What Does It Mean to Worship in Spirit and Truth?

In brief

True worship comes to the Father through Jesus, depends on the Holy Spirit and shapes the life of the gathered church.

John 4:24 · King James Version

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

Time, place & the words behind the text

Time: During Jesus’ earthly ministry, before the cross and resurrection. His words hold together an hour that is coming and a new reality already present in him. ¹
Place: Jacob’s well near Sychar in Samaria, on the journey from Judaea toward Galilee. Jerusalem and Mount Gerizim stand behind the woman’s question about worship. ¹
Setting: Samaritans worshipped Israel’s God with their own claim to sacred tradition and Mount Gerizim. Their sanctuary had been destroyed by the end of the second century before Christ, yet the community and its worship continued. The dispute concerned shared heritage and competing claims to faithful worship. ³

Greek in contextἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳen pneumati kai aletheia

The phrase means in spirit and truth. Both nouns stand in the dative after in. The worship verb can describe homage or reverence offered to God. The words belong to a conversation about how the Father is rightly approached, with their fuller significance supplied by John’s presentation of Jesus and the Spirit. ^{1, 2}

A capital letter in an English translation cannot settle the reference to the Holy Spirit. Context matters. John’s later teaching about the Spirit of truth and Jesus as the truth supports our Pentecostal reading, while the phrase also calls for the worshipper’s genuine participation. ¹

A dispute about worship becomes an invitation

A believer may leave a service wondering whether worship was real because the music was quiet, the congregation seemed distracted or the expected sense of joy did not come. Another may have felt deeply moved and still wonder whether the words being sung were faithful to Christ. John 4 helps both people by bringing the question of worship back to the Father who seeks worshippers.

Jesus is speaking beside a well, away from both disputed sanctuaries. He is tired from travel and asks a Samaritan woman for water. She notices the social distance between them. Their conversation moves from ordinary thirst to his gift of living water, from her personal history to his identity, and from sacred places to worship of the Father. ¹

The movement matters. Jesus’ answer does not arrive as a detached definition for comparing services. The person explaining worship is also the person offering life and revealing himself as the Messiah. The woman’s question gives him an opportunity to make the Father known where she is, within a conversation that begins with an everyday need. ¹²

The question for a church is therefore deeper than whether a preferred atmosphere has been achieved. Who is being honoured? How is the Father known? What place do Jesus’ words have within the worshippers’ response? The passage gives these questions a centre in Christ, allowing gratitude and reverence to grow from the gift he brings.

Why the mountain and Jerusalem mattered

The woman recognises Jesus as a prophet and raises the disagreement between her ancestors’ mountain and Jerusalem. Both communities understood worship in relation to inherited sacred claims. Jesus takes that concern seriously. His answer about an approaching hour speaks into an existing religious dispute, rather than dismissing her question as an interruption to a more important conversation. ¹

Her question deserves the same seriousness when the story is read today. John gives her a marital history and records the time of the encounter, but those details do not establish a complete biography of sexual misconduct or social exclusion. She engages Jesus about theology, and her community later listens to her testimony. ¹³

A woman who asks about worship is also a person able to hear an answer. Jesus speaks directly to her, and the exchange continues through questions, correction and growing recognition. Taking another person seriously can include explaining why an inherited assumption needs to change. Respect and truthful disagreement belong together in the encounter. ¹⁴

Jesus says that worship of the Father will no longer be tied to either disputed location. He does not simply award the mountain a victory over Jerusalem or Jerusalem a permanent monopoly. He announces a new situation in which the Father can be approached through him. The promise speaks to the worshipper’s relationship with God, including people far from either sanctuary. ¹

Salvation is of the Jews

Jesus’ answer includes a sentence that must be heard alongside the promise of worship beyond the two sites. He says, “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.” The wider invitation grows from God’s saving history with Israel and from the Jewish Messiah speaking to the woman. ¹

Knowledge of the Father is connected to God’s saving action, which reaches its fulfilment in Jesus. Worship therefore has a history and an object. The Father is known through the salvation he gives, and the Son belongs within that history. Gratitude for this gift brings the worshipper into a personal relationship with the God who saves. ⁴

