This Temple
Every week countless people go to buildings all over the world and call it “church”. I don’t doubt their sincerity and I don’t think they are necessarily doing anything wrong. People that go to these buildings will even say, “The Church is the people in the body of Christ and NOT a building”. I find this very interesting because the more I look into the tradition of having a building for worship or a service the more I question its necessity. As for myself I have left the institutional “church” but I do not try to talk people into believing what I believe. People make their own decisions based on their own beliefs, and I know I can’t make anyone do anything. I am just pointing out my reasons and my findings on the subject. I received a lot of information about the traditions in the church from the book “pagan Christianity” by Frank Viola and George Barna so if you would like more information I would recommend that. This however is some of my own findings and opinions on church buildings and similar traditions.
When I started to question the traditions of Christianity namely the need for a building to worship, I received loads of opposition from well meaning Christians. Some pastors and long time Christians were violently against the idea that we do not need a church building. It goes against the Bible according to them, but the more I look into it the more I see it goes against hundreds of years of human tradition and that, to them, is scary. It threatens jobs and comfort and the status quo so I understand why they are against the idea. I talked to one person from the church I was leaving and they were so angry they shook and cried and yelled and personally attacked me when I said what I believed. They later told me they had never acted that way to anyone in all their years of ministry. That says something to me. They were livid when I told them I was leaving the institutional structure of church to try and follow, in my eyes, a more biblical model. That means that person did not act with as much passion towards people who have walked away from God altogether as they did when I told them I wanted to do “church” differently. I didn’t tell that congregation that I hated them or God or that I wanted to live in sin and sleep in on Sunday mornings, I told them I see in the Bible we should be living in a closer community rather then put so much time and effort into a service or building. I would rather spend that time and effort and money and space put to better use in serving the poor and the outcast. How would the world see Christians if instead of showing off their gaudy television studios dipped in gold and asking for more money, they sold their buildings and cars and possessions and fixed many of the world’s problems? I’ve heard a statistic that says cross-denominationally 2.6 billion dollars are spent on maintenance and upkeep of church buildings alone. I don’t know if it is accurate but what if it is even close? What if others started believing we didn’t need the buildings anymore and sold them? What if we took that money and put it towards feeding the hungry and curing diseases and getting fresh water to people in third world countries? How then would people see Christians? How many people would WANT to become a Christian after seeing that we collectively came together and forgot our differences and sold our precious buildings to serve the world? This all is speculation of course and pointless to many Christians because they believe that we should have these buildings according to the Bible.
The one verse they point out to me is
“Acts 2:46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.”
For a while I was very confused. I had read lots of research about this and many very smart people were saying we should not have these buildings because it was not intended to be this way. Jesus didn’t set them up and the apostles didn’t set them up and the early church did not set it up. Why was this verse in the bible then? Why did they go to the Temple if we are supposed to get together in homes? Then one day I actually read the Bible. I took it in context. I read on. I thought things out for myself.
In Chapter 3 Peter and John were going to the Temple and on the way in, they healed a crippled man. They started preaching Jesus and then things started to happen. They didn’t get to the next part in the song I learned as a kid. The priests and the captain of the Temple guard and the Sadducees got angry and threw them in jail. They took them out and yelled at them and said to stop preaching about Jesus. Peter and John said no, and apparently the Sadducees have a hearing problem because they just shook their finger at them again and let them go. The apostles went on healing and preaching like they said they would and the Sadducees threw them in jail again. An Angel let them out and told them to go preach in the Temple. Again. So they did. And they were beat and let go. Again. Finally it says in Acts 5:42 “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.” This all really got me thinking. The verse they use for legitimizing the body of Christ having a building to worship is based on this Temple. The temple they kept going to kept giving them trouble. Then I thought, “Who is this temple for?” It was a Jewish temple. Why did they keep throwing them in jail? Because they were preaching that this Jewish carpenter guy they just killed is God and he was preaching that the way you Jews do things are wrong. He told them they were missing the point! He told them to stop worrying about the rules and start worrying about people! They were all about rules and being “right”. So the question is, why would the Apostles keep going back to this Jewish temple to preach about a guy the Jews hated when they have a new religion to start; a movement to found! Then I realized. They were starting it. Romans 1:16 says “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” They were supposed to reach out to their fellow Jews before gentiles. When they went to the Temple they were not going to church, they were on a missions trip. They were trying to convert Jews out of their Judaism and into this Christianity.
So that cleared that up for me, but what other proof might I gather to at least prove I’m not crazy in my new found beliefs?
John 2:19-21 says “Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?”But the temple he had spoken of was his body.”
I believe Jesus was talking about his earthly body in the resurrection, but I also believe it could also mean his body the church.
Col 1:24 “…his body, which is the church.”
1Cr 3:16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?
1Cr 3:17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
Eph 2:20-22 “We are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We who believe are carefully joined together, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him you Gentiles are also joined together as part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit.”
These verses point out that we do not need a building to worship God because we are the Temple where God lives. Church people will say this as well but I would like them to put their money where their mouths are. If you truly believe we don’t need buildings to worship God why do it? Why spend all the money and time and effort?
John 4:21 says “Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”John 4:23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”
We can worship anywhere regardless of what it looks like. Homes, coffeehouses, sheds, wherever you are you can worship. The greater point is not that, but the fact that we should not “go to church” but BE the church. The church is the body of Christ on earth not in a building. We do not go to the house of the Lord like in the days of old. We do not have to be shackled down to the temple or the Holy of Holies. When Christ died the veil was tore away to let us worship God wherever and experience the indwelling of the Holy Spirit always. God living inside of us, not us going to God. We try to sew the veil back together and put it back up. We try to put religion back in front of us. We try to set the rules back up and follow them. The Law is there to prove we can’t follow it.
Rom 3:20 “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.”
We must rely on Christ and not religion or ourselves. Religion is trying to get to God on our own. Going to church puts us in a mode of requirements and checklists. We go because we have to, or we go to fulfill our religious duty instead of realizing we are supposed to be living a life mirroring Christ’s. We are HIS BODY and HIS CHURCH. WE ARE THE TEMPLE. Instead of making people follow all the traditions and rules WE made up we should teach them to serve all and to act like Christ all the time. We do everyone a great disservice when we over emphasize a building or set of rules and traditions over the lifestyle we should live.
I know many will disagree with me and my reasons. I may be wrong, but for me I was making “church” a god. It was overtaking me and I did not want to live like Christ always, I was just squeezing by, by serving in the “church”. I was so busy with teaching and being on the worship team and helping with different ministries I was missing the point. Now that I don’t “go to church” I realize I am a Christian everywhere and always. I am to serve all wherever I am. It is freeing to know I don’t need to fill up my schedule with “church activities” I just need to be the body of Christ to people around me. From now on I won’t “go”, I will just be.
