John 4:24–God is Spirit, So Worship Him in Spirit

John 4:24–"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

I would like to begin by stating what this text is not:

• It is not the singular text of Scripture of how worship is to be done.  In some ways, the whole of Scripture is concerned primarily with the task of worshiping God.
• It is not about how not to worship (sorry for the double negative).
• It is not a verse primarily about God's person (although to say that God is spirit certainly concerns the constitution of God, i.e that He is spirit).

Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the positive:

• It is about the difference between worship under the Old Covenant and how worship will be under the New Covenant in Christ.
• It is about how the Temple will no longer be the primary place of worship for the believers in God.
• This assertion comes as the emphasis of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, indicating that, at the very least, that this new type of worship under the New Covenant will be for all people not just the Jews.
• Also of interest is that this seems to be of importance to John as it is included so early in his gospel account.

To be sure, this has been the most cursory exposition of this oft-quoted text but I hope it is enough to get you interpreting more accurately for yourselves.

For the whole thing see John 4:1-42.