The Words Worship and Adore

God forbade worship of idols, and in fact the point of Romans 1 is that people exchanged the worship of God for the worship of idols. So it is possible to worship a created being. In fact, it is the root of all man's problems.

 

I gotta agree with pastor Larry. Worship is to God alone.

Catholics like to use "adore" for describing their worship of Mary, saints, artifacts, icons, and everything else.

 

One of my OT professors who I really respect explained worship as "reverential acts of homage and submission to the Divine Superior in response to His self-revelation and in accordance with His will." It's not something that has to happen in church, either. It has nothing to do with music. It's what we do with our daily lives, moment by moment.

Everyone in the world worships. They either worship the one true and living God, or a God substitute.

Christians do this, too. We don't want to admit it, but we worship other things all the time. Some of them are distinctly negative things, like pornography, but others are good things, like money, sexuality and relationships. Being homeschooled, I saw a lot of people worship their children. Their own children actually became an idol to them.

But I think I agree with the spirit of your post. Saying like "worship the ground they walk on" is an obvious and intended overstatement to make a point, which I would agree is a problem, even if just for the fact that it alters the usage of the word.

Unless, of course, someone is actually worshiping that person, and then it might be unfortunately accurate.

Blessings.

 

The problem here is implied by saturneptune. These words have always encompassed a larger meaning than worship to God. "Worship" is an old English word that originally meant great respect shown to persons of the noble class. Gradually it evolved to mean the honor we give only to God. "Adore" is a word of Latin origin which has pretty much followed the same pathway in its meaning. Maybe we ought to come up with a new word that implies exclusively man's approach to God.

I don't think so. They do use "adore" in reference to the Eucharist, which they believe is the literal body of Christ. But they would not use "adore" in reference to the saints, artifacts, etc. They would probably use "venerate" in connection with them.

 

Yes ("hyperdulia" vs. "latria") but it's orwellian doublethink plain and simple. No distinction was made where I grew up in an Italian Roman Catholic community.

When I was a boy, I was taught to kneel before an image of Mary, make my petition, prayer, praise, whatever, to her, have faith that she would grant my request and then was taught make sure to thank her afterward.

This implies at least omnipresence.

Same procedure kneeling before the crucifix.

The Church of Rome is the author of confusion.
Giving something a different name doesn't change the act itself.

e.g. The consecrated "Eucharist" is called the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ according to the doctrine of transubstantiation.

In the next breath the mass is called the "unbloody" sacrifice of the mass.

Even taking the words at their surface meaning, both can't be true.

However, I can guarantee that if Catholics were allowed to post here some one would be able to come up with an explanation (probably from the Catholic Encylopedia) as to how both could be true.

Mary, the saints and angels are indeed worshipped and adored by misguided Catholics.

To give credit where credit is due, it is true the RCC leadership is trying to eliminate this error, at least here in the States.

HankD