How often have you heard lately that it's not about church, it's about the body. It's not the building, it's the people who love and serve God. You don't have to listen to a sermon every Sunday morning to be a good Christian, you have you live it out in your life.
We have built cathedrals and mega churches, tiny church buildings and cross-shaped momuments. We have lifted up in art and architecture the basic symbols of our faith and created not just a palce for corporate gatherings but a whole set of rules, expectations, social mores and ideologies to go with it. We have created beaureaucratic churches with councils and elders and secretaries and boards for every topic imaginable. We have shaped the church according to our culture, and that is to be expected. As long as we remember that the true church is not the building, the elders, the name on the sign or the docritnal regulations, it is the body of believers living together, loving the world, and serving God.
So why was the Temple so important to Ancient Israel? Why did it become so central to the Jews? The first ten books of the Bible don't have a temple in them at all. After the Exodus there was a tent and a place to keep the ark, which represented the presence of God, but not temple.
Isn't it funny that God never asked his people to build a temple? He didn't say a word about it. It was David who wanted to build a temple, but God said that wasn't to be his job. Solomon did it, with the resources David set aside. God blessed the temple and indicated that is presence was there, but did he really want it? Was the temple something God desired and looked forward to, or was it a concession he made, like giving Israel a king?
The temple is in some ways a political thing. It makes sense that there was no desire for a temple before there was a king. The king needed to show people that he was powerful and rich enough to build something like that. Building projects were expected of good rulers--they still are!! They are a symbol of the power and wealth of the people who build them. The temple also brought religion to the capital, the seat of politics. It brought the priests closer to the king. Once the twelve tribes were unified into one nation, they had to have something tangible to stay unified around. The answer--a temple.
The prophets warned over and over again that Jerusalem could not trust in the presence of the temple to protect them. God was perfectly willing to smash their symbol of power and unity, to smash the symbol of his presence among them (one that they had desired, designed and created). God has awalys been first and foremost about the heart, about right living, grace and justice.
Many prophets made a huge deal, after the return from exile, about rebuilding the temple. If they could restore this building their fortunes would be restored. But I wonder if that was the real message. People had to turn their hearts to God first, before they could care enough to lay aside the money and resources, to give up their time and energy to do the work, before the temple could be rebuilt. So does the temple really reflect the people's hearts? Should they have stopped worrying about the temple altogether and started building God-centered lives instead? Yet they felt they could not worship God without the temple. But Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did just that. They followed God and were blessed by him without a tabernacle or a temple.
So does God want temples, cathedrals, and churches? Or does he merely tolerate them, knowing that we need them?
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