Houses of the gods

On the topic of worship places, these seem to have taken many forms.  The Israelites were known to worship the goddess Asherah at poles that were erected outdoors in the towns and villages.  Shrines and altars might also be erected at outdoor holy sites like mountaintops.  The altars would be used to make sacrifices to the gods in order for worshipers to show their devotion.  Sometimes the idol and the altar were combined into a single unit, as with the worship of the Moabite god Molech.  In this instance, a brazen idol was cast with its arms outstretched in a gesture of receiving, and the idol included a fireplace in its foundation.  The fire would be stoked and the brazen idol would become as hot as a stove.  It is thought that the outstretched hands is where worshipers would place their infant children who would essentially be cooked to death upon the hot bronze hands of the idol as a gift of devotion to persuade the god to act in the community’s favor.  A horrifying practice.

The most grand structures of the ancient world were temples.  The ruins of many ornate places of worship are still found today in the rubble of ancient settlements.  These were often the most important structures in society.  The ancient homes and marketplaces may be nothing more than dust today, but the preservation of local temples shows how much wealth and attention went into these important buildings.  The people obviously felt that the success or failure of their society rested squarely on the blessing of the gods they worshiped, so they built their gods as nice a home as they possibly could.  And home was very much how they saw these structures; these were the palaces of their gods.  We see this reflected in the attitudes of the Israelites of the Old Testament who had a tent for God – the tabernacle – among their own tents as they wandered in the wilderness, and a splendorous house for God on the mountaintop adjacent to Jerusalem.  King David had felt guilty because he lived in an ornate palace while God “lived” in a tent at the settlement of Nob, outside of Jerusalem.  So David desired to build God a beautiful house that sat even higher than his own.  But the Lord God told David that He did not live in structures of man.  He was much too big for that.  However, the Lord would choose to meet with His people at the Jerusalem Temple and even anointed that place with the fire of His presence. 

In our New Testament era, Paul makes the proclamation that “YOUR BODY is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you.”  The Holy Spirit of God has moved into the body of every believer.  The Lord once again proves that He is not tied to a particular building or city or location.  He is present in every one of His people.  His only earthly house is US.  And we take Him with us wherever we go. 

With this in mind, we must be careful when we refer to our church sanctuaries as “the house of the Lord.”  Our church buildings are not temples; they are worship centers where the living temples of God obediently gather to honor and celebrate Him. The implication that some take away from “the house of the Lord” is that God lives in the church building; that this piece of land or steepled structure is holy ground. 

While our worship space is consecrated in that it has been set apart for worship, God does not reside there during the week.  God is present in His people, and Jesus promises that when just two or three gather together, He is present in a special way.  God joins us in our worship gatherings not because we have come to the sanctuary to visit Him, but because we have brought Him with us; and there is special power when believers gather together. 

This is all the more reason to see ourselves as the priests of this new covenant.  Our bodies are God’s temples.  We are in His presence day and night.  We live, and speak, and watch TV, and drive, and have conversations with our friends in the presence of Holy God.  We implicate Him in our sin when we use our bodies in ways that are unfit for Him.  So we are commanded to honor Him with our bodies, our minds, and our mouths.  Like priests, we live in the Lord’s temple, so we must serve Him in holiness.