"Pastor, why do we worship like Gnostics?"

Have you ever heard something like this? "God isn't concerned with the posture of our bodies, just with the attitude of our hearts." If you haven't, try going to your pastor or elders and suggesting that your church install kneelers (similar to those pictured to the right) so the congregation can more faithfully worship according to the Bible. After giving you a strange look, and muttering something about "catholic," the answer in the typical evangelical church will probably be close to the "posture" statement above. If you get such an answer, it would then be appropriate to ask, "Why do we worship like Gnostics?" If you make it this far in the conversation, I would love to know what happens next!
I would guess questions like this never occur in most congregations. Oh, occasionally the "young folks" who want to hold up their hands to some choruses will cite something like Psalm 134:2, "Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the LORD," but in general, in church after church, we continue more and more to divorce the posture of our bodies from the attitude of our hearts. Why do we do this? Well, I would say it is because we are too Gnostic. . . . It's certainly not because we get the idea to divorce posture from attitude by reading the Bible.
The very Hebrew and Greek words that we translate as worship mean "to bow down." In each of these examples try substituting "bow down" for the word "worship":

• Abraham told his two young servants, "Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there to worship; then we'll come back to you." [Genesis 22:5]
• All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. [Psalms 22:27]
• "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." [Matthew 2:2]
• Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." [John 4:20-24]
  

The Bible makes clear that worship is not some disembodied activity that takes place solely in the "head" or "heart." In addition to "lifting hands" and "bowing down," the Bible speaks of worship that involves singing and music, responsive prayers and recitations of Scripture that actively involve the congregation, and other "active" and "physical" worship. In fact, the only posture that the Bible does not speak of in regard to prayer is sitting! It does describe prayer offered face down, kneeling, or standing.
So, what does any of this matter? It matters because God is concerned (even if we aren't) with what we do with our bodies, not simply what we don't do with them("Thou shalt not . . ."). When God says in Isaiah that He has "had enough of burnt offerings," it is not because He wanted the offerings to stop, but that He wanted the attitude accompanying the offerings to be out of a sincere, faithful heart. God wants both--our heart and hands. This is because God is not Gnostic.