Are You Worshipping God in Truth?

In the last hours before being crucified, Jesus Christ underwent interrogation by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. Pilate asked Him, “Are you a king then?” Christ replied that He was born to be king and to bear witness to the truth, which His disciples would hear and accept (John 18:37). 

Pilate replied, “What is truth?” (verse 38). It seems Pilate was jaded about the whole concept of truth. 

In His last prayer with His disciples, Jesus prayed to the Father, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17). 

That truth is found in the words the Father entrusted to Christ, faithfully preserved for us in the Bible. 

We are told to live by every word of God (Matthew 4:4). Since God’s Word is truth, then we are to live by truth. Truth should characterize Christians’ doctrinal beliefs, their character and how they worship God.  

We must worship in truth

During His ministry, Jesus stopped at a well and asked a Samaritan woman for a drink. This surprised her, as Jews typically avoided Samaritans and would certainly not drink from their vessels (John 4:7-9).

The Samaritan woman perceived that Jesus was a prophet after He revealed hidden things about her life (verses 16-19). So, she asked about the proper place to worship (verse 20). The Jews believed God was to be worshipped in Jerusalem, but the Samaritans worshipped God on Mount Gerizim. 

Truth is very important to God, and He is seeking people who will worship Him in truth. This has been confirmed by a marble tablet (discovered in 1913) of a list of commands in Samaritan script. The commands are almost identical to the 10 Commandments except this Samaritan version omits the Third Commandment and adds a directive to worship on Mount Gerizim as the 10th Commandment.

Christ used this woman’s question as an opportunity to tell her—and us—that God is seeking true worshippers who will “worship the Father in spirit and truth” (verse 23, emphasis added). Neither the Samaritans nor the Jews were worshipping God that way.

Truth is very important to God, and He is seeking people who will worship Him in truth. God is not interested in being worshipped in error or in any way that doesn’t fully align with truth. 

It’s especially interesting that Christ discussed true worship with a Samaritan. The Samaritans practiced a syncretistic form of worship. To understand this, we need to go back in history some 900 years before Christ. 

The Samaritans and syncretism

After Solomon’s death, the kingdom of Israel split into two separate kingdoms—the kingdom of Israel in the north and the kingdom of Judah in the south (1 Kings 11:11-13, 28-32; 12:16-20).

Jeroboam was the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel, and he introduced a false worship system that included:

• Mainstream Christianity, as practiced by the majority of churches today, is a syncretistic form of religion, heavily based on human traditions that contradict the Word of God. Setting up golden calves for Israel to worship (1 Kings 12:28).
• Changing the Feast of Tabernacles from the seventh month to the eighth month to keep Israelites from traveling to Jerusalem to worship (1 Kings 12:32; compare Leviticus 23:34).
• Appointing non-Levites to serve as priests (1 Kings 12:32).

About 200 years later, God punished Israel for their sins and apostasy from truth by sending Assyria to enslave them. They became the lost tribes of Israel (2 Kings 17:20-23). 

It was at this stage that a number of peoples, eventually to be known as Samaritans, entered the picture. They, too, had been conquered by Assyria and were relocated from their homelands in Babylon and elsewhere to replace those exiled from Israel (verse 24).

But these transplants didn’t fear the God of Israel, so He sent lions to attack them (verse 25). The king of Assyria sent back an Israelite priest to teach them (verse 27), but instead of abandoning their false beliefs, they mixed Israelite teachings with their pagan forms of worship (verses 29, 33). 

They continued living in the former land of northern Israel, which came to be known as Samaria, and practiced a hybrid religion that syncretized ideas from Israel with Babylonian pagan practices and thought. 

God hates syncretism because it blends truth with error. 

For more on the dangers of this approach, read “What Is Religious Syncretism? Does God Accept It?” 

But what about you and me? Could we be practicing a syncretistic form of religion? It is a form of worship passed down by generations and involves elevating traditions over God’s words of truth. 

You might be surprised to learn that mainstream Christianity, as practiced by the majority of churches today, is a syncretistic form of religion, heavily based on human traditions that contradict the Word of God.

Take Christmas, for example. 

