Is all of life worship, or only what happens on Sunday?
All of it. Paul calls your ordinary body the sacrifice, and says whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God. The gathered service is the rehearsal; the week is the performance. Work done honestly, meals eaten thankfully, and justice loved quietly are all worship when they are offered to Him.
This question arose from studying What is worship, really? and Can God actually hate a worship service? and What is the Spirit's role when the church gathers?.
Begin by reading
Go into the Word
Not a summary of these passages: the passages themselves. Read them, then come back to the study below.
The study
What the Scripture says
The offering is your body, not your Sunday hour
Paul's worship vocabulary lands on the most everyday thing about you: 'present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.' Your body goes to work, eats dinner, drives the carpool, and answers emails. By making the body the sacrifice, Paul makes Monday through Saturday part of the act of worship, not the intermission after it.
Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
Eating and drinking can glorify God
Paul picks deliberately mundane examples: 'Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.' And he writes the same truth to Colossae: 'Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him.' If eating lunch can be done to the glory of God, then worship is not an activity you attend; it is an aim you bring to every activity.
Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him.
God's own list of requirements is almost entirely weekday material
When Micah's Israel asks what God wants, the answer contains no festival calendar: 'to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.' Justice at the gate, mercy in relationships, humility before God. This is why hollow-ceremony passages like Isaiah 1 hit so hard: God never accepted ritual as a substitute for the ordinary obedience it was supposed to express.
Ordinary faithfulness preaches to outsiders
Even Paul's advice about work is missional: 'make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands... that you may walk properly toward those who are outside.' Jesus said our good works are meant to be seen so that observers 'glorify your Father who is in heaven.' Your quiet competence this week is part of someone else's evidence for God.
and that you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, even as we instructed you; that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and may have need of nothing.
Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
As you read, you may wonder…
Scripture raises the next question
Studying the Word naturally opens more of it. Follow what you just read: it leads somewhere.
Hold onto these
Verses to meditate on
Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
Worth visiting