I, like so many who’ve studied worship, always looked at the form of worship in the midst of the Temple, David’s Tent, etc. That was the real meat of what worship looked like and how it was to be done. Stan Firth has looked at what people were doing before they were worshiping, in other words, the context of worship and then what they did to worship. I had focused on the formal settings in Bible passages so many times for my picture of worship when in fact that was a small portion of the times when people worshiped in the Bible record. For only a portion of Israel had access to the Temple or tent of meeting more than just three times a year. Worship happened in the normal course of life much more than in structured services.
From: Custom and Command by Stan Firth
“So I went through the Bible, looking at every example of people worshipping. To my surprise, I found that biblical references to worship taking place were, usually, quite unconnected with what you might call “religious meetings” or “services”! IT BECAME CLEAR TO ME THAT WORSHIP WAS ALMOST ALWAYS A SPONTANEOUS EXPRESSION OF APPRECIATION TO THE LORD, FROM AMIDST WHATEVER SITUATIONS BELIEVERS FOUND THEMSELVES IN, RATHER THAN SOMETHING WHICH HAPPENED AT FIXED TIMES OR PLACES. ”
“Eventually I concluded that, basically, worship in the Old Testament was a spontaneous response of appreciation, when the good and wise dealings of the Lord were experienced or recalled. Worshippers of the Lord were those who consciously gave Him credit in their on-going situations”
Kinda takes you back to the beginning, the Shema (Deut 6:4-8)
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
Life is to be lived in His presence day by day, worship flows from the junction of life and the divine wherever and whenever.