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Bowing Down & Serving God

  • Writer: alw6541
    alw6541
  • Mar 10
  • 3 min read

So this post is related to a similar post I did on Hebrews 12, where the word for "serve" has been replaced with "worship". The same thing has been done in Matthew 4, so here's a short examination of that. Just something I've been thinking about lately, in that it's important that we serve God.


Replacing the command of Jesus to serve God with "worship" isn't good - we lose the original meaning.


Matthew 4:10

Satan: I will give you all this stuff if you will fall down and bow down (proskyneo) to me.

Jesus: it is written, you shall bow down (proskyneo) to the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve (latreuō).


So what is written??? What is he quoting?

Hebrew: Exodus 20:3,5: You shall have no other gods besides me….you shall not bow down (šāḥâ) to them or serve (āḇaḏ) them. Greek: bow down: proskyeneo, serve: latreuō
Hebrew: Exodus 23:24: you shall not bow down (šāḥâ) to their gods or serve (āḇaḏ) them. Greek: bow down: proskyeneo, serve: latreuō
Hebrew: 2 Kings 17:35-36: “You shall not fear other gods, nor bow down (šāḥâ) to them, nor serve (āḇaḏ) them, nor sacrifice to them…the Lord you shall fear, bow down (šāḥâ) to and offer sacrifice. Greek: bow down: proskyeneo, serve: latreuō

What’s really crazy is these 2 Hebrew words, as well as these 2 correlating Greek words, are sometimes translated correctly, as “bow down” and “serve”, but many times, unfortunately, they are also translated as “worship”.


(“worship” being the English translation of the Latin word “adore” (and the Catholic concept of adoration), that only brings confusion about the real meaning of the Greek and Hebrew words. “Bowing down” is translated as “adore” in the Latin Vulgate in ALL of the above verses, then translated as “worship” in English (by translators giving credence to the Latin/Catholic translation when none should be given)… when that’s not what the text in original language says.


For those not Catholic, adoration (Latreia) can be anything you do or give to God, which is what the definition of the English word worship has changed into over the centuries, and continues to change - and people argue vehemently over this concept of worship/adoration that’s not even in the Hebrew or Greek!


I know good people argue with good intentions, but it’s "bowing down in spirit and in truth" that God wants. (another article on that later).


It’s time to get back to what the first century Church believed before the Latin translation and Catholic theology corrupted things.


So, it’s confusing trying to figure out the real meaning here in these verses when one says “you shall not bow down them or worship them” and another verse says “you shall not worship them or serve them”.


It’s especially confusing too when this is done in the New Testament, and we see Jesus seemingly commanding us to worship God, when he and the verses he’s quoting say to “bow down to God and serve Him only”.


(based on these confusing translations, along with the Catholic idea of adoration, much emphasis is placed on this idea of “worshipping” God, and much less emphasis placed on serving Him. Church assemblies are instead called “worship services”, and so for many years, I myself, equated sitting in a pew for 1 hour per week as “serving” God, essentially.


Wow, what a wake-up call I’ve had in the last few years in this subject, especially in understanding that Hebrews 12 says we should serve God well-pleasingly, which has also been translated in many versions as "worship God well-pleasingly.)


What’s especially worrisome (to me) are the verses that replace “serve” with “worship”…(like the NIV I grew up reading) because who we serve is very important. Jesus is saying that God is the only one we should serve “as our God”. We may not bow down in our culture, but who we serve and who fear are still relevant questions, are they not???


**If you want to see for yourself just how many different translations there are of bow down and serve as “worship”, see a list of translations here for Exodus 20:5 and 23:24 in Bible Gateway and Biblehub, both of which I recommend looking at:



Notice how in the Catholic Public Domain Version (shown in Biblehub's list of translations below, it's translated as "you shall not adore them or worship them"...



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