Early Christian preaching recognised this connection between Israel’s history and the coming of Christ. It could describe the earlier covenant as the groundwork of blessings rather than an enemy of Jesus. That insight helps readers hear the promise of wider worship with gratitude for its roots, while refusing contempt for Jewish people. ¹⁹

The narrative itself moves from the woman’s question to the townspeople’s confession of Jesus as Saviour of the world. His Jewish identity and the reach of his salvation belong within one account. A congregation composed of people from different backgrounds can receive the same Lord without treating those backgrounds as proof of unequal access to the Father. ¹

The hour is coming and now is

Jesus holds future and present together. The hour is coming, and now is. Something decisive is still ahead, yet the woman is already speaking with the one in whom the promise becomes available. She does not need to wait for the end of their conversation to meet the Messiah. He identifies himself to her in the present. ¹

John has already prepared readers for this by explaining that Jesus’ words about raising the temple concern his body. After his resurrection, the disciples remember and believe. The Gospel therefore connects access to God with the person and saving work of Jesus, while allowing the meaning of earlier words to become clearer through the cross and resurrection. ¹

The new worship gathers people around a common Father through Christ rather than requiring them to defend competing sacred territories. His ministry, death and resurrection establish the new centre of the believing community. The common relationship with the Father has room for people whose earlier communities kept them apart. ¹⁷

This gives a congregation confidence when its circumstances are modest. A rented room, a hospital bedside or a house where believers gather can become a place of prayer and praise because access to the Father rests in Christ. A beautiful building can serve that gathering too. The promise directs attention toward the Lord who gives the gathering its purpose.

Worship in spirit

Our Pentecostal reading hears Jesus’ words within John’s account of the Holy Spirit. Jesus teaches Nicodemus about birth from the Spirit, later connects living water with the Spirit, and promises the Spirit of truth to his disciples. These passages make worship part of the new life God gives and sustains, with the worshipper responding through the Spirit’s work. ¹

The Holy Spirit is active in this relationship, enabling worship directed to the Father through Jesus. God’s freedom from confinement to a single place is the freedom of the living God who makes himself known. The believer enters a relationship with him in which the Spirit guides, inspires and gives life to the response. ⁵

The living water Jesus offers also helps readers understand the invitation. Ordinary well water answers a temporary thirst. His gift brings life that continues within the believer. Read alongside John’s later explanation of the Spirit, the promise draws attention to a sustaining divine gift, rather than an experience that must be recreated through the right surroundings. ¹¹

Being born of the Spirit and receiving Pentecostal empowerment should be distinguished. New birth brings the believer into life in Christ. Baptism in the Holy Ghost empowers for witness, with speaking in tongues as the initial evidence in our Pentecostal reading. These truths belong together within life with God, while John 4 itself addresses access to the Father and true worship. ¹

Worship in truth

Truth in John reaches its clearest personal expression in Jesus, who says that he is the way, the truth and the life. The Spirit of truth glorifies him, and the Father’s word is truth. Worship in truth therefore receives God’s self revelation through Christ and allows his word to govern the worshipper’s confession and response. ¹

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit belong together in this movement of worship. The Son makes the Father known, and the Spirit of truth continues his work among believers. A Trinitarian reading follows these connections across the Gospel: the worshipper comes to the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit. ⁸

Jesus’ words are central to the encounter itself. The woman hears him speak about water, worship and the Messiah before he identifies himself to her. He makes himself known in the conversation. Worship shaped by him therefore gives his teaching a living place within praise, rather than treating words as an introduction to the real encounter. ⁹

A song can be moving because it gives faithful words to gratitude, repentance or hope. A spoken prayer can be simple and still express trust in Christ. Truth does not make affection unnecessary. It gives affection a worthy object and a faithful language, so that the believer’s whole response can be directed toward the Father who has made himself known.

