Today I’m thinking about Church.
I’ve experienced a few random criticisms related to the church I’ve been attending recently, some of them spoken and some of them unspoken.
You know that disapproving reaction you can see on someone’s face when they’re judging you for something, even if they don’t say a word about it?
It’s an uncomfortable experience, so naturally I’ve been thinking about it and wrestling with it and praying about it. I’m naturally wary of organized religion anyway, but at just the right time I stumbled into a scripture verse that illuminated the subject in just the right way for me, so I wanted to share it with you.
Did you know that someone asked Jesus about which church to attend?
Do you know what he said?
If someone asked YOU the same question, would you give the same answer he did?
If someone came up to you and said, “Hey, there’s a Methodist church on this corner, and a Lutheran church on that corner. Which one should I attend?”
What would YOU say?
Well, in the gospel of John, it says that Jesus met a woman at a well, and they had a little talk about that. She pointed out to him that there was a temple on the mountain, and a temple in Jerusalem, and asked him which was most appropriate. And in verse 21,
JOHN 4:21
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father.
JOHN 4:23-24
But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshippers. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Now, I don’t know if I have a complete understanding of what he means there, but it seems to me that he is saying pretty directly that it’s not the temple on the mountain or the temple in the city that makes the difference; it’s the spirit and truth of the worship.
The spirit of God came OUT of the temple on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, when the veil was torn in two, and Pentecost was the day in which the spirit filled our bodies.
WE OURSELVES became the church of Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:16
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
1 Corinthians 12:27
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
So WE are the body of the church, of which Christ is the head.
And we shouldn’t be afraid to go wherever he leads us.
With that understanding in mind, if I’m following Christ it doesn’t really matter which building I’m sitting in at any particular moment, or which worship service I’m attending on any particular day.
Thank you for sharing this time with me, and may God Bless You.
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