Forgotten Honour - William Cowper and Madame Guyon

Madame Guyon

It's been a while since I delved back in Church History and took a look at how much honour and shame dynamics were part of the thinking and writing of Christians in centuries past.

Recently I came across another hymn - one which I had never heard of before - from around the late 15th century, which has its whole theme as the issue of sin being our shameful usurping of the place that God's honour should have in our lives. In fact it is given as the description of our lack of love for God. And it is no short explanation….it is 10 verses! It was once asked of me, that if honour is so important, why is the 'greatest commandment' about loving God and doesn't say about honouring God?…maybe this hymn goes some way in explaining that issue, as it points out how much the issues of love and honour are intrinsically linked together. 

It's a hymn that is not in modern hymnbooks, but was known by, and quoted by, Spurgeon in his devotional for December 19. He was speaking about trusting God to provide and care for us in the midst of our anxieties, saying "You are meddling with Christ's business, and neglecting your own when you fret about your lot and circumstances." and he went on to quote the 9th verse of this hymn:

My soul! rest happy in thy low estate,

Nor hope, nor wish, to be esteemed or great,

To take the impression of a will divine,

Be that thy glory, and those riches thine.

His point of persuasion with this verse, is that the cause and solution for our anxieties is 'glory' based. When we have our glory/honour focus in the right direction (on God not ourselves) we can be like the hymn-writer and have rest and happiness for our soul. And who doesn't want rest and happiness? We all do. But they are to be found by getting our 'glory' focus right.

This hymn was translated by British Poet William Cowper (probably around 1782) from the original French by Madame de la Mothe Guion written probably around a century earlier. Cowper is most famous for producing the 'Olney Hymns' hymnbook with his pastor (the well known John Newton who wrote 'Amazing Grace'). Read more about the hymn and William Cowper and Madame Guyon here and the hymn is explained verse by verse here.

The 10 verses are filled with words which are worth reading over and over:

Oh loved! but not enough—though dearer far

Than self and its most loved enjoyments are;

None duly loves thee, but who, nobly free

From sensual objects, finds his all in thee.

Glory of God! thou stranger here below,

Whom man nor knows, nor feels a wish to know;

Our faith and reason are both shocked to find

Man in the post of honour—Thee behind.

Reason exclaims—"Let every creature fall,

Ashamed, abased, before the Lord of all;"

And faith, o'erwhelmed with such a dazzling blaze,

Feebly describes the beauty she surveys.

Yet man, dim–sighted man, and rash as blind,

Deaf to the dictates of his better mind,

In frantic competition dares the skies,

And claims precedence of the Only wise.

Oh, lost in vanity, till once self–known!

Nothing is great, or good, but God alone;

When thou shalt stand before his awful face,

Then, at the last, thy pride shall know his place.

Glorious, Almighty, First, and without end!

When wilt thou melt the mountains and descend?

When wilt thou shoot abroad thy conquering rays,

And teach these atoms, thou hast made, thy praise?

Thy glory is the sweetest heaven I feel;

And, if I seek it with too fierce a zeal,

Thy love, triumphant o'er a selfish will,

Taught me the passion, and inspires it still.

My reason, all my faculties, unite,

To make thy glory their supreme delight:

Forbid it, fountain of my brightest days,

That I should rob thee, and usurp thy praise!

My soul! rest happy in thy low estate,

Nor hope, nor wish, to be esteemed or great,

To take the impression of a will divine,

Be that thy glory, and those riches thine.

Confess him righteous in his just decrees,

Love what he loves, and let his pleasure please;

Die daily; from the touch of sin recede;

Then thou hast crowned him, and he reigns indeed.

Resting in God and His Word

Cats,…. the purry, furry companions of so many….including myself, have a habit of demonstrating their friendship by coming to sit on a piece of paper that is the page of the book or newspaper that we happen to be reading right at that very moment!

My cat is no exception.

However, today she didn't quite sit right on top of the page I was reading (as I was at the time reading on my laptop), but she did choose to sit right on top of my bible, laying open beside me at the page I was regularly referring to.

But as she covered up the very section of Scripture I was periodically looking back at, and then relaxed back even further and began to have a 'bath', I had an object lesson from God right there! (and yes, I took some quick pics!).

As she rested right on top, and then cleaned, and then went to sleep, it was a good metaphorical reminder that we too should be quick to go to the pages of Scripture and rest in the truth of all that God shows us in those pages that he truly is.  

