Worshipping Jesus in the Gospels

Does Proskynésis Prove Christ's Divinity?

In a former post, I began to unpack why Jesus’ divinity is a hotbed of debate in Gospels’ scholarship. Part of the reason is that there is so much disagreement over what it means to be divine. Thus, while most exegetes think that Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels as divine, they do not agree on what that term means.

Since writing that primer on Jesus’ divinity, I have been repeatedly asked a question, what about worship? Does the fact that Jesus is worshipped, particularly in Matthew and John, push us in one direction or another in thinking about Jesus’ divinity? Does divine worship help us to see that Jesus is identical with the Lord?

I am hesitant to answer this question, not least because the literature is so vast, the subject so important, and my knowledge of it so limited. Yet if only for the sake of beginning a discussion, I will offer my unstudied thoughts. Here I suggest that it is unlikely that the ‘worship’ of Jesus in the Gospels shifts the dial on his divinity.

Worshipping Jesus in the Gospels