The Father seeks worshippers

The Father’s seeking comes before the worshippers’ response. Jesus does not describe people finding a technique that makes God available. He speaks of the Father seeking those who worship him in spirit and truth. The conversation itself displays that initiative: Jesus begins by asking for water and offers the woman a gift she has not yet understood. ¹

Access to the Father through Jesus welcomes believers across ethnic, social and gender boundaries. Their belonging depends on the saving relationship he opens, rather than a status that gives one group a superior claim to worship. The promise can gather people who previously understood one another chiefly through the distance between their communities. ⁷

The woman’s understanding grows as the conversation continues. The narrative guides its readers toward Jesus’ identity and toward trust in his teaching. His gift answers more than her immediate question about water. What the readers learn about him supplies the larger frame for understanding his words about the Father and worship. ¹⁸

That initiative gives hope to the believer who arrives tired or troubled. The Father has not become inaccessible because a person’s feelings are uneven. Christ remains the way to him, and the Spirit sustains life in Christ. Honest weakness can be brought into worship, where gratitude, lament and trust all have room within a faithful response.

The Spirit gives the whole church a voice

Pentecostal worship recognises that the Holy Ghost gives believers varied ways to serve the body. Testimony, prayer, song and other gifts can draw people into active participation according to their gifting. The gathered church is enriched when members contribute to its life and growth, with room for voices that would otherwise remain unheard. ⁶

Paul’s instructions give that participation a clear purpose. Believers who are zealous for spiritual gifts should seek the church’s edification. He joins prayer and singing with the spirit to prayer and singing with understanding. In public worship he wants others to be helped, including the person who needs to understand in order to say Amen. ¹

Ephesians similarly places being filled with the Spirit alongside psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, thanksgiving to the Father in Jesus’ name and mutual submission. The response has a shared life around it. The Spirit’s fullness appears within praise and in the relationships of the people who praise, as they honour the Lord and care for one another. ¹

This allows a church to welcome gifts with teachability. A prophetic contribution can be weighed. Tongues in the gathered church belong with interpretation and the concern that others be built up. Encouragement can be received with gratitude, and correction can help the gift serve its purpose. Confidence in the Spirit makes room for thoughtful care rather than making that care unnecessary. ¹

Forms can carry faithful meaning

The way a church gathers communicates something about God and the people’s response. Words, actions and their order can help worshippers perceive that God’s gift comes before their gratitude. Forms therefore deserve thoughtful attention: they carry meaning as well as making the gathering possible, and they can help the congregation respond together. ¹⁰

John’s conversation itself moves through water, personal recognition and worship toward the disclosure of the Messiah. Reading those movements together helps worshippers see the relationship between the gift Jesus offers and the worship he describes. The Spirit’s life and the truth revealed in him illuminate the whole encounter. ¹⁵

Questions can also become part of receiving that revelation. The woman’s dialogue with Jesus moves across inherited religious boundaries as her recognition grows. The encounter shows how a person can be known, addressed and drawn into a new understanding through truthful conversation. Worship has room for learning because its centre is the Lord who teaches. ¹⁶

A congregation can therefore value songs, silence, preaching, the Lord’s Supper and shared prayer for the ways they direct people toward Christ. Local languages and familiar forms can help members participate with understanding. Their value grows as they serve faithful praise, attentive hearing and common gratitude. A church’s worship becomes clearer when its forms express the relationship it confesses.

A humble response to the living God

An early Christian reading challenged the idea that standing on a higher mountain would place a person nearer to God. It turned attention toward humility and the inward life, reminding worshippers that God regards the lowly. The lasting pastoral point is that physical elevation and religious prestige cannot substitute for a humble response to him. ²⁰

Another early theological reading used worship in Spirit and truth to defend the Holy Spirit’s divine unity with the Father and Son. The Spirit who enables worship is worthy of honour. This reception helps show why Christian worship can be addressed to the Father through the Son and Spirit without diminishing the divinity of either. ²¹

The God who is Spirit is living and personal. He can be known because Jesus reveals him and the Holy Spirit brings people into life with him. True worship therefore engages the person who sings, hears, prays and responds. Body, mind, feeling and action can belong together within the grateful life that follows God’s gift.