It should be the rock, the resting place, the source and security of all our lives, whether sitting, working (cleaning) or sleeping!

As we look at the mess of our world this is a good reminder…especially considering my time in God's Word is currently in Paul's letters to Timothy. Paul tells Timothy toward the end of his second letter that in the last days sin will abound (chapter 3). We shouldn't be then surprised when we look at the world…

But I am reminded that we should also take note of Paul's other directives to Timothy after this…that he is to remember God's inspired Word and keep on preaching and teaching it (Chapter 4). Though some might not like it or welcome it, as we keep eternity and Jesus' return in mind, the response to the sinful mess of the world is not to be shocked about it, or just ignore it, or try to escape to some quiet corner of this earth where we think it might be less, or spend all our energies fighting it, but to continue to evangelise, to preach the Word, live the Word, teach the Word, and not neglect the gifts that God has given us for his Kingdom work, so that souls might be saved.

It was a short lesson with significant reminders, but those are sometimes the best!

Butterflies, Remembering and Blessing

Today in the UK there is a flypast with a Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft to remember the Battle of Britain.

We need to take the time to remember events and special moments from the past, because in the busyness of life we are so apt to forget. 

I believe that’s partly why we are given instruction to celebrate the Lord’s Supper/Communion/Eucharist - because we need reminders, we need to pause and remember the value of what Christ did for us in his death and resurrection.

This morning in our devotional/prayer time together my husband and I were reading the verse from Scripture to ‘forget not all his benefits’ (Psalm 103:2), and Spurgeon’s reminder on the topic was to pause and consider all that God has done in so many ways in our lives…and to praise Him.

Remembering gives our mind a point of pause, of considering, thinking, pondering and of re-visiting past events, experiences and people. It’s a point of learning and looking beyond the first glance. It’s letting old truths, lessons and joys sink in, as well as discovering new ones.

Well today I also did some ‘remembering’ and used my garden butterflies as the catalyst - as the tool for a journey of remembering….I first thought about a very brief wander in the garden a few days ago with my trusty camera, to see what new butterflies I could photograph. Since then I hadn’t even bothered to download the photos off the camera as I figured there were no new butterflies as all I managed were a couple of shots of a species of butterfly I have seen many times. In fact it was one of the first species of butterfly I ever photographed back in July 2017. 

It felt a bit boring.

However, I was challenged that maybe instead of looking for the ‘new’ I should take the opportunity to look again at this ‘Pansy’ butterfly and just remember how pretty it is, and be ready for some fresh joy from ‘remembering’ and ‘re-looking’!

As I took a first look at the photos as I downloaded them, at first they didn’t even seem so great. I didn’t immediately see anything particularly interesting - although I was reminded how beautiful its iridescent ‘spot’ is.

But then in taking the time to just re-visit, I not only was reminded of his beautiful ‘spot’, but was blessed with some new lessons from this little creature.

1. This particular butterfly this time was a bit ‘broken’. He had bits of his wings missing. 

Yet despite his broken-ness and being a bit ‘battered’, he (or she) was still beautiful. It’s easy to think that such photos are not worth keeping. It’s easy to want to aim for only photos of ‘perfect’ butterflies. 

But if God only remembered his creation if it could present itself perfect, he would have abandoned it long ago. Despite us as human beings rejecting him, God loves his creation, he loves you and me, and despite giving him every reason to reject us forever, he took the initiative to make a way to offer us welcome back, in Christ.  Yet this butterfly was also a reminder that in Christ, God doesn’t see our messed up state, he sees Christ’s beauty and perfection. But in that, he doesn’t ignore the brokenness but redeems the brokenness we experience because of this world’s sin.  He chooses to remember our humanity (that we are but dust), but also to remember his Son’s sacrifice for us that enables him to look past our sin-ridden brokenness and instead at Jesus’ righteous beauty, which enables him to ‘remember’ our sin no more. This isn’t a perfect analogy, but it was good to be prompted to ‘remember’ what God ‘remembers’.

And thus praise Him.

2. Then as I looked further at my photos and remembered how this butterfly was one of the first that I photographed and was amazed at the spot that changes colour from white to mauve to purple and then to blue, I noticed that these new photos seemed to pick up the detail of the butterfly eye - something that I hadn’t noticed before.

So I zoomed in and took a closer look…and did a bit of research on the butterfly eye. 

