Temples - by Joel Hempel There are temples, and then there are TEMPLES. As Christians, we are called temples, meaning God is within us.* That truth alone is exceedingly profound. Then, in 1 Peter 2:5, we are told God seeks to build individuals into One Holy TEMPLE with God in our midst. You yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a SPIRITUAL HOUSE (emphasis added), to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, through Jesus Christ. The Christian life is not a solo experience. It’s more than just a me-and-Jesus way of living. The Christian life is like singing in a choir. From time to time, someone may step forward to sing a solo, then fade back into the choir, and the choir sings as one voice. To push the metaphor further, there are not only individual singers, but also separate groups within a choir. And yet, if one group – let’s say the tenors – decided to take over and sing only their tenor part, we would eventually walk out with our ears covered, because a hymn is written for all parts to work together. We, the SPIRITUAL HOUSE of God, are called a holy priesthood. We are a “priesthood” of individual believers held together by the High Priest, who is Christ. We are ONE, holy priesthood. So, why go to all the trouble of emphasizing, with multiple metaphors, that we are one body of believers, not just individual believers? I’m sure you know one of Jesus’ great creations was the church. There is nowhere in the Gospel Books that refers to Jesus calling the church by that name. Yet we recognize that he called together men and women, people of differing skills and aptitudes, and created a community of followers. God believed it necessary to form the church as a body of interconnected and interdependent believers to (a) support the flourishing of individual Christians, and (b) to accomplish together what would be impossible to achieve individually. And what does God want our church to achieve? How about the goal of becoming: A community of believers who courageously and sacrificially love like Jesus in ways that are abundantly clear. *1 Corinthians 6:19-20 |