John 4 leaves the church with a hopeful invitation. The Father seeks worshippers, the Son makes him known, and the Holy Spirit enables the response. A congregation can come with its many voices, hear Christ’s word and honour the Father together. Its worship can carry into ordinary life as believers walk in truth, practise mutual care and bear witness to the Saviour they have come to know. ¹

Follow the evidence

Sources

Numbered references support the claims above. Scripture quotations use the KJV. Sources are considered critically within IndiaPCG’s Pentecostal perspective.

King James Version and SBL Greek New TestamentBiblical authors; King James translators; Michael W. Holmes, SBL editor; James K. Tauber, MorphGNT editor
John 4; 2:13 to 22; 3:3 to 8; 7:37 to 39; 14:6 and 16 to 17; 16:13 to 15; 17:17; Ephesians 5:18 to 21; 1 Corinthians 14:12 to 19 and 27 to 33; Acts 1:8 and 2
View the source
Greek English Lexicon of the New TestamentC. L. Wilibald Grimm; translated and revised by Joseph Henry Thayer
Entries 4352, 4151 and 225; Thayer sections at John 4:20 to 24
View the source
Samaritans in the New TestamentMartina Böhm · 2020
Religions 11, article 147, page 3
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Worship, Sacrifice and Mission: Themes Interlocked in JohnJey J. Kanagaraj · 1998
Indian Journal of Theology 40.1 and 2, pages 18 to 21
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The Role of the Holy Spirit in Pentecostal Worship in the Light of John 4:20 to 26 and Ephesians 5:18 to 20Lee Roy Martin · 2023
Dunamis 8.1, pages 488 to 491
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Attempting to Develop a Pentecostal Theology of WorshipMarius Nel · 2016
Verbum et Ecclesia 37.1, article 1661, page 3
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The Meaning of Worshiping in Spirit and Truth in John 4:23Kengoro Goto · 2020
Mediator 15.1, pages 35 to 37
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Jesus as Truth: An Exegetical and Theological Reading of John, with Implications for 1 JohnRon C. Fay · 2022
Covenant Quarterly 80.1, pages 8 to 9, with pages 3 to 6 and 12 to 13
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Jesus and the Woman at the Well: Where Mission Meets WorshipPeter J. Scaer · 2003
Concordia Theological Quarterly 67.1, pages 10 to 11
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Languages of Worship: Four Liturgical TheologiesGlenn Stallsmith · 2024
Ethnodoxology 12, pages A 1 and A 8 to A 9
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Jesus and the Woman of Samaria in John 4:7b to 15: From the Heritage of Tradition to the Mystery of FaithPiotr Kot · 2020
The Biblical Annals 10.4, pages 631 to 632
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Commentary on John 4:5 to 42Sherri Brown · 2020
Working Preacher,15 March 2020, dialogue from 4:7 to 26
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Commentary on John 4:5 to 42Laura Holmes · 2026
Working Preacher,8 March 2026, What is her story section
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Commentary on John 4:5 to 42Osvaldo Vena · 2017
Working Preacher,19 March 2017, The Samaritan Woman and Building Community sections
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Commentary on John 4:5 to 42Meda Stamper · 2011
Working Preacher,27 March 2011, water and Spirit and truth discussion
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Jesus Talks to the Samaritan Woman: A Dialogic AnalysisP. Rule · 2024
Acta Theologica 44.2,2024, section 6.1 Dialogue
View the source
Revisiting Women’s Role in World Christianity: A Theological Analysis of John 4:1 to 42Godibert K. Gharbin and Ernest van Eck · 2025
HTS 2025, theological discussion of worship places and new community
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The Pragmatic Nature of Focalisation in John 4:1 to 42: Reading John as a Performative TextRisimati S. Hobyane · 2024
Verbum et Ecclesia 45,2024, article 3067, Psychological and Ideological facets
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Homilies on the Gospel of JohnJohn Chrysostom
Homily 33, sections 1 and 2
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Tractates on the Gospel of JohnAugustine of Hippo
Tractate 15, sections 24 to 25
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On the Holy SpiritAmbrose of Milan
Book 3, sections 68 to 73
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