It really is an amazing piece of equipment!

Can you see the multiple ‘dots’ within his eye?

Butterfly eyes are made up of many smaller image forming eyes called ommatidia. One of the main advantages of these eyes is that it provides the animal with increased wide field of vision. In fact, it is said that a butterfly can see approximately 314 degrees around itself. This helps them identify potential predators and food or water sources. (https://australianbutterflies.com/butterfly-eyes-how-do-they-see-colour/)

In my other web-searching about butterfly eyes, I discovered that butterflies are also able to see polarised light and ultra-violet light which humans are not able to see.

Flowers have ultra-violet patterns that are invisible to humans but which can be recognised by butterflies. These UV patterns guide butterflies to the source of nectar in much the same way that runway lights guide an aircraft in to land.

I also learnt that along with most insects butterflies

have a pair of spherical compound eyes, each comprising of up to 17000 "ommatidia" - individual light receptors with their own microscopic lenses. These work in unison to produce a mosaic view of the scene around them.

and

The laws of optics show that it's likely that everything from about one centimetre to 200 metres will be rendered in sharp focus by butterflies, as their ommatidia are of very short focal length.

and

The sensitivity to changes in their visual field, combined with a high flicker-vision frequency of about 150 images per second, may also help butterflies to piece together the thousands of elements of the mosaic image produced by the compound eye. It is not known whether butterflies and other insects are able to merge these mosaic elements into a single image. If are able to do so, it would render them capable of distinguishing patterns at close distances.

Furthermore I discovered that a particular type of butterfly which I have previously photographed in our garden called the ’Skippers’ have an extra feature:

The eyes of Skippers are different from those of other butterflies. They have a space between the cones and rods which allows light from each ommatidium to spill into neighbouring rods, effectively increasing their resolution and sensitivity. As a result Skippers can fly very accurately from one spot to another. This different type of eye structure is one of the reasons why taxonomists place them in a different super-family to all other butterflies - the Hesperioidea.

This too was cause for me to ponder…that firstly, while the ‘thing’ I see or the situation I’m in might be non-debateable as to its existence, how I see it might not be the only way to look at it, to understand it or to benefit from it. Other perspectives might have validity. I might be able to learn something from another perspective. My vision is limited.

Secondly, it is a reminder that how God sees situations, reality, right and wrong, what is best, my life, the world, and the universe, is not how I see it. While my vision is limited and other people’s perspectives might have validity, I need to most-of-all trust, and submit to, and learn from, the One who is my Creator and the Creator of others and Creator of the world I live in. It is his perspective that matters most and is the primary lens through which I need to view the world, my life and others. 

Pausing to re-look at the butterfly from the past, and remember its beauty was worth it.

AND

Remembering God’s perfect vision and his watching over my life, and how I can go to his Word to learn to see life through his perspective, was good for my heart. It was good to remember his loving care and guidance…

And thus praise Him.

What a blessing it is to take the time to remember…to look back…to recall God’s goodness, love and to ‘forget not all his benefits'

Word watch: Worship.....Part 2

Replacing the Misplaced

How often have you seen a church notice board say on it something like 'Worship service 9am'?

How often have you heard church musicians referred to as the 'worship team'?

Have you heard a Pastor encourage fathers to lead their families in a daily 'family worship' time?

It seems we have relegated the general use of our term 'worship' to what Christians do once or twice a week when they are together in their building, or at least together somewhere.

Now it is certainly true that these times include worship - or should.  

But our whole New Testament covenant life is one where worship of God is supposed to be happening everywhere and anywhere. 

 All of life is worship, and it should be to Yahweh - The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

In fact no matter who we are we worship something or someone - we are born and created to worship and worship we do not fail to do…..

- we all centre our lives around whatever we think will give us meaning and purpose and significance in life. Our focus and goal might be love, sex, family, success, work, wealth, popularity, fame, pleasure, fitness, education, travel, beauty or fashion. Whatever it is, we will put the achievement of it in a place of value, honour and priority in our lives.

….what we might fail to do however, is give our worship to the One who alone deserves it - the One who made us and redeemed us.

We don't have to go to any 'special place' or a physical temple building to go where God is, to worship and bow down to him, rather it is a heart attitude of honour and submission to Christ as God and King, as we worship in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:24).  We don't have to go 'to church' in order to pray, like they do on Downton Abbey…..or even here in Africa where time and again I hear people put special emphasis on 'going to church to pray'.

