Saturday, July 21, 2018
Temple bodies
1 Corinthians 3:17
If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.
If we follow the New Testament teaching, the church is really not a building at all, rather, the church is a temple of temples.
The apostle Paul outlines this principle very clearly in his letters to the churches at Corinth and Ephesus. Starting in 1 Corinthians 3:16 he wrote, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Paul here transferred all that the Jews had applied to the physical temple building to the human person.
The Old Testament promise was that God was going to move his presence from the infrastructure of the physical temple to a place in the individual human heart. “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Jeremiah 31:33.
So often in our churches, still, as we observed yesterday, we place more emphasis on the condition of the church building than we do on the condition of the human heart and spirit. This is even though the human heart and spirit provide the primary place of residence and engagement for God in the Christian community.
Years ago, there was a chorus we sang in Sunday School with these words, “Love is a flag flying high from the castle of my heart, For the King is in residence there.” This established early, the idea that the relationship with God is first personal and internal.
We do need a place to meet and that place should be convenient, comfortable, and conducive to the goals of our time of meeting for worship, instruction and fellowship. That means we have to design, whenever we can, buildings or spaces that do just that. But, knowing that we tend to spend more time on the building than on people we have to be careful to maintain the balance.
As a pastor, I have been guilty of this mistake. When we started meeting in the house, we had a nice schedule for the cleaning of the house before church on Sundays. Families took turns or partnered and, for the most part, a great job was being done. I was more in touch with those families about the cleaning roster than about the conditions in their lives individually and as families. It should have been no surprise, therefore, when one family was in distress because a wife was receiving growing attention from the husband of another. They were in a mess, but the building was clean.
In the letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul wrote this, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” Romans 12:1. Paul extended the temple metaphor to include the concept of sacrifice as practised in the physical temple of the era before Jesus.
Back in the letter to the Corinthians, the apostle was addressing the matter of sexual purity but he did not appeal to the possibility and fear of sexually transmitted disease, he did not raise the sceptre of unwanted pregnancy, he made a higher appeal, “do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” 1 Corinthians 6:19,20.
It is with this firmly in mind that we are able to move to the point of the church being a temple of temples. Once we grasp that the individual Christian is a temple then hear this, “you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:19-22.
All of us are being built into one great temple. The apostle Peter put it this way, “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:4,5.
Some years ago when I was building my house my contractor, who had much international experience, was very concerned about the quality of the concrete blocks that were available in Georgetown at the time. With concern for my house and his reputation, he searched for the suppliers who were using best practices to produce blocks at international standards. In order to build a quality house, he focused on the quality of the individual blocks.
Sometimes in leadership, we have to take our eyes off of the building and focus on the individual members who really make up the true temple. All the stuff is nice. I like the stuff. But the temple is made up of temples and we are in the temple business.
Think on these things:
- Have you taken care of your heart, spirit, and body, conscious that you are a temple where the Spirit of God seeks to dwell?
- Are you satisfied that your church leaders are paying enough attention to you as an individual member?
- What is the weighting in your church between the attention paid to facilities and attention paid to people?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would focus on our lives, offering them as living sacrifices unto God for a place where He would be pleased to dwell.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex