- 1 Kings 8:1-30, 41-43
- Psalm 84 (VU p.800)
The Sermon title is God's Dwelling Place??
Early Thoughts: Where does God live? Where do you meet God? And are we guilty of worshiping our buildings too much?
Buildings are a blessing and a curse for the church. But it has not always been so. For many cultures the local temple was seen as a (or the) place where that God dwelt on Earth.
Certainly that is how Biblical Judaism saw the Temple (and later the 2nd Temple). While they wandered through the desert the Israelites carried the Ark of the covenant, in which rested the tablets containing the Law. Now that they are established as a nation Solomon puts the Ark into the very core of the Temple. And so the Ark is either where God lives, or at least where God interacts with God's people.
Is this how we view our church buildings? Officially no. Christian thought has never officially said that God can only be met in the church building (though it has often suggested that God can only be met in the church as institution). And yet the phrase "House of God" is generally used to describe a place of worship.
So where do you meet God? How are our church buildings a blessing? How are they a curse? And where exactly does God dwell?
--Gord
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