Right now you are probably saying, 'But I do believe worship is more than at church'.  

But does your verbal terminology reflect that view?

Either we need to be talking a lot more - a very lot more - about worship in our interaction outside the once-a-week-gathering, or else we need to stop using the word 'worship' around the concepts of the gathering and its music, and at least change the term on our church signage.

There are so many mis-conceptions about worship

• I had someone recently say to me after going through a difficult time that they just hadn't been able to worship.  Yet I was watching this person choose to humbly submit themselves to God's will through tears. Yet because they were finding it hard to sing, they believed they hadn't worshipped! How sad.

• I hear others say they had a good time of 'worship' this morning in their quiet time and they will name the CD and songs they were listening to and singing along with and how it helped them really 'connect' to God, as if that was what constituted 'worship' for them. What are deaf people supposed to do?

• I hear others comment that they noticed someone was really 'worshipping' because they observed hands raised and eyes closed - does that mean those whose eyes are open and hands are not raised are not worshipping?.

• Some think that worship means warm fuzzy feelings and a sense of euphoric happiness - that's probably more mystical than Christian.

• Some people mistake awe for worship - we can be in awe looking out to the stars at night, but it isn't worship of God unless it translates to a desire to submit our lives to the One who created it all and who is so much bigger and more powerful than us!

• I don't hear anyone say that they had a great time of worship as a mother cleaning floors and dishes, or as a policeman catching criminals, or as a receptionist answering telephone calls, or even counseling a depressed unemployed father.

We are apt to relegate 'worship' to a very narrow category that never impacts or intersects with the world and community and life on a daily basis or reflects the truth that worship is about the honour attitude of the heart. It's not about having the emotional energy to sing, or to feel 'connected' or to be in a physical position of hands raised and eyes closed or for that matter even necessarily heads bowed.  While each of these may accompany a worshipful heart on occasion, they are actually outward, secondary and even superficial indicators of worship.

Remember God says "man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart" and He also said of people who appeared to be doing all the outward appearances of worship, "You honour me with your lips but your hearts are far from me", and in the book of Amos 'remove from me the noise of your songs"  (1 Samuel 16:7, Matthew 15:8, Amos 5:23) A corporate gathering or outward visible action is not the definition of worship.

Worship is about the heart, not just the outward action.

There was certainly no large corporate gathering when Abraham went up the mountain with Isaac for the sacrifice and said they were going to 'worship'.  It almost certainly was not accompanied with excited dancing and singing and praise.  This was an occasion of rigorous, deliberate trust and obedience. Abraham viewed this as a time when his own heart desires would have to 'bow' to the desires of the One who he knew should be given the highest honour, no matter what the personal cost or whether he understood or not.

Then if we jump to the New Testament, Jesus explained to the woman at the well, that worship is not about coming together at a place, its about a heart attitude toward God rooted in truth and in the power of the Spirit.  True worship is about about bowing our will to God's will and allowing the Spirit of God to fill our hearts (the seat of our very being, our will, our desires, our mind, our emotions) in every facet of daily life, firmly rooted in the truth of the Word that the Spirit enables us to understand and live out. 

We, as the modern church, have taught the world by our language that 'worship' happens 'at church' or is only related to our private activity in our own home.  It is separate from the surrounding community.  It is separate from daily life.  We have kept our 'worship' separate from the world, and now the world is acting according to the way we have trained them over decades, and they are simply saying that if that's how we are, we should keep it that way. 

We have made 'worship' an 'act' or a 'ritual' rather than a heart attitude and all of life reality!

We need to take greater consideration as to how we use words, what we communicate to others with our words and how our words even impact our own perspectives on our faith.

We have taught society by our words and our lives that being a Christian is primarily about 'Sunday worship at church'.   

Instead we should be teaching them that being a Christian is about being part of the church of believers who's lives have been transformed and who are living no longer for the honour of themselves, but for the honour of God their Creator and Saviour and the true honour of the people he created, as they worship their Father in Spirit and in Truth in every area of life.

When we do our work well as a cleaner, 

or teach algebra to a class of teenagers, 

or care for the cancer patient, 

or serve at the supermarket checkout with a smile 

or help the truth to be heard in a legal case, 

or be patient and gentle with your kids in the home, 

or deal kindly and firmly as a police officer,

 or with integrity as a politician, 

or whatever your daily activity involves….and someone notices and asks how you manage to do that?…..answer by saying its because its just part of worshipping God with every area of my life.

