our faith and in what HE had does for us, that we have no other choice but to
worship. Our passion for our God, for our Savior, and for the guidance of the Spirit takes over
our whole being and leaves us only to praise and worship, and give thanks to HIM! And then
worship really becomes a 24/7 reality, and not just an hour on Sunday and perhaps again on
Wednesday evening, or Sunday evening. Our whole lives become a living worship to HIM --
in spirit and in truth.

Blessings!
Nancy

The song that Nancy mentioned thought provoking and cuts to the essence of worship. There is another one that we sing during our school mid-week chapel service that stirs me. It is "coming back to the heart of worship" where the lyricist states that it is more than a song and implies that worship has to be from the heart, that centered place within each of us. I am saddened that there are not all in our Christian high school seem to understand that concept.

I agree with the other posts. Thought I'd add a little.

In context Jesus says Jn.4:22 You people worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. So Jesus says the Sameritians worship God in ignorance and the Jews worship God in knowledge because they have the word of God.

The Jews were to keep the covenantal Law of Moses, but failed and so as predicted they went into Captivity. Esra and Haggi brought the people back to Jerusalem the city of God and modivated the people to obey the law more then the Jewish people had before. But they still failed to keep the law. The later prophets Jer. and Ez. were therefore started to say a new covenant was needed where the law would be written on the belivers heart.

The Pharisees weren't looking for new hearts but took obeying the law to the extreme, yet Jesus says even their extreme effort or obey the law didn't get them enough righteousness.

So Jesus intenionally breaks their definition of the Sabbath and their purity laws of washings. He tells them about repenting and accepting the new birth where love fullfills the law. Paul makes it very clear that noone is justified by the law because noone can keep the law. So we are now under a covenant of grace where we aren't condemned because Jesus fulfilled the law and we need to learn how to love God and our neighbor.

If the Pharisees couldn't get enough righteousness working every moment of ever day with all modivation from their youth till they died, who is so arrogant to dare think they can do better than that. Let us give up all lawkeeping and instead fellowship with other beleivers so we will learn what it is to love them.

Thanks for letting me preach a bit
praise God
dayhiker