Christmas, a form of false worship

Jesus was indeed born in Bethlehem to a virgin named Mary. The local shepherds did come in from the field and worship Him.  

So, what is wrong with Christmas—a day that purports to celebrate this true and important event? 

The issue with Christmas is the many untruths that are associated with it. The apostle John wrote, “No lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21). 

In other words, the truth is pure. If it is mixed with untruth, error or outright lies, it is no longer truth.

Consider just a few of the lies associated with Christmas:

• Nowhere does the Bible command us to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Instead, the Bible provides us with annual festivals to observe, which many disregard in favor of man-made holidays. (To learn more, read “Holy Days vs. Holidays.”) 
• Jesus was not born in December or in the winter. The date of Dec. 25 is based on Roman sun worship, which viewed the shortest day of the year as the day the sun was reborn. So, the birth of the sun was later transferred to the birth of the Son. This is an example of syncretism. (To learn more about Jesus’ birth, read “The Birth of Jesus: Myths and Misperceptions.”)
• The wise men didn’t visit Christ in the manger, but came to the “house” His family was living in at a later time, when He was a young child (Matthew 2:11). Also, the Bible doesn’t say there were three wise men; that is an assumption by men. 
• The wise men didn’t give gifts to each other or to others, but to Christ to honor Him as a king. The Bible never commanded this gift-giving be used as a model for a holiday. The gift-giving customs of Christmas actually come from the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, which World History Encyclopaedia describes as “a festive period when people gave gifts to one another.” 
• The primary symbol of Christmas is the Christmas tree. The prophet Jeremiah condemned Israel for practicing the pagan custom of decorating trees as idols (Jeremiah 10:1-4). 

Many celebrate Christmas with good intentions, but sincerity alone is not enough. Jesus told the Samaritan woman that she did not know whom she worshipped. He taught her that true worshippers must worship in spirit and truth instead of mixing truth with error. 

Let’s consider a king who wanted to hear what God had to say, but tragically rejected God’s revealed truth.

King Ahab hears the truth

King Ahab ruled over Israel and married the evil Jezebel, who introduced Baal worship into Israel (1 Kings 16:31-32). 

When the king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, visited King Ahab, Ahab wanted his support to attack the Syrians, who had taken the territory of Ramoth Gilead. Jehoshaphat gave his support (1 Kings 22:2-4). 

But Jehoshaphat wanted to hear from a prophet of God on this matter. Ahab consulted his 400 prophets of Baal, and they unanimously said, “Go up, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king” (verse 6). 

But Jehoshaphat said he wanted to inquire of a true prophet of God. King Ahab knew of one true prophet, Micaiah.

After fetching him, Ahab’s servant tried to coach the true prophet to agree with the other prophets (verse 13). So, Micaiah humorously parroted what the other prophets said: “Go and prosper, for the LORD will deliver it into the hand of the king!” (verse 15). 

Recognizing that Micaiah was being sarcastic, King Ahab told Micaiah, “Tell me nothing but the truth” (verse 16). 

This is reminiscent of the expression we hear in legal settings: “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” 

Some may remember the famous scene in the movie A Few Good Men in which these words were yelled in a military courtroom: “You can’t handle the truth!” This expression is very apt for Ahab in this account. 

Ahab could not handle the truth. 

The prophet Micaiah described a vision in which he saw all of Israel scattered like sheep without a shepherd, and God told him, “Let each return to his house in peace.” (In other words, it will end badly. Don’t try to attack Syria.) But Ahab hated what he heard, because it was contrary to what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to battle (verses 17-18). 

The consequences of rejecting the truth

Tragically, Ahab rejected the true prophetic message and went to battle anyway. He chose to believe the lies of false prophets instead of the truth of the true prophet of God.

Subsequently, as the prophet had foretold, Ahab died in battle (verses 29-35). He paid for his rejection of truth with his life. 

The same will happen to us if we prefer and choose lies over the truth. 

We can choose to ignore the truth, just as King Ahab did. But we put ourselves in grave spiritual danger if we take that path. 

We must instead accept and live by the truth.  

Will you commit to living your life by truth?

Date Posted: December 16, 2024