Worship in Spirit and Truth
October 3, 2025 § 2 Comments
In the weekly Bible study that I moderate (Thursdays, 3:30, via Zoom), we’ve been looking at the wonderful story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter four. It includes a passage that is one of the scriptural foundations for worship in the manner of Friends, John 4:23–24, and, as very often happens, our exploration brought to me some openings. Here is that passage:
The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
The structure of this saying suggests to me an identity or deep correspondence between spirit and truth. And I think a key to that relationship can be found in the word for truth in Greek, and also in another passage in John, John 14:15–17.
“Truth” in New Testament Greek is aletheia, in which the “a-“ is a prefix which we might render in English as “un-“. Lanthano, the Greek root word for aletheia means to hide. So “truth” is an un-covering, a revealing. Truth is revelation. A revelation of the Spirit of Truth, our Advocate, as in John 14:15–17:
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you [or among you].
So to “worship in spirit and truth” is to worship in the Spirit-Advocate whom God sends to us for revelation—continuing revelation, because that spirit is “forever”. The vehicle for revelation in our worship is our vocal ministry. So true worship is manifest in truly Spirit-led ministry.
This Spirit of Revelation is within us, and it is among us. It arises from within us as love, as vocal ministry, and as our presence in worship. It arises among us as it brings us into the Presence in our midst in worship that is gathered and covered by the Spirit. True worship is the gathered meeting.
To “worship in spirit and truth” is also to follow Jesus’s commandments, and “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) So true fellowship in the Spirit is also a form of worship. It is worship in action, worship that continues after we have left the meeting room at close of formal worship, a continuing revealing of divine love.
Through the Flaming Sword 
Pointing out that aletheia really means revelation is useful. The first thing that comes to mind is that pretty much everything in early and later Quakerism came from George Fox, and everything Fox inspired and created came mostly from the 4 major Revelations (aletheia experiences) described in his Journal:
1.”There is one even Christ Jesus who can speak to thy condition.”
I just started to make a comment on the aletheia post and was kicked out of it for some reason. Here’s the continuation: 2.The experience of being taken up “through the Flaming Sword” (i.e. into the True Life) first into the state of Adam before The Fall and then into the state of Christ Himself. 3.The vision of the Ocean of Light overcoming the Ocean of Darkness. 4.The vision on Pendle Hill of “a great people to be gathered” and being moved to “sound the Day of the Lord.”
To understand what these visions meant to Fox and how the influenced everything about the beliefs and practices of early Friends requires a careful study of his Journal as a whole and particularly his Epistles to various Friends groups. As I’ve made such a deep study it’s become apparent that absolutely everything that happened in early Quakerism (as directed by Fox) was a direct outcome of these 4 major Revelations. I would add that in a sense he had a fifth revelation when he read the Book of Revelation: Chapter 21, which he later cites in this writings had a great influence on him: 21 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.
6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. I believe that the above Revelation strongly influenced Fox’s dedication to Global Evangelism, as a way of promoting the New Heaven and New Earth of the fully manifest Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. It might be valuable to constitute a group to investigate together just how these 5 Revelations of Fox’s influenced everything he later created for early Friends. Anyone interested?