Living Stones: The Real Dwelling Place of God

The early Christians met in each other’s homes. I had grown up thinking that the reason the early church met in homes rather than church buildings was because they were being persecuted so they had to meet in secret in much the same way that people in communist China meet today. Let me demonstrate why that makes no sense. I was recently reading through Acts (I found this, Pagan Christianity doesn’t mention it) when I came upon Acts 8:3. After the stoning of Stephen, the church in Jerusalem came under heavy persecution. The verses say: “But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.” You will note that the “church” here is not a building but rather people. You will also note that people were not safe in their homes. That is exactly where Paul was going to arrest them. If it were true that people didn’t meet in a certain place to avoid persecution then according to this verse their homes would be the last place they would meet because that was exactly the place where they were being arrested. And yet, we see that 1st century believers did not stop meeting in homes.

The truth is, the early believers had no intention of ever building a “sacred” place to meet. Jews had temples, sacrifices, and priests. When Jesus came it was to end the need for all three. He is the perfect Lamb who was sacrificed so that is why we no longer sacrifice animals. He is our High priest and only mediator between God and man. We no longer need a priest to pray on our behalf. He is the temple (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.”) We do not need a temple, church, cathedral (whatever you want to call it). 2 Corinthians 6:16 says: “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’”

Another great passage is Ephesians 2:19-22. Christ is described as the corner stone. His followers are described as a “whole building, being fitted together” and “growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” It is obvious from this passage that God’s intention was for the church to be made of living stones (people) being built into a holy temple (in a spiritual rather than physical sense) where the Spirit dwells. The temple of the Jews was a physical model (a baby step) to symbolize the spiritual temple God planned all along to create out of people rather than stones. Would we purposely go back to the play dollhouse version when we now have the real thing? It is preposterous. It’s like we took a step forward (in the first century) only to take 2 steps back (with the advent of Constantine). We are in greater bondage to our church buildings now than the Jews ever were to their temple. Is our church any different than their temple? If you act or dress differently in church than you do every day, you are guilty of the same hypocrisy. Do you see the church as a sacred or holy place? Does not scripture say that your body is the temple of the Spirit? You are His holy place. He does not dwell in buildings made by men. When He died on the cross, the curtain of the Holy of holies was ripped by God Himself. He did this to make the point that He no longer dwells there. Would you make His death a joke by continuing to worship in a supposedly “sacred” place that exists only in your delusions? (Sorry, Frank Viola does not speak this way in his book—I’m just becoming exasperated at the pigheaded stubbornness of the imaginary audience in my head).

You are probably familiar with the story of Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well. She baited him by trying to start an argument about where to worship. In that day, the Jews worshiped at the temple in Jerusalem while the Samaritans worshiped on the mountain near Jacob’s well. Jesus chose not to take a side. Instead he said, “an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. . . But an hour is coming and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21, 23-24)

Don’t you see from this passage that it is God’s ideal that we worship Him in spirit and reality rather than in a place (which was symbolic rather than real)? We now have the freedom to worship Him anywhere at anytime because His Spirit dwells in us. Why do we shackle His Spirit to Sunday morning inside a building? No wonder we can’t see or hear Him. We have pinned Him to a time and place like a butterfly in a velvet case. Please let the Spirit out of the box so He can fly.