This is not to say that people are not genuinely worshipping the Lord when they say they worship 'at church'.  We also need to be sensitive to how people have come to use terminology. God sees hearts, and sometimes hearts have only had certain terminology in their teaching by which to state what they want to express. We must be careful not to be merely condemnatory but corrective, bringing people from traditional to biblical frameworks.

Meanwhile, let's consider taking the word 'worship' off our church notice boards where it is the only time the watching world sees it and they are very much getting the wrong idea.  And while we are at it, lets consider ceasing from using the term to describe those who lead music when we gather together as a local church group, and speaking of worship as if it belongs exclusively within the domain of music. And lets start using the word in relation to everyday life and allow its meaning of honour to permeate all that we do.

Worship is not about singing on a Sunday, its about bowing our will to God's will as we give Him the highest honour with our whole lives!

To quote Kay Arthur: 

"To worship God is to respect and honour Him for who He is."

If we are to get our minds out of a rut, cease giving the watching world the wrong idea, and truly honour God as we bow our hearts and will to His heart and will, we have to begin in this foundational area of our use of the term 'worship'.

ps. it is a good thing to allow the majesty of creation, the truth of God's word in His word and expressed in song to lead and prompt our hearts to a place of honouring God rightly with true worship - take a few moments to read the truth in the words in the picture above set on a background of a starry sky, and be prompted to once again have your hearts bow to the One who is to be honoured and praised.

Word watch: Worship.....Part 1

photo credit

Words matter!

In this era of the debates over transgenderism and same-sex marriage, I am reminded of how those who are antagonistic toward Christianity have made some interesting comments about how Christians should keep their religious practices of worship amongst themselves.

What emerges is that society is making a distinction between worship and daily life. 

But is this a problem the secular world has come up with? Maybe not.  Maybe society has just followed what the church has been doing for decades.  

Words matter.  They have meaning and they have application and consequences. And the church has been making a distinction between worship and daily life practice/belief without thinking about either biblical truth or community consequences.  We have possibly been using contempory church jargon over biblically faithful terminology and truth.

What do I mean?  

'Worship' is one of the most common words in modern Christianity.  Yet I'm not sure we are using it rightly or really know what it means.

The world sees it primarily as a religious term, and these days the church uses it primarily in the context of a Sunday gathering or even more narrowly in relation to the music and singing part of the Sunday gathering.

Culturally in the West, the primary context in which we think of worship is religious, such as is revealed in the first definition given in the Oxford Dictionary: 

The feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.

It was encouraging to find reference in the Cambridge Dictionary also of the word usage in the category of worship in non-religious contexts giving the following examples:

"As a child I worshipped my older brother"

"We are in an era of fitness and health worship"

The English Word

The Old English word 'worship' originates from usage around the 11th or 12 Century in the form of 'woerdscipe'. You may have heard someone say 'worship means worth-ship' and this truly  is where the word comes from.

worship (n.) 

Old English worðscip, wurðscip (Anglian), weorðscipe (West Saxon) "condition of being worthy, dignity, glory, distinction, honor, renown," from weorð"worthy" (see worth) + -scipe (see -ship). Sense of "reverence paid to a supernatural or divine being" is first recorded c. 1300. The original sense is preserved in the title worshipful "honorable" (c. 1300).

worship (v.) 

c. 1200, from worship (n.).

To gain a sense of the word use and context at the time, we should look at how it was used outside of the church as well as inside. Worship is not some unique 'Christian' or 'religious' word, although it has morphed into that meaning in our modern world. It was a word that simply meant ot give rightful honour to someone who has a posiiton or quality of being worthy of honour and respect.

In times past the term 'Your Worship' was used to address a judge, and in some places in the UK the term is still used for magistrates.  'The Right Worshipful' is also still used for adressing the Mayor of the town or city in places in India, UK and Australia.

It has been used by old English writers such as Chaucer and Shakespeare and Dickens:

In Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," the lovestruck knight Arcita is banished from the dukedom of Theseus, but he sneaks back in and disguises himself as a servant in the household of Emily, the woman he longs to be with. Arcita gains such a reputation throughout the dukedom as a noble person that Theseus' advisors recommend promoting him from servant to squire. In Chaucer's fourteenth-century words, the advisors tell Theseus to "put him in worshipful service."

"Worshipful service" is Middle English for something like "noble employment" or "honorable work"--a job fit for someone of good social standing and virtue. This archaic meaning of "worshipful" reminds us that in Middle English, "worship" could still mean "dignity," "honor," or "reputation." These meanings were related to the root of the word "worship," which is still partially visible today--it was the Old English "weorth," meaning "worth." In its earliest days, "weorthscipe" was literally "worthness," the appropriate treatment of something or someone of worth. The meaning of "dignity" for "worship" lasted at least until Shakespeare's time, when "your worship" could be used as a polite term of address, like "your majesty," as in this line from The Merry Wives of Windsor: "Will't please your worship to come in, sir?"

In Scripture

Our English word 'worship' is the word that was chosen by the translators for the Hebrew and Greek words (hishtachavah, and proskuneo respectively) which literally mean 'to bow down'.  

In the Old Testament the word is not only used of bowing before God (YHWH) but also of people, simply as a sign of honour and respect. The outward act of bowing in honour is meant to express the inward attitude of bowing in honour.  

• In fact the first use of the word in Scripture is when Abraham 'bowed down' to the three men(angels) who came to visit him.  (Genesis 18:2) 
• Abraham bowed down before the people of the land in Genesis 23. 
• Jacob and his family 'bowed down' in respect to Esau in Genesis 33. 
• In the story of Joseph, when he tells his dream to his brothers about how their sheaves of wheat would bow down to his, this same word is used, and again when the brothers actually 'bowed themselves down' in Genesis 42, 43. 
• The same word is used again when Abigail bowed before King David (1 Samuel 25), and Ruth bowed before Boaz (Ruth 2:10).

We could say that instead of taking a literal translation route, a dynamic route was taken by the translators - meaning for meaning at the time, rather than word for word.  Unfortunately because our English word has changed in meaning over time we tend to apply our current English usage understanding of the word 'worship' onto the biblical words, because our English bibles naturally have the English word in them!!

The Hebrew word "hishtachavah" means to bend down, fall down, bow, give honour, kneel, worship. The word comes from "shachah", which means to bow, bend, be humble, and as Strongs (7812) comment on "Shachah" says: "shâchâh, shaw-khaw', A primitive root; to depress, that is, prostrate (especially reflexively in homage to royalty or God): - bow (self) down, crouch, fall down (flat), humbly beseech, do (make) obeisance, do reverence, make to stoop, worship."

While we might assume all kinds of meanings of our word 'worship', in the Old Testament the Hebrew word simply meant to:

 "express respect before elders and family members…and persons who are being honored"

Of course there were times when due to the context of the 'bowing', a follower of God refused to bow to another man, such as Daniel's friends who refused to bow in the context of everyone bowing to the golden statue of the image of Nebuchadnezzar who demanded he be honoured as a 'god'. That wasn't about showing respect for another human being in the earthly leadership role, but a man who was elevating himself to a position solely reserved for YHWH demanding others bow to him as one who wanted to hold a position of supreme diety and authority in the lives of human beings. It would have been a false honouring that displeased YHWH and the word translated worship here is the Aramaic/Chaldee 'segid' (equivelent to sagad in Hebrew, which is only used a few times in the OT and each time refers to false honour/bowing/worship).

And thus even in the Old Testament when the Messiah is prophesied about it is also mentioned that all kings will 'bow down' before Him and all nations serve Him.(Psalm 72:11) And of course ultimately it can be assumed that the one who deserves the most honour - God Himself - will have people bow before Him as the Lord and King (1 Chronicles 29:20)

the Hebrew word "hishtachavah" is not an expression of the acknowledgment of a deity, a divinity, or a divine nature, but that it is outward evidence of an inner acknowledgement of persons in authority and dignitaries, either the Eternal himself, or his messengers, his delegated human agents or other persons of honor.

 http://messianictorah.org/en/pdf/Chapter6.pdf

Again in the New Testament, the Greek word "proskuneo" is not only used of worship of God/Christ, but also of bowing down to other people, such as in Matthew 18:26 when the servant 'knelt' (proskuneo) before the man he was indebted to and asked for patience promising he would repay all!

So the word is more than only a religious term referring to attitude toward a diety.  

It is more an 'honour' term than a uniquely religious term.

So how should we replace what is mis-placed? Keep reading in Part 2 of this blog…...