MYTH #14-GOD DWELLS IN HOLD BUILDINGS TODAY

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I have mentioned this myth before from a different angle. This myth is repeatedly taught in two ways. The first comes through the constant referrals about the auditorium within a church building, calling that large assembly room the sanctuary. The second way it is taught is the signage at most church campuses. You will find the term "sanctuary", pointing out where the church will assemble.

Essentially this myth is saying that when you go to your religious house of worship, God actually dwells there. The building is His sanctuary or dwelling place. In many Christian "sanctuaries" the actual place of dwelling is thought to be up at the altar. Therefore, congregants are encouraged to go forward to take communion, to meet the Lord in prayer, to receive salvation, to be healed or rededicate your life.

So, people today are expected to believe that God dwells in holy buildings-Churches, Mosques, Temples and Synagogues. But Jesus and a special teaching from Paul in Athens debunk this myth soundly.

FIRST-Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well debunks this myth (John 4): "Woman," Jesus replied, "believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth." The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." Then Jesus declared, "I, the one speaking to you-I am he." Jesus, the Christ-the Messiah, has shown up and if you will watch and listen, you will come to understand that Jesus has explained everything to us. Here with the woman at the well, Jesus has made it clear that certain holy locations like mountains or buildings will not be sufficient to be the dwelling place of God, because God dwells in the invisibility of spirit and truth.

SECOND-In Athens Paul speaks to a non-Jewish audience and explains the nature of God and where He doesn't dwell. This is recorded by Luke in Acts 17: While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean." (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship-and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

"Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone-an image made by human design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead." The God of heaven and earth cannot be limited to dwell in buildings or idols.

THIRD-Jesus' teachings debunk this myth, when He teaches about sending His Spirit to His disciples (John 14): "If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever-the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home (our dwelling place) with them."

So, when you go into a holy building, that is not the dwelling place of God on earth today as it once was with the great Temple in Jerusalem. God, through the Spirit of Jesus, now dwells in you. You are the sanctuary of God-His dwelling place on earth. The challenge? To walk like it, talk like